So studies show that Omicron appears to result in a 70% reduction in hospitalisations

Is it still the case that reinfections aren’t counted? So someone who tested positive a year ago and then again today wouldn’t be counted towards positive cases? Once everyone has had Covid once, positive case numbers being reported will fall to zero.

 

The worry is that people will absorb "mild" when it's actually "milder" - there's a difference. It's also milder than Delta, not necessarily milder than every strain we've ever had and it's milder for most not all. The last bit of the message will probably not be heard by some as well, that the small percentage who get it serious enough to end up in hospital will still add up to an awful lot, as it's a small percentage of a very large number.

 

Fully understand all that and again I suppose that will be dependent on how many are in hospital and for how long. Again read some encouraging numbers that in SA the length of stay has been shorter. Lot of factors could be at play that though.
It would be interesting to see what the latest modeling says given the new information we have.

 

Reinfections within 90 days of a positive test aren’t counted, anything outside 90 days is counted. But the ask is that you don’t take a PCR within 90 days of a previous positive test so in theory those numbers should be fairly small.

 

I wasn't meaning that you would misinterpret the message from these studies. A lot of the public just hear the headlines, you're clearly not one of those.

 

Do you have a source for that? I’ve just read a full fact article that said that the 90 day rule is what is classed as a reinfection but that they still aren’t counted. It said the figure would likely be very small anyway. I might be reading it wrong though.

https://fullfact.org/health/robert-peston-reinfections/

 

Australia as had omicron for 4 weeks and have no people in Hospital and no deaths from Omicron, they having no more lockdowns and they been one of the most strict

 

High summer in Australia...makes a huge difference.

 

Ah I see what you mean. Personally I have felt that the messaging and media coverage throughout has been too strong and has left some paralysed with fear.
However you do make a good point for some it may take that level of messaging to even acknowledge the situation. Perhaps no level of messaging is adequate for all. It will either be too weak for some or too much for others.

 

Torygraph really letting it know that it wouldn't agree with Boris adding more restrictions. People are doing their bit with personal responsibility by cutting back on being around people and going for a booster. We can't keep living under restrictions because people have chosen not to be jabbed.

https://archive.md/ntdoc

https://archive.md/HTeJ5

https://archive.md/FNUIH

https://archive.md/KEeV5

 

Interesting! My source was work - I have to talk about lots of the COVID epidemiology and data as part of my job so I was almost 100% sure what I’d written above was right but that link has made me think.

Will now be spending most of today wondering how to ask someone who will know while not making it sound like I’m asking so I can post it on a footy forum!

 

Agree. Looking more and more likely we'll have to restrict the unvaccinated.

 

Tell them it’s for a librarian doing some research who wants to make sure she has all the facts.

 

I wonder how many testing positive ('cases') are 'asymptomatic'? There seems to be an obsession with testing testing testing. Many people are now saying they are more scared of testing positive than the actual virus. That is crazy, especially with the collective fear around the virus. We now appear to have moved on to a fear around the test result, but then people are still testing like crazy. I understand some need to do it for their job, fair enough. But if you are ill you're ill, if you're not you don't need a test to tell you you're not. The asymptomatic thing just doesn't make sense. Common sense has flown out of the window and left people cowering in the corner.

 

So, have I got this right?
If you were asymptomatic but thought you might have covid, the test result is only a confirmation that you shouldn’t be mixing with others.

Are you suggesting that asymptomatic people should just get on with their lives and go round spreading a disease that might kill others?

If not; then it’s obvious that a test result is something to be concerned about even if you’re asymptomatic, surely?

 

I'm saying that there appears to be an awful lot of asymptomatic people, and of those there are a lot who previously went with your thinking of, I'd better stay in doors because I might kill someone, and now appear to be more fearful of testing positive because of some misguided FOMO. I also don't trust the accuracy of the tests, they seem flimsy at best. Surely if the projections and the reported figures are true, there would be many more cases and many more actually ill as a result.

 

I suppose because Covid is a new virus to our immune system asymptomatic transmission is a bigger problem. I imagine other viruses also spread with no symptoms but it doesn't have the same impact on the spread.
Our work had testing at the when it first became widespread and a lot were getting tested at work. Now when I ask people they don't bother with testing unless they feel ill.
We have continued to test as the my kids aren't able to so thought the next best we could do was for the rest of the household to do so.
When the kids are off school we don't bother.

 

Known reinfections aren't in the case rates. Unknown reinfections will be though - i.e. plenty of people who were infected in the first wave before testing capacity ramped up. To date, not including reinfections won't make a huge difference - but increasingly will be an issue with Omicron. Couple that with testing and reporting lags and changes in testing behaviour and the published case rates begin to get increasingly less accurate as a metric of the amount of virus circulating.