Omicron variant and the measures implemented in response to it

[Freightmaster]

What on earth are you talking about?

I'll say it again. The absolute state of this thread.

If you think this thread is a 'lost cause', why do you keep spamming it every few minutes with your pro restriction rhetoric?






MARK

 

[backontrack]

Quite frankly at the moment I would be more likely to vote for the Tories if they promised to abolish it.

It is wholly dysfunctional and I am furious that my freedom to go about my business freely is now a conditional freedom that the NHS can repeal upon request if they are in a spot of bother with too many customers and not enough staff.

They are not feudal Lords!

I suspect a lot of people in the UK will see the NHS in a very different light after this.

This is a load of tosh, but also there's a nugget of truth - which is this is just a long game, isn't it?

Wear the NHS down. Rishi Sunak was in the USA talking to healthcare firms the other week. Privatisation is round the corner.

The point I'm making is that Railforums is in general a really good site for genuinely useful discussion. Members are receptive to different views, willing to have their minds changed, there's give and take, usually an attempt to get to the bottom of issues.

Is there another Railforums I'm not aware of?

That certainly hasn't been my experience. I like this site a great deal but it's not where I come for receptive and respectful discussion - usually it's the same tepid arguments over potential new infrastructure being condescendingly bandied about by the same cabal of professional sceptics. The more general discussion parts, in contrast, is a bit of an oasis (save for the climate emergency deniers).

I'm a little surprised by how many total anti-restriction folk there are though, it doesn't really equate to the public at large.

 

[yorkie]

...I would tend to trust the views of "the great and good in the medical elites" over random forumers.

But that isn't the choice; scientists disagree with each other and so-called "random forumers" such as myself listen to different scientists to you.

Now I could be equally disingenuous and say the choice is between me listening to the scientists I want to listen to and listening to "random forumers" such as yourself but that would be misrepresenting the difference of views. So I won't do that!

Anyway, talking of the views of scientists, it's time for some more updates:

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1472919987740368898

Very encouraging data out of South Africa. Decoupling between new COVID-19 cases and ICU admissions and deaths. In addition, cases in South Africa have peaked and are now on the decline.

Summary:
•Difficult to disentangle if less severity is due to prior IMMUNITY (vaccine or natural infection) OR intrinsic virulence of Omicron
•Most hospital admissions in UNVACCINATED individuals
•>70% seroprevalence and 40% one dose of vaccine
•2-3x higher risk re-infection
•https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-17/s-africa-says-hospitalizations-in-omicron-wave-much-lower
•https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Y2sXkt-cw
•https://nymag.com/intelligencer/

The above re-affirms what has already been said. Several commentators have said they are pretty sure that the reduced severity cannot be just down to seroprevalence, as there was a noticeable drop in severity just at the time Omicron replaced Delta and that the drop is too dramatic to be explained by prior immunity alone.

It is difficult to compare immunity in SA with UK; we have far higher rates of vaccination but some argue the virus was allowed to spread more readily over there resulting in more protection through natural infections but the UK has had a significant number of infections too and this must be giving us a reasonable level of protection.

Either way it is still good news from SA; yes we know deaths and hospitalisations lag cases but if the standard length of lag was occurring and severity was anything close to Delta we would surely have seen big increases by now, and that has still not happened.

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1472921168579641346

Encouraging data out of Denmark. Omicron-related hospital admissions are at around 0.6% compared to around 1.5% for Delta hospitalizations. That’s about a 60% DECREASE. Preliminary data obviously BUT the message stays the same: make sure you are PROTECTED. https://covid19.ssi.dk/virusvarianter/omikron

You can read more on Denmark here: https://irishtimes.com/news/health/early-data-points-to-lower-hospitalisation-rate-linked-to-omicron-says-expert-1.4759545

Denmark has a population that is closer to ours than SA's, so it is good to see large decreases in severity observed in Denmark too.

And finally...

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1472921662546980875

UK study on Omicron symptoms falling in line with what has been observed in South Africa: Omicron symptoms are predominantly cold symptoms such as runny nose, headache, sore throat and sneezing. NOTE: FOR VACCINATED INDIVIDUALS •https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/omicron-and-cold-like-symptoms-rapidly-taking-over-in-london
•https://www.hindustantimes.com/worl...eadache-fatigue-uk-study-101639915902512.html

I know Chris Whitty will no doubt be saying it is too early to say that Omicron causes milder illness than Delta but I don't think he will be able to deny the obvious for very much longer. It will be interesting to see how long it is before he admits it; I suspect it will be a matter of days, not weeks...

That certainly hasn't been my experience. I like this site a great deal but it's not where I come for receptive and respectful discussion - usually it's the same tepid arguments over potential new infrastructure being condescendingly bandied about by the same cabal of professional sceptics.

Realists more like! We have a lot of genuine railway professionals here; if they say a rail project is not viable then I trust them. But it's not a matter to debate in this thread. Feel free to make a new thread, with examples of what you are referring to, and we can debate it further

I'm a little surprised by how many total anti-restriction folk there are though, it doesn't really equate to the public at large.

