BEVS

Yeah.

MrsFychan

1 death already reported in UK from Omicron, nursing staff refusing to go back on to Covid wards, and who can blame them. 3 cases of Omicron in MIQ in NZ. So guessing not at all good for anyone

Clareuk

3 in MIQ NZ gees not good at all 😩
not good either with the nurses refusing to go back to the covid wards. I feel for everyone

Charismatic

Not unexpected, Omicron makes up about 20% of cases in England and Wales now.

Bloomberg has some interesting statists courtesy of South African insurance providers: They add that 70% of hospitalisations are prevented by a double shot of Pfizer. Then go on to say that while hospitalisations and deaths are low compared to previous variants there is a very low probability that if Omicron transmission where to keep accelerating for a few months it may cause a problem for healthcare capacity but this is an unlikely scenario.

Edit to add chart illustrating cases, admissions and deaths have decoupled in South Africa:

Clareuk

Posted in another thread but UK is going to be removing red list countries ( 11 of them ) back into the fold
Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe are on the list.


New Zealand will clamp down hard on the UK I think 😪

Charismatic

The question is only one of if New Zealand wants Omicron now or later. We can only delay what is inevitable, it doesn't look to me like there is any reason to do so. We already have the more deadly Delta variant.

I did hear that New Zealand put its order in for that Pfizer retroviral which is good news as well. That's good because it was one of two drugs that can substantially reduce the probability of hospitalisation and reduce deaths.

Clareuk

Hi Charismatic.

Have to say firstly I really enjoy your thoughts posts and explanations /clarifications -Thank you 🙂
Will be interesting to see which way NZ goes for sure but they do seem to just lock everything down. Short term great, long term not so good and surely not sustainable.
That being said though with ( in this case) the UK relaxing their rules it’s going to go nuts. I don’t think NZ will want the UK in would they ? (Agree inevitable omicron will get in at some stage)
Will be really interesting to see what happens come Jan when the borders open between Aus and NZ.

fantastic news about the retroviral pill 🙂👍👍

Justcol

COVID COVID blah blah stats stats theory rumours nonsense
COVID COVID blah blah stats stats theory rumours nonsense COVID COVID blah blah stats stats theory rumours nonsense COVID COVID blah blah stats stats theory rumours nonsense COVID COVID blah blah stats stats theory rumours nonsense COVID COVID blah blah stats stats theory rumours nonsense COVID COVID blah blah stats stats theory rumours nonsense COVID COVID blah blah stats stats theory rumours nonsense

For god's sake give it a rest. It's been the same crap for almost 2 years now.
Everyone is fully aware of exactly what's going on.
Start another thread instead of highjacking others. That way the the rest of us will know which one to avoid if we don't want a daily dose of virus updates ramming down our throats.

Charismatic

Actually the UK is a real outlier at the moment when compared to the EU or US. For some reason they've got really worked up about this despite no evidence of a new wave of hospitalisations either in the UK, US or South Africa. Even the head of the South African Medical Association described the UK response as "hysterical".

A few governments need to sit down with a nice cup of tea and a biscuit, review the data being published and have a think. In wanting to be seen to be "doing something" by closing borders and requiring testing they've worked themselves right up. Hopefully they will start to go the other way now and remove restrictions.

BEVS

I'd go along with that.

jarv5116

I said this to you the other day.
Its the numbers the UK government are worried about.
just say the new variant has 30% less hospitalization but its spreading 10x faster. over all your going to have a hell of alot more hospitalizations due to the sheer volume of cases.
most covid cases on the record in the UK since covid began today.

Same as you are still having 50k delta cases per day in the UK and it has plateu out for the past 4 months.
now you have the extra omicron variant on top of the plateu number of delta at 50k. so you have two endemic viruses going on it the same time.

that is why they are panicking about it.
They don't want a mess and try be ahead of it and pushing the booster vaccine asap.
there hasn't been any restrictions in the UK since May. only just started wearing masks again would say about 50% of people are wearing them.

to be honest i would take south Africa data with a pinch of bumb fluff out my arse.

Clappy

The UK government really needs something to divert attention away from themselves right at the moment. The latest crisis response might do the trick.

jarv5116

how Boris is still in a j9b after the last month's nonsense is a joke.

LegalEagleTX

Omicron is less dangerous than the common flu. You are being played.

Charismatic

I've been watching the hospitalisation numbers and deaths in the UK but there doesn't seem to be any perceptible increase since the first case was discovered three weeks ago (27/11.)

​​​In terms of New Zealand border policy messaging is also unclear. The Prime Minister said one day that they would review the data that was available in January but her Health Minister said "Flyer beware" the next day which panicked travellers and airlines. So...wait and see I suppose.