Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

[9873210]

There are currently 10 vaccines approved by WHO.

Sputnik is not one of them. The Russians either can't or won't live up to international norms.

[odysseus2000]

There are currently 10 vaccines approved by WHO.

Sputnik is not one of them. The Russians either can't or won't live up to international norms.

Interesting to read some of the reasons for the non-approval:

https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/11/1 ... -pub-85783

According to this the death rate in Russia from Covid is one of the highest:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 7321002810

Estimating excess deaths rates based on the trend-adjusted average, Russia had the highest excess mortality of any of the 37 countries considered. Using the simple average, Russia had the third highest. Most of the excess deaths were recorded in the 4th quarter of 2020...

Super interesting albeit terribly sad for the Russian people. Thank you for the comments that encouraged me to look at this.

Regards,

[Hallucigenia]

pushing some pre-determined ideas irrespective of what the science is...

the majority of folk live at home much longer than they would like because of the cost of rent or mortgages. If this is correct the lack of large O in older generations seems to me to be a huge blessing.

It seems you are pushing your pre-determined ideas irrespective of what the facts are - at a UK level, only about a quarter of 20-34 year-olds are living with their parents, and I'd suggest that the people who were catching omicron at the hedge-fund Christmas party I linked above, can probably afford to rent a flat.

And if you look at the stats, it has spread from the 20-somethings to the older generation since Christmas.

I don't understand a lot of medical practices. I have been told for years that antibiotics have to be targeted against the microbes causing the trouble, but when my Father was in hospital I asked if they had taken swabs and used selective antibiotics. No, we just use a broad spectrum, like domestos.

There's always tradeoffs - in some situations you can either be fairly confident that you only have a threat from 1 particular bug, or you have the time to send away samples to a lab to find out what they are in order to customise the treatment. In other situations you may face multiple threats, or the patient needs immediate treatment and there isn't time to get a lab to process some samples, so you just hit it with whatever you've got. Or is the real world too complicated for a physicist?

So I suppose the lack of consideration of what variation of Covid a patient has and the best medicine is just how they operate at patient level.

You have to remember that omicron is the first variant to show significant immune differences that might affect antibody treatments - and we hadn't heard of it 6 weeks ago. It's only since Christmas that the idea of tweaking treatments based on variant has really emerged - this stuff is changing fast. And whilst we don't have a huge repertoire of treatments for Covid, most of them are independent of what variant it is.

the CMO and CSO have decided that everyone should be triple vaccinated, no matter what the science says

The science on boosters seems pretty consistent, eg the latest UKHSA report has hospitalisations being halved at 25 weeks after 2 jabs, whereas the vaccine effectiveness of a booster against hospitalisation is 88%.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... df#page=11

a lot of the arguments rely around modelling by the Imperial Group under Niel Ferguson whose record on accurate predictions is lamentable.

Citation needed. Actually Imperial's modelling hasn't been too far off - the media have seized on some of their extreme cases, but the UK has followed something that's looked roughly like their "plausible worst-case with restrictions" case.

It seems likely that if there had not been a rebellion by the backbenchers on the last commons vote that the UK would have been locked down.

I'm not sure about that, but I would note that with 18k in hospital we're now putting more pressure on hospitals than during the full lockdown in November 2020, at a worse time of year for them. Something like a modified version of Tier 3 for the second half of December would have made a significant difference, with a looser allowance for Christmas Day subject to testing.

In more recent times all UK honey bees were plagued with varroa mites and it was said we were stuck with them forever, there would be no more ferrel bees and without treatment every UK hive would die. Most bee keepers including myself treated, but a few didn't. Now varroa seems to have gone and there are ferrel bees above one of my bay windows.

Varroa is far from gone, in fact there was new legislation to cover it only last year, the Bee Diseases and Pests Control Order 2021.

it seems to me that the booster and the other vaccines after it do not currently have much scientific justification and carry

You keep making assertions like that with no basis. As I say, I suggest you start with the UKHSA reports.

[odysseus2000]

Hallucigenia

It seems you are pushing your pre-determined ideas irrespective of what the facts are - at a UK level, only about a quarter of 20-34 year-olds are living with their parents, and I'd suggest that the people who were catching omicron at the hedge-fund Christmas party I linked above, can probably afford to rent a flat.

And if you look at the stats, it has spread from the 20-somethings to the older generation since Christmas.

From the same reference:
Over the last two decades there has been a 46.3% increase in the number of young people aged 20 to 34 years (non-dependent children) living with their parents…
As i noted the number of non-dependent adults (20-34) has increased by 42% to as you noted 1/4. 1/4 is enough if O is as contagious as advertised to have a lot of older people infected, but either it isn’t happening or the illness is so mild that it is not thought worth bothering about. Sure it might increase but if you are going to argue that most young people don’t live with their parents and then say that the numbers are now increasing there is some flaw in that analysis.

