New covid variant-the B.1.1.529 Omicron variant
 

Flights cancelled and Sth.A. now on red list-
It will never end; viruses will just keep mutating as it's in their nature.
This sounds like the death knell of the freedom to overland :hang:
I have been lucky enough in my life to enjoy an 'almost open road' freedom and I am grateful to have had the opportunity.
But things are not looking good.
Hey ho, everything passes, even time.
Time to contemplate Life-

While I do agree that the new variant is bad news. I don't think it's the end of overland.

Soon we will have yearly vaccines, just like for the flu and everyone who is vaccinated will be able to travel.

Yeah, we don't know anything about what the new variant does yet - not worth getting worked up over unknowns, just gotta be patient ;)

The future might not be as dismal as you suggest.

Likely one of two things will happen:

1) We'll learn in a couple of months that the new variant is not the end of the world, existing vaccines provide protection, or;

2) We'll learn that the new variant is the end of the world, which means that the vaccine manufacturers will need to come up with a new flavour of vaccine, which will probably take them about 6 months* to accomplish, at which point we will be back to where we were a month ago.

Such is life.

Michael

*EDIT (an hour later): Pfizer has stated that they expect it will take 100 days to bring a new vaccine to market if that becomes necessary.

Pre-post Disclaimer;

I am vaccinated and believe in vaccinations as the appropriate response to a pandemic.

:)

What will be interesting, with the benefit of hindsight, is whether the world response to Covid - locking down the world, trying to contain the virus while developing vaccines, was the correct approach.

It would now seem that letting it run its course and burning out fast may have been preferable to the constant mutating that the virus does.

Maybe locking down and protecting the vulnerable may have been a better option?

Will be interesting to watch. Poor bloody Africans.


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I'm not sure that "letting it run its course and burning out fast" actually means much in epidemiological terms. In fact, I haven't heard of anywhere in the world it has burned itself out, despite the wide variety responses from strict lockdowns and mass vaccinations to valiant attempts to ignore the whole thing.

Instead, I've seen some unmistakable cause-and-effect relationships: lockdowns and vaccinations result in fewer infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. Or if you prefer, absence of lockdowns and failures to vaccinate result in increased infections, hospitalizations, and death rates.

Seems pretty compelling to me.

I think there was a lot of hubris at the start of the pandemic - a feeling that we, the human race backed up by the power of medical science, will soon see this off. But as the military know, plans rarely survive first contact with the enemy, and so it has it turned out. The bug has proved to be more resilient than anyone, myself included, ever imagined it would be. I thought it would a three month wonder like SARS or MERS, but this time what the medical authorities feared those bugs could be has come to pass.

It hasn't helped of course that the vaccination programme has ended up tangled up in politics in a way that hasn't really happened before. These things are always predictable with hindsight but who had heard of antivaxers two years ago. There have been good things that have come out of it - some significant advances in anti viral drugs (which are themselves becoming mired in politics) and some massive improvements in the way vaccines are developed and produced.

mRNA vaccine tech - Pfizer and Moderna's approach - has probably been pushed forward about 15yrs in the last 18 months. It only took Moderna seven weeks to develop their Covid vaccine from scratch, and I suspect it would take less than that now if another vaccine was needed against the new version. There's a whole load of other diseases - including (some) cancer - where the same approach may also work and those vaccinations are being developed in parallel with the Covid version. I wonder how many anti vax demo's we'll see when there's 20 more diseases you can be vaccinated against. When, instead of months of uncertain outcome invasive surgery or 'palliative care only', it's a couple of injections.

None of that helps much at the moment and it isn't going to trickle down to the rural parts of Africa for example any time soon. I suspect the protect the vulnerable and let it burn itself out among the 'resistant' is the unspoken approach the government has been taking but the bug is nothing if not unpredictable. It remains to be seen whether we'll be starting again with a new round of jabs or whether the existing ones work against it but based on the precautions people seem to be taking in my local Sainsburys you'd get the impression it's all over already. I noticed yesterday the hand sanitiser has been shoved away into a corner to make way way for a few pallets of cut price Xmas booze. 'Eat, drink and be merry' indeed.

That's effectively the herd immunity approach which is a term that's been used since at least the 1920s.

One might say that the UK has been following a milder version of this approach since July with infections mainly affecting those who are unvaccinated (including school children), whilst most of the older vulnerable population carries on wearing masks and being ultra careful.

The UK has now recorded over 10 million cases, which might represent over 20 million cases when all the unreported and asymptomatic cases are included. That's a massive proportion of a population of around 68 million.

An interesting article in the Times suggests that due to the high level of previous infections (and booster vaccinations), the UK is less likely to suffer a devastating wave this winter, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/u...ists-njtd2wdhm

There was a lot of concern over the AY4.2 variant (Delta Plus) which was considered to be more transmissible, but it turns out it was also less dangerous and is now considered a move towards what the scientists have predicted will happen—that the virus eventually mutates to become just another background illness. The genetic traces of the 1918 Spanish Flu which killed 50 million around the globe are still with us in the seasonal flu that's going around each winter (and against which I've just had a flu jab).

It's great that we have such dedicated scientists on the ball looking for the ramifications of such a new strain, and I hope it will not be as bad as the warnings. #crossingfingersandtoes

I laughed out loud.

As boxer Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

Probably I should have said that I'm not sure what "burning out fast" means in relation to this particular virus.

Two years into the pandemic, it's clearly not burned through even the unvaccinated minority in countries with high vaccination rates, and it's re-infecting a fair number. Meanwhile, in my country alone three quarters of a million people have died from the infection--and more this year than last. I'm ignoring the presence of the new variant, which *may* not respond to existing vaccines, meaning it *may* not respond to natural immunity from past infections....although no one really knows.

I'm grateful that a wide variety of infectious diseases have not been left to "burn out fast" in the general population. As an official Old Person (tm), I had mumps, measles, chicken pox--all now preventable via vaccination--but not polio, anthrax, pertussis, shingles, hepatitis, meningitis, tetanus, diphtheria, or yellow fever, despite sometimes tempting fate. I'd love to see vaccines against malaria, giardiasis, dysentery, and various forms of food poisoning and bacterial infection. The hell with letting them "burn out fast."

I do hope you're right about three months to a fresh, targeted vaccine, but that doesn't mean I'll have it in my arm before the middle of next year, and I'm one of the privileged, early-eligibility ones.

The above should not be construed as implying anything in particular about masks, distancing, pub closures, professional sports, the Olympics, or almost anything else you can think of.

Hi Mark. You may have noted that in my initial post I suggested locking down vulnerable people, which would clearly include you. And I was specifically referring to Covid-19 not other virus.

The mutations continue to occur because countries did not lock down properly, and along with vaccine hesitancy, allows the virus to mutate.

