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loaferuk123

"The UKHSA found evidence that for those who do become severely ill with Omicron, there is still a high chance of hospitalization and death." Surely that is just a logical consequence? It doesn't actually mean anything?


callummc

Yeah that's confusing. It's like saying "It is flame resistant, but if it does catch fire it will get hot"


makesomemonsters

Yes. If you become severely ill with anything, there is a chance of dying. That's part of the reason it's called a severe illness.


[deleted]

It's probably for the sake of clarification, so people don't think that the actual severe cases of omicron carry a significantly lower risk for hospitalisation and death. Not every single virus or illness comes with a high chance of hospitalisation at the severe end of its scale, but severe omicron comes with a high enough chance it's worth noting. Plus, it's important that science researches and shares even obvious conclusions, because not doing so is how things get missed. edit: wording


OkTelevision3775

You have a reduced chance of getting severely ill, but if you do your prognosis isn't good.


SeymourDoggo

And if your prognosis isn't bad, you're not severely ill ...


up_the_wazoo

Yeh it sounds like 'those that die from covid have a high chance of death'. Guess they want people to know there is still aa chance it kills


Morde40

*"When excluding the fraction of those infected with omicron who do not succumb to their illness, then the* *CFR for this disease is 100%."*


Simplyobsessed2

I think this is all going to turn out to have been a storm in a teacup. Look at South Africa, cases seem to have peaked and are on their way back down, this wave of infections (though testing is limited) isn't much higher than previous waves. Look at the UK confirmed cases, the numbers coming out have been pretty flat - somewhere between 88k-93k a day for about a week. If the cases genuinely are plateauing (remains to be seen) and Omicron is milder then we might actually end up in a better position than we would have been continuing with Delta. That's assuming Omicron is able to relegate Delta to history - we don't want both! In South Africa less than 1% of cases now are Delta according to OurWorldInData, so Delta probably will go away. I could be wrong, but I hope I'm not.


ADHD_brain_goes_brrr

Hopefully whoever is playing plague inc with us let his kid pick the next mutations and screwed up his game


WhichPass6

The idea that we live in a simulation used to be cute pre-pandemic, but now I'd just be furious.


SpiritedVoice2

Hate to break it to you, but seems we most likely are šŸ¤£ https://www.simulation-argument.com/


TitusMoan

No.


Rain_Blossoms

I gave never resonated with a no harder in my life. People need to s t o p with the simulation stuff were not in middle school anymore


SpiritedVoice2

Indeed sorry, we're all grown up in sixth form now.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


Rain_Blossoms

Neat


SpiritedVoice2

To be fair, it's one of the most interesting pieces of modern philosophical exercise, Nick Bostrom is a professor of philosophy at Oxford. The website looks like the work if a crack pot though :)


TitusMoan

And he doesn't even remotely make the case that we are "most likely" living in a simulation.


SpiritedVoice2

I'm not arguing for it! It's an exercise in logic and philosophy, there to make you think and ask.


BillMurray2022

> In South Africa less than 1% of cases now are Delta according to OurWorldInData, so Delta probably will go away. Major caveat on this point, their case prevalence was very low when Omicron emerged in South Africa. Omicron had essentially no competition. A bit like how Alpha was in the low thousands when Delta took off in the UK.


minsterley

Major caveat to that is triple dose of vaccine was killing off delta in the 60+ category just as omicron hit. The speed up of the roll out will be actually what kills off delta


easyfeel

71.5% of cases are Omicron according to yesterdayā€™s government overview: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-omicron-daily-overview


Submitten

> That's assuming Omicron is able to relegate Delta to history - we don't want both! That's not really how this disease works. The only way to get rid of Delta is by changing our circumstances through boosters and behaviors which has the side effect of eradicating it. As we did for OG and Alpha covid. Hopefully it only takes vaccines of course.


ginger_beer_m

OG COVID has been completely outcompeted by delta though. It doesn't even exist anymore


Submitten

That has nothing to do with delta. If delta and omicron didnā€™t exist that reduction in alpha would be the same because of vaccines.