Hallucigenia
There’s always tradeoffs - in some situations you can either be fairly confident that you only have a threat from 1 particular bug, or you have the time to send away samples to a lab to find out what they are in order to customise the treatment. In other situations you may face multiple threats, or the patient needs immediate treatment and there isn't time to get a lab to process some samples, so you just hit it with whatever you've got. Or is the real world too complicated for a physicist?

In the example I cited the clinicians took samples and then either didn’t get the tests done or ignored the results and went for the domestos kill all anti biotic mixture. It seems the real world and all its marvellous technology is too complicated for clinicians.

Hallucigenia
You have to remember that omicron is the first variant to show significant immune differences that might affect antibody treatments - and we hadn't heard of it 6 weeks ago. It's only since Christmas that the idea of tweaking treatments based on variant has really emerged - this stuff is changing fast. And whilst we don't have a huge repertoire of treatments for Covid, most of them are independent of what variant it is.

I don’t follow this at all. If O is much weaker than previous then why would clinicians not use different approaches and as far as I understand it the anti-virals are variant dependent, but if I am wrong, please correct.

[Hallucigenia]The science on boosters seems pretty consistent, eg the latest UKHSA report has hospitalisations being halved at 25 weeks after 2 jabs, whereas the vaccine effectiveness of a booster against hospitalisation is 88%.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... df#page=11


This is another weird one. At one moment you are arguing that we hadn’t heard of O 6 weeks ago and you are now linking to data that shows lack of vaccine effectiveness after 25 weeks. This means that these lack of effectiveness graphs have to be simulations or at best extrapolations, but can’t be real data unless I am missing something.


Hallucigenia
Citation needed. Actually Imperial's modelling hasn't been too far off - the media have seized on some of their extreme cases, but the UK has followed something that's looked roughly like their "plausible worst-case with restrictions" case.

There are many articles, see for example:

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/ ... -this-guy/

Hallucigenia

I'm not sure about that, but I would note that with 18k in hospital we're now putting more pressure on hospitals than during the full lockdown in November 2020, at a worse time of year for them. Something like a modified version of Tier 3 for the second half of December would have made a significant difference, with a looser allowance for Christmas Day subject to testing.

This is pure speculation, no one knows but had the lockdowns as many in the medical authorities and Sage wanted, there would have been a severe hit to the economy.

Hallucigenia

Varroa is far from gone, in fact there was new legislation to cover it only last year, the Bee Diseases and Pests Control Order 2021.

Typing as a bee keeper with a dozen hives I can tell you that we are seeing no natural varroa drop nor any drop after treatment. This compares to a few years ago when there was a large natural mite drop and massive numbers after treatments. For the moment varroa has gone away. Why is far from clear, but there are suggestions that the honey bee learned how to cleanse itself of varroa.

Hallucigenia
You keep making assertions like that with no basis. As I say, I suggest you start with the UKHSA reports.

It is upto the CMO, CSO to present the data that you refer to but they are not doing so and are instead using fear as a method to convince people to take the vaccine and boosters, statement likes 80% of people in ICU have had no vaccine and then not trying to break that down into D and O or take into account the South African data etc etc. This kind of health information by the folk at the top of the system is unbecoming of a banana republic, let alone a g7 nation. One is seeing similar across many European nations, particularly France and the situation in Australia with the effective arrest of a leading tennis player is like something out of Monte Python. Sure they have got away with the fear message for a while now, but it is no longer compelling and in the process they are undermining the science. The situation is very fluid and uncertain and for the CMO et al to keep banging on with the same tactics that were used when ignorance was high in the early stages of this viral war is absurd.

Regards,,

[MrFoolish]

A question for one and all.

Once we are on the downslope of infections, and we know the pressure is off the health service, will you continue to worry about covid or is it time to return to normal life?

[swill453]

A question for one and all.

Once we are on the downslope of infections, and we know the pressure is off the health service, will you continue to worry about covid or is it time to return to normal life?

Can you expand on the question? Or clarify it at least.

It's directed at "one and all", so presumably including yourself. By using the phrase "continue to worry" you are assuming the audience (everyone including yourself, remember) is worrying right now.

So I think it's only fair if you answer first. Will you continue to worry?

Scott.

[MrFoolish]

A question for one and all.

Once we are on the downslope of infections, and we know the pressure is off the health service, will you continue to worry about covid or is it time to return to normal life?

Can you expand on the question? Or clarify it at least.

It's directed at "one and all", so presumably including yourself. By using the phrase "continue to worry" you are assuming the audience (everyone including yourself, remember) is worrying right now.

So I think it's only fair if you answer first. Will you continue to worry?

Scott.

