Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

move somewhere that has fewer

I believe Pitcairn remains Covid free

No, have you?

The mild thing seems very contextual, it's less severe than delta but equally or more severe than alpha was the last analysis I read

Surely we just need to be saying that it appears milder on an individual level. If you yourself catch it, you're less likely to get very ill
On a population level, if it's half as effective at making people seriously ill or die but double the amount of people catch it, it's not any milder.

Shame about the rape and incest epidemic though.

I’ve now realised this div is some sort of troll and can’t believe I’ve engaged.

That's allegedly in the past now. Just an ageing and shrinking population. I assume the UK government doesn't want it to become uninhabited as that would affect some territorial claim or something?

Not sure, but my wife dropped by the Gendarmarie to drop off the children’s negative tests and report our results.

They are closed between 12-2pm for lunch. lol

Problem being you/ we are part of the population

In a real world population in SA deaths seem to have peaked at 10% of the delta wave and 25% of the alpha wave.

I’ve now realised this div is some sort of troll and can’t believe I’ve engaged.

Yep, they've been in my ignore list for ages now. Recommended.

No, have you

About 2,500 admissions per day in addition to any Delta admissions.

The mild thing seems very contextual, it's less severe than delta but equally or more severe than alpha was the last analysis I read

And the added confusion comes from the fact Omicron appears to be very close to as severe as Delta in the immune naive, thankfully a small cohort for us but a bit of a worry for large tracts of the world.

Edit: Although a couple of recent preprints have suggested that it might be more significantly less severe in immune naive people than Delta, but at the moment the weight of the early evidence is that its quite similar.

Can you share your workings or summarise them?

Just as and aside, I think a good faith way to have engaged would have been to share the data rather than asking a pointed question.

I’m not claiming any special insight - just looking at some of the available data and sharing my lay person’s view.

I value your contributions and data you share. I also think that you have been biased towards pessimism since the advent of omicron, but I am sure you think I am biased towards optimism.

0.6 - 1 % severity compared to delta is the thinking at UKHSA,https://twitter.com/kallmemeg

I think says this.

There have been nearly a million new cases in the week running up to Christmas. People isolating and not going to work = things closing.

Nightclub openings. Mixing.
Hopefully less severity in the young. But oh. Wait. Which population groups have low vaccine uptake?
https://www.local.gov.uk/our-support/coronavirus-information-councils/covid-19-service-information/covid-19-vaccinations/behavioural-insights/resources/research

If you can be optimistic about all of this, I'm impressed.

Also impressive
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/14/sunak-warns-over-multi-billion-cost-of-covid-booster-programme

I value your contributions and data you share. I also think that you have been biased towards pessimism since the advent of omicron, but I am sure you think I am biased towards optimism.

I wouldn't say I'm being pessimistic, I'm just not willing to accept assumptions as reasons to be positive.

I was using a case hospitilisation rate of 1.8%, which is roughly in the middle of SA and Denmark. Important caveat is that we still don't have much data on what Omicron does to older folk as the wave has mostly stayed in younger people until now.

We had the first Omicron death in our social group a few days back. Husband of a friend. 58 years old, he had early onset parkinsons.

Given the variance in testing between the three countries, I would think case hospitalisation rate is fairly meaningless.

And I would say you are making negative assumptions and tuning out any more positive data because it doesn’t fit with your bias.

Given the variance in testing between the three countries, I would think case hospitalisation rate is fairly meaningless.

I agree, especially as Uk and Danish test networks have been overwhelmed in the context of reporting quickly enough for useful test and trace.

And I would say you are making negative assumptions and tuning out any more positive data because it doesn’t fit with your bias.

To be fair, until recently I have been working with a panel of epidemiologists, doctors and virologists to use neural networks to forecast Omicron in various US states...I appreciate that I might seem pessimistic, but I don't think I'm tuning out positive data. The specialists I worked with were desperate for positive data. Other than currently low ventilation figures, there isnt too much to be positive about.

So what is happening in South Africa?

There was someone on the UK news today warning against reading too much into the hospitalisation rates as these include both the people in hospital because of covid and people in hospital who happen to have covid. The latter being in hospital for other reasons, being asymptomatic and largely unaware they had covid until the hospital admissions tests. The numbers in hospital will always go up at least in line with infection rates in the community if you assume people who happen to have covid but are unaware of the illness also do normal hospitalising things like break a leg or have other medical conditions.
They went in to say that this does create a disproportionate burden though as it means areas such as renal wards need to have separate sections with all the infection control measures you’d expect for patients who also happen to have covid but are not in hospital because of covid.

The head of NHS providers said yesterday that various trusts are reporting mostly incidental Covid cases. This is good news. Still too early to know if the NHS will cope though because as you say, there is a burden attached to these cases.

The main reason why epidemiologists aren't celebrating this yet is that we don't know what Omicron does to older populations yet. Fingers crossed its mild for them too.

In other news, my colleague who has been in hospital in Zimbabwe with kidney failure, non Covid pneumonia, and eventually Covid, has turned a corner after a dicey few days. Seems to be making a good recovery...thank fuck. Not everybody in his kidney ward has been so lucky.

Edit: The assumption is that he had Omicron although they don't know for sure.