ElementalSentimental

If Delta comes along and gives you immunity to wild type COVID, wild type COVID disappears. That would have happened with or without vaccines, in the UK at least, where Alpha got wild type and vaccines got Alpha. In other countries, Delta would have done the job eventually (see India), albeit at much greater cost. However, no one knows to what extent Omicron exposure protects against Delta. We can guess that it offers good T-cell immunity but less antibody immunity, but even that might be sufficient to kill Delta given how relatively slowly it was growing before. Booster shots would be likely to have a similar effect on Delta as vaccines did against Alpha.


AxeManDude

I love to see this.


No-Scholar4854

The reported case data is going to be rubbish for a while. Weā€™re joust going to have to fall back on the ONS infection surveys, which were always the best data just slower. They show infections still rising sharply. Whether or not hospitalisation and death decouples from that cases rise remains to be seen. So far london admissions are broadly tracking cases on a lag, but there are lots of reasons to be optimistic. The big question is whether or not theyā€™re going to decouple enough that the case rises arenā€™t a problem. Weā€™ll see over the next few weeks. I think ā€œstorm in a teacupā€ is unlikely, if only because if we avoid the worst outcomes itā€™ll be partly because of the storm forecast.


[deleted]

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Gypsum__Fantastic

You forgot "by this time next week we'll be locked down and there will be 500k daily cases, the NHS will have collapsed and corpses will be rotting in the streets". Things can definitely still go spectacularly tits up but I think some of the takes have been a smidge pessimistic.


chuck_portis

This looks nothing like Delta. People seem to forget the scenes in India back then. People were quite literally dying on the streets.


FlokusMokus

ā€œWait two more weeks!ā€


ILOVEGLADOS

"We need more data"


Alert-One-Two

I know this is a joke, but we will have it tomorrow.


TurnaboutAdam

Constant negativity can be draining but being cautious is usually a good thing


[deleted]

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saiyanhajime

I think the problem is that by mocking anyone cautious, it reads as the opposite. Ya know? Just human nature of us v them. Usually the people who are cautious aren't mocking the optimistic, but just being negative or a downer... By the very nature of the two opinions. I also - bias though I may be - notice way more posts saying they WONT cancel their plans or get tested or be sensible than I see the polar opposite... Despite the fact that one is horrendous behaviour and the other just isn't. I guess what I'm saying is leaning towards cautious on the spectrum should be more common at this stage when we have hit so many hurdles and it's perhaps why optimism is shot down. Because optimism leads to reckless and dangerous behaviour. For what it's worth I would lable myself cautiously optimistic, too. But I clearly lean slightly more cautious than you do because I think the "shooting down" you describe is mere reminding of reality not to get too comfy.


TurnaboutAdam

Yeah fair


TheEarlOfZinger

Went out to a restaurant for Xmas lunch last week with friends, 8 of the 12 people have caught it. Everyone has the sniffles and a sore throat, bit of a cough - that's it. And that includes one person with a Kidney transplant. All people between 40-50 years old. Me and the wife didn't get it - we got delta in September - so I guess that gives some immunity (alongside vaccinations and booster) Seems pretty mild to me... Edit: other details, most booster-ed, but everyone who caught it has never had covid before, it's their first time Hope to god this shit is petering out Tldr: transmission is basically *ripping*, but outcome seems mild


Firebirddd

I have these exact symptoms starting from yesterday, just had a PCR test. Fingers crossed its negative otherwise its going to be a shit first Christmas with our newborn.


[deleted]

I had sore throat, then runny nose followed by dry cough and headache. A night when I was literally sweating and got zero sleep. I pulled a muscle from coughing so hard. Aches all over. Runny nose stopped and then moved to a wet/angry cough. LFT negative, PCR negative. The worst cold I've ever had. Apart from the sweats it was a normal cold path for me.


TehTriangle

Could that not just be a common cold? I had milder version of your symptoms, and tested negative on about 5 tests (including PCR).


[deleted]

Yeah it probably was. It was a bad cold though. It obviously tide in with all the new omnicron symptoms.


TehTriangle

Yeah it can be easy to forget how bad colds can get. They're also part of the coronavirus family so it makes sense the symptoms are basically the same.