In retrospect, which was what I was talking about, it may have been far more efficient to let the healthy get the virus while protecting the vulnerable. Simply because the current strategy of being half pregnant just makes the virus stronger.

Here in Oz we have the bizarre situation where I can fly to Singapore but despite being fully vaccinated, cant drive 20km across the border into my neighbouring state where my son lives, as they haven’t bothered to get the population vaccinated. That state will get Covid, and due to time, will have a greater chance of mutating.

Strangely, my state of NSW, has effectively let it run now for two months, and serious illness / death has remained stable.


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vax
 

I received my first shot in may this year 2nd in June wow I thought I am on top of this covid situation Yes but no I was vaccinated with Sinovac because that what was available in Colombia The PM of Canada at the time was questioned in media about what to do concerning vaccinations and he said the bests shot is the one that is available. My vaccine was not accepted in Canada /CA,NADA
So here we are the one that have, and the ones that have not, even though you have a vaccine approved by the WHO
Canada has finally approved the Sinovac as acceptable November 30 this year
I have basically been denied entrance to my County to get on with life and work because of the discrimination imposed by the powers to be. My tax paying dollars for dont justify the decisions the government made.
I am disgusted in my home land I am facing criminals every day in Colombia and supreme abuse of human rights but it is still better than the lambs going to the slaughterhouse in Canada

I'm confused (a familiar state of affairs): if you're a Canadian national or resident I believe you've been able to enter the country with or without vaccination, although subject to shifting quarantine requirements. Am I wrong about this?

Assuming I'm correct, it seems to me there is a real possibility that this new variant will be found in Colombia, at which point you really *won't* be able to enter Canada. The effectiveness of this sort of measure might be up for debate--see the posts above--but unless you'd really rather stay in Colombia until that's all sorted, perhaps it's time to head home.

Personally, I'd be inclined to keep quiet about the whole lambs-to-the-slaughterhouse thing until safely thru immigration. Those guys can make anyone's life miserable if they choose to.

Mark

I'm trying to picture this. In the US, something like 40% of the adult population is deemed vulnerable by virtue of age and/or health condition. What would their lives look like--for the past 20 months and for an indefinite period moving forward? I can imagine myself in locked-down isolation all this time--not with any pleasure, but at least it's conceivable. I honestly can't imagine how the country itself would function with another 90+ million in the same position.

Yes. My reference to other viruses was merely supposed to illustrate my point. Sounds like it failed to do so.

With all due respect, you live in an island country, relatively wealthy, easily-isolated from the rest of the world, which instituted some fairly draconian lockdowns quite early--including the one which forbids you to visit your son. Furthermore, your NSW government claims an adult vaccine rate well over 90%, which is something much of the world will never, ever achieve. Could that have something to do with those recently-stable rates of illness and death?

It's a far cry from letting COVID burn through the population until natural immunity is reached. If you'd like to know more about what THAT would look like, read up on places where it's been more or less allowed to happen--New York in the early days, maybe India more recently, parts of Brazil at one point, coastal Ecuador for a while...

Well, that's probably enough verbiage out of me for the night. Safe journeys to us all!

I confused (a familiar state of affairs): if you're a Canadian national or resident I believe you've been able to enter the country with or without vaccination, although subject to shifting quarantine requirements. Am I wrong about this?

Assuming I'm correct, it seems to me there is a real possibility that this new variant will be found in Colombia, at which point you really *won't* be able to enter Canada. The effectiveness of this sort of measure might be up for debate--see the posts above--but unless you'd really rather stay in Colombia until that's all sorted, perhaps it's time to head home.

Personally, I'd be inclined to keep quiet about the whole lambs-to-the-slaughterhouse thing until safely thru immigration. Those guys can make anyone's life miserable if they choose to.

Mark

I think it was the correct approach, simply because that choice (imposing quarantines, restricting entry) is what has been used since time immemorial to combat epidemics and pandemics. I support that approach even though it caused me to be trapped in Tunisia for 5 weeks at the start of the pandemic.

What is different today - and it's a relatively recent difference - is the ease and low cost at which people can move around the world. As recently as the 1960s, international travel was expensive and slow (ships, not planes) and few people travelled internationally. When it became necessary to impose a quarantine, no-one really complained, because only a tiny fraction of the population was affected by the quarantine restrictions. Consider also that up until the 1960s, all adults had first-hand experience watching others in their community die from periodic epidemics of typhus, diphtheria, polio... all diseases that most people who are younger than 65 today have no experience of.

Today, international travel is common. Heck, I'm writing this post from southern Mexico, and I had breakfast this morning in Canada. None of my friends or family would consider such movement unusual. Before I retired, it was not unusual for me to be on 3 or 4 different continents in one week.

Hi Mark:

You are correct. It has been almost universally accepted during this pandemic that a citizen or permanent resident of a country has the right to return to their country of citizenship or permanent residence. The only exception to this that I am aware of has been Australia.

I don't think that person who posed the question / raised the topic ('tohellandback') is a citizen or permanent resident of Canada. He or she obviously has some social or occupational interest in going to Canada, but most likely is not a citizen or permanent resident... hence the reason why he/she can't travel to Canada. This is further complicated by the person not being vaccinated with a vaccine that has been accepted by Canada until very recently (he/she was vaccinated with Sinovac, a Chinese product of dubious efficacy).

Michael

I see your point. I tend to agree. However, if that 40% were vaccinated then it is a very, very small percentage that would be vulnerable to serious illness when they catch it. We have had one or two cases of fully vaccinated pro-morbidity individuals die of Covid.

Interestingly, our island has not really done anything to prevent the new mutants. We found the African one the same time as everyone else did.

Anyways, all the best to all.


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I wouldn't be so depressed; omicron strain x5 times more contagious than delta it displaces so it will likely take over the world much quicker..

Whilst the Omicrom variant may be more transmissible than, say, Delta there are initial thoughts at least that the symptoms are milder than Delta at least in non-vulnerable people - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-59450988 - this link is to an interview with the doctor that first identified it in South Africa.

If correct, and applicable to otherwise vulnerable people, this could help in getting back to some sort of normality worldwide - as has been alluded to Spanish Flu still circulates globally but in a very much attenuated form so it doesn’t cause very high numbers of deaths.

Please note I am no virologist so it is all supposition.

All the reports I've seen so far recommend caution, typically saying that Omicron is highly contagious, possibly more so than the delta variant, but it is not yet clear whether Omicron will be able to displace Delta. Where did you see the definitive 5x figure?

The South African doctor who first identified the Omicron variant says in this Telegraph article the symptoms are unusual but mild, however the age demographics in South Africa are that older people only form about 5% of the population, so the effect on older people isn't so clear.

What the epidemiologists are praying for is a super contagious variant with mild symptoms. If this took over completely and spread across the world the dangerous part of the pandemic would be at an end.

