SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Kaos said:
So apparently the isolation period has been reduced to 7 days assuming you can produce a negative LFT on day 6 and 7.

I'm due to be out of isolation on Christmas Day (fully recovered now) and have tested negative this morning. Does that mean if I produce another negative LFT tomorrow I'm out of the woods? Or do this new reduced restrictions only apply to new cases and I'm still obliged to do my 10 days?
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I’d say it applies to you mate. The government has realised that 10 days is overkill.
 
Garethw said:
I’d say it applies to you mate. The government has realised that 10 days is overkill.
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Yeah, I suspected it might have. I feel perfectly recovered and have tested consistently negative last few days, so feel fine to leave my house. Just conscious I'm not in danger to infecting others.
 
owlo said:
I swear that for the more I read about covid, the stupider I think I am. I simply don't understand half this crap.
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You are probably the opposite, admitting you are struggling to know something means you are smarter than those who have no idea they are stupid.
 
just took a test at home and tested positive so just booked a pcr test today

I'm guessing the chances of a false positive are very low and the low accuracy of these things is mostly false negatives?

bummer
 
Tarrou said:
Dunning Kruger is average competence and high confidence?
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Dunning Kruger measures the relation between confidence and competence. There is a point on the graph where one feels they know nothing even though they have average competence about a certain topic.
 
Tarrou said:
just took a test at home and tested positive so just booked a pcr test today

I'm guessing the chances of a false positive are very low and the low accuracy of these things is mostly false negatives?

bummer
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Yeah, false negative many times more likely than false positive because so many more things can contribute (poor swab technique, testing too soon etc etc)

If you’re symptomatic and have a positive LFT the possibility of you not having covid is absolutely tiny.
 
Pleased to see the UK Gov change the rules on isolating as I enter my 10th day.
 
Mihai said:
Dunning Kruger measures the relation between confidence and competence. There is a point on the graph where one feels they know nothing even though they have average competence about a certain topic.
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fair enough, good to know thanks
 
Less severe (whether that be because of vaccines, age group, previous infection, less virulent or all of the above) seems to be where everything is pointing thank god.

Hospital numbers over next few days in London will be one to watch now. If they don’t surge I think we won’t see any restrictions
 
From Boxing Day Wales going to rule of six at pubs, cinemas and restaurants with a return of social distancing and mask wearing in all public places (already had the latter). This is in addition to all sports not having crowds and nightclubs being closed. No restrictions on household mixing - just a legal limit on 30 people max meeting indoors. If you’re a close contact but fully vaccinated you don’t need to isolate - however they haven’t gone down the route of reducing isolation to 7 days like in England - this is a mistake in my opinion. The more information that comes in regarding hospitalisations the more I maintain the big risk of how fast this spreads isn’t the number of admissions - it’s the number of staff isolating off work at the same time which will impact essential services including health. No word on how long they last - it shouldn’t be more than 3 weeks in my eyes. I’m assuming the purpose is to spread it over 4 weeks rather than 2 to reduce the strain on Health and the number isolating from work.
 
I'm confused as to why we don't have a somewhat efficient test yet to determine is somebody is infectious. It shouldn't be that hard to get some sort of rapid plaque assay going surely?
 
owlo said:
I'm confused as to why we don't have a somewhat efficient test yet to determine is somebody is infectious. It shouldn't be that hard to get some sort of rapid plaque assay going surely?
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Are you talking about if they are currently infectious? That’s pretty much what LFTs do I believe?
 
owlo said:
I'm confused as to why we don't have a somewhat efficient test yet to determine is somebody is infectious. It shouldn't be that hard to get some sort of rapid plaque assay going surely?
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We’ve got the LFTs which are available to all and they’re recommending you take before mixing with vulnerable people. Thankfully they’re proving far better than initially thought. When this all started I did think we’d have instant saliva tests readily available and you’d test before you went in to public places - maybe link it to an app proving you’re negative - proper dystopian sci-fi film style. That was basically what Boris announced over a year ago with his operation moonshot - alas it never came to pass.
 
Pexbo said:
Are you talking about if they are currently infectious? That’s pretty much what LFTs do I believe?
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I thought they detected viral RNA much like PCR's! If they DO detect infectious covid, surely they are the gold standard compared to PCR?
 
What I'm getting at is, there seems to be a huge gap in research as to "infected/viral RNA" vs "infects others/contagious" which strikes me as somewhat important.

We know from other coronaviruses that the RNA is still viral long after the infectiousness period, yet we seem to be testing for one thing to determine the other??

Edit to add: And the RNA doesn't need to viral for the virus to be infectious. Perhaps it's infectious before the RNA ribosome sequence/entry/whatever it is that I don't quite understand how it works yet.
 
Looks like the government scientists are about to release a report to confirm that omicron is milder in most people because of immunity and the actual virus itself.

Still huge caution on hospitalizations due to the rapid spread but some positive!
 
Kaos said:
So apparently the isolation period has been reduced to 7 days assuming you can produce a negative LFT on day 6 and 7.

