New variant found in UK

she is and I don’t use this word lightly a thoroughly evil lovely person. Spreading lies and radicalising idiots.

 

Let's hope the drops continue for the rest of the week.

 

That's an interesting take on it.

My take on it would be that we are all qualified, to some extent, to judge how virulent a virus is. Just by being human. If we see lots of people with a particular disease and, after contracting it, their symptoms are mild and they seem OK, we'll conclude that it's not that bad: the common cold for instance. If people are dying from it, if they are falling apart at the seams, then we'll conclude 'Jesus Christ, I don't want this!'. The bubonic plague or Ebola would be good examples. We're all capable of making these judgements.

Are we capable of understanding how transmissible a virus is? I wouldn't even know where to start. Well, I kind of would, it would be by setting up a longitudinal study. It would be by collating lots of data. It would require scientific investigation that takes a lot of time.

And yet, on this variant, we know how transmissible it is but not how virulent it is. Really?

Isn't it about time (actually the time was more than 18 months ago) that people started saying, "Hang on a minute, that's garbage, that doesn't make even a modicum of sense.".

 

To be fair, we’re not even really sure how transmissible it is yet. Given that cases have popped up in many different countries fairly quickly there’s a reasonable chance it *might* be more transmissible than Delta but it’ll take a while to know definitively one way or the other. And by the same token it’s tricky to know how virulent it’ll be in a UK population, even with the info coming out of South Africa cos we differ a fair bit from them demographically.

I think the way it’s being reported on in the media is probably a bit too far towards ‘arrrrgh it’s Armageddon!’ than the reality, and Whitty, Vallance, JVT etc have been much more measured (but they’re not trying to sell papers or get clicks).

 

South Africa have a relatively young population, with only 5% over-65.

 

Yep exactly, very different to us. Ideal scenario would be that Omicron turns out to be much more transmissible than Delta but doesn’t do anything more than give people a runny nose. Then we can stop arguing about face masks and vaccines and focus all our energy on arguing about the West Stand instead.

 

Why? Because your opinion is much more important than hers?
Maybe you should have your own talk show?

 

Because they have actually, properly, really serious illnesses out there that kill them before they reach such an age. Maybe, if we spent a tiny fraction of what we've spent on Covid to help these people, they would have a demographic similar to our own.

 

Maybe I should...or maybe, more realistically, she should just stop being an Enoch Powell defending, climate change denying pigdog.

Just a thought, like.

 

Maybe you should ring the show and have a debate? I'm sure you would make her see sense ?

 

Is this fact or your opinion? Just to make sure

 

This variant is days old.

 

I'd rather not have any input into anything she's involved in thanks. It's bad enough I have to share a planet with the odious swamp donkey.

 

I dunno maybe she would respect you if you told her you were a regular bbs poster?
Who's the swamp donkey then pal?

 

So how do they know how transmissible it is?

 

Im guessing here, but from a small sample, that’s it’s more transmissible?

 

Eh?

 

Somebody's obviously been looking at Chris whitty and jonny van tams script they have to read.

 

Don't ask me you said it???

 

Surely, from a small sample, they'd be far more likely to know how virulent it is, as that is observable, but transmissibility is most definitely not.

You have a partner who is immunocompromised. I get how frightening that is. Vaccinating billions of people who demonstrably do not need it is not going to help that. It does, however, cost £trillions. Literally £trillions. Maybe, some of that expenditure would be better used in researching how we help people who are susceptible to the virus, rather than buying millions and millions of vaccinations for those that aren't.

When you start asking the really pertinent questions, none of this makes any kind of sense, because it really isn't about public health.