As soon as the virus enters the human host it rapidly replicates itself and sometimes errors are introduced into the copying of the RNA, creating a variant (thousands to date). What seems to happen in a few very rare cases, rather than the patient fully recovering, the virus remains active, potentially mutating over and over again as time passes. Some of these mutations are 'drifts' in which a single change occurs, the worrying ones are 'shifts' with many changes and it's thought the 30+ changes to the protein spikes with Omicron variant happened in a single patient. That mutation probably happened somewhere in Africa which is why Morocco suspended flights from six southern countries, but it was South Africa that identified cases in its country through genome sequencing, and gets the blame, just as the UK got the flak over the Kent variant.

EDIT: Jay's post must have come in after I started to type, but our thoughts are the same.

We have been using face masks and border closures more or less for more then a year now, still we get the one variant, or wave, after another. It makes me thinks these steps are not working. The virus spreads over the whole world and if i get infected it doesn´t really care which nationality the one has who infects me.
I live in a island-country, people say just close the border and we don´t have any covid. Maybe that´s right but in our modern world no country is a island anymore, not even the geographic islands. With our modern way of living each country is depending on other countries. We can not close the borders for a couple of months, let alone years.
Each time a new variant get´s detected, countries put in place more restrictions but then it´s already too late because the new variant has already been spreading without us knowing it.

I've not come across anything much in the medical or scientific press or heard anything via my wife's medical grapevine about the Omicron version - other than its been identified and, at first glance, seems to have a number of mutations that give it different characteristics. However I know all about it, from its birthday to its shoe size and how its going to slash and burn its way across the planet leaving only death and misery in its wake, from the popular press. And the more popular the press the more speculative and sensationalist the reporting - exactly as usual!

I have no doubt there are a number of laboratories taking it to bits as I type this, and that in due course some actual information about it will be available, but for the moment it's all not far off guesswork. As Tim mentioned, it's in the nature of viruses to mutate so it's not surprising that new versions pop up from time to time. What we see are the few that prove to be viable. The many many mutations that don't give any survival value vanish without even being noticed. It's a jungle down there at cellular level and the virus is in a fight to the, well, not quite death as it's still a matter of debate whether they qualify as alive, but survival anyway. We're just collateral damage. The virus won't even know we exist.

My wife was making Christmas cards last week, and despite our best efforts there is now glitter round the entire house.

That's viruses for you, especially ones like this coronavirus which has a fairly long latency/asymptomatic period. People spread it before they know they're infected. Measures like closing borders *may* slow it a little, but once it's out there it's gonna get everywhere pretty soon, and there are no evolutionary pressures on this to get less dangerous so you can bet it's just going to get more and more infectious, Darwin #101.

The implications on overlanding are pretty clear - as it stands most borders are closed or about to be, whether or not this is an effective infection control measure. The value of vaccination, previously hoped to be the magic bullet, is in question as the virus mutates faster than scientists can roll out the vaccines. Really, it's difficult to see an end point in this (fingers crossed it isn't a doomsday one either, because another version of SARS killed 70% of those it infected). Certainly until medical science has got a handle on control it makes me reluctant to travel - I really don't want a big dose of vaccine-resistant covid out on the road in the middle of nowhere. I suspect travel within Europe will be viable come next spring, outside that into Asia definitely more questionable. As for Africa, it'll take a huge change of direction from vaccine-hoarding western countries before that has the slightest chance of getting on top of the problem.

You are correct: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-heal...ion-sheet.html

If you are an unvaccinated citizen returning to Canada, you must go into quarantine upon arrival for two weeks. Perhaps that is expensive or difficult for the poster to arrange.

Or that things would be a lot worse if these steps were not taken.

Well, it's better to have Omicron sweeping the world than Unicron, I suppose

Omicron is an eyeopener and is bringing back attention to the world that a vaccine preventing only a severe course of C19 could be fastely turned into a blunt sword.

In Germany we have documented cases in Munich and Frankfurt. Düsseldorf and Essen are awaiting confermation of several suspected cases today(29/11/2021).

Belgium. Netherlands, Austria,Ctech Republic, Danmark, UK, Italy, Israel, HongKong, Australia and Canada have confirmed Omicron cases. Switzerland is waiting for confermation of a suspected case.

Sad to say that I have lost my desire for my RTW planning at the moment. Weird questions are sticking out.
Asking myself how and when can or should I start if I know that a validation of jab certificate of 9 months is in a worldwide discussion?
How will my travel costs rise if I be forced to go into quaratine for several days through border crossings or to fly into countries to get a another jab?
Do I need to do or change a route planing by avoiding infected areas and I how can I plan if healthcare or hygiene rules of different countries changes dynamically?
How will the people, the society in foreign countries react to me as traveller who is maybe seen as a potential risk of carrying a C19 infection?
How can I arrange getting a booster shot after the actual given booster shot? Will I need a 4th or 5th immunisation to reach protection against a severe course of C19? And hwo long will it last?
What about possible future mutations which could come up every time because the world countries have different levels of immunisation rates and periods?

I am everything else than a pessimistic guy by character and I believe into science for finding a worldwide satisfying solution against C19. But in the moment and surely caused by private circumstances I feel inside myself a growing discomfort tackleling my mind with questions about my near future, my execution of my RTW dream and of my idea of the rest of my life.

To answer your questions...
 

There you go Rapax- a travelling T-shirt to match your mood!
I knew this thread was going to be good for a few clicks :Beach:

and here is a message from Bojo
 

There is nothing quite the power of positive thinking!
Merry Christmas!!

This pandemic has proved to be highly profitable for some. Especially those in positions of power.

It's also been an excellent way to control the free movement of people.

It's a dream scenario for Governments in order bury other bad news and dark politics (Brexit etc) whilst giving themselves far reaching powers using 'emergency measures'

So it's never going away. It's been a dream come true for dodgy politicians and the top 1% who are making more money than ever.

I don't think we will EVER have the freedoms of travel we once did whilst this is the case.

Maybe, but.........

In Asia, including China, many people where wearing face masks in cities because of high air pollution, long before Covid 19 started.
Yet this widespread use of face masks did not prevent this pandemic, which even started there.

Omicron...
Strange....an anagram for this is 'Moronic'...
Are we being taken for a ride?
Could there be a hidden political agenda here or is this 'fresh meat' for a new conspiracy theory?

Do debate! ;) and whilst doing so, you are saving the planet by not burning more hydrocarbons!

1. Omicron is a Greek letter, just like the other variants.

2. We are usually being taken for a ride in one way or another...but not about the existence of this variant. It exists.

3. There are certainly people with hidden (or overt) political agendas which they are eagerly attaching to the new variant as we speak. There will certainly be new conspiracy theories ad nauseam. However, the most likely, efficient, and believable explanation is exactly as originally offered, i.e., a new variant of unknown origin with multiple DNA changes and unknown effects.

I'd wonder: What is *your* agenda in asking these questions? And what are *your* answers?

