Omicron variant

[dealtn]

Over 78,000 new cases today, but of those only 4,000 are Omicron. Is there a wider issue than Omicron?

How do they know only 4,000 are Omicron?

[XFool]

Over 78,000 new cases today, but of those only 4,000 are Omicron. Is there a wider issue than Omicron?

How do they know only 4,000 are Omicron?

PCR tests? Plus, possibly, a statistical projection?

Or, to put it another way, I don't know.

[Hallucigenia]

Over 78,000 new cases today, but of those only 4,000 are Omicron. Is there a wider issue than Omicron?

Gvoernment encouraging Christmas parties :
https://www.joe.co.uk/news/hedge-fund-h ... vid-306311

In other news, we're starting to see some lab work on how omicron works. It's very early days but it seems to grow 70x better in bronchus tissue and 10x worse in lung tissue. Nothing in vivo yet, but that would suggest a continuation of how delta got better at transmitting, you get a lot more virus particules in the upper respiratory tract :

https://twitter.com/mugecevik/status/14 ... 6999137281

[swill453]

Over 78,000 new cases today, but of those only 4,000 are Omicron. Is there a wider issue than Omicron?

How do they know only 4,000 are Omicron?

Seems like the S-gene dropout measurement lags the headline positive measurement by a couple of days - the briefing today showed 5000 Omicron 2 days ago and only provisional numbers since, that are expected to rise.

Omicron in London is already about 50% of all daily cases, and rising.

Scott.

[XFool]

In other news, we're starting to see some lab work on how omicron works. It's very early days but it seems to grow 70x better in bronchus tissue and 10x worse in lung tissue. Nothing in vivo yet, but that would suggest a continuation of how delta got better at transmitting, you get a lot more virus particules in the upper respiratory tract :

https://twitter.com/mugecevik/status/14 ... 6999137281

A day or so ago I had very mild symptoms of some chest congestion and coughing. Little more than a passing slight sore throat and, mainly, chesty wheeziness. The sort of thing I'd hardly even bother about normally. Who knows?

[Julian]

How do they know only 4,000 are Omicron?

Seems like the S-gene dropout measurement lags the headline positive measurement by a couple of days - the briefing today showed 5000 Omicron 2 days ago and only provisional numbers since, that are expected to rise.

Omicron in London is already about 50% of all daily cases, and rising.

Scott.

S-gene dropout isn’t enough to definitely confirm Omicron though, only a hint albeit a strong one that it might be Omicron. The only way to be 100% sure is Omicron is to sequence it so I wonder if those 4,000 are fully sequenced and if yes then they presumably lag even more than the PCR tests.

Does anyone know the turnaround time on sequencing? I assume that a sample is only sent for sequencing once it’s been found positive via PCR otherwise it would be a waste of sequencing capacity to be sending those labs samples with nothing there to sequence so with a PCR delay first then a sequencing delay that must surely mean that positively confirmed Omicron numbers are looking quite a few days and maybe even over a week back into the past?

- Julian

[MrFoolish]

South African medics keep saying Omicron only produces mild symptoms and don't seem concerned about it. Any reason not to believe them?

[Bouleversee]

[quote="MrFoolish"]South African medics keep saying Omicron only produces mild symptoms and don't seem concerned about it. Any reason not to believe them?[/quote

]Possible higher Vit D blood levels? Just a thought... i do think we need to wait and see what our own stats reveal before jumping to conclusions.

[MrFoolish]

Possible higher Vit D blood levels? Just a thought... i do think we need to wait and see what our own stats reveal before jumping to conclusions.

There must be plenty of housebound people with no better levels of Vit D than people in the UK. Given they are not dropping like flies, I don't really buy that as a differentiating factor.

[XFool]

Possible higher Vit D blood levels? Just a thought... i do think we need to wait and see what our own stats reveal before jumping to conclusions.

There must be plenty of housebound people with no better levels of Vit D than people in the UK. Given they are not dropping like flies, I don't really buy that as a differentiating factor.

Demographics?

But again... at this point we still really don't know how things are going to evolve in the UK. Mainly because they have not yet had time to fully evolve.

[MrFoolish]

There must be plenty of housebound people with no better levels of Vit D than people in the UK. Given they are not dropping like flies, I don't really buy that as a differentiating factor.

