Omicron variant

[Mike4]

Of those that have died from vaccine related issues, many of those deaths were a consequence of cardiac based issues.

And how many has that been?

[Lootman]

On Dec. 10, the World Health Organisation told us no Omicron cases reported up to that date had resulted in death.

Seems like a desire to stop everything as there's a contagious cold going around.

Do we know if there has even been a hospitalisation?

[Julian]

I know you’ve been called out on this pretty robustly but I’m going to do it as well. I’m pretty sure that you have said in the past that you have been vaccinated and if my memory is correct then I think it would be safe to assume that you are not an anti-vaxer but posting stuff like this (“caused often heart related deaths in otherwise fit/relatively young individuals”) with no supporting data really does risk adding to the fetid pool of misinformation out there that is so loved and misused by the actual anti-vaxers.

To avoid being hypocritical here is something I just found re myocarditis after the Pfizer vaccine…
[ Source: https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.c ... -vaccines/ ]

I’d hardly call 39 to 47 cases per million in the age group showing the highest incidence (males aged 12 to 29) and where “most … who receive care respond well and recover” to be consistent with your comment quoted above re “caused often heart related deaths”.

I don’t claim that my data source is necessarily a complete and/or the most up-to-date and accurate summary of the data on all cardiac side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines but it is at least something more than an “apparently X” statement supported by absolutely no cited source data whatsoever.

Additionally, when assessing the incidence of adverse events for a mass vaccination program one has to look at the rate of those adverse events relative to baseline expected incidence in an unvaccinated population. Purely anecdotally I feel compelled to mention that sudden unexpected death due to cardiac events is not unheard of in the relatively young, vaccine or no vaccine. I have personally known 2 people who died of totally unexpected heart attacks in their 30s and like me I suspect many people here can recall a few stories of sportsmen (I can’t think of any sportswomen as it happens) also having cardiac events. Would that Danish footballer have died had there not been a doctor right there in the support team to give CPR for instance?

- Julian

Of those that have died from vaccine related issues, many of those deaths were a consequence of cardiac based issues.

Sigh. I have a very limited vocabulary of emoticons but if I could be bothered I’d probably post one of my head buried in my hands, or banging my head against a brick wall, or both. So your reply to a post criticising you for posting vague unsubstantiated claims with no supporting data is to post more vague unsubstantiated claims with no supporting data? Oh well. I give up.

- Julian

[Hallucigenia]

Freja Kirsebom of UKHSA has some cheery news - two jabs of Oxford-Zeneca gives a vaccine effectiveness for any kind of symptoms of...zero and two Pfizers gives at best 30-40% VE, but a Pfizer boost on top of either get you up to "70%-ish" (but confidence intervals of 41.8% to 86.0%, what they're really saying is that they don't really have enough data to be sure.


See also p21 of today's briefing :
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... ing_31.pdf
These results should be interpreted with caution due to the low numbers and the possible biases related to the populations with highest exposure to Omicron (including travellers and their close contacts) which cannot fully be accounted for.

With previous variants, vaccine effectiveness against severe disease, including hospitalisation and death, has been significantly higher than effectiveness against mild disease (that is those detected through community testing and included here). It will be a few weeks before effectiveness against severe disease with Omicron can be estimated, however based on this experience, this is likely to be substantially higher than the estimates against symptomatic disease.

[Hallucigenia]

View from a professor at Wits on what's happening in SA:

https://twitter.com/ShabirMadh/status/1 ... 4563877891

What a 3-day doubling time might imply for cases in the UK (via the FT)

[zico]

Interesting point made by a statistician was that if Omicron is doubling every 3 days, even if its hospitalisation rate is only half that of Delta, that just gives us 3 more days before the hospitalisations are at the same level compared with Delta, because there will then be twice as many infections.

[Lootman]

Interesting point made by a statistician was that if Omicron is doubling every 3 days, even if its hospitalisation rate is only half that of Delta, that just gives us 3 more days before the hospitalisations are at the same level compared with Delta, because there will then be twice as many infections.

I have not seen any published hospitalisation rate for Omicron. Have you? I thought the indications so far is that it is not that harmful and that vaccinations inhibit it from causing serious harm.

So your prognosis seems very much "worst case".

[XFool]

Interesting point made by a statistician was that if Omicron is doubling every 3 days, even if its hospitalisation rate is only half that of Delta, that just gives us 3 more days before the hospitalisations are at the same level compared with Delta, because there will then be twice as many infections.

I have not seen any published hospitalisation rate for Omicron. Have you? I thought the indications so far is that it is not that harmful and that vaccinations inhibit it from causing serious harm.

So your prognosis seems very much "worst case".

Yet that doesn't seem to square with this: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.p ... 18#p465018

Something doesn't have to be very harmful on average, for the typical person, for it to have serious consequences for the medical services if it very infectious (that word again!). Because, where the population is counted in tens of millions, it can spread rapidly to a great many people.

[Hallucigenia]

I have not seen any published hospitalisation rate for Omicron. Have you? I thought the indications so far is that it is not that harmful and that vaccinations inhibit it from causing serious harm.

As you keep being told - it's too soon to really tell, the early stages of a new infection are always bedvilled by the lumpiness of small numbers and founder effects.

