Omicron variant

[Lootman]

Dr John Campbell was today saying the evidence suggests an incubation period of between 2 and 4 days.

Well this variant has been around for more than that and so far we have zero hospitalisations.

Don't cork the champagne yet but if this becomes the dominant strain then we have dodged a bullet.

I'll all be over by Christmas!

No, but this is good news if you stop to think about it for more than a second.

[XFool]

Well this variant has been around for more than that and so far we have zero hospitalisations.

Don't cork the champagne yet but if this becomes the dominant strain then we have dodged a bullet.

I'll all be over by Christmas!

No, but this is good news if you stop to think about it for more than a second.

But your expectation isn't "news". At least, it isn't as far as I am concerned.

Remember that man falling from the Empire State?

[Lootman]

I'll all be over by Christmas!

No, but this is good news if you stop to think about it for more than a second.

But your expectation isn't "news".

There is currently no news that contradicts it.

[XFool]

No, but this is good news if you stop to think about it for more than a second.

But your expectation isn't "news".

There is currently no news that contradicts it.

There is currently no news that contradicts the idea that Her Maj is one of the Lizard people, AFAIK.

[9873210]

For someone to be infectious with covid because they had been exposed earlier in the day it would need an incubation period in the region of a handful of hours; this is much less than we think covid takes.

Dr John Campbell was today saying the evidence suggests an incubation period of between 2 and 4 days.

Well this variant has been around for more than that and so far we have zero hospitalisations.

Don't cork the champagne yet but if this becomes the dominant strain then we have dodged a bullet.

Incubation period is the time between exposure and first symptom. It is not the time between exposure and hospitalization, death, or full recovery. The bullet might still be in flight. Dr. Campbell keeps saying "we don't know" while you keep hearing "we know".

[9873210]

I'll all be over by Christmas!

And if it's not there'll be another Christmas along shortly.

[servodude]

Dr John Campbell was today saying the evidence suggests an incubation period of between 2 and 4 days.

Well this variant has been around for more than that and so far we have zero hospitalisations.

Don't cork the champagne yet but if this becomes the dominant strain then we have dodged a bullet.

Incubation period is the time between exposure and first symptom. It is not the time between exposure and hospitalization, death, or full recovery. The bullet might still be in flight. Dr. Campbell keeps saying "we don't know" while you keep hearing "we know".

If this proves to be sufficiently less virulent that the already observed increase in infectiousness and evasion does not result in more death, sequelae and new variants then we will indeed have dodged a bullet if it affords ongoing protection

Who wants to be first to put up their aging population as a test?

- sd

[servodude]

I'll all be over by Christmas!

And if it's not there'll be another Christmas along shortly.

July's popular for it round these parts - we all got really crap jumpers this year

[servodude]

That Fauci guy gives his take on the Ο variant here

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211207-omicron-variant-almost-certainly-not-more-severe-than-delta-fauci-tells-afp
- doesn't really tell us anything new (does that make it floccifaucinihilipilification perhaps? )

-sd

[Lootman]

That Fauci guy gives his take on the Ο variant here

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211207-omicron-variant-almost-certainly-not-more-severe-than-delta-fauci-tells-afp
- doesn't really tell us anything new (does that make it floccifaucinihilipilification perhaps? )

Nothing we hear from Fauci or elsewhere indicates this variant is harmful.

[servodude]

That Fauci guy gives his take on the Ο variant here

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211207-omicron-variant-almost-certainly-not-more-severe-than-delta-fauci-tells-afp
- doesn't really tell us anything new (does that make it floccifaucinihilipilification perhaps? )

Nothing we hear from Fauci or elsewhere indicates this variant is harmful.

Hahha
classic!

[pje16]

I'll all be over by Christmas!

over by Christmas.....which year?

[Hallucigenia]

Is it known how many are hospitalized with Omicron in the UK and how many of those and others who have tested positive but not needed hospitalisation have been fully vaccinated?