Demographics?

But again... at this point we still really don't know how things are going to evolve in the UK. Mainly because they have not yet had time to fully evolve.

But no parts of the SA demographic are becoming seriously ill, so far as I know. Why would the UK be different? We are not a different species. I would assume the same outcomes until the evidence suggests otherwise.

[Hallucigenia]

But no parts of the SA demographic are becoming seriously ill, so far as I know. Why would the UK be different? We are not a different species. I would assume the same outcomes until the evidence suggests otherwise.

You've got to be careful of anecdote in general, and anecdote in the media in particular, when you don't know what the agendas are.

And there are all sorts of differences - sunlight-vitD, and in particular age, the median age in the UK is 50% greater than SA. And as yet omicron seems to be really skewed towards 20-somethings at the moment, we'll have to see how it goes into older people but there's no reason at the moment to suppose it won't.

Looking at the official data for Gauteng, they've seen Covid hospitalisations go up 18x in 4 weeks, and around 8% of those in hospital are in ICU.
https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-ind ... ov-report/

And in London, Covid hospitalisations have doubled since 22 November.

We are not a different species, indeed.

[oldapple]

I'm not sure if anyone has referenced Dr John Campbell who has been posting daily on YouTube. I'm sceptical of TV media coverage and scaremongering, but believe this highly respected doctor presents relevant and detailed data in a balanced way with no political or big pharma agenda. He too suggests this new variant might be 'a good thing' in that whilst it appears (so far) to be a milder virus, it'll help our bodies to create our own antibodies. He has a very interesting point to make on HOW vaccines should be administered too - I know personally of two people who suffered catastrophic clots following vaccine administrations and I wonder if he's got the answer here.

https://youtu.be/dqx_0scwiRk

[MrFoolish]

And in London, Covid hospitalisations have doubled since 22 November.

I doubt you are suggesting this is because of the symptoms of Omicron?

[Bouleversee]

I'm not sure if anyone has referenced Dr John Campbell who has been posting daily on YouTube. I'm sceptical of TV media coverage and scaremongering, but believe this highly respected doctor presents relevant and detailed data in a balanced way with no political or big pharma agenda. He too suggests this new variant might be 'a good thing' in that whilst it appears (so far) to be a milder virus, it'll help our bodies to create our own antibodies. He has a very interesting point to make on HOW vaccines should be administered too - I know personally of two people who suffered catastrophic clots following vaccine administrations and I wonder if he's got the answer here.

https://youtu.be/dqx_0scwiRk

Thanks for the reminder. I'd forgotten that he advised this when all this vaccination started. Makes a lot of sense, unless someone else medically qualified knows better.

[jfgw]

And in London, Covid hospitalisations have doubled since 22 November.

They have only risen 56% since 24th November, however.

If you choose your stats carefully...

They are going up, though.


Julian F. G. W.

[servodude]

But no parts of the SA demographic are becoming seriously ill, so far as I know. Why would the UK be different? We are not a different species. I would assume the same outcomes until the evidence suggests otherwise.

You've got to be careful of anecdote in general, and anecdote in the media in particular, when you don't know what the agendas are.

And there are all sorts of differences - sunlight-vitD, and in particular age, the median age in the UK is 50% greater than SA. And as yet omicron seems to be really skewed towards 20-somethings at the moment, we'll have to see how it goes into older people but there's no reason at the moment to suppose it won't.

Looking at the official data for Gauteng, they've seen Covid hospitalisations go up 18x in 4 weeks, and around 8% of those in hospital are in ICU.
https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-ind ... ov-report/

And in London, Covid hospitalisations have doubled since 22 November.

We are not a different species, indeed.

The age profile is particularly key in understanding just what we don't know at the moment.

There was an awful lot of energy expended in "first world" places at the start of this pandemic pointing out that it was "only killing people that would have died anyway".
Now we know that was never true, but it had a plausable ring to it (if you simply looked at "their" death records) because those countries went in to this with a much higher proportion of elderly people than other places and they dominated the data.
With "wild" covid your risk of dying doubled with every ~7years of life; and if we know anything it's that some people don't grok geometric relationships

Now we find ourselves in this stage of the pandemic where similar (or the same ) commentators are pointing to Africa and going "there's minimal death from this - it's all good!". That is, at best, a specious claim.
There's a good chance that this thing came from Botswana - the median age there is 24, life expectancy is 69 years (which is further in this regards than SA from the UK)
It's like me claiming malaria is perfectly safe because no-one dies of it in Scotland
- and if we know another thing it's that some people are very attached to their undistributed middles

- sd

[Lootman]

You've got to be careful of anecdote in general, and anecdote in the media in particular, when you don't know what the agendas are.

