Reported new daily Covid cases in the UK were around 120,000 today and it is suggested that 1.4 million people in the UK currently have Covid. Yet despite the high numbers, the overall death rate has remained at the 112 persons per day level of October 2021 when the infection rate was less than one-third that of today.

Even the most blinkered statistician can't ignore the disparity and after several weeks of denying the validity of the reports coming out of South Africa regarding the reduced dangers associated with the Omicron variant, the UK Health Security Agency has issued an analysis that states Omicron patients are up to 70% less likely to need hospital care compared with previous variants.

Other reports point out that whilst antibody levels are low with those whose vaccinations were several months ago (lowering protection against infection), B Cell and T Cell response remains good (which helps prevent serious illness). The Omicron variant is better at infecting the upper respiratory tract but has a less powerful effect on the lungs—as some will realise, it's far better to have bronchitis than pneumonia.

Only a proportion of PCR tests are analysed for Omicron (90,906) but using SGTF S-gene dropout as an indicator suggests 193,783 cases—still a wild understatement. But of these 193,783 cases, only 300 have been admitted to hospital and 24 have since died. According to medical staff, the vast, vast majority of admitted patients are unvaccinated.

I've been studying the London statistics and it seems new daily cases are close to peaking. The rolling average deaths in London for the last eleven days have been 12 per day which is less than the rate in early November when cases were one-fifth those of today. Just under 2,100 patients are in London hospitals, mostly unvaccinated, compared with 7,900 at last January's peak.

Elsewhere in the UK cases are still increasing and one of the fears is that a milder virus could still put pressure on hospitals because it spreads so fast. The UKHSA says its early findings are "encouraging" but the variant could still lead to large numbers of people in hospital. The Agency also says there is also uncertainty about what will happen when Omicron reaches older age groups because most of those catching it and going into hospital so far have been under the age of 40.

So it's way too early to give Boris a pat of the back for not imposing a lockdown (hell will freeze over first for many people ), and in any case this virus has a habit of twisting around and coming up with new surprises. Where does this leave restrictions? The devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have each introduced more restrictions than England's eight regions (which weirdly are all larger than any of the devolved 'nations').

Staff shortages have reached 30% in some London hospitals and if cases peak and then start to fallback in the next two weeks the NHS will be saved from meltdown, but the UK population may not have garnered sufficient natural community immunity (polite expression for herd immunity) that will protect against Pi, Rho or Sigma—whatever the next 'variant of interest' is called.

Will this ever end?

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Good question! If you listen to the answer of politicians and scientists they will tell you that Covid will be endemic in the end.

But I think the virus doesn`t care what these people think or assume and afaik endemic means a reproduction factor = 1. Therefore we have to note the game factor of variant and mutant which is playing a role too. Also endemic doesn`t mean harmless at the end. What we know and see in some african countries where malaria is endemic since years and still causes many deaths each year.

So the final question is how and when will it end?
Sadly a question which nobody can answer right now...




Anyway,
I wish you all a good, satisfying and peaceful time in these days equal if you celebrate x-mas or not. I wish you all health and I still hope that maybe you and me will run into another when we coincidentally meet sometimes somewhere on the nice planet.

Interesting bit of analysis Tim, though I think it bodes well to continue to be cautious.

Firstly because the virus is replicating in an exponential manner, so even if it is genuinely less virulent the exponential growth in numbers of cases will easily outstrip the % reduction benefit of seriousness, and the total number of serious cases will increase to the point that hospitals could be swamped.

Secondly because a narrative that Omicron is less virulent suits the UK government, which has consistently tried to ignore the virus and carry on with business as usual, being driven by "the economy" and a desire to achieve "herd immunity" regardless of cost (resulting in the past in both high death rates and more economic damage). So forgive me if I take their pronouncements, based on a relatively small number of cases (compared to the millions analysed for earlier VOC) and issued just before the sensitive Christmas spending rush, with a pinch of salt.

Thirdly, there is no evolutionary pressure on the Coronavirus to become less virulent. Something like MERS or Ebola which kill 70-80% of victims would benefit from becoming less lethal, since anything that kills its host population creates an evolutionary dead end. The SARS CoV-19 virus however only kills on average 1% of those it infects, so there is no need for it to become less virulent. Its strongest weapon is its infectiousness, and the R0 of the Omicron variant seems to be 4 or 5 which is incredibly infectious. While I am no virologist it seems to me that a virus that enter cells so easily is likely to increase viral loads in victims and become more, not less, virulent. I'm happy to be proved wrong on this.

And finally fourthly, the host population has to be considered when comparing virulence with earlier variants. There are a lot more vaccinated folk about now (in the UK anyway - though there are many poor countries with barely a few % done) and it is likely those who are catching Omicron now are either younger unvaccinated folk or older fully-jabbed-up ones, both of which are less likely to experience severe symptoms.

Maybe there's light at the end of tunnel but I think it'll be at least another year before we know if it's an oncoming train or not.

Like the flu jab, this will probably be something we need to continue to mass vaccinate against.... with the various strains cropping up year after year.... perhaps in time a single isolating element from all strains can be attacked and win the war...... however that is indeed years away....

