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

Bosws87 said:
Now its been proven the vaccination in its current form has little effect on transmission i don't think this is even a starting point.

Trying to force people or discriminate against people doesn't encourage them to change their mind it just makes them double down on the original bollocks they believe.

Ignoring the very small chance that something goes wrong when they have got the jab is that just seen as collateral when you are forcing people.
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Pogue Mahone said:
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.
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So this is now a sure thing?
 
Brwned said:
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.
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The obvious concern is that <40 double jabbed people like you don’t live in a bubble. The more of you that get infected the more of you can pass the virus to more vulnerable people. Boosting will reduce overall case numbers as well as (hopefully) shorter duration of illness and viral load in breakthrough infections.

The booster campaign is about suppressing spread as much as possible. We know it won’t provide very strong defence against infection/transmission but it will provide some defence. Which can make a big difference at a population level.

You should also remember that a hell of a lot of boosted people were (and still will be) going to get exposed to delta and that the booster campaign was started at a time when there was no firm evidence that omicron would be any less virulent in the UK/EU.

Having said all that, what you say will be an important discussion once omicron is the only virus in town and it’s firmly established that it’s definitely much less virulent, to all ages. So will be taken into account whenever we need to think about the next wave of boosters.
 
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Amar__ said:
So this is now a sure thing?
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For someone who has had the booster it looks like efficacy against infection is in the range 70-75% against Omicron (that's compared to 90/95%+ against Delta). Basically that means you're 4x as likely to catch it if you're unvaxxed compared to vaxxed and boosted, which means it has a big impact on infection spread even for Omicron - hence the massive push on boosters in recent weeks.

Without the booster, the vaccine efficacy against Omicron against infection is much lower. It varies between vaccines and how long ago you had the second dose - but can drop to zero at 6 months. Still effective against serious disease, but not much help in terms of stopping spread.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
The obvious concern is that <40 double jabbed people like you don’t live in a bubble. The more of you that get infected the more of you can pass the virus to more vulnerable people. Boosting will reduce overall case numbers as well as (hopefully) shorter duration of illness and viral load in breakthrough infections.

The booster campaign is about suppressing spread as much as possible. We know it won’t provide very strong defence against infection/transmission but it will provide some defence. Which can make a big difference at a population level.

You should also remember that a hell of a lot of boosted people were (and still will be) going to get exposed to delta and that the booster campaign was started at a time when there was no firm evidence that omicron would be any less virulent in the UK/EU.

Having said all that, what you say will be an important discussion once omicron is the only virus in town and it’s firmly established that it’s definitely much less virulent, to all ages. So will be taken into account whenever we need to think about the next wave of boosters.
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It's true I kind of overlooked the fact Omicron is sitting on top of the Delta wave, but for the people <40 who were exposed to Delta and had been previously vaccinated, the individual risk / strain on the healthcare system was very small. The data for infection + hospitalisation by vaccination status is on pages 30 and 31 here.

Key figures over the 3 week period in November:
  • 103k 18-29 year olds and 149k 30-39 year olds were infected
  • Most of those people were double vaccinated (50% of 18-29s, 66% of 30-39s), reiterating the waning immunity
  • The hospitalisation rate for both groups was 0.2% (123 / 52,000 and 244 / 98,211) - it's 10x that for double-jabbed 60+
So I really don't think the volumes of Delta-related hospitalisations were that much of a concern either, and Omicron coming into play will bring down that average further.

And by the time the boosters were rolled out to the under 40s, more than 90% of those aged 60+ and 75% of those aged 50+ had been boosted. So I think the vulnerable were going to be sufficiently protected regardless of which direction we decided to go with the booster then.

And we did have good indications of it being a milder disease by that time. Omicron had already been identified in the UK 2 weeks before then, and it'd been in South Africa for over 3 weeks.

The goal of stopping the spread only makes sense when that's closely linked to hospitalisation, but if the vulnerable are sufficiently protected and disease among the less vulnerable is relatively mild, then stopping the spread might not be a legitimate goal. Having it spread to build broader and more durable immunity could be a net positive, if the risks are manageable. I think when these decisions were made we over-estimated the risks, we were overly cautious by choice. That's understandable and it's not much of a criticism, I'm just saying it could do a bit more harm in the medium term.

In the end I agree the evidence wasn't firm enough to make that kind of decision, but I really don't think the evidence was that ambiguous about hospitalisation risk for under 40s, protection levels for the most vulnerable, or severity of disease from Omicron, at the time they were announcing under-40 booster roll-outs.
 
