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

Yours is a considered, rational approach and for the sake of your children and your partner, and I totally get that. I'm referring to larger parts of society, who are testing obsessively and are more fearful of a positive test than the virus. That seems illogical to me.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

Some people may be testing in a obsessive way but it's not necessarily a bad thing. I think testing makes a lot more sense than vaccine passports.

 

More good news. England had the lowest positivity rate in the UK earlier this year despite by far the least restrictions. He surely can see the data doesn't warrant more restrictions and that he should hold his nerve here.

 

He's picking out a single data point to suit his own argument though. To start, the figure is a % without giving the complete figures. So, you would expect more people to be in hospital in December anyway, so 29% of a high number could still be significantly higher than the lower points of that chart in the summer. Particularly when you consider the scale that he's used as well.

There is also the question of whether this represents an issue of the safety in hospitals for people needing other treatments, without catching a virus that could be serious for them. Going against the "get on with our lives and open up the NHS" argument that I saw on here recently.

Thread here drills into some of the details:


The good thing is the data is now available. We just need reporters to report on the whole data and not spin it in favour of their argument one way or another.

 

Can you just stop posting random bits of data for like a week. The initial data coming from the omicron studies looks encouraging, but it's too early to tell. Just let it play out. I'm 100% anti lockdown, but you're annoying me with these 'isn't everything great' posts so goodness knows what you're doing to the more cautious.

 

I’ve got it at the moment, feel pretty crap. Remarkably similar to a bout of illness I had in Jan/February 2020 actually. I’ve had 3 jabs.

 

There's a strong evolutionary advantage for a virus not to kill its host. An ideal virus would be highly transmissible but permit the host to continue normal mixing patterns i.e. be asymptomatic or at worst mild.

 

The number of NHS staff off sick because of Covid is soaring, new figures show, raising fresh fears about how hospitals will be able to respond to any Omicron-driven surge in patients needing care.

One health service leader said the NHS was now facing “a double emergency” of growing numbers of people hospitalised with Covid alongside increasing sickness absence on the frontline.

The number of staff days lost to Covid across the NHS in England hit 124,855 last week, a 38% jump on the 90,277 seen the week before, according to the latest “winter sitreps” data published by NHS England.

The total number of staff absences for any medical reason – such as a cold, flu or mental health problem – also increased, though less steeply, from 416,995 to 457,135, a rise of 10%

Doesn't matter these public service staff grow on trees and arectotally overrated. I put a dint in a pan clapping them, I'm putting in a claim. Lazy excuses, off due to mental health. Not like they've been working hard, they get great benefits including holidays. Bet they're all wagging it cos it's Christmas, covid is just a good excuse and just like the common cold.
Never trust em, only man worth listening to his Mr Littlejohn. He knows how to work, in Flordia which is a tax haven. He works twice as hard as these shirkers and provides a public service. Why should he pay tax, when it'll only get wasted on the NHS and illegals in boats.

 

I think much of the absence wouldn’t be sickness in normal circumstances, but isolation from a positive test. Obviously I’m not talking about the sickness caused by stress and overwork.

We had a lot of people off at work as they’d tested positive. This kept them off for the ten days of isolation with mild symptoms that most admitted wouldn’t have kept them off work in normal circumstances.

Plus healthcare staff are tested regularly, which means more positives including false positives.

I’m not saying this will change anything, just that off sick doesn’t necessarily mean off sick.

 

I don't think he can or will.

 

Yeah - the idiotic government telling them to stay home when they don’t feel that bad.

They’d be much better off in work spreading what could be a deadly virus to already sick vulnerable people.


What we really need is an NHS staffed by people feeling only a bit poorly but spreading disease.

 

Hi Redstone,

Sorry for swearing at you the other day - i was out of order.

Cheers.

 

Yes and no

It's the blind watchmaker - it doesn't have a long term strategy - just short term advantage - even if this is damaging to the virus in the long term. Broadly, there's three advantages that mutations are landing on

1. Increased transmissibility
2. Immunity evasion
3. Reduced severity

1 and 2 provide direct and immediate advantage whereas 3 prevents a disadvantage.

If the virus is struggling to find people to infect then milder disease helps it - people aren't laid up in bed or dead. At the minute the virus is not short of susceptible people to infect (given that it's increased its transmissibility and ability to bypass some immune response) - therefore there is less evolutionary pressure on those mutations that would reduce severity.

 

Think nothing of it, as I said in my post I could have been a lot more tactful in what I was saying. So apologies from my side too.

 

Yes, for me there is no comparison, vaccine passports are an aberration and the very idea of it should be canned. Testing in theory makes sense in certain situations. But the mass testing, the emergence of widespread fear again is in my view too much. This new variant looks to be mild/milder/a bad cold. So I don't think everyone should be self-testing every time they go out, especially when they feel fine and are fine. I think we need to apply some common sense.

 

Does the virus struggle in the sense that it is aware somehow? Does it communicate with other viruses of its own ilk or is it just a numbers game of one strain or mutation able to infect - reproduce - transmit better than t'others?

 

In the long run the hope is Covid will become a mild infection. In fact I do believe this has been suggested by many experts. For the moment while a certain level of caution is the order of the day I think testing is one of the best ways to do this. Its not 100% of course but it's still a decent safeguard.
I wouldn't say everytime you go out but if you are going out and going tonbe mixing closely with friends ect I can't see the harm in it.

 

Tested positive this morning. It sucks.

Enjoyed reading this thread though, a lot of balanced posters making interesting points.

 

Purely a numbers game. Mutations are just random and largely make no difference. Lots of mutations just die off. If one happens to be better at spreading then it becomes dominant.