The 9am figures not disclosed yet?
- Thread starter bear66
- Start date
Borotommo
Well-known member
This is something we desperately need to know, but the answer seems to be, “not yet”.
I think the problem remains that there hasn’t yet been a full incubation period to know the severity of disease brought by this variant to both vaccinated and unvaccinated infectees. Early signals are promising, though from what I’ve read (and I’m hunting this info daily).
Decent_Left
Well-known member
The lag is too great just yet I reckon EG. Give it time though
Andy_W
Well-known member
Thanks Billy!
Not looking great for our cases at the the minute, but there is a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel, as far as Delta is concerned.
The light at the end of the tunnel: Growth in 5-9 and 10-14 seems to have peaked, on its own, thankfully, and it's been our problem for a while.
The problem is, there's another tunnel coming after this one. It's kicking off with 20-24 which is one of our low vaccination/ high infection groups, and is similar to how Omicron kicked off in SA.
Would have been interesting to see how Delta would have played out, but it's now going to get side-lined by Omicron, so we'll likely never know.
Andy_W
Well-known member
Not really, not in SA, but most of the cases are young, and they've nearly all had Delta or other strains before, so we wouldn't expect that anyway, plus the lag is massive when cases rise so fast.
It's not been means tested with older people, against vax/ unvaxed and without the lag yet, so still some learning to be done.
Laughing
Well-known member
The next wave is going to be very interesting in terms of how deadly omicron is and how well vaccinations work against it. We are on a knife edge at the minute and omicron could make things better, if it becomes dominant, or worse, if it turns out to be even if a little less deadly but much more infectious..
I really didn't think we would be living with this for 2 years. I genuinely thought by this winter we would be well and truly coming out the other side.
Andy_W
Well-known member
I think this high sustained Delta for ages and then Omicron taking over end of December/ Jan is going to effectively force us out of it, but it could get really messy for the NHS for a short period, it's hard to know what the cost will be, but there's little chance of stopping it.
The good thing is we've got loads of vax and prev infection coverage, and loads of hybrid immunity too, probably more than just about any country in the world (through good vax, and poor controls). This might not help much against new infection of Omicron, but it should really help reduce the hospitalisations/ severity.
The issue is, if cases go 10x (for a short time) and hospitalisations halve what we're converting now, we're still going to be on ~3000 hospitalisations per day, albeit short lived and hopefully a short duration stay for those that need hospital care. It's the old saying that a small percent of a massive number, is still a very large number.
A lot of people (modelers) think if cases got really out of hand that there would be that may isolating, and taking their own precautions that it could be self limiting, to maybe 2-5x of Delta. It might not even escape as much for us, hard to say as it's not yet been really tested in a country like ours and SA is waaay different.
Lots of talk overnight about how protection from two jabs is quite compromised, as far as infection goes, but there seems very little effect on sever disease and hospitalisations. It's not so much that Omicron is weaker, just that practically everyone still has a cracking defence against hospitalisation. If Omicron had came first, we would have been totally screwed, and this could be a big problem for countries with low vax and or infection, effectively they could get all of their waves at once.
Laughing
Well-known member
I do like your optimism and largely share your viewpoint. The one thing that I view differently to you is the cyclic nature of the virus. Even with just delta we have seen peaks and troughs often for no real reason. It's this that tempers my optimism.
Hopefully come spring we will have a dominant strain that's more akin to a bout of flu.
Andy_W
Well-known member
I think a lot of the cycles are to do with it running through age groups at different times, and then different waning and booster effects. There's no doubt a small amount of seasonality too, especially with the earlier waves, but as each new more transmissible strain has came, this has totally negated most of the seasonality for the swings. The seasonality will still have a big effect on how quick things grow and recede though, which is why Omicron is bad timing for us.
I can see us having a quiet January, activity wise.
This new strain from early calculations seems about as deadly as flu (after vax and previous infection protection), the issue is the transmissibility is off the scale compared to flu, so it comes all at once which is a lot harder for healthcare to manage.
I can see us having a quiet January, activity wise.
This new strain from early calculations seems about as deadly as flu (after vax and previous infection protection), the issue is the transmissibility is off the scale compared to flu, so it comes all at once which is a lot harder for healthcare to manage.
Laughing
Well-known member
Transmittability is the real danger. Get back to the soothing messaging Andy.
Andy_W
Well-known member
This thread helps:
And in particular this post:
https://twitter.com/DiseaseEcology/status/1468520484933275650
Looking like much more transmissible (bad news)
Brings down VE for hospitalisation in double vaxx by 10-14% (bad news, but could have been a hell of a lot worse)
Booster should overcome that VE hospitalisation loss (very good news, for us)
This could get very bad, very quickly, for those with less vaccines and less previous infection from the previous variants.
VE is based on 5 months on from having a second dose though (I think), so obv a lot of waning in there. Someone who has just had their second dose should still be quite well covered if they get Omicron soon after their second jab, or if they've already been infected previous.
Timing of 1st and 2nd jabs for those who are going to get hit with big waves is going to be key for a lot of the less developed countries.
Laughing
Well-known member
I heard Hancock this morning talking about a paper that was published in SA that he was very concerned about. Not read it yet, nor even looked at it, I am supposed to be working, but too much going on today to concentrate.