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Brwned said:
It's true I kind of overlooked the fact Omicron is sitting on top of the Delta wave, but for the people <40 who were exposed to Delta and had been previously vaccinated, the individual risk / strain on the healthcare system was very small. The data for infection + hospitalisation by vaccination status is on pages 30 and 31 here.

Key figures over the 3 week period in November:
  • 103k 18-29 year olds and 149k 30-39 year olds were infected
  • Most of those people were double vaccinated (50% of 18-29s, 66% of 30-39s), reiterating the waning immunity
  • The hospitalisation rate for both groups was 0.2% (123 / 52,000 and 244 / 98,211) - it's 10x that for double-jabbed 60+
So I really don't think the volumes of Delta-related hospitalisations were that much of a concern either, and Omicron coming into play will bring down that average further.

And by the time the boosters were rolled out to the under 40s, more than 90% of those aged 60+ and 75% of those aged 50+ had been boosted. So I think the vulnerable were going to be sufficiently protected regardless of which direction we decided to go with the booster then.

And we did have good indications of it being a milder disease by that time. Omicron had already been identified in the UK 2 weeks before then, and it'd been in South Africa for over 3 weeks.

The goal of stopping the spread only makes sense when that's closely linked to hospitalisation, but if the vulnerable are sufficiently protected and disease among the less vulnerable is relatively mild, then stopping the spread might not be a legitimate goal. Having it spread to build broader and more durable immunity could be a net positive, if the risks are manageable. I think when these decisions were made we over-estimated the risks, we were overly cautious by choice. That's understandable and it's not much of a criticism, I'm just saying it could do a bit more harm in the medium term.

In the end I agree the evidence wasn't firm enough to make that kind of decision, but I really don't think the evidence was that ambiguous about hospitalisation risk for under 40s, protection levels for the most vulnerable, or severity of disease from Omicron, at the time they were announcing under-40 booster roll-outs.
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Considering numerous experts are still - as of right now - not entirely convinced that omicron definitely causes milder disease than delta it’s a huge stretch to try and claim that the policy makers missed a trick by not assuming this was a certainty back when the decision was made to start boosting the younger cohorts.

And you also can’t divorce that decision from the ongoing delta wave, affecting all ages, at the time. Sure, the younger ages didn’t have all that much to fear from delta (although 0.2% hospitalisation rate is not to be sniffed at) but, again, these people weren’t living in a bubble.

And that’s without even getting into the tenuous upside of not boosting. That they will have better immunity next winter. It’s all about loading more and more immunity into the population, as safely and quickly as possible. Boosters are a no brainer in this context. There’s going to be an absolute shit-load of (almost all mild) breakthrough infections in the mix as well. That combination should leave us pretty well set for the next wave. And is far more acceptable to the public than choosing not to boost (with boosters available) and deliberately letting hundreds of thousands of people get avoidably unwell because there’s a possibility this might give them better long term immunity. I’ve known plenty of young(ish) vaccinated people get breakthrough infections that would be classified as “mild” who have felt like absolute shit and have taken a long time to recover (some of them still not fully over it) That’s really not a palatable choice to individuals if they could get a similar immune boost which gives them nothing worse than an achey delt for 24 hours.
 
Bosws87 said:
Now its been proven the vaccination in its current form has little effect on transmission i don't think this is even a starting point.
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Unless I've missed some startling, revelatory studies, this statement just isn't true. If you want to say that over time the efficacy diminishes of something like that, fair enough, but this is complete hyperbole. Any multiple of protection when compared to nothing just cannot be deemed 'little effect'.
 
I've heard less and less talk of "long Covid". Has that not been the case as much with Delta onwards due to vaccination or changes in the virus itself?
Perhaps there is no way if knowing or maybe I'm just not seeing those reports.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
It’s odd the way so many experts (including this guy, who is great) are absolutely determined to caveat the “less virulent” data when the semantics they get hung on don’t really matter. If there was a hypothetical undiscovered island full of people completely naive to covid then sure, let’s dig a little deeper. But all any of us should care about is how virulent it will be in the real world population at risk. Who are a long fecking way from covid naive thanks to vaccines and/or prior infections.

The distinction is really only of academic importance and it feels as though a lot of this is just academics trying to show how clever they are, rather than any kind of legitimate concerns we should worry about. I also think some of it is a determination not to cede any ground to the “bad flu” crowd who will be more and more emboldened by each new piece of positive data. They’re terrible people but they may turn out to be correct about omicron.
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Totally agree.