And there are all sorts of differences - sunlight-vitD, and in particular age, the median age in the UK is 50% greater than SA. And as yet omicron seems to be really skewed towards 20-somethings at the moment, we'll have to see how it goes into older people but there's no reason at the moment to suppose it won't.

Looking at the official data for Gauteng, they've seen Covid hospitalisations go up 18x in 4 weeks, and around 8% of those in hospital are in ICU.
https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-ind ... ov-report/

And in London, Covid hospitalisations have doubled since 22 November.

We are not a different species, indeed.

The age profile is particularly key in understanding just what we don't know at the moment.

There was an awful lot of energy expended in "first world" places at the start of this pandemic pointing out that it was "only killing people that would have died anyway".
Now we know that was never true, but it had a plausable ring to it (if you simply looked at "their" death records) because those countries went in to this with a much higher proportion of elderly people than other places and they dominated the data.
With "wild" covid your risk of dying doubled with every ~7years of life; and if we know anything it's that some people don't grok geometric relationships

Now we find ourselves in this stage of the pandemic where similar (or the same ) commentators are pointing to Africa and going "there's minimal death from this - it's all good!". That is, at best, a specious claim.
There's a good chance that this thing came from Botswana - the median age there is 24, life expectancy is 69 years (which is further in this regards than SA from the UK)
It's like me claiming malaria is perfectly safe because no-one dies of it in Scotland
- and if we know another thing it's that some people are very attached to their undistributed middles

Yes but South Africa is also saying that serious illness is down 29% with this variant over the previous one. And that is comparing populations of identical ages.

Now that might be partly due to more of that population having being vaccinated. But then who cares why the rate of serious illness is going down as long as it is going down?

[MrFoolish]

There's a good chance that this thing came from Botswana - the median age there is 24, life expectancy is 69 years (which is further in this regards than SA from the UK)
It's like me claiming malaria is perfectly safe because no-one dies of it in Scotland
- and if we know another thing it's that some people are very attached to their undistributed middles

- sd

So what if it came from Botswana? It has zero relevance to the (suggested) lack of serious consequences in South Africa.

[servodude]

The age profile is particularly key in understanding just what we don't know at the moment.

There was an awful lot of energy expended in "first world" places at the start of this pandemic pointing out that it was "only killing people that would have died anyway".
Now we know that was never true, but it had a plausable ring to it (if you simply looked at "their" death records) because those countries went in to this with a much higher proportion of elderly people than other places and they dominated the data.
With "wild" covid your risk of dying doubled with every ~7years of life; and if we know anything it's that some people don't grok geometric relationships

Now we find ourselves in this stage of the pandemic where similar (or the same ) commentators are pointing to Africa and going "there's minimal death from this - it's all good!". That is, at best, a specious claim.
There's a good chance that this thing came from Botswana - the median age there is 24, life expectancy is 69 years (which is further in this regards than SA from the UK)
It's like me claiming malaria is perfectly safe because no-one dies of it in Scotland
- and if we know another thing it's that some people are very attached to their undistributed middles

Yes but South Africa is also saying that serious illness is down 29% with this variant over the previous one. And that is comparing populations of identical ages.

Now that might be partly due to more of that population having being vaccinated. But then who cares why the rate of serious illness is going down as long as it is going down?

In gross terms yes that is great

It means that where you would have 1000 severly sick cases for a number of infections you now only have 710 - that is truely a great thing

The problem is that the number of infections we can expect at any one time looks to be about 20 times higher (for current vaccination coverage and social activity)

so where you were dealing with X severely sick cases at any one time you now have (0.71 * X) * 20 or ~14 times as many ( the Gauteng data admissions recorded 18 times)
- it's the incapability to cope with that surge at a practical level that makes this "less severe" variant a big concern

but yes the reduction in severity looks to be very welcome
- we just shouldn't consider that in isolation

- sd