South Korea:
Good news, everyone!
Arizona:
271,725,553 total cases
5,336,773 dead
244,231,704 recovered
In the US:
51,136,442 total cases
821,335 dead
40,239,513 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
From over the pond:
From that article:
Omicron is so transmissible that even if it proves to be less severe than other variants, there is still likely to be a surge in hospital admissions if it goes unchecked, U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid told lawmakers.
My bold.
A little bit of jumping-the-gun-ism WRT hospital admissions?
Seems like a reasonable extrapolation based on what we know now regarding this variant:
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It spreads more rapidly
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Even if it less severe than other variants, it can cause serious illness, including death
Your summary is reasonable. The article (esp the headline) was alarmist.
Omicron is taking over!
Banner healthcare enforces a vaccine mandate for all of their employees, the other health care systems (including the VA) do not. If I needed hospitalization I would insist on going to a Banner facility. I am not the only person in the state who prefers to be treated by medical providers who believe in science and IMHO that is why Banner has been reporting bed shortages for the last 6 or 8 months. Yavapai county medical system, which doesn’t have a vaccine mandate has plenty of beds available.
Some good info on Omicron.
Some research:
The Omicron Covid variant has been found to multiply about 70 times quicker than the original and Delta versions of coronavirus in tissue samples taken from the bronchus, the main tubes from the windpipe to the lungs, in laboratory experiments that could help explain its rapid transmission.
The study, by a team from the University of Hong Kong, also found that the new variant grew 10 times slower in lung tissue, which the authors said could be an indicator of lower disease severity.
You know what? Up until earlier today (I’ve been out this evening) there’s been headline reporting of the first omicron death in the UK. No details. It feels like scaremongering to me. Yes it’s a huge thing , but y’know, don’t treat me like an idiot. Give me the details. Underlying health issues?
j
ETA posting from the uk
272,469,550 total cases
5,345,391 dead
244,775,515 recovered
In the US:
51,290,979 total cases
823,390 dead
40,343,561 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
I’m watching the headlines in the UK with amazement. It certainly looks like scaremongering and massive overreaction to me.
In South Africa covid tests are currently coming back 30% positive, but hospital admission rates and deaths still remain low and steady.
The situation is being carefully monitored, but nobody seems overly worried, and lockdown is still at the lowest level.
Preliminary data shows that Omicron is far milder than previous variants, with quicker recovery.
Different countries, different demographics, different social interactions, different accommodation, different infection profiles, different behaviours. You can’t directly compare SA with the UK.
The UK has some of the very best best tracking and monitoring in the world. There is huge certainty that omicron will race through our population in very, very short order (doubling rate of less than 2 days). Omicron has barely got started but just yesterday there was a huge jump (that was on line with current predictions)
Even if it is less severe (still not certain) you can get into health care supply issues very quickly indeed.
Because of the speed of transmission you cannot wait for certainty of severity to act.
Simple maths, if you have ten times the number of infections for a disease that is only a third as likely to put you in hospital but those hospitalisations are compressed into a very short period of time, you have problems.
That’s why the booster program has been turbo-charged. By the end of the week we’ll have about 50% of the population boosted and that initial 50% should cover the most vulnerable. Hopefully that should make a big difference but we’ll see.
Even though there is a lot of uncertainty the maths using the best guesses is simple. Omicron infections appear to be doubling every two to three days. Even if it’s half as likely to put people into hospital as Delta (which is still debatable as South Africa has a much younger population) then it will put way more many people into hospital than other variants have. i.e. if it’s four times more infectious than delta but half as deadly, that’s still double the number of hospitalisations.
Plus with lots and lots of people infected at the same time healthcare workers even with no symptoms will be forced to stop working. Basically all this means the hospitals will fall over and people will be dying in hospital corridors, or at home because there’s no ambulance to collect them. And that’s why there is so much alarm. For the average person this will be a really light disease, but there will be people who die who could have otherwise be saved.
EDIT: or what @Novelty_Bobble said.
On the other hand, the UK has a far higher vaccination rate than SA, which offers some protection.
The UK also has a seropositivity rate above 90%, while SA has a seropositivity of 72%, so prior exposure is higher.
As for an older population, the current indications are that younger people are more affected by Omicron than older people.
Sure, I think the picture is “uncertain” at best. Too many variables for which we don’t yet have solid understanding.
A range of scenarios have been modelled and they range from meh! to fuck! and none of them reward a “wait and see” response. The powers-that-be will be hammered if hindsight suggests they overreacted. They will, however, be crucified if they treat it lightly and react too late.
I’m not going to go into long arguments (in this thread, but will happily, and have done so in others), but I highly doubt the UK has a clue as to its seroprevalence rate. The hurdles to performing a true sample are pretty hard to overcome and blood donors certainly doesn’t do the trick. You can age-stratify blood donors, but you’ll need some data to convince me that blood donors in general represent a true cross section of a population where some people still won’t even go to the grocery store (and are less likely to have contracted CoVID than someone who goes every week), so I doubt they are lining up to donate blood.