Mark

To the OP asking the questions. Google gave me the following:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/w...ame-covid.html

Try it some time?

I'm waiting to see it being referred to as the OMG version. It probably is already in some nether regions of social media with sketchy knowledge of the Greek alphabet. I must admit I was expecting the Epsilon variant to appear next, but things change fast in the world of viruses so maybe I missed that - plus the other nine variants between Delta and Omicron. We'd better fix it soon as there's only another eight to go before we hit Omega, and we all know what happens when that strain turns up. :rofl:

Agendas come in all shapes and sizes, whether they're political ones lambasting the government for its shortcomings or climate change luddites or current vaccine issues. It's interesting to see someone try to pick apart an anti vax agenda and look at what's going on 'under the bonnet / hood' This was an article I came across a few days ago:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ovid-pandemic/

The essence of what it's about is neatly summed up in the subtitle:

"Vaccine refusal by parents is not about a lack of education, but amassing social status"

In it there's a mention of "secret vaccination sites" where people can go and get vaccinated without anyone in their anti vax peer group knowing. I've not heard of any moonlight vaccination sites in the local woods over here but, then again, I don't suppose I would. Everyone (almost everyone to be accurate) I know has put their petty differences to one side and had the jabs. The only exception is a journalist for a religious newspaper. He obviously sees pandemic salvation coming from a different direction - and who knows, he may be right, but we're avoiding him for the time being just in case.

Easy one.Just keeping new posts coming in; there has been a dearth of them for a long time!

@ Chris
It is all rhetoric but thank you for introducing me to google!:rolleyes2:

All you need to know that in South Africa it outcompete Delta and that out of 50 mutation 32 on spike protein and 10 on receptor binding domain (IIRC delta and SA variant only had 8 and 3) but regardless the immune escape is even more likely with omicron.

Is it deadlier than what we had seen so far is yet to be seen; most likely not viruses usually evolve to being less deadly and more contagious but we will know it soon. Some estimates show that it is 500% more contagious than delta, so if R jumps to R5-8 the health system will be under alot of strain hopefully not a repeat of NYC and northern italy or worse.

Oh, I like to know a lot more than that. :rofl: I may not need to know, but it's in both my nature and my background to want to know. I sit around here in the evenings discussing this stuff with my medical wife, daughter and son. Come around to my house for an evening of riveting conversation and sparkling wit :rofl: :rolleyes2:

They have to deal with this stuff at the sharp end and so far their only source of info about the Omicron variant has been the Daily Mail (and the rest of the hysteria rags). It's only this morning I've seen the first actual information in a journal I'd trust. No doubt there's loads more on the way but it takes time to do the work, write it up and publish it. To misquote Mark Twain, "a headline is halfway round the world before truth has put its boots on". There's money to be made from scaring people.


An interesting ... well, what are we dealing with here? Is it observation, analysis, hypothesis, insider knowledge? Usually though when someone purports to 'know' what's actually going on I tend to react with a degree of suspicion. History has proved again and again that we're all - governments, businesses, markets, all our august institutions - just blown around by the winds of change. Almost nobody has the faintest idea, and if they seem to in the short term, a longer baseline usually shows it was either chance or simply in the right place at the the right time. As is often said of politicians it's better to be lucky than talented. If enough of them spout enough nonsense the chances are someone will get close to what actually happens.

I don't think we'll have to wait longer than 2 or 3 weeks to find out what impact (if any) this new Omicron flavour of virus will have.

It is spreading in South Africa, a relatively poor country that has a low rate of vaccination and a high incidence of crowded housing. So we should see some pretty definitive results before Christmas - either all hell breaks loose and lots of people get sick & die, or not much changes at all from what has been going on for the past 18 months.

Tim's comment noting that South Africa has fewer elderly people as a percentage of population than first world countries is noteworthy, but I think that is offset by RSA having more folks who don't have access to health care, or have HIV or malaria or other disadvantageous infections.

So let's just sit tight for a couple of weeks and see what happens down there.

Michael

I am beyond amazed how much has been written about a virus on a motorcycle web site. Consider this: when AIDS/HIV first came along, there was a lot of fear and changes in social/sexual behavior. I had a nephew who died from it in the early 80's after a short illness. Today there are ads on TV selling meds to allow you to live long and prosper even with the virus in your body. With enough vaccinations, covid will be like polio, isolated in a few places.

Virulence and infectiousness are not necessarily linked. There is no evolutionary pressure for Covid to become less deadly. Unlike some viruses (such as MERS - to which it is related - and Ebola), it doesn't kill 70-90% of those it infects. Such high kill rates do favour less deadly variants, because the host population isn't wiped out.

Covid is on average 1% fatal so there is no pressure on it to become less deadly. Its strongest weapon is its infectiousness, and the spike protein mutations have strengthened that weapon. The worry is they may help it escape the vaccines as well. Given that the spike proteins are the means it used to enter human cells and replicate, it seems likely to this layman that an increased viral load will result in more cellular damage. At this stage we don't really know, because the infections from Omicron are in the hundreds compared to the millions we have seen with Delta.

I'm not - it's a site for international motorcycle touring, and the virus is getting in the way of all of us doing that.

I understand that, what amazes me is the number of posts and how long they are. Yes, we are limited in what we can do and where we can go--for now. It is not the end of the world, unless we get sick and croak of course. Get vaxed, travel as far as you can in the current situation, and plan for the future, which is what a lot of the posts on this site are about. Cool, chill, take a ride.

Curious as to what happened to all of TodoTerrano’s posts on this topic? Deleted by who and why?

Not curious, a self-explanatory decision of a responsible admin imho.
Justified by users doubtful world explaning theory about C19 relating issues.
My answer to his post is also gone and I am absolutely fine with that.

Yup, that says it all.

https://youtu.be/5E6gpPJwYIY

Looks like omicron variant is a hybrid of sars-cov-2 and hcov-229e which is a common cold; more contagious but less severe.. so pandemic should be over in a few weeks when it displaces delta. Time to make travel plans?

Unfortunately all those Datasets I try to read arent complete. I do follow more the science reports in german language - and did see how developed country`s like germany or switzerland arent able to get more helpful data from the hospitals.

I dont know what is the really issue to request the necessary data from the hospitals, but in Switzerland as example we have what we had since corona did start:

Our Goverment Website:
https://www.covid19.admin.ch/de/hosp...ty/icu?rel=rel

We can see that the hospital emergency beds are around 30% occupied by corona patients. We know too that we had more beds at 2020 - but - there is currently still enough free beds. :thumbup1:

But we didnt know how many of the patients are in hospital because of covid, we just know how many have covid.

We also don`t know exactly, how many persons in the emergency beds are vaccinated, 1shot, 2nd shot, 3rd shot (boostered) or unvaccinated.