On twitter especially it seems there are a number of academics, perhaps well qualified in what they do, who have become minor celebrities during the pandemic. I suspect in their field recognition is hard to come by and maybe they're enjoying it.
 
Doogie said:
I've heard less and less talk of "long Covid". Has that not been the case as much with Delta onwards due to vaccination or changes in the virus itself?
Perhaps there is no way if knowing or maybe I'm just not seeing those reports.
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I think it has just become normal. I've seen no data that suggests that long covid has become less of a concern, particularly in the unvaccinated.
 
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Been having a lot of discussion with friends and family naturally over COVID and pretty much all of us are now boosted. Some have had COVID too and some (like me as far as I know) haven't

But a lot of them, especially people my age, are now saying that's it for them in terms of vaccines for at least a year. If after 3 vaccines and COVID (for some) is still not enough then nothing is. I was indifferent initially and was just doing what seemed to get this to an end quickly but it has made me wonder what is the end point and how much more people are willing to do
 
LARulz said:
Been having a lot of discussion with friends and family naturally over COVID and pretty much all of us are now boosted. Some have had COVID too and some (like me as far as I know) haven't

But a lot of them, especially people my age, are now saying that's it for them in terms of vaccines for at least a year. If after 3 vaccines and COVID (for some) is still not enough then nothing is. I was indifferent initially and was just doing what seemed to get this to an end quickly but it has made me wonder what is the end point and how much more people are willing to do
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I can see a lot of people thinking like this, eventually covid fatigue will set in if it hasn't already.
 
I'm into my third day of symptoms today (had a positive pcr test yesterday) and feeling quite rough now

I'm starting to get a bit short of breathe which is worrying, but had an old asthma inhaler lying around which did the trick

Are there any over the counter treatments which can help? I guess just all the regular cold and flu stuff?
 
Tarrou said:
I'm into my third day of symptoms today (had a positive pcr test yesterday) and feeling quite rough now

I'm starting to get a bit short of breathe which is worrying, but had an old asthma inhaler lying around which did the trick

Are there any over the counter treatments which can help? I guess just all the regular cold and flu stuff?
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I think aside from paracetamol and ibuprofen there’s not a huge amount you can do apart from rest up and drink plenty of water. What I will say is when you think you’re doing better, rest more. A few times my girlfriend thought she was on the mend and tried to do a few bits like painting the wall or do some work on the laptop and she’d crash again. Rest up as long as you can.
 
Tarrou said:
I'm into my third day of symptoms today (had a positive pcr test yesterday) and feeling quite rough now

I'm starting to get a bit short of breathe which is worrying, but had an old asthma inhaler lying around which did the trick

Are there any over the counter treatments which can help? I guess just all the regular cold and flu stuff?
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Short answer is no, other than paracetamol, to help keep fevers down and take the edge off aches and pains.

If you’re worried about your breathing could someone drop over a pulse oximeter? Most big pharmacists sell them. You can use it to monitor your blood oxygen levels. If they start to drop you may need to go to hospital to get some oxygen. This is very unlikely to happen but better safe than sorry.
 
Snowjoe said:
I think aside from paracetamol and ibuprofen there’s not a huge amount you can do apart from rest up and drink plenty of water. What I will say is when you think you’re doing better, rest more. A few times my girlfriend thought she was on the mend and tried to do a few bits like painting the wall or do some work on the laptop and she’d crash again. Rest up as long as you can.
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thanks for the advice

and yeah I thought as much, keep hydrated and lots of rest is all you can really do
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Short answer is no, other than paracetamol, to help keep fevers down and take the edge off aches and pains.

If you’re worried about your breathing could someone drop over a pulse oximeter? Most big pharmacists sell them. You can use it to monitor your blood oxygen levels. If they start to drop you may need to go to hospital to get some oxygen. This is very unlikely to happen but better safe than sorry.
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thanks Pogue

I'm not too worried to be honest, it doesn't feel too bad - probably just over-thinking things

but if it does get worse I'll ask my sister to pick one up to be on the safe side
 
Brwned said:
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.
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Do we know how long the immunity lasts after the booster?
 
Wibble said:
I think it has just become normal. I've seen no data that suggests that long covid has become less of a concern, particularly in the unvaccinated.
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Thanks, guess that makes sense unfortunately.
 