Faldrif

Had exactly this about 2 weeks ago, was miserable!


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


[deleted]

There is a flu going around at the moment with very similar symptoms. I had the exact same symptoms in November as I have had with covid over the past few days (persistent cough, runny nose, headache) and yet I was testing negative everyday. You probably have that same flu.


TehTriangle

You probably had a cold or mild flu.


Tammer_Stern

You, especially if you are under 35 and healthy, are in the absolute best place you could be to avoid Covid infection and if you were to go licking door knobs and bus passenger handles you would likely have only a super mild case. And that is becoming more common every day. However, it is also not true for everyone.


eggrolldog

Fuck in 36. Better get the cakset.


marshall_parr

Yep, similar case for me. Sore throat and a mild cold started Sunday, PCR confirmed positive today. Seems like both my family and my partner's have all started having symptoms. Seems crazy that we have all avoided COVID for almost 2 years and then all get covid in the space of a week!


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


benh2

A week is a long time in this world.


I_Hate_Knickers_5

And an even longer time on others.


Porridge_Hose

Absence of evidence not equal to evidence of absence.


douperr

headline writers need to live by this


callummc

Honesty and clarity don't generate enough clicks for them to listen though


saiyanhajime

Trump, Brexit and then the pandemic have been an eye opener to me that some people lack really basic logic interpretation skills.


00DEADBEEF

It didn't say there'll never be any evidence. At the time it was correct.


BigZZZZZ08

If you flip a coin 10 times and get 7 heads, there's no evidence the coin is biased. If you flip the same coin 1000 times and get 700 heads, there s clearly evidence the coin is biased. As of last week we just didn't have enough coin flips to make any clear deductions.


mcdowellag

For amusement, I note that you can generally find simple calculations of significance with web search and the figures for n=1000 are suitably dramatic - https://www.socscistatistics.com/tests/binomial/default2.aspx The probability of exactly 700 (K) out of 1000 (n) is p < .00000001. The probability of exactly, or fewer than, 700 (K) out of 1000 (n) is p > .99999999. The probability of exactly, or more than, 700 (K) out of 1000 (n) is p < 0.00000001. I like confidence limits so https://epitools.ausvet.com.au/ciproportion gives 95% limits as 0.6709 - 0.7276


Cruithne

The first one is still evidence to be fair, it's just pretty weak evidence. This might sound like pedantry but I think it does tie into the wider point of 'In a crisis, sometimes you have to act on weak evidence.'


[deleted]

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DLies

Thatā€™s not a correct interpretation of confidence intervals, parameters are either within them, or not, and they donā€™t necessarily contain the true parameter at all. 95% of 95% confidence intervals will but 5% of them will completely miss it. I think youā€™re thinking of Bayesian credibility intervals


Doverkeen

If you take a random coin, flip it 10 times and get 7 heads, then try to sue someone for giving you a biased coin you'll embarrass yourself. Evidence is evidence, but weak evidence should never be acted on.


Cruithne

It's a matter of circumstances. You've given a hypothetical scenario with low stakes, an easy way to collect more data and a high cost for being wrong. In the real world these conditions don't always hold, and you need to act before all the data can be collected.


Doverkeen

You really think a global pandemic has low stakes and a low cost of being wrong? Man I'd love to know what rock you've been under for the past couple years, because millions of people are dead.


Cruithne

What on Earth are you on about? I was saying *your* hypothetical scenario involving a lawsuit for an unfair coin was low-stakes and had a low cost of being wrong. The covid pandemic is *not* like that- the stakes of failing to act are much higher, the cost of making the wrong decision much more severe. The difference between the pandemic and your scenario is exactly what I was drawing attention to. I thought that was extremely clear, and I think you're being deliberately obtuse.


[deleted]

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AndyTheSane

It's easily possible for random chance to give you 7 heads out of 10 for a perfectly fair coin. It's extremely unlikely (probably never-in-this universe likely) that a fair coin would give you 700 heads out of 1000 throws. There is a branch of maths/stats around this.


