Have I mentioned it before. He's a lovely person. Allus has been, allus will be. Edit Lovely person wtf. That's swear filters gone mad.
Yes though seems less deadly which is pretty usual with viruses as they mutate to infect as many people as possible without killing them eventually. We still have Spanish Flu but it’s just blended in over the years.
Probably. It’ll be a few more weeks before it’s definitive though. It’s almost certainly more transmissible since we wouldn’t be seeing the level of spread if it was less transmissible than Delta, but more of a question mark over how virulent it is.
I have this overwhelming urge to eat cheese and drink wine and get as many folk as possible back to my gaff and have a pretend zoom quiz.
My intention is to get a booster, I've just not seen evidence that it would be better for me (someone double jabbed, and having had covid recently) to get it immediately.Based on no more evidence than I can lay my hands on, I will go after Christmas. My point still stands, every winter in my lifetime the hospitals have been on black alert/ some alert or other. It's nothing new . Is Omicrom any different from any other virus?
The pressures of fighting a virus for 18 months coupled with 11 years of tory underfunding is hitting hard. Black alerts are practically unheard of in such a widespread fashion. The thing about a new variant is no one really knows. So everything we can do to help however small will count
At our peak at the start of the year we had nearly 40,000 people in hospital attributed to Covid. Currently it’s around 7,300 which is the same as the start of September.
Hopefully Omicron is a step in the right direction severity wise - and early evidence suggests it might be - it may well be the break we need to get this virus to be treated like most others - but that's long term thinking and there's still a lot of unknowns. Disease vectors can mutate to make illness less severe and that does help them transmit from person to person. It tends to happen when the number of people susceptible to the illness is low - so the disease needs to keep people on their feet and interacting. Omicron is re-infecting the previously infected and getting round some of the vaccine protection so its keeping the stock of susceptible people high. Breakthrough infections (i.e. infection of those previously infected or vaccinated) are likely to be mild - so it could be masking its true nature. If the environment suddenly changes to bring more susceptible people together then mutations can make a disease become more severe with no consequence for its spread - TB evolved to become a more dangerous disease when the population expanded rapidly. The evidence on the booster looks good. Get a booster as soon as you can. The problem the NHS faces isn't because of the severity of the disease its because of the volume of cases that will hit at pace unless the brakes go on. Even if it is far less severe than Delta then it will still put a lot of people in hospital. It feels like the train is speeding up as it heads into the station but we don't need to panic because nobody on the train has yet been hurt.
No WE don't. It's one hospital in South Africa and you've got the figures wrong. Look at it again and stop trying to make it appear it refers to the UK.
Genuine question. Aren’t the black alerts being called mainly because of the backlog in operations caused by Covid, rather than by Covid itself? So all this booster acceleration will do, in terms of that, is cause more black alerts as the backlog increases and we do more damage to that section of society?
Ok. Thanks for clarifying. The question marks were there for a reason - not helped by the Prime Minister addressing the nation by saying ‘We’ve seen hospitalisations more than double in a week ….. <insert long pause>….. in South Africa’.
I’m certainly no expert but as I’m told it they are based around waiting times for even the most serious of illnesses so Hospitals are not able to admit or see say someone who is in an ambulance waiting outside A&E with say a heart attack. Reasons are numerous. Covid will be one but certainly more people presenting because of cancelled ops will be one as will people unable to see docs as they are seconded onto booster programme.
I made three points/questions though. The seven day average for Covid deaths being flat was only something I saw today, and that’s in a country with a vaccination rate of 25%.
So just roll your sleeve up and take the jab? Not once have you mentioned having the "booster" to protect your health, your suggesting that we should all line up for the jab bascially for an easy life. Receiving medical treatments of any kind should never be taken lightly. How many times do the politicians have to break their promises to you re: giving you back your freedoms if you have 2 jabs, now 3? They keep moving the goalposts and people keep believing them! It's ok though, as you say, just have the booster guys and girls, it doesn't hurt (apart from the 1000's of reported adverse reactions on the Yellow Card system) it'll give you your old life back......no it won't.