Anywhoo have you read the report that Hancock was alluding to? A link would be great, if you have one.
Andy_W
Well-known member
That twitter summarises three reports (and links to them), and one of those is probably what Hancock was on about.
There's loads of people losing their minds because "Pfizer is 40x less effective", but the reports don't mean it anywhere near how some of the public are perceiving it. Hancock also won't understand it 10% as much as those summarising the reports etc. Some big names have been sharing the summary too.
Laughing
Well-known member
I'll look at the twitter thread later today, cheers. Hancock mentioned the 40x less effective this morning on GMB.
Andy_W
Well-known member
He's silly to do that on there, it's effectively scaremongering (for the UK), as 99% won't understand what it means. It might drive people away from vaccines and boosters as they might see that as reducing effectiveness from 98% to 18%, if they assume that's about deaths, and can do the maths on 98% - (40x 2%).
How I've interpreted it (basically buy listening to others who sound like they know what they're on about):
In reality, it's only on antibodies, for infection only, and doesn't factor for T-Cells and other protections. Also it was based on a small number of people double jabbed 5 months ago, in a location with expected worse immune systems. In reality, like I mentioned above it seems to drop the chance of hospitalisation by only around 10%, but we know a booster (or a delta infection) should easily overcome this. It also drops the chance of symptomatic infection by ~50%, but again this could be overcome by boosters and other infection.
It's not easy to understand the whole thread, and I'm not claiming I understand it fully, but the summery of it doesn't look anywhere near as bad as ait could have been (for us). Most seem to be interpret it as the whole protection won't be worse for us, it will be better with boosters, or 2 vax + infection, which is what we have of course.
Again though, we're fortunate in that we've got good vax and booster coverage and fortunate in a way that we have had high infection, and still have high delta.
Really does not look good for low vax/ low infection countries though, I can't see how a lot of them can avoid healthcare being overwhelmed, unless they take really drastic measures.
It's quite different for SA though, as they have some vax, and high previous infection and their low deaths up to now (for the Omicron wave) is remarkable. Obviously there's lag to think about but surely we would have seen something by now on the deaths? It's going down, if anything (for now).
Billy Horner
Well-known member
Today's headline analysis:
• 51,342 new cases reported in 24-hour period, up from yesterday's 45,691
• 7-day average for new cases increases by 0.9% to 48,552 per day, following 1.8% increase yesterday (and 8th consecutive daily increase)
• 7-day average for new cases is 11.3% higher than one week ago (from 12.1% higher yesterday) and 12.1% higher than two weeks ago (from 13.2% higher yesterday and 11.9% higher 7 days ago)
• 161 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported in 24-hour period, down from 180 yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test decreases by 1.2% to 121.0 per day, following 2.5% increase yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test is 0.8% lower than one week ago (from 3.0% higher yesterday) and 8.5% lower than two weeks ago (from 12.4% lower yesterday and 16.4% lower 7 days ago)
• 51,342 new cases reported in 24-hour period, up from yesterday's 45,691
• 7-day average for new cases increases by 0.9% to 48,552 per day, following 1.8% increase yesterday (and 8th consecutive daily increase)
• 7-day average for new cases is 11.3% higher than one week ago (from 12.1% higher yesterday) and 12.1% higher than two weeks ago (from 13.2% higher yesterday and 11.9% higher 7 days ago)
• 161 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported in 24-hour period, down from 180 yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test decreases by 1.2% to 121.0 per day, following 2.5% increase yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test is 0.8% lower than one week ago (from 3.0% higher yesterday) and 8.5% lower than two weeks ago (from 12.4% lower yesterday and 16.4% lower 7 days ago)
Billy Horner
Well-known member
Today's headline analysis:
• 50,867 new cases reported in 24-hour period, down from yesterday's 51,342
• 7-day average for new cases decreases by 0.9% to 48,112 per day, following 0.9% increase yesterday
• 7-day average for new cases is 8.0% higher than one week ago (from 11.3% higher yesterday) and 11.0% higher than two weeks ago (from 12.1% higher yesterday and 12.5% higher 7 days ago)
• 148 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported in 24-hour period, down from 161 yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test increases by 0.8% to 122.0 per day, following 1.2% decrease yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test is 0.7% higher than one week ago (from 0.8% lower yesterday) and 2.3% lower than two weeks ago (from 8.5% lower yesterday and 17.3% lower 7 days ago)
• 50,867 new cases reported in 24-hour period, down from yesterday's 51,342
• 7-day average for new cases decreases by 0.9% to 48,112 per day, following 0.9% increase yesterday
• 7-day average for new cases is 8.0% higher than one week ago (from 11.3% higher yesterday) and 11.0% higher than two weeks ago (from 12.1% higher yesterday and 12.5% higher 7 days ago)
• 148 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported in 24-hour period, down from 161 yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test increases by 0.8% to 122.0 per day, following 1.2% decrease yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test is 0.7% higher than one week ago (from 0.8% lower yesterday) and 2.3% lower than two weeks ago (from 8.5% lower yesterday and 17.3% lower 7 days ago)