I don't mind answering. By "worry" I mean "be concerned about", to the extent you will act in a manner you didn't prior to covid, e.g. mask wearing and avoiding social interactions.

For myself, my current thinking is I will return to normal (within the rules) once the numbers are on the way down. Assuming there's not an unexpected turn of events, obviously. I'm fully vaccinated and from my understanding we can't avoid omicron indefinitely. Indeed, infection from omicron might have certain immunity benefits.

[odysseus2000]

Hallucigenia
A question for one and all.

Once we are on the downslope of infections, and we know the pressure is off the health service, will you continue to worry about covid or is it time to return to normal life?

Perhaps I am the only person in the class of not having my life much troubled by Covid.

Most of the stuff I do is local, one person based with most supplies coming in via ebay and some sales going in reverse. Being a small scale farm as part of my activities meant I could continue to work through the first lock down, the most amazing thing I remember is how clean the air was. When a neighbour started his tractor I could for the first time smell how the diesel fumes engulfed the area, previously I never noticed. The various folk who come to help kept their distance but that is normal as they know what their jobs are and usually don't need me and honey sales went along as normal. Turn over for local shows fell away when the local shows were cancelled, but everything survived on the reduced turnover. Meanwhile the markets stayed open and were generally very kind to me.

Since I work most of the time missing out on social events didn't bother me and in some cases was a blessing as there are some folk who can be real bores in my circle of connections and otherwise I spend most time at these events trying to change the conversation to more interesting topics.

I was due to attend an international science school in 2020 but it was cancelled which was a disappointment, but otherwise the viral war has made very little difference to me. A few visits from over seas didn't happen too, but that more bothered the potential visitor than me.

In terms of illness, in March of 2020 my breathing was so bad that 13 steps left me feeling like I ran a sprint. I managed to continue to do stable service throughout but some days I didn't manage to do anything much else. I tested for covid several times and was always negative. Various clinicians have said I probably had another bug which I could presumably have caught any time.

The nhs had delays of weeks before even a telephone conversation and I got better having bought the thickest sleeping bag I could find and sleeping warm. When I was much better various tests showed I was low on iron and b12 and I have addressed these using diet and my Apple watch now shows that my cardio fitness level is above average and slowly improving as I take more walks. So in some wild sense the illness was a blessing for me as it showed I was not eating a good diet or exercising enough but it sure did not feel like that at the time. Still for such discoveries and changes I am truly thankful.

Regards,

[Mike4]

My own thinking is that if I'm to get Omicron for certain, I'd rather get it in the Spring or Summer than in mid-Winter.

Mainly because respiratory diseases of any type seem to have more impact in winter, but also should I end up being hospitalised, I'd rather be in a hospital that is not so rammed full as they are now and competing with hundreds of other patients for the attention of only 75% of the staff.

[TUK020]

My own thinking is that if I'm to get Omicron for certain, I'd rather get it in the Spring or Summer than in mid-Winter.

Mainly because respiratory diseases of any type seem to have more impact in winter, but also should I end up being hospitalised, I'd rather be in a hospital that is not so rammed full as they are now and competing with hundreds of other patients for the attention of only 75% of the staff.

Take Vit D supplements

[staffordian]

My own thinking is that if I'm to get Omicron for certain, I'd rather get it in the Spring or Summer than in mid-Winter.

Mainly because respiratory diseases of any type seem to have more impact in winter, but also should I end up being hospitalised, I'd rather be in a hospital that is not so rammed full as they are now and competing with hundreds of other patients for the attention of only 75% of the staff.

Take Vit D supplements

I do this, 50 microgrammes per day, but doubt it will prevent me getting it, I just hope it's another weapon in the [expletive deleted], together with vaccinations, sensible (but not over the top) and suchlike to possibly reduce it's severity should I get it

Some experts seem to believe that it's now a case of when rather than if, and if that is so, then I agree with Mike4, later rather than sooner, please

[RockRabbit]

My own thinking is that if I'm to get Omicron for certain, I'd rather get it in the Spring or Summer than in mid-Winter.

Mainly because respiratory diseases of any type seem to have more impact in winter, but also should I end up being hospitalised, I'd rather be in a hospital that is not so rammed full as they are now and competing with hundreds of other patients for the attention of only 75% of the staff.

Take Vit D supplements

I've had Covid previously, am triple vaxed and have taken Vitamin D for years.

I caught Omicron (which was mild for me) within two weeks of it reaching the UK, with minimal exposure to other people. I know several people in similar situations.

[tjh290633]

A question for one and all.

Once we are on the downslope of infections, and we know the pressure is off the health service, will you continue to worry about covid or is it time to return to normal life?

I don't worry about it and am following as near to a normal life as is possible.

TJH

[BullDog]

My own thinking is that if I'm to get Omicron for certain, I'd rather get it in the Spring or Summer than in mid-Winter.