I'm due to be out of isolation on Christmas Day (fully recovered now) and have tested negative this morning. Does that mean if I produce another negative LFT tomorrow I'm out of the woods? Or do this new reduced restrictions only apply to new cases and I'm still obliged to do my 10 days?
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They are still asking you to be very cautious about who you mix with once you come out of isolation.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ut-to-seven-days-for-jabbed-people-in-england

Those who leave self-isolation on or after day seven are “strongly advised” to limit close contact with other people in crowded or poorly ventilated spaces, work from home and minimise contact with anyone who is at higher risk of severe illness if infected with Covid-19, the agency added.
 
Mickeza said:
From Boxing Day Wales going to rule of six at pubs, cinemas and restaurants with a return of social distancing and mask wearing in all public places (already had the latter). This is in addition to all sports not having crowds and nightclubs being closed. No restrictions on household mixing - just a legal limit on 30 people max meeting indoors. If you’re a close contact but fully vaccinated you don’t need to isolate - however they haven’t gone down the route of reducing isolation to 7 days like in England - this is a mistake in my opinion. The more information that comes in regarding hospitalisations the more I maintain the big risk of how fast this spreads isn’t the number of admissions - it’s the number of staff isolating off work at the same time which will impact essential services including health. No word on how long they last - it shouldn’t be more than 3 weeks in my eyes. I’m assuming the purpose is to spread it over 4 weeks rather than 2 to reduce the strain on Health and the number isolating from work.
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My favourite one from Drakeford was the fine for employees if you're not working from home without a good reason.
 
CassiusClaymore said:
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SAGE are total doom mongers, who will always find something to whinge about.

I’m not convinced by the idea that boosters prolong the pandemic. Vaccines no longer suppress transmission to any great degree. They’re all about avoiding hospitals getting overloaded and anywhere that hasn’t been extensively vaccinated by now will have a large proportion of their population partially protected by prior infection. A lot of the poorer countries with younger populations can get through these waves without much vaccinations, never mind boosters, SA’s omicron wave being a very recent, very obvious example.

And that’s without even getting into the misguided idea that if, say, the Uk decided against a booster program then all those doses could/would end up in the arms of people in the developing world instead.
 
rpitroda said:
I don’t think decisions are made on worst case. Decisions will be made on the most probable case, with a view on the pessimistic scenarios to look for indicators that those pessimistic scenarios are coming to fruition. It is more important of course to factor in worst case rather than best case, because the nature of Covid means that if the worst case is realised and you don’t move early enough, it is calamitous. But they won’t just look at those in isolation.

The problem with the media though is more inherent than Covid specific. Media gets money, ultimately, by traffic on its websites. To get traffic it needs, broadly speaking, either unique and informative content which draws in readers on a more consistent basis as their “go to” news outlet. Or it needs splashing headlines to draw in the casual browser. A headline which stuns by saying “thousands could die per day” is obviously going to get more clicks than something more factual. The second issue is then that many people will actually just read that headline and that’ll be that. So even if that article does go on to say it’s a worst case scenario and not the most probable, it’s irrelevant.
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I mostly agree. I think modellers could do themselves a favour by clearly stating the probability of each model…. And the media have to be more sensible.
 
stw2022 said:
High case numbers but 35% increase on last week seems like it’s slowing
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If you only had a bit of a cough would you take a test on 22nd December, knowing if its positive you miss Christmas? This week's case numbers won't mean much.
 
11101 said:
If you only had a bit of a cough would you take a test on 22nd December, knowing if its positive you miss Christmas? This week's case numbers won't mean much.
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Yeah no doubt that’s a factor. I do think many are being more cautious too though - behavioural change before Xmas will definitely play a role. I suspect after Boxing Day it will go nuts.
 
Listening to Radio 4 earlier and 25% of current hospitalisations in London are where coronavirus isn’t the primary cause of the admission
 
esmufc07 said:
This is very good news, right?

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To me it opens up the conversation for an uncomfortable question for many...would it be better for those who were <40 and double-jabbed to have gotten a minor infection from Omicron, rather than getting their booster?

There was already evidence that "super-immunity" provided a better mix of long and short-term protection than vaccines alone, the risk of hospitalisation for that age group was already very, very low with Delta, and there was good reason to believe Omicron was going to be even milder when the boosters were ramped up for that age group. Now the evidence is just strengthening for all three.

Even just at a societal level, it might be the case that this time next year population immunity would have been stronger, and therefore a lower risk to the NHS, if more young people got that mild infection now instead of evading that mild infection through the short-term antibody boost.

Maybe boosted immunity will last longer than expected, or maybe the virus will only get milder from here on...but if not, I personally think we could look back on it as a mistake from being overly cautious and short-termist.
 
esmufc07 said:
This is very good news, right?

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Might be if it was remotely accurate. The quoted text in her report seems to be from an unknown source which doesn't correlate with the report she's reporting on? :|
 
Very impressed with the NHS. I guy I know with quite minor symptoms has tested positive and been called in to hospital for preventative IV treatment. He takes immune-suppressant meds for a skin condition. The hospital contacted him out of the blue as it were. Good stuff.
 
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