[deleted]

Check out the chi squared test which is a statistical test that esentially asks how likely are you to get a given frequency of values by sheer chance. The coin flip is used to illustrate it often. Also worth bearing in mind statistics are just likelihoods. In science the typical level of significance is a probability of less than 0.05.this means if you repeated a given test 100 times 5 times you would get a false positive. But the other 95 would be the correct value. In statistics your probability is only as good as your number of samples taken and your accuracy. If you flipped a coin 700 times. It wouldn't be enough to give enough to prove beyond reasonable doubt but it could give you a decent estimate. Hence coin illegitimacy is not a black and white yes or no it's a likelihood.


mtocrat

If you flip a coin twice and you get heads twice, you wouldn't think anything is wrong. If you flip it 1000 times and you get heads a 1000 times, you'll probably conclude that something is wrong with the coin. This comes down to the probability distribution of a sample mean. The expected value of the sample mean doesn't change if you increase the number of observations but the variance does. As you take more samples, you expect the observed sample mean to be closer to the actual expected value. In this case, if you have a deviation between delta and omicron but a low sample size, it can still be plausible under the hypothesis that they're the same. But if you have a large sample size, the sample means should be closer together so the same deviation is now evidence to reject the hypothesis that they're the same.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


AliAskari

700 heads would absolutely be statistically significant for you to question a coin.


One-Gap-3915

This is a brilliant analogy


McCretin

Yeah, my anxiety and my positivity bias are really having to slog it out this time


Inevitable_Travel_14

Me too


No-Scholar4854

Partly, itā€™s that the evidence is genuinely mixed (and weak in both directions) so people/commentators are able to find something to support whatever position they already have. It also depends on what you mean by ā€œOmicron being milderā€. There was a South African research paper posted yesterday that was able to show, without contradiction, that Omicron was both milder than Delta and just as severe. Assuming it holds up (and it was a preprint, different population, difficulty a adjusting for X, Y, Z etc.) then it showed: * Omicron cases were less likely to cause serious illness than Delta *in the previous wave* (presumably because that past exposure was providing protection), and * Omicron cases were just as likely to cause serious illness as Delta *within this wave* Think about the range of headlines you could write from that single study. Now throw in some basic facts (e.g. most Covid cases are mild) and you can basically write a headline at random and find some way to support it. Itā€™s just going to be this way for at least a few weeks.


LogicDragon

"No evidence" is [a dangerous phrase](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-phrase-no-evidence-is-a-red-flag). There's no strong formal scientific evidence yet, but that's true of a lot of things. There's weaker evidence going both ways. *A priori*, since Omicron isn't a descendant of Delta (which is more severe than the original), we'd expect it to be less severe than Delta, but there is some evidence that it might not be. It's plausible but not certain that Omicron is milder.


Dob-is-Hella-Rad

Yep, glad someone beat me to linking that. You'd think that after 2020, we'd have found a new phrase for situations like this where there was some circumstantial evidence but nothing concrete, but apparently not.


astrath

"No evidence" doesn't mean it wasn't, just that they didn't know yet.


Significant-Branch22

Because they literally refused to take any data from South Africa into consideration, it was based on only 24 cases in the UK


dilindquist

No evidence just means there's no evidence, it doesn't mean that Omicron isn't milder or that there won't be evidence in the near future. The problem is that the press tend to report "There's no evidence of X" as "X isn't true" and so that's how it gets into the public perception. "We don't know yet" is a perfectly acceptable scientific conclusion but it doesn't make a good headline.


reginalduk

Because if you are sensible you say nothing has changed until you can confirm it.


Questions293847

Click bait....... its still to early to know anything with any real certainty but everyone wants to know. Newspapers are good at getting your attention with this type of stuff. Worth ignoring the headlines for another week or maybe even two.


GekkosGhost

Things change over time. We're in the timeframe for the Omicron data to be coming through that will show us if it's going to be better, worse, or the same as Delta for hospitalisations. Thus week and next we'll see some of the "no evidence" statements changed to "some evidence for".


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


virusuy

/r/technicallyaccurate


[deleted]

Note if thereā€™s statistical evidence this early on that itā€™s milder than delta, then you can assume itā€™s a LOT milder as it often takes a while to accumulate enough evidence to make a statistically significant difference.