Mainly because respiratory diseases of any type seem to have more impact in winter, but also should I end up being hospitalised, I'd rather be in a hospital that is not so rammed full as they are now and competing with hundreds of other patients for the attention of only 75% of the staff.

Take Vit D supplements

I do this, 50 microgrammes per day, but doubt it will prevent me getting it, I just hope it's another weapon in the [expletive deleted], together with vaccinations, sensible (but not over the top) and suchlike to possibly reduce it's severity should I get it

Some experts seem to believe that it's now a case of when rather than if, and if that is so, then I agree with Mike4, later rather than sooner, please

I suspect that quite a few of us triple jabbed (and vitamin D just in case) may be experiencing Omicron without any really notable symptoms. During the upturn in Omicron infections, I had a sore throat and sinus discomfort but tested negative on lateral flow tests. I am not 100% convinced I didn't have mild a covid infection.

[Mike4]

My own thinking is that if I'm to get Omicron for certain, I'd rather get it in the Spring or Summer than in mid-Winter.

Mainly because respiratory diseases of any type seem to have more impact in winter, but also should I end up being hospitalised, I'd rather be in a hospital that is not so rammed full as they are now and competing with hundreds of other patients for the attention of only 75% of the staff.

Take Vit D supplements

I take 5,000 iu of D3 per day. also Vitamin K2, and zinc.

Had my Vitamin D in blood level lab-checked about a year ago and on the 5,000 iu per day, it was towards the upper end of what is considered correct. Goodness knows how low it must have been before I discovered how important it is.

[Mike4]

I suspect that quite a few of us triple jabbed (and vitamin D just in case) may be experiencing Omicron without any really notable symptoms. During the upturn in Omicron infections, I had a sore throat and sinus discomfort but tested negative on lateral flow tests. I am not 100% convinced I didn't have mild a covid infection.

Exactly the same here. I was more ill than I thought possible on Xmas day and boxing day with what seemed like an extremely bad cold and lungs full to the brim with mucous. I could barely speak. All LFTs came out negative as did a PCR at the Newbury guvvermint test site. It started, peaked then vanished all inside about 12 days when for me, a cold usually drags on for at least a month, often more.

I too think this might have been Omicron but the test results say otherwise.

[Sorcery]

I suspect that quite a few of us triple jabbed (and vitamin D just in case) may be experiencing Omicron without any really notable symptoms. During the upturn in Omicron infections, I had a sore throat and sinus discomfort but tested negative on lateral flow tests. I am not 100% convinced I didn't have mild a covid infection.

Exactly the same here. I was more ill than I thought possible on Xmas day and boxing day with what seemed like an extremely bad cold and lungs full to the brim with mucous. I could barely speak. All LFTs came out negative as did a PCR at the Newbury guvvermint test site. It started, peaked then vanished all inside about 12 days when for me, a cold usually drags on for at least a month, often more.

I too think this might have been Omicron but the test results say otherwise.

The other thing to do is smoke obviously, if it does'n't help with respiratory diseases what can? There are no receptors left in my lungs for the virus variant to latch on to.
I am quite serious about the above, we evolved a great deal from the point we started breathing in and sleeping round camp fires.

[servodude]

Why is there no facepalm emoji ?

[servodude]

I suspect that quite a few of us triple jabbed (and vitamin D just in case) may be experiencing Omicron without any really notable symptoms. During the upturn in Omicron infections, I had a sore throat and sinus discomfort but tested negative on lateral flow tests. I am not 100% convinced I didn't have mild a covid infection.

Exactly the same here. I was more ill than I thought possible on Xmas day and boxing day

Happened to a few of us over the holiday break
- but we put it down to what's been named "a Prince Andrew"
- or enjoying a 16 year old too much (1)

-sd

1: (obviously in our case it was Lagavulan - I'd forgotten how much it can hurt)

[Mike4]

I suspect that quite a few of us triple jabbed (and vitamin D just in case) may be experiencing Omicron without any really notable symptoms. During the upturn in Omicron infections, I had a sore throat and sinus discomfort but tested negative on lateral flow tests. I am not 100% convinced I didn't have mild a covid infection.

Exactly the same here. I was more ill than I thought possible on Xmas day and boxing day

Happened to a few of us over the holiday break
- but we put it down to what's been named "a Prince Andrew"
- or enjoying a 16 year old too much (1)

-sd

1: (obviously in our case it was Lagavulan - I'd forgotten how much it can hurt)

Lol.

In retrospect, a better illustration of just how ill I was over Xmas is I consumed no single malt whatsoever, nor any alcohol at all for four days, so I must have been bad!

On reflection this is odd because with a bad cold I usually run to self-medication with passable Cognac in the evening and at night, but not this time. So another indication it perhaps wasn't a 'normal' cold I had.