We just have some hospitals who tells directly stuff to the newspaper. If the newspaper wrote about the Situation in "Schaffhausen" as example, that 50% of the corona sick people is vaccinated - it tells us nothing helpfull- they have 7(!) emergency beds.

Yes, there are values about hospitalised people:
https://www.covid19.admin.ch/de/vaccination/status
They shows us that they didnt know about the vaccination status for around 10%. They didnt recognice if someone is boostered or not. They dont know, when a person got their vaccination. So those values - are just not usable at the end. Specially if you dindnt know if a patient is because of covid, or with covid - in the hospital.

Poor Goverment - who has to make ongoing hard decissions - without beeing able to have a basic dataset to work. However, the goverment try`s his best - I cant complain in switzerland.

How is the situation in the uk? Do you have better data quality from the hospital and goverment?

I dont see a progress with (c) - guess we will have see lockdowns and travel restrictions at wintertime and a more or less relaxed summer for the next 2 years. Hoping I`m wrong. :rolleyes2:

Surfy

Edit:

I`m not to stupid to find those values - too some experts seems to have the same issue with the data quality:

Today swiss newspaper- Article:
https://www.20min.ch/story/experten-...n-639343713089

These are very good questions; even if omicron x3 times less severe but x5 more contagious you will have hospitalization influx. And how many of those in hospital who are diagnosed with CV were identified due to routine screening and didn't know they had it?

Think it is much too early to state how much less severe or more contagious omicron is because monitored data is from patients course of disease of South Africa and by this not universally valid for the rest of the world.
https://www.who.int/news/item/28-11-...ate-on-omicron
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...n-variant.html
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/public...iant-b.1.1.529

Yesterday, 8th december, a camouflaged omicron variant, a one which is hard to detect with common pcr test was published. So science is still exploring omicron charateristics and finding unknown Omicrom variants.
https://news.in-24.com/world/362052.html

In the moment the world excluding some countries of Africa has still a Delta problem - Omicron will be a bigger one by its supposed charakteristics as soon or maybe earliest in spring 2022. In the moment Omicrom hasnt spread wide and deep enough into different countries to be the majoy C19 problem! (check: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-e...ata-9-december )

Here's your answer:
https://youtu.be/5r0AA41dgLU

All of Dr John Campbell's videos (like the one linked above by cyclopathic) are worth viewing.

As the infection rates spiral it’s going to get much harder trying to make sense of the figures with journalists blithely repeating press release numbers—not understanding the underlying facts, or not asking pertinent questions. Here's something I wrote for my extended family about the UK situation.

1. INFECTIONS: Scientific and medical experts from South Africa were quick to reassure the UK that although the Omicron variant was spreading more rapidly, symptoms, hospitalisations and deaths were much reduced from those of Delta. The UK Health Security Agency felt this was optimistic and in order to impress the urgency of the situation, it issued a statement on 13 December through Health Secretary Sayid Javid saying that current infection levels (people catching the virus THAT day) in the UK were 200,000 per day and doubling every 1.9 days. If this were true then by now the figure would be over 1.1 million infections today. And looking ahead only two weeks, would reach 100 million per day by 31 December—which is 1.5 times the entire population of the UK being infected each day!!



"What are they smoking?” was the general reaction and the UKHSA has now admitted it was wrong to assume the growth rate, and has declined to give an up-to-date estimate of infections.

2. CERTIFIED DAILY CASES: Although the UK is processing a million PCR tests per day the high level of positives (~10%) indicates it needs to do more testing as true figures are not being revealed. The WHO suggests that when positives are over 5%, testing should be ramped up. But in reality, infections and testing numbers are irrelevant as we can't do anything with that knowledge. Does it matter much if daily reported PCR positive cases are 100,000 or 150,000? Anyway, the real case numbers when you add in those who haven't reported are probably two or three times higher. About one in five of UK PCR tests are genome sequenced and the UKHSA has announced that detected Omicron and SGTR (S gene dropout) cases are now at an accumulated total of 101,000. SGTR is only an indication that it *might* be Omicron. London and Scotland have the highest percentage of Omicron cases. London is also the least vaccinated region of the UK thanks to vaccine hesitancy, so a double whammy.

3. HOSPITAL STATISTICS: The important figures to look out for are (a) daily hospital admissions, (b) beds occupied, (c) mechanically ventilated patients, and (d) daily deaths. At the January 2021 peak—before widespread vaccination—these were 4,580 daily admissions, 39,240 beds, 4,077 ventilated, and 1,250 daily deaths (7 day average).

4. CURRENT FIGURES: are not showing any sign of recent increase—daily admissions of 930 are lower than Oct, beds of 7,600 are lower than Nov, ventilation of 875 is lower than Nov, daily deaths of 112 (rolling average) are at the lowest for three months. As Surfy comments, we don't have the fine data from hospitals—many cases of Omicron are likely to be picked up when the patient is admitted for another reason, but will nevertheless be counted as an Omicron admission. Healthcare staff estimate 75% of (Delta) hospital admissions are unvaccinated patients. UK Health Security Agency reports just 65 hospital admissions of Omicron + SGTR (suspected Omicron) cases and seven Omicron deaths.

5. LOW DEATH RATES: South Africa's previous peak infection was in July 2021 and the current Omicron outbreak has already overtaken this in numbers of cases. But the current death rate is ~10% that of July 2021.

6. NEXT WEEK: will bring the first real indications of what is to come in the UK hospital statistics. Even though Omicron might be less serious, the fact it is highly infectious will give huge problems for the care and health sectors who will have to manage with vastly depleted personnel whilst key staff isolate. Some London hospitals are already complaining of additional staff shortages. So we can't assume the headroom stretches all the way to the Jan 2021 extremes.

7. LOCKDOWN: I am on the fence as to whether a lockdown is necessary, I believe there's a good chance the hospital figures will only show mild increases. Crossing fingers and toes. We have our own plans for Christmas including four days of isolation beforehand and lateral flow tests on the morning, so we plan to go ahead with our family celebration whatever the government says.

So best wishes to all on the forum, stay safe and have a great festive season (if circumstances permit). chug beer

Certainly worth hoping that hospital admissions, ICU usage, long-term symptoms, and death rates stay (relatively) low. But given this is a very recent development, and considering the historical lag time between cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, the fact that the later is currently lagging doesn't inspire much confidence.

All in all, there are so many variables--some known, some unknown or unaddressed--that it's largely guesswork at this point. If determined, any of us can find lots of evidence to support whatever position we wish to support, e.g., "...we plan to go ahead...whatever the government says." That may be a reasonable way to plan a Christmas dinner, but it's probably not a good way to make predictions about the future course of the pandemic. And we should all probably bear in mind that many of the folks we're relying on to provide solid information are in hot pursuit of their own private agendas, too.