Its not all bad though.... ( i'm a staff nurse and have worked in a couple of covid settings.... ) I managed to save up and get a Triumph Tiger Rally Pro this year!

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2025 Planning.....

Hello everyone,


I found Dr. John Campbells Youtube Channel very informative. Looks like Omikron could be a "good thing". Only 20% of the people with Omikron in hospital in the UK were admitted for compications with the virus. The number of people in hospital is rising slowly compared to an exponential rise of people tested positive. Probably way more people are infected.
And the good thing is, that Omikron is replacing Delta!



Here in Germany the numbers arre going down, but i can't believe that. Like Omikron did not arrive yet. it seems to me like we are not good in testing, because why shouldn't we have a wave of Omikron when our neigbors have them?



With a bit of luck, we are seeing it now changing it from an pandemic to endemic with Omikron. Fingers crossed.


Cheers
Martin

Yes, omicron seems to be displacing delta... but will recovering from omicron give people immunity to future variants? Some experts think so, but we really won't know for months to come.

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Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250

With vastly increased case numbers, Omicron is now 95.7% of all analysed cases in London, and 93.8% in the whole of the UK. Delta hasn't totally disappeared but is down to about one-fifth of previous levels. See thumbnail chart attached.

A week or so back (post #79), I wrote, "Other reports point out that whilst antibody levels are low with those whose vaccinations were several months ago (lowering protection against infection), B Cell and T Cell response remains good (which helps prevent serious illness). The Omicron variant is better at infecting the upper respiratory tract but has a less powerful effect on the lungs—as some will realise, it's far better to have bronchitis than pneumonia."





Dr John Campbell released a video last night talking about a study in South Africa (not peer-reviewed yet but with impeccable participants) that explains the situation very clearly in a way that ordinary folk can understand.

Nothing is certain in this world, but it seems recovering from Omicron will give (only) limited immunity to Pi, Rho and Sigma—or whatever the future variants are called—but the cross-reactivity of the retained B and T cell memory, means most people won't get seriously ill.

To quote directly from the South African study, "the resilience of the T cell response..... also bodes well in the event that more highly mutated variants emerge in the future."

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

His videos are good but I thought at the time that the 20% calculations were suspect. NHS England has now stated that of 8,321 patients in hospital that have Covid, 5,578 are now being treated primarily for Covid, so that's two thirds (but it didn't answer the question of whether or not those 5,578 patients were initially admitted for Covid complications).

When cases were high in counties to the south and east of Germany they were also high in the areas of Germany bordering those countries. Now the pendulum has swung to France and Spain, but I think it's only a matter of a week or so before case numbers in Germany start to rise rapidly.

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Martin,
Omicron arrived in Germany in calendar week 46 - 15th -21th of November.
If you want official data to that check Robert-Koch-Institut, they publish a daily overview. This is the one dated on the same day of your post:

https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/...ublicationFile

So there are 4044 documented omicron cases up to 29.12.2021.

Sources you find here: https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/...te/Gesamt.html

P.S.
To all english speaking users:
The Robert-Koch-Institute is a German federal government agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention.

Greetings from Hamburg/Germany.

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Agreed, though I don't think anyone has been talking of throwing caution to the winds.

Agreed. It's a math problem, but over 2,700 cases included in hospital figures presented with other problems and were only found to be positive when tested on admission. In a total about turn, NHS chiefs are reported in today's newspapers saying they don't believe the threshold for new Covid-19 restrictions has been crossed despite a surge in hospital admissions. Having said that, we don't know what's in store for us when the figures for family Christmases and rawkus New Year parties come through in the statistics in seven to ten days time.

I might be accused of being naïve, but I believe that with the possible exception of Brazil, governments around the world have tried to make the best decisions balancing the country's diverse needs. In the case of Omicron, one group of experts on the ground in South Africa were saying it wasn't so dangerous, and another group of mathematicians and medical experts in the UK were urging for lockdowns. Whichever way it was called, the government would be criticised.

Time will indeed tell. Most viral outbreaks don't end but rather mutate from a pandemic that society deems unacceptable, into an endemic state where it remains in the background.

Medical staff in the UK were poised for a tsunami amongst older folks but it hasn't happened. Chris Hopson, head of NHS Providers, "Although the numbers are going up and going up increasingly rapidly, the absence of large numbers of seriously ill older people is providing significant reassurance." Though this could, of course, change.

World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus expressed optimism during a press briefing last Wednesday that 2022 may be the year the world ends the acute stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.  There was a caveat—that governments do as the WHO has been pushing for and get the world vaccinated.

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

There's no date on posts, but I think this was from 23 December...
The six reports referred to in today's Guardian newspaper have yet to be peer-reviewed but are reinforcing the view above that Omicron is more likely to infect the throat rather than the lungs, which explains why it is both more transmissible but less dangerous.

But the UK is not out of the woods yet (more like still deep in the forest) and the next two weeks will be challenging for the NHS as the effects of Christmas and New Year gatherings become apparent.

As well as bring tent overflows back into use, a number of other things are being considered including the home use of continuous pulse oximeters that signal low blood oxygen levels to a mobile app, allowing the less-seriously sick to be treated at home.

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)