What do we know about the new ‘worst ever’ Covid variant?

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Amity Island said:
How do they establish this "reinfection" with the current (omicron) variant, when the tests used for the study were taken before omicron?
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What do you mean? They have some people who (months ago) had some variant of the virus, and now they can test that they're infected with the omicron variant. And they describe that as reinfection (just as was done when lots of people ended up infected with delta even after they'd been infected during the first wave).

Nobody's saying anything (yet) about how vulnerable people who recover from an infection with the omicron variant might be to be reinfected with that (or any other) variant.
 
Amity Island said:
I understand. But there are surely so few cases of omicron world wide, how can they draw any conclusions at this stage?
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They've been very open in stressing this is early data and uncertain. And it's uncertain what it means to different populations (ours is older, fatter, but more highly vaccinated, for example).

It does fit with the speculation based on the mutations, there's a whole lot more change on the spike than in previously successful variants and that would suggest our antibodies and T cells (specialised for other variants) would be less good. In comparison the delta variant is less different to alpha and the original, so immunity to the older variants work fairly well against delta.
 
Amity Island said:
If the answer to this question is zero, then why are we going to continue testing and applying restrictions and lockdowns and keep the 24 hr a day seven day a week, endless fear campaign going?
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Because the variant is thought to have arrived maybe a week or two ago in the UK (and it takes a while before people get sick from any variant, typically).

Hospitals are already struggling (with ambulances queueing for hours, etc.). Not particularly with Covid-19 patients, but that's the one thing that the government can plausibly influence this winter.

It seems plausible (but definitely not confirmed) that the new variant is much milder but spreads much faster, and the combination might well still be very bad news: if only half as many cases need hospital treatment than delta but twice as many people get infected then that's the same number who need hospital treatment.
 
Amity Island said:
But that wasn't the health secretaries answer. He didn't seem to know what the answer was.
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We can now see the numbers growing really fast. Doubling every 2 days or so (and Denmark has theirs growing at a similar rate of about 50% a day). That puts some limits on how long it's likely to have been here (maybe 4 weeks, but likely less).
Amity Island said:
And, what is a covid case?
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I was using the term loosely as an individual who's infected.
 
Amity Island said:
The other thing he said was, there were 336 confirmed cases. If they weren't ill, what were their reasons for getting a pcr test? NHS recommends only those with symptoms get tested.
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They may have been close contacts of someone who had symptoms and tested positive. They might have tested positive on a rapid test. They might have been recommended to get a test by the Zoe app. I'm sure there are other possibilities.
 
Amity Island said:
But as I have said before, the tests won't tell you that (if someone is infected or infective that is).
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They are going to tell you if someone either has or had the infection. And if it's been sequenced (which I presume the ones who've been confirmed have been) then we know it must have been reasonably recent.
 
Personally I don’t care about this new variant, mainly because it doesn’t appear to be killing anybody. Maybe the unvaccinated, in areas where it is rampant, but at nothing like the level of the first edition. So it’s more infectious- of course it is, because folk aren’t feeling bad enough to get out and spread it. Grand for the virus, but so what?
 
mikeyB said:
Personally I don’t care about this new variant, mainly because it doesn’t appear to be killing anybody. Maybe the unvaccinated, in areas where it is rampant, but at nothing like the level of the first edition. So it’s more infectious- of course it is, because folk aren’t feeling bad enough to get out and spread it. Grand for the virus, but so what?
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Yes, I'm not personally worried. I suspect even just the two doses of vaccine provide good protection against serious illness, and I (and most other people I know) have had 3 doses which seems like it's really good protection. But it's still early days. I think we don't have strong evidence to believe this virus is in itself milder (and won't be for a couple of weeks) and even if it were, lots more people needing hospital treatment in winter is going to be very bad.
 
Don’t know why you are so fascinated with Dr John Campbell. He’s not a medical doctor. His PhD is in nursing education, so actually his “expertise” is rather outgunned by those doctors on the SAGE committee.
 
No, he is giving his interpretation of daily developments.
 
I'd be surprised if Dr John Campbell didn't have a reasonable knowledge of nursing, that's the subject of his PhD, and why he is entitled to be addressed as Dr. He has no knowledge or past experience of epidemiology, or apparently, any skill in reading scientific papers.

Throughout this pandemic, the Sage committee have been offering sound advice to the PM, most of which he has ignored. They are still offering sound advice. The Sage committee do have experience, and access to all data around the world. I choose to listen to them, even if the PM doesn't. They don't speak in incomprehensible English. If that's not plain English for you, then at least bow to their experience and knowledge. None of them post videos on YouTube, of course, so you probably don't see their advice.
 
Logically, (something which seems lacking these days) what is needed is a really infectious but feeble virus, so variants ought to be encouraged not worked against, unless people are shown to be really ill and in danger.
Back before vaccination the only way to protect against smallpox was to catch cowpox - which was why milk maids were in general pretty - they got cowpox, recovered and were immune to the disfiguring and often deadly smallpox.
There has been a 'very bad cold' going around for some weeks now, but I don't know anyone who's testing for Covid to see if it might be the 'Omega' variant - the one which confers immunity with mild symptoms. I am just hoping and praying that it turns up before too long and things begin to calm down.
 
Amity Island said:
In the UK we've had comments from the pm that vaccines don't work and it's not the vaccines, it's the lockdowns that reduce the cases.

I know who I'd rather listen to.
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I still think he was (against character, I know) correct in the sense that it was the physical distancing/reducing contacts that was reducing cases. (If he said that the vaccines don't work then he was obviously wrong. They do. They just don't do a great job at reducing cases. They're good at reducing illness. And at the time he was saying that not that many people had been vaccinated anyway.)

As an example of a good source of information I'd suggest This Week in Virology, which for the last couple of years has covered one virus rather more than others. For example on omicron, https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-836/

(It's not a good place for up to the minute speculation on news, though. Most of the discussion on omicron in that episode is "we don't know", "we have no data yet", etc.).)
 
Bruce Stephens said:
I still think he was (against character, I know) correct in the sense that it was the physical distancing/reducing contacts that was reducing cases. (If he said that the vaccines don't work then he was obviously wrong. They do. They just don't do a great job at reducing cases. They're good at reducing illness. And at the time he was saying that not that many people had been vaccinated anyway.)

As an example of a good source of information I'd suggest This Week in Virology, which for the last couple of years has covered one virus rather more than others. For example on omicron, https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-836/

(It's not a good place for up to the minute speculation on news, though. Most of the discussion on omicron in that episode is "we don't know", "we have no data yet", etc.).)
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Eric Topol is my first stop for COVID stuff: https://twitter.com/EricTopol
 
Amity Island said:
If omicron turns out to be just a headache, but thousands of people test positive, some with a headache, is this reason to bring in more restrictions? Surely paracetamol would be a better intervention for a headache?
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The "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I think you're completely right: if omicron does turn out to be as mild as it seems to be (based on (among other differences) a much younger population, in summer) then we're golden.

But if it's just a bit worse than that then letting it rip through the population will end up with lots of dead people and even more seriously sick. (I think some other people have tried to look at the problems that would be caused if a large proportion of a population got a cold at the same time, and decided that that wouldn't be good, though I don't remember what they thought the specific problems would be.)
 
He is a bit late in the news that two doses of vaccine won't protect you much. Seems everyone else, apart from you, knows that 3 doses is effective, which is why the government is pushing hard for everyone to get a third vaccine. Might not stop you getting unwell, but not at the level where you would need hospitalisation.

It's about time you stopped watching this nurse to get your vaccine advice, and listen to the epidemiologists advising the government.
 
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