But for instance, see what's happening in Gauteng, where hospital admissions have gone from 154 to 2200 within three weeks when previously they had been in slow decline; 8.8% of those in hospital are in ICU and another 7.5% are in "high care" :

https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-ind ... ov-report/

[1nvest]

On Dec. 10, the World Health Organisation told us no Omicron cases reported up to that date had resulted in death.

Seems like a desire to stop everything as there's a contagious cold going around.

Do we know if there has even been a hospitalisation?

The excuse to imprison the population, excepting MP's, will no doubt discover some figures to justify the imprisonment.

Track all your movements, activities and spending. Stay in your cell when so ordered. Yet to come is you will be vaccinated whether you like it or not, but not be able to make any claim if the vaccine causes you harm/death.

Lab rats.

[Lootman]

I have not seen any published hospitalisation rate for Omicron. Have you? I thought the indications so far is that it is not that harmful and that vaccinations inhibit it from causing serious harm.

So your prognosis seems very much "worst case".

Yet that doesn't seem to square with this: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.p ... 18#p465018

But again I was asking for actual data on UK hospitalisations directly due to Omicron, and not mere estimates, predictions or guesses.

[monabri]

The figures being bandied around yesterday (Sajid Javid) assumed 10,000 people being infected on 8th December with infections doubling every 2.5 days. So, by 8th or 9th of January EVERYONE in the UK will have caught it.



edit: If Omicron is spreading and 40,000 cases predicted by next Monday...won't there be some cases of Delta as well in areas of the UK that the big O has not yet gotten into? So, expect a case load of 80,000 on Monday.

Sometime just before the end of January 2022, EVERYONE in the World will have the new variant. Poor old Delta ..not getting a look in.

[XFool]

Yet that doesn't seem to square with this: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.p ... 18#p465018

But again I was asking for actual data on UK hospitalisations directly due to Omicron, and not mere estimates, predictions or guesses.

Looks like at this stage all you are likely to get are the estimates. Wait a few weeks and, given its infectivity, you should have plenty of data.

[AleisterCrowley]

This has probably been covered multiple times already, but I can't be bothered to read through hundreds of posts...
If the AZN vaccine is effectively useless against Omicron, have they started tweaking it?
What about the Pfizer-BioNTech ?
Is a tweaked vaccine less effective against Delta?
What's the game plan?

[Lootman]

But again I was asking for actual data on UK hospitalisations directly due to Omicron, and not mere estimates, predictions or guesses.

Looks like at this stage all you are likely to get are the estimates. Wait a few weeks and, given its infectivity, you should have plenty of data.

But absent any clear indicator that a massive threat is imminent, why would we over-react? We should be driven by demonstrable facts and not speculations or paranoia about what might possibly happen.

[XFool]

Looks like at this stage all you are likely to get are the estimates. Wait a few weeks and, given its infectivity, you should have plenty of data.

But absent any clear indicator that a massive threat is imminent, why would we over-react? We should be driven by demonstrable facts and not speculations or paranoia about what might possibly happen.

Oh dear! Surely this doesn't have to be explained yet again. Surely? Please tell be otherwise, please!

{OK. If you insist. I'll just give a one word clue: "infectious!"}

Plus: Remember man falling from Empire State building? If Empire State unavailable, the Eiffel Tower will do just as well.

[Mike4]

But absent any clear indicator that a massive threat is imminent, why would we over-react? We should be driven by demonstrable facts and not speculations or paranoia about what might possibly happen.

Remind me how well that worked out last time around....

Any effective measure looks like an overreaction, after it has the desired effect.

[Lootman]

But absent any clear indicator that a massive threat is imminent, why would we over-react? We should be driven by demonstrable facts and not speculations or paranoia about what might possibly happen.

Remind me how well that worked out last time around....

Last time? There have been several times and only one of them was serious, and that was PRE-VACCINATION.

If you are arguing to shut down the planet every time there is a new variation, after nearly two years, then all I can say is that that idea will garner almost no political support.

Data first, then panic.

[XFool]

But absent any clear indicator that a massive threat is imminent, why would we over-react? We should be driven by demonstrable facts and not speculations or paranoia about what might possibly happen.

Remind me how well that worked out last time around....

Any effective measure looks like an overreaction, after it has the desired effect.

How's this grab you: I jump out of an aircraft at 5000 ft. I have a parachute. I start falling through the air toward the ground - no problem!
I could open the parachute. OK, it has proved unnecessary so far... But, if I open the parachute then, when I get back to base, I will have to go to all the trouble of packing it up again myself. Right pain.

I've a 'better' idea, let's deploy the parachute only when I'm sure it really is absolutely necessary.

OK. That's decided, I'll only make the decision whether to deploy or not after I've reached the ground. Be in a better position then to know whether it was really necessary or not. MUCH better idea.

[XFool]

Remind me how well that worked out last time around....

Last time? There have been several times and only one of them was serious, and that was PRE-VACCINATION.

If you are arguing to shut down the planet every time there is a new variation, after nearly two years, then all I can say is that that idea will garner almost no political support.

Data first, then panic.

We have "data" - it is about its infectivity. The rest follows. Well, it does for some...

For the rest: Read my 'parachute' post. {These things are SO obvious...}

You want "politics"? Well, wait for the "politics" of newspaper headlines screaming "My gran died because she was turned away by the hospital after having a heart attack!" etc.