The same holds true when evaluating retrospectively; if 99% of COVID cases do *not* end in fatalities (and the majority of the fatalities do not involve people previously fit, healthy and/or young), we might conclude that Christmas dinners were fine all the way around last year, too. I mean, except for the dead, the suffering, and those who care for the sickly, who're having a resoundingly difficult time.

Note that I'm not taking a stand for or against social occasions, personal precautions, lockdowns, or any of the rest. I'm just pontificating about the way we evaluate information to suit our pre-existing interests.

Mark

Are you really accusing me of slanting what I've written in the post to support the fact that we hope to be able to go ahead with Christmas with our extended family? That's laughable. As a journalist for more than a decade I have too much integrity to pick and choose snippets for my own purposes. Please point out where I have used dubious facts to support 'my position'.

As for Christmas, you may not be aware on your side of the pond, but there's currently a lot of anger in the UK about the way the government held multiple Christmas parties last year when the general populace were forbidden to visit dying relatives in care homes. Many people are so annoyed they are likely to ignore anything Boris says, even if it's intended for the best.

My friend's son lives in Denmark and has sent over some notes from today's Danish government press conference (not word for word)...

Omicron) ...it’s too late. The rate is too high and there’s no way we can stop it. It’s run away.

It will take an extreme amount of effort for each person to avoid getting infected over the winter and it’s almost inevitable.

Social distancing and hand sanitiser will not be enough.

All we can do is get vaccinated to reduce the likelihood of infection and of severe illness and protect those who are most vulnerable.

Getting vaccinated no longer means you’re unlikely to get covid. Omicron seems to be much more contagious and that vaccinated people will still get it. But the symptoms are generally much milder in vaccinated people.

____________________________________________

On the other hand Netherlands has a different strategy and is locking down from tomorrow. Both these countries are ten to fifteen days behind the UK in the Omicron trajectory. Morocco did well by suspending ALL foreign flights on 29 November.

Danmark actual:

Since todays morning theathers, cinemas, zoos, amusement park and sports facilities in Danmark are fully closed. Restaurants can stay open up to 23:00 when individually regulated by goverment.

These rules are valid up to middle of January 2022.

Since friday Danmark(6 Mio residents) has 12.000 inections per day and 20% of them are omicron ones.

If you travel from Danmark to Germany you have to stay in a 5 day quarantime if you are vaccinated - if not you have to stay 10 days. After 5 days it´s possible short quarantime through a negative pcr test.

re. post #56
@Tim Cullis. Thanks for this reasoned, intelligent post.:thumbup1:

So any info on people coming into Denmark (from the UK specifically). My son and his wife live in Malmo, so fly in and out of Copenhagen airport. They're here with us at the moment but heading back in a few days. They have to get into Denmark and then cross the bridge into Sweden.

I apologize if it seems I'm "accusing you" of anything at all, Tim. I believe that we all fall prey to confirmation bias, and therefore attend preferentially to information which supports our desires and worldview. I'm not "accusing:" I'm merely stating one of my own biases, which is that we're all susceptible and that this sometimes interferes with our ability to see things clearly and make wise decisions.

Of course I was responding in part to your statement that your family intended to go ahead with existing plans regardless of what you heard from the government. You may have meant something different, but what I heard was "We intend to ignore any information contrary to what we've already decided." In your post quoted above, you say instead that you "*hope* to be able to go ahead" [emphasis added], which seems to me quite different. Again, I'm just stating how I interpreted your words; I'm not trying to tell you what you meant, felt or believed when you wrote them.

I was also responding to the conclusions I thought you were drawing from some--not all--of the statistics you quoted. For example, statements that a case rate is doubling every couple of days can't be disproven by projecting that rate into the indefinite future. Both can be true: case rates are currently doubling, and they can't continue to do so without exceeding our population.

This is, in fact, the norm: in the beginning of an epidemic there might be one, five, or ten known cases, but in a couple of days there might be ten times as many.--that is, five, fifty or a hundred. Obviously, that doesn't mean the case rate will continue to expand by a factor of ten; that would be absurd. Anyone--politician, health "expert," or reporter who thinks that numbers works this way is suffering from a failure of critical thinking.

I've already pointed to the lag times between increases in infections, hospitalization, ICU admissions, and death rates. You said that "CURRENT FIGURES: are not showing any sign of recent increase..." but this has been true during all surges of this pandemic; first infections increase, then after a bit so do hospitalizations, eventually ICU admissions, and finally death rates. Whether this will be true during the current phase remains an open question. If we're lucky, predictions that this variant is less virulent will prove out. At the moment, the people I trust more rather than less are offering very mixed predictions; one stated this morning that he expects record death rates in the US this winter. I hope he's wrong.

Yes, I'm aware of those controversies (and we've had our share of similar events). I'm also aware of a range of irritated responses, including a distinct deterioration in trust. As one who never particularly believed anything your prime minister said in the first place--and who felt the same except even more so about my previous president--that seems to me a reasonable response.

But the fact that a bunch of politicians held Christmas parties last year doesn't mean much when it comes to my own decisions; why should it? I don't trust them, their ability to make wise decisions, their propensity for telling the truth or ability to predict the future. A prominent politician from my neck of the woods--a Trump campaign organizer and COVID denier--just died of COVID after traveling to El Salvador under bogus pretenses during an intense outbreak there. Am I going to model my own life after his?

I don't know whether this clarifies my earlier post, but I hope it does at least to some extent. Meanwhile, here's to a happy, stress-free holiday for you and your family!

Mark

As far as I understand it, a max 72 hrs negative PCR is needed for transiting Denmark.

https://reopen.europa.eu/en/map/DNK/7004

https://en.coronasmitte.dk/travel-rules

time will tell
 

I have been waiting a long time For the Canadian Government to accept the Sinovac Vaccine I was inoculated in may and June this year in South America and finally dec 1 the feds recognized sinovac as a acceptable vaccine
Wow I thought I can come home without quarantine and all the hassles associated with entering Canada I d guess I am not coming back to Canada with this new strain on the horizon My god this shite never ends
Landing in Toronto in the mid winter you are guarantied to get some sort of cold virus or worse
It happened to me in 2019 after 2 years in the tropics
its been quite a adventure since march last year when I landed in Colombia

I prefer to be objective and rely on reported data. You are reading far too much into what I have written which was after all a simple relating of facts, as follows...

People wouldn't remember the statistics from the January 2021 peak so I related those click on data on each heading then scroll for Jan 21. Then I gave the current figures (same link, click on data for each heading) prefixing these with the factual comment that no recent increases had been recorded. The important bit you seem to have missed is that I then wrote that next week will bring the first real indications of what is to come in the UK hospital statistics.

I don't profess to know the relative infection/serious illness rates of Omicron vs Delta in the UK and have no idea how next week will play out. The whole point of my post was to highlight that at the moment we just don't know whether the SA experience of moderate illness relates to the UK, but next week will be our best guide.