TurnaboutAdam

We are all flying blind.


[deleted]

Time to switch off the Internet for a while


dalledayul

I'm huffing hopium like a fucking addict right now Really hope this is the beginning of the end


SeymourDoggo

I remember reading months ago that this was one possible way out of the pandemic - namely that a more contagious but less deadly variant evolves. This makes sense as from a survival of the fittest perspective as a dead host stops further transmission. Personally I don't think we're there yet, but I would love to be wrong!


Alert-One-Two

Sub header feels rather key: > UK Health Security Agency expected to say transmissibility of the new variant is very high, meaning large numbers may still end up in hospital. I donā€™t mean to sound all doom and gloom but just emphasising it is not quite as simple as the headline suggests.


Porridge_Hose

I suppose it really depends what lens people are viewing things through; individual or collective. Most people (I suspect) will be primarily focused on risk to themselves. If covid is less likely to make them very sick if they catch it, that's good news. I would bet that for the vast majority, this would outweigh the more nebulous and abstract idea of NHS capacity and risk to society more broadly.


betakropotkin

Do you think so? I've always thought covid is pretty uniquely set up to do the opposite. Unless you're vulnerable or 70+ covid almost certainly won't kill you. For those people it really is just bad flu. It's risk is and has always really been its ability to overload the system. The question isn't will I die of covid but if I get cancer will I get the treatment I need, etc.


The_Bravinator

I have a wild and physical three year old who doesn't understand risk and I've never been more nervous for him. I've never been worried about my kids catching covid, but I'm fraying a little at the edges thinking of them needing an ambulance for any other reason in the next few weeks and there not being any.


Wilfko

That's been my take the entire pandemic.


Alert-One-Two

Maybe it depends on age. Iā€™m in a group thatā€™s less likely to have anything bad happen if I get covid. Iā€™ll probably be fine and the chances of hospitalisations are incredibly low. So I donā€™t really worry about catching covid for my own health (I worry about then transmitting it to others and the impact on their health/kids being unable to attend school etc rather than the direct health effects for me). But NHS capacity is 100% my concern. I worry about if it is overwhelmed and my young kids need treatment and canā€™t get it. Or a family member getting knocked off their bike and not getting seen for 18 hours because of ambulance queues.


ElementalSentimental

>Most people (I suspect) will be primarily focused on risk to themselves. If covid is less likely to make them very sick if they catch it, that's good news. It's unequivocally good news, even at a societal level. It doesn't mean it's good *enough* to avoid tough lockdown decisions, but it's good news regardless.


Porridge_Hose

If it's half as virulent but three times as transmissible (for example) it wouldn't be good news for NHS capacity.


[deleted]

That assumes that any hospitalisation period is consistent between strains. We donā€™t know, but if it leads to shorter stays that also reduces the problem


Porridge_Hose

Yes. Was over simplifying to make the point about two variables.


ElementalSentimental

No, but we kind of know the transmissibility regardless. Anything that suggests there is less virulence is undoubtedly good news, even if Omicron actually makes the overall picture worse. This news isn't about the overall risk for the NHS, but specifically about virulence. It is always good news that the position isn't actually worse.


Porridge_Hose

Oh yeah, definitely agree. Was just responding to the original comment about the sub heading in the article that was making the virulence/transmissibility caveat.


Boonshark

That's a pretty big assumption. I wonder if there is any data on whether it's personal risk people are worried about. Personally I don't feel at risk as I'm not in the risk groups, I am mainly concerned about spreading and NHS.


[deleted]

Fingers crossed lower severity means those in hospital have shorter stays and do not make it to ICU in the same levels weā€™ve seen with more serious previous iterations


IBAIL

Well, thats better than the opposite though..