Tarrou said:
I'm into my third day of symptoms today (had a positive pcr test yesterday) and feeling quite rough now

I'm starting to get a bit short of breathe which is worrying, but had an old asthma inhaler lying around which did the trick

Are there any over the counter treatments which can help? I guess just all the regular cold and flu stuff?
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Get well soon!
 
Doogie said:
I've heard less and less talk of "long Covid". Has that not been the case as much with Delta onwards due to vaccination or changes in the virus itself?
Perhaps there is no way if knowing or maybe I'm just not seeing those reports.
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It depends on the definition of long covid. A high proportion of those hospitalised with it will feel the after effects for a long time after leaving hospital, some will have permanent organ damage.

A lot of people who catch it, and don't need hospital treatment, will feel a bit rough for a few weeks - tired, achey, cough, loss of sense of smell/taste etc. Probably ok to cope with normal everyday life, but conscious that they don't feel 100%. Not that different to catching flu, or a really bad cold etc.

The number experiencing debilitating after-effects following mild infection that last for months is the bit that gets argued over. It's hard to unravel this aspect. Some people are experiencing serious longterm issues (the sort that interfere with home life or work) but it's really not clear if more people are falling into this category after a fight with covid than experience it after catching other circulating viruses. However some people will be looking at other medical issues, including stress related problems and blaming it on the infection.

Basically long covid exists. Symptoms and prevalence are still being debated. The scary headlines on how common it is don't always tell the whole story.
 
jojojo said:
It depends on the definition of long covid. A high proportion of those hospitalised with it will feel the after effects for a long time after leaving hospital, some will have permanent organ damage.

A lot of people who catch it, and don't need hospital treatment, will feel a bit rough for a few weeks - tired, achey, cough, loss of sense of smell/taste etc. Probably ok to cope with normal everyday life, but conscious that they don't feel 100%. Not that different to catching flu, or a really bad cold etc.

The number experiencing debilitating after-effects following mild infection that last for months is the bit that gets argued over. It's hard to unravel this aspect. Some people are experiencing serious longterm issues (the sort that interfere with home life or work) but it's really not clear if more people are falling into this category after a fight with covid than experience it after catching other circulating viruses. However some people will be looking at other medical issues, including stress related problems and blaming it on the infection.

Basically long covid exists. Symptoms and prevalence are still being debated. The scary headlines on how common it is don't always tell the whole story.
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Thanks, informative as always. I guess I was thinking more about those that don't get very ill but have complained about long term effects like you describe as tiredness, low energy etc. But as you describe it's not a clear cut thing so it will be interesting to see what comes out of the many studies that no doubt are already underway.
 
horsechoker said:
Making wanking difficult but not impossible.

Hope everything's alright
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Well I'd hope everyone is having the jab in their weaker arm to solve this problem :D

Getting my booster in a couple of hours. Was due earlier this month but had to clear the covid first.
 
Got my booster at 2pm today. I guess my arm felt a little heavy for about an hour. But no real side effects apart from that and I'm pretty much back to 100% now.
 
Near-as-damnit 120k cases today, but the headline for me is the jump in hospitalisations to 1,004 (last reported on 19th). Previous 7 day average was 878 - it'll be very interesting to see if this > 1k number continues.
 
Dante said:
Bugger. I was hoping that would be it.
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It might be! All I’m saying is that for most people they don’t feel the full effects until the next day. I’ve known people who haven’t had any, though. It does seem that generally the booster is hitting people harder than the first two.
 
Jericholyte2 said:
Near-as-damnit 120k cases today, but the headline for me is the jump in hospitalisations to 1,004 (last reported on 19th). Previous 7 day average was 878 - it'll be very interesting to see if this > 1k number continues.
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The record is going to be broken on Wednesday 29th. Wouldn't surprise me to see over 150k that day. Maybe even touching on 200k.
 
My daughter (17) has just returned a positive LFT.

I and the wife are braced for it to as no doubt it'll arrive. I have been struggling with a bad cold this week but always returned a negative LFT result.

Merry fecking Christmas folks!
 
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My fiancé's sister thinks she might have it. Close contact with someone who tested positive. She's taking a test.

I'm starting to feel like I'm going to get Omicron at some point. Feels like it's spreading like wildfire.
 
One of my models I was due to shoot with on 27th ahead of her birthday, is now in isolation, she hasn't had any vaccinations either and probably won't either.

Hopefully she will be okay and ready for our studio shoot, which is more important in early January.
 
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