No bias. No need for confirmation.

I also have no opinion as to whether there will be a lockdown in the UK. I appreciate the arguments for no lockdown in terms of protecting the economy and mental health, conversely I appreciate the arguments for preventing dramatic spikes that the NHS can't handle. Glad I don't have to make the decision.
______________________________

In the meantime it has been reported that SAGE (emergency committee) has been discussing some extremely worrying models that predict dangerous outcomes. However when the minutes of the meeting were leaked to the media, what wasn't admitted was that the government had asked the modellers to assume Omicron was no different from Delta in terms of serious cases and deaths.

It took JP Morgan (merchant bank) to discover this. So these SAGE models were about as far from an independent viewpoint as it's possible to get. I'm not saying the SAGE predictions will turn out to be incorrect, but the fact that the government had set strict parameters should have been declared.

Link to Spectator article: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...ling-committee

I don't know what tomorrow's papers will make of this—Boris and his team have suffered one credibility setback after another just recently. (And that's an objective view, not confirmation bias).

Ok, so it looks at present as though they won't have any problems in Copenhagen. They just have to get out of Denmark asap and without visiting any shops etc. Quite how it'll work out after Christmas is another matter as my son lives in Malmo but works in Copenhagen.

They can continue and exceed our population by double or tripple infecting a person which are actually proven cases in South Africa. Omicron is an Escape-Mutation which means it is infecting people who were e.g. infected and recovered from the Delta variant.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/2326...ity-from-past/

A pandemic situation is marked through its dynamic behavior. A pandemic rule says: Never say never. This you can observe by omicron and its much higher potential to infect compared to Delta variant.

It`s imaginable that a case rate can continue to expand by a factor of ten as well as it is imaginable that it can continue to expand by a factor of 100.

Omicron is in 77 countries with a spreading rate (exponentially growth) no other corona variant showed up to now. Even if it will be evidentially true that omicron infects people with mostly mild symptoms the sheer number of cases could overcome health systems of these 77 countries.

Check this graph and compare the share and growth of omicron variant in all analyzed sequences in South Africa/Botswana starting at Nov 1, 2021 to other countries starting at Nov29, 2021.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/c...SA~ZAF~BWA~AUS

The fear of a exponentially case growth like this accelerated through omicron is actual the reason why Austria tighted their rules and why The Netherlands went into lookdown and why many other countries will follow with different measures in the next weeks.

I've said it before...
 

Chin up, we're doomed!

Sorry, but this is not the way mathematics work. Start with a hundred cases. Sustained expansion by a factor of ten exceeds the population of the entire world in 8 days. In 9 days it exceeds the population of the world by a factor of ten. No matter how many repeated or "multiple" infections you imagine, this is not possible. If you doubt this, just keep going: ten days, or eleven.

Theoretical expansion of this sort works in a very limited way--the first couple of days, the first week. After a certain point it become impossible to sustain, no matter what sort of system you're describing. This includes pandemics, multi-level marketing schemes, gifting circles, you name it.

The same applies when you apply lesser expansions--say, a daily doubling of cases--but more slowly. I'm too lazy to figure it out precisely, but if you start with, say, 64 cases it only takes a bit more than a month before you've again exceeded the population of the world. Keep going and...well, you get the picture.

Mark

It is a little more complicated to forecast a pandemic developement with mathmatic models than you think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathem...ctious_disease

Of course. I know that. I was merely responding to what you posted, which was:

Originally Posted by Rapax View Post
It`s imaginable that a case rate can continue to expand by a factor of ten as well as it is imaginable that it can continue to expand by a factor of 100.

If my stomach continues to grow exponentially....
I'll never get off my sofa by Xmas
Stop feeding me toad-in-the-hole woman!
(Between you and me....I think it's a plot!) ;)

Interesting article on the fine difference between a mutation (many) and a variant (few), How come Omicron mutated locally in Morocco

(Morocco now has 28 confirmed Omicron cases and another 46 suspected.)

Yep, it's Wednesday
 

In an attempt to lighten the mood....

This too shall pass...

Let's not get too stressed about this COVID mess - chances are that before the end of winter, things will improve.

Michael

Mutation: A mutation refers to a single change in a virus’s genome (genetic code). Mutations happen frequently, but only sometimes change the characteristics of the virus.

Variant: A variant is a viral genome (genetic code) that may contain one or more mutations. In some cases, a group of variants with similar genetic changes, such as a lineage or group of lineages, may be designated by public health organizations as a Variant of Concern (VOC) or a Variant of Interest (VOI) due to shared attributes and characteristics that may require public health action.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...fications.html

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 :censored:), 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?

what's on the horizon
 

I see a explosion in tourism coming I dont know when perhaps 2022 it will climb but no where near 2019 People are waiting for the time is right Ferry flights for new operators of the DHC 6 will continue and I am in the the slot waiting for this to happen I love living abroad working where I am needed but I cannot imagine living in Canada right now and getting the Flu and trying to get on with life its over saturated in our country with negitive

I am curious about your remark above about "ferry flights of the DHC-6".

Are you referring to the DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft? If so, you might be amused to know that I am the person who did the redesign and modernization of the DHC-6 when the Series 400 was put back into production. I was responsible for all aspects of flight compartment modernization, including selection and programming of the Honeywell Apex Avionics.

I also am the author of both the Series 300 and Series 400 AFMs, as well as the Honeywell avionics handbook for the Series 400, and the FlightSafety training manuals for the Series 300.

Michael

Me, sitting on the steps of the first Series 400 Twin Otter
https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...720&fit=bounds

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.

Yo Michael
Looks like you may have missed a bit :rofl: Merry Xmas!

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.

ferry flights
 

Meaning you could do some ferry flying of new or rebuilt machines for tourist operators I was in Yellowknife doing support Maintenance for Vikings 50th anniversary for the Twin Otter C-GVKI I changed the Main and Nose to Intermediates then the crews took her all over the Arctic and all the way to CFB Alert with Tim Hortons coffee and donuts that were flown from Yellowknife to Resolute Bay by a Summit Air charter a Dornier 228 Wow expensive coffee and donuts The viking team put on a good show and I am happy that they went back to the DeHaviland name

No thank you.

I delivered the first 40 new Series 400 aircraft constructed, flying them from the factory on Vancouver Island to operators on all 6 continents, as well as a few operators who weren't even located on continents (Maldives, Seychelles).

I retired in 2013, and have not flown an aircraft since then. I just occasionally ride my motorcycle.

Michael

You have sharp eyes.

When we put the aircraft back into production in 2008 (production had ceased in 1988), we replaced many non-structural parts that had previously been made of aluminum with identically shaped parts made out of composites.

That little wing root to fuselage fairing was one of the parts that was modernized. The photo was taken during a break in flight testing - engineering staff had removed the original aluminum part and were in the process of fitting the new composite part.