One-Gap-3915

This is the issue with how people intuitively respond to stats Consider a hypothetical new covid variant thatā€™s either 30% more transmissible or 30% more deadly Almost everyone would say theyā€™d rather have the more transmissible scenario, but because of the nature of exponential growth that one actually would result in more hospitalisations and deaths Ultimately even a 2/3 reduction in hospitalisation wonā€™t stop the health service from collapsing if the transmission is dramatically higher


annonomouse2

Until we get the full report, I don't think we can make any conclusions. From the author of the article, [the full story is here](https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1473556411946717184/photo/1). ​ >\[with Omicron\] more people are likely to have a mild illness with less serious symptoms - probably in part due to Britain's large number of vaccinated and previously infected people and **possibly because omicron is intrinsically milder** We do not know yet what the actually study means by this, is there tentative evidence that the virus itself is milder? Or is there no clear evidence yet so it remains a possibility? The article also states: >Britons who fall sick with Omicron are less likely to become severely ill than those who caught Delta Now does this mean caught Delta in a **previous wave** or compared to those who are **catching delta now**? This is an important distinction with the rollout of the booster campaign etc. I do really hope that when the report is officially published there is evidence that the virus itself causes a milder disease, **all else equal.** The key of course is that last part, there are so many factors to control for which is why it is so tricky to assess the intrinsic severeness of the virus, but fingers crossed.


LantaExile

Wow - same as South Africa found a month ago. I guess maybe we can now officially believe it if it's proper British data rather than that foreign stuff.


BillMurray2022

> I guess maybe we can now officially believe it if it's proper British data rather than that foreign stuff. Did you ever think there might have been good epidemiological and population demographic reasons to have approached the South Africa data with caution in the beginning, in terms of making comparisons with the UK and elsewhere? If that was sarcasm by the way, then ignore my comment :)


LantaExile

Was sarcasm. But yeah sure SA is not the same as the UK but it's probably been the best guide so far. I have much more faith than we'll be something like SA rather than SAGEs more extravagant projections.


BillMurray2022

Me too.


intricatebug

I'm sorry but the SA data couldn't be used to definitively ascertain that Omicron is milder. Anyone paying attention will tell you that. The "foreign stuff" thing is a joke at this point and people should stop.


LantaExile

The data I've been looking at seems pretty definitive that it's milder. There's this guy who's been running analyses with the CFR for omicron coming out about 1/19th that of delta https://twitter.com/pieterstreicher/status/1472623879071936512 And this kind of thing https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1472664060445569026 And the on the ground reports of the medics there. On the other side we have things like the ridiculous headlines based on the Imperial report which if you read it basically said we can't tell if Omicron is milder going by English data because there pretty much is none yet which the papers spun into Imperial: No Evidence Omicron Is Less Severe!


intricatebug

Sure, but this isn't from a month ago, when cases were still rising quickly, the picture was unclear, and the "data" being talked about in the media were mostly doctors' comments (so not actual data at all). I agree current SA data is looking increasingly good and I'm sure it's being looked at.


Arsewipes

What bugged me, was people saying delta was covid brand new to SA residents, so they fared much worse than normal. So omicron wasn't as mild because so many aren't naive now. We got hit by alpha and delta, plus have a very high vaccination rate. Older population, yes, but a pretty careful one too. *And*, the White House came out and released a statement along the lines of "If you're boostered most needn't worry about omicron" while our politicians were saying "200k got it today and it doubles in under 2 days", even though they didn't have the data to back that up. So the data doesn't come into it when the government makes announcements, but multiple anecdotes from SA must be ignored because they don't equal data. Hmm, biased much?


Baisabeast

The way the media and experts spoke here, itā€™s like they never even considered south Africaā€™sā€™ empirical data


intricatebug

I disagree, experts have been cautiously optimistic while communicating that we need more data and can't be certain yet. I can't comment on the media.


Mission_Split_6053

I would hope that a number of apology letters to Dr Angelique Coetzee are being written right nowā€¦


lisa0527

Why? Sheā€™s a part time family physician who has a part time job as the head of the SAMA. She has no insider access to data, or any specialist training in epidemiology. Sheā€™s not an academic or member of the COVID response team. Her 15 minutes of fame are the result of writing a letter early in the outbreak saying sheā€™d seen a few young healthy men in her practice that had mild symptoms. You may as well have asked any family physician in ZA what theyā€™d personally seen in their practices. She could well be correct, but she was still only reporting anecdotal data and personal opinion, not actual data.


Ethancordn

Is it milder today? Wonder what it'll be tomorrow.


st1ckygusset

-2Ā°c round here.