The short answer is - we don't know for certain, we just don't have the data. It's only been in existence for maybe 6-7 weeks so there will only be a handful in hospital in the UK yet. As far as we can tell, omicron behaves pretty similarly to other variants. It seems to be less likely to put you in hospital, but is probably quite a lot more transmissible, and may complete an infection cycle slightly more quickly - but not "instantly" or the same day. It does seem to break immunity a bit, but because the vaccines work so well, you've probably still got pretty good protection against severe illness at least. But we don't really know for certain on that at the moment, it'll probably take another week or so for the science to catch up.

Not much to add to what zico said on what to do - althought the rugby-SA link is not ideal, I'd just take the "normal" precautions. Presumably you've had a third jab? Obviously it's not easy in a restaurant to wear a mask (ideally N95/FFP2) when you're eating, and you're not too much in control of ventilation - but it might be worth talking to the restaurant to see what is possible in terms of either ventilation or HEPA filtration.

[Hallucigenia]

Well this variant has been around for more than that and so far we have zero hospitalisations.

Don't cork the champagne yet but if this becomes the dominant strain then we have dodged a bullet.

Citation needed - per my earlier post #462198, hospitalisations have suddenly increased rapidly in Gauteng in the last 2-3 weeks. If they are not hospitalisations with omicron, what is your explanation?

[servodude]

It's only been in existence for maybe 6-7 weeks so there will only be a handful in hospital in the UK yet.

I've been trying to do the back of a fag pack calcs on this
Given that it shows pretty easily in PCR tests... how many cases do you currently expect are about in the UK?
And how many, given vaccine coverage, would you expect to need to have before any reasonable judgement on the relative virulence could be made?
Basically, how much do you need out there to decided whether you need to take further action or not?!
-sd

[gryffron]

Even more worryingly:
We're already over halfway through the Greek alphabet. Gonna run out of letters before this thing is over.

Gryff

[servodude]

Even more worryingly:
We're already over halfway through the Greek alphabet. Gonna run out of letters before this thing is over.

Gryff

I heard it's constellations next

[Hallucigenia]

It's only been in existence for maybe 6-7 weeks so there will only be a handful in hospital in the UK yet.

I've been trying to do the back of a fag pack calcs on this
Given that it shows pretty easily in PCR tests... how many cases do you currently expect are about in the UK?
And how many, given vaccine coverage, would you expect to need to have before any reasonable judgement on the relative virulence could be made?
Basically, how much do you need out there to decided whether you need to take further action or not?!
-sd

Prof Alastair Grant has access to a non-public SPI-M datafeed that includes S-gene dropout data from the 40% of tests with S-gene primers. He says there's been 994 S-gene dropouts out of 256k tests in those labs since 20 November - ie 0.4% of the cumulative total since then, suggesting 2500 in total (although tests on travellers have probably been preferentially given to the S-gene labs?). S-gene dropouts were 2% of swabs on 4 November.

Obviously S-gene dropout is not a perfect indicator of omicron, not least because some members of the omicron lineage don't show S-gene dropout, but it's the best we have at the moment.

The really scary thing is that both the UK and SA seem to be showing a doubling time of 3 days or less, whereas the delta wave was showing a doubling time of 2 weeks. So in the time delta takes to go from 1 case to 2 cases, omicron will go from 1 case to 10+ cases, the current Rt seems to be around 3.5.

The time for action was last week.

[Julian]

Although we’re one of the best in the world the UK’s sequencing capacity is still a finite resource. Given the extremely important question right now regarding Omicron hospitalisation rates I wonder whether particular emphasis is being put on sequencing all Covid-19 hospital admissions since this variant was first discovered, or if that isn’t happening then at the very least make sure that all PCR tests used to test COVID-19-19 hospital admissions are able to detect S-gene dropout (SGTF) and then sequence those showing SGTF as a priority. I really hope this is happening.

- Julian

[XFool]

Even more worryingly:
We're already over halfway through the Greek alphabet. Gonna run out of letters before this thing is over.

I heard it's constellations next

I heard on The Now Show (R4 comedy programme) that it will be hieroglyphics next: "The new Woman Walking Sideways variety of coronovirus..."