Michael

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! :rofl: :clap:

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

From three weeks ago... The UK Office for Statistics Regulation has warned the UKHSA that Sajid Javid's claim of 200,000 infections per day by mid-December caused confusion after officials failed to justify the figures.

In the meantime South African scientists seem to have taken umbrage with the way the UK totally dismissed their 'on the ground' advice regarding Omicron, see news report.

From two weeks ago... London is thought to be a week or more ahead of the rest of the country with the Omicron wave and is also the region of the UK with the lowest vaccination records. So looking at London gives some indication of where the rest of the UK will follow.

Daily infection rates in London (based on the more accurate date of test rather than date of report) did indeed peak just before Christmas with a rolling seven-day average high of just over 26,200. Since then the daily average has fallen back by 13% to just under 23,000. There has been no sign of a surge due to Christmas gatherings. There is a backlog on tests and it will be another four days to judge whether there has been a surge due to New Year celebrations. Other statistics such as hospital admissions, ventilation cases and deaths will lag infection rates and likely continue to rise even when infections are dropping.

Hospital admissions were running around 150 per day in early December, they increased in middle December to 400, then 450 and peaked at 511 on 29 December, but have now fallen back to under 320 per day.

The number of patients in hospital with Covid peaked at just over 4,000 on 5 January, though one-third of these (NHS stats) are patients who presented for other ailments and were identified positive post admission. There has been a small but continuing drop off in the last four days but it's too early to call this a trend.

Numbers in ventilation beds have risen from around 195 before the Omicron surge to currently 224. Most Covid patients in intensive care are unvaccinated.

Daily deaths have risen from 12 per day on 9 December to now 24 per day, with 90% of these being patients over 60 years of age. Some will likely be Delta patients who were already in intensive care, but there's no statistics on vaccination/booster status.

Staff pressures through sickness and isolation absences are immense, especially in the ambulance service and A&E (emergency department) with some hospital trusts advising heart attack cases to take a taxi to hospital rather than gamble on an ambulance.

Watch out - the Deltakron mutation has arrived….

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/08/cypr...and-delta.html

And if that doesn't get you Flurona will :

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/h...facts-22691215


https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...mation-blooms/

Whilst the Omicron wave is massively steeper and more powerful than any that have come before, it seems short-lived in reaching a peak and starting to come down, but then slower to reduce than normal. 


LONDON: I believe infections peaked in London about the 17-18 December. I have been tracking the rolling seven-day averages of reported new cases by the SPECIMEN DATE (more accurate than DATE REPORTED) and these cases peaked in London on 23 December and have since fallen back from 26,280 per day to under 18,000. There was no obvious mini-surge following Christmas and New Year celebrations.

London's daily hospital admissions peaked six days later on 29 December and have since fallen back from 511 to around 250 per day. Over one-third of these cases are patients presenting for other reasons (e.g. heart) and found to be Covid positive on admission. Others are patients who caught Covid in hospital.

A further six days later on 4 January patients in London's ventilator beds peaked and the number has since fallen back slightly from 245 to 219. Some of these will be Delta cases on long term intubation.


Deaths in London have not yet started to reduce and are currently averaging 36 per day. Whilst this is regrettable, thanks to the protection of vaccines and the lower morbidity of Omicron, the numbers are just one-tenth of those in January 2021 (2022: 36 of a peak of 26,280 compared to 2021: 199 of a peak of 14,344).

Daily new cases per 100,000 population have been 50 to 100% higher in London than in the regions, one possible reason might be the comparatively low vaccination rate in London. Several health professionals have gone on record to say that 80-90% of those in intensive care in London are unvaccinated.

So in summary for London, case numbers were more than double those of January 2022. A very steep increase in cases, and slower than usual decline of case numbers, with death rates just one-tenth those of other waves.



--------------------------------------

REST OF UK: Cases in the remainder of the UK peaked 5 January and average daily cases have since fallen back from 184,000 to around 99,000. 

In early November whilst 95% of all UK cases were Delta variant there were over 1,000 patients in ventilator beds. Today, with reported cases still more than twice that of November, the number of ventilator beds in use has fallen 720. As with London, deaths are still at their peak, with a rolling average of 260 per day.

The results are a world away from the dire scientific predictions of mid December where there were warnings of between 600,000 and 2 million infections per day, hospitalisations of between 3,000 and 10,000 per day and deaths of between 600 and 6,000 per day.

OFFICIAL VS REALITY: Nevertheless the situation on the ground has been far more widespread than the official figures suggest, with the Zoe study estimating that even with the recent fall in cases there are currently over 2.5 million people infected with symptomatic Covid in the UK. The REACT study suggests over 4 million have so far been infected with Omicron and by the time the wave is over it will be more than 6.5 million.

There’s always going to be a gap between actual and reported cases, but the less serious symptoms of Omicron, coupled with widespread distribution of free lateral flow tests have enabled people in the UK to do their own testing, and then if positive decide on their own course of action without involving the government with the results or asking for a PCR test.

Case numbers in the UK do seem to have peaked, though caution again is advised as "infections" is partly a function of how many tests are done. You also have the situation where the virus is now encountering a population who have either been vaccinated or have recovered from a prior dose. This is not the same as "herd immunity" because the R0 of Omicron is too high to be stopped by residual immunity and can to a degree be passed on by low level infection of the vaccinated and reinfection of the recovered.

Despite the apparent passing of the peak of infections the full effect in the UK is yet to be felt since hospitalisations and deaths are both lagging indicators, and both still rising. This is of course exacerbated by long covid and the continuing high absence rates from work (especially medical and teaching staff) due to infection.

How it goes from here depends largely on whether the virus mutates again in a significant way to evade the vaccines. Clearly in the short term it is essential to tailor the vaccines to target Omicron and improve the current half life which stands at around 10 weeks. Without that we are looking at a further deadly wave in spring as acquired immunity drops.

Longer term I wonder if we will ever enter an endemic phase and live with it as we do with seasonal flu. Covid, however, will always be worse than flu - about 3 times worse at current rates. Are we willing to see between 1/4 and 1/2 a million deaths each year in the UK (at the current rate)? One thing is for sure though, it'll always be with us now and the question is not whether we live with it but how. This really needs to be a global approach, because locking borders won't keep it out and lockdowns are socially and economically devastating.

To my mind vaccine passports with a regular booster programme are absolutely essential, to minimise mass spreader potential, to ensure those entering countries are less vulnerable, and to incentivise the ditherers to make themselves safe for the sake of everyone round them. We are past the point where test & trace can work. Tests at borders are pointless when the virus is already rampant. Add mask wearing, hepa filters in classrooms and hospitality venues and an adequate sick pay system so the infected don't feel they have to go into work and infect everyone else. Then maybe you've got some chance of controlling the spread and effects without resorting to panic measures every time a new wave hits.