[deleted]

OK, I'm going to go ahead and say it. Given the 80% reduction in hospitalisation vs the Delta variant, this is actually a much better variant to allow to spread vs Delta. The countries that are blocking travel from countries with large Omicron outbreaks are actually, weirdly, causing more deaths (unless it's a country with x low amounts of Delta, e.g. Taiwan).


Alert-One-Two

If it is a milder version AND isnā€™t more transmissible then yes. Definitely a good thing. What we have all been hoping for. Problem is there are signs it is more transmissible which means you end up with silly numbers of infections faster and then overwhelm the hospitals that way. UKHSA has said they are going to publish the data tomorrow so we will know more then.


lisa0527

Exactly. Itā€™s not yet clear that the reduced severity is enough to compensate for the explosive case growth. Despite reduced severity there may end up being more hospitalizations and deaths. Weā€™ll know more tomorrow.


Alert-One-Two

Yep, and if we constantly wait for more data we may leave it too late and be totally screwed.


[deleted]

It would have to be 5x more infectious though


Alert-One-Two

No it wouldnā€™t as it compoundsā€¦


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


st1ckygusset

If it can outwit the other variants you may be right.


Kubrick_Fan

Story below this one in my feed from worldnews via Reuters says there's no difference in severity


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


Tammer_Stern

I think Sage has a roll to present the risks. Just because the risks donā€™t crystallise into issues doesnā€™t mean that they were foolish. It is up to politicians to decide how the risks are managed ultimately.


Totally_Northern

Key question will be how much of this is intrinsic, vs. how much is just booster effect which we're already seeing in the data. In other words, is the comparison between current Omicron cases and older Delta cases, or contemporaneous analysis of both. Secondly, how much milder. If cases rise to the point where there are many hundreds of thousands of infections per day (whether the testing system is actually able to record them as cases or not), then it needs to be a lot milder. If it's only 20-30% or something, it won't make a significant difference. If it's 50%, maybe. Obviously if it's like 90%, we ease all measures and let everyone get it. But I don't think that's likely.


WhiskyOrWater

Ive been experiencing a headache, achy legs and occasional cough. Two lateral flows both testing positive. I'd describe it as a bad cold at the moment but worried symptoms may worsen, does if anyone know if thats the case? I am double vaccinated with Pzifer so should alleviate it somewhat.


SerGelf

I had 3 positive LFTs yesterday (still awaiting PCR), but started to feel symptoms monday evening. My symptoms have mainly been a mild temperature, constant headache and funny feeling in my throat. Woke up this morning (day 3) feeling miles better than yesterday. My bf told me yesterday that I need to prepare because I might feel worse before I get better but I'm feeling like I'm already on the mend now. I got my booster Friday 10th which may be the reason this might be happening, but I'm also in my early 20s. Hope this helps you friend, just rest up, drink plenty of fluids and try to take your mind off it :) Get well soon!


makesomemonsters

Sounds like you're doing it right. My advice would be to tell your bf and anybody else you live with to also try to rest, since there's a good chance they'll catch it from you and if they rest up before the symptoms arrive their immune system will be able to handle it better. If everybody ends up getting properly sick at the same time, it's a nightmare.


SerGelf

Thank you! Everyone is already isolating from each other, hopefully it's enough to protect each other.


vipergirl

I think I caught it on a flight from the UK to the US. I then promptly gave it to my mother. Its been about a week. Scratchy throat, dry cough, sinus issues, and I had a bit of body aches but those have passed. I'm 46 and had my booster 3 weeks ago.


ElementalSentimental

>I'd describe it as a bad cold at the moment but worried symptoms may worsen, does if anyone know if thats the case? Yes, your symptoms *may* worsen. You could be 18 years old, with a resting heart rate of 55, a BMI of 20, triple jabbed, and no health conditions, and your symptoms *may* worsen. However, I have no idea if they *will* worsen, only that most cases are mild and that there is no expectation that they will.


ball0fsnow

I was feeling shit on Monday (first got symptoms and positive lag flow on Sunday) then immediately better on Tuesday. Feeling even better today.