We saw the light here before much of the public did but you are very out of date if you think the public supports restrictions. The tide has well and truly turned!

 

[43066]

When people say "protect the NHS", they're not talking about some abstract bureaucracy. They are talking about the ability of your local hospital, and all hospitals in the country, to cope with demand. Fundamentally it's about protecting PATIENTS, so that when someone needs to go to hospital, the hospital is able to take them in and treat them.

If the NHS hasn’t adapted to cope with this two years in, despite essentially unlimited funding, whose fault is that??

I think a bit more respect is due to NHS staff who have worked their arses off for nearly two years now, often at great personal risk, with little to show for it but clapping.

I think the NHS has a God complex, to the extent that its senior management now apparently believe that society should be restricted annually to suit the health service.

It's not the NHS as a system which is at fault.

Yes it is. It “collapses” every year. Why has no other affluent western country adopted the centralised top down healthcare model we have? Because it doesn’t work.

 

[Spamcan81]

But that isn't the choice; scientists disagree with each other and so-called "random forumers" such as myself listen to different scientists to you.

Now I could be equally disingenuous and say the choice is between me listening to the scientists I want to listen to and listening to "random forumers" such as yourself but that would be misrepresenting the difference of views. So I won't do that!

Anyway, talking of the views of scientists, it's time for some more updates:

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1472919987740368898

The above re-affirms what has already been said. Several commentators have said they are pretty sure that the reduced severity cannot be just down to seroprevalence, as there was a noticeable drop in severity just at the time Omicron replaced Delta and that the drop is too dramatic to be explained by prior immunity alone.

It is difficult to compare immunity in SA with UK; we have far higher rates of vaccination but some argue the virus was allowed to spread more readily over there resulting in more protection through natural infections but the UK has had a significant number of infections too and this must be giving us a reasonable level of protection.

Either way it is still good news from SA; yes we know deaths and hospitalisations lag cases but if the standard length of lag was occurring and severity was anything close to Delta we would surely have seen big increases by now, and that has still not happened.

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1472921168579641346

Denmark has a population that is closer to ours than SA's, so it is good to see large decreases in severity observed in Denmark too.

And finally...

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1472921662546980875

I know Chris Whitty will no doubt be saying it is too early to say that Omicron causes milder illness than Delta but I don't think he will be able to deny the obvious for very much longer. It will be interesting to see how long it is before he admits it; I suspect it will be a matter of days, not weeks...

Indeed they do. And in any debate such as this, people will listen to the experts whose opinions back the agenda of these doing the listening and so we go round in circles.

 

[21C101]

I appreciate I've made a lot of posts on this thread and it's unreasonable for you to track back to find out my views. Nevertheless in the 'cut and thrust' of this enlightening debate it appears the nuance of my argument may have been lost.

So to quickly recap my position, I'm not yet convinced that there is a need for more restrictions on Omicron. That's because we don't know enough about it yet, and how serious it may be. As I've said before, I hope it turns out to be nothing to worry about. But we'd don't know yet. Restrictions may be needed, they may not. I don't know. And neither do you or anyone else on this forum unless you have access to a time machine.

Separately, I've been attempting to explain what "protect the NHS" actually means. That it means "protect people" by trying to ensure that the NHS has capacity to treat those who need it. Now, it may well be that Omicron doesn't overwhelm the NHS, that it doesn't fall over, and that people having heart attacks aren't turned away from A&E. And I'd be very happy if that turns out to be the case.

So might I be wrong? No, because I don't know what's going to happen anyway! But I would tend to trust the views of "the great and good in the medical elites" over random forumers.

That is a detailed post and deserves an answer. I'm not going to demur from your first two paragraphs.

In the case of the third, I think what you are proposing is far too extreme. If, for example, two full airbuses collided near Heathrow, with hundreds of severe burns cases, should we lockdown London for a week, as undoubtably anyone turning up with a heart attack would go untreated.

Similarly, should we have locked London down during the blitz when healthcare services were far more stretched than anything Coronavirus has caused?

It is an extraordinarily extreme measure that should only be undertaken for an extraordinary situation (such as a large Ebola or Black Death outbreak). Actually in such a situation you would not need to lock down as people would be hiding at home or flee to the hills anyway.

This leads onto the fourth paragraph. I'm sorry but I don't think that the medical elites deserve such unquestioning respect. For example Fergusons predictions that drove the first lockdown were as hyperbolic as his previous predictions that drove the mass and disgracefup foot and mouth holocaust.

Worse, only a narrow clique of experts is listened to. Eminent experts such as Sinetra Gupta who have questioned the extreme orthodovy have been frozen out.

In the minds of many people this has been the medical elites "45 Minutes from Saddams weapons of Mass Destruction Moment" and trust is broken. They are guilty of, to my mind a grossly disprportionate high handed response.

Perhaps summed up best by this quote from Ferguson: "It’s a communist one party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought… and then Italy did it. And we realised we could."

 

[brad465]

Quite frankly at the moment I would be more likely to vote for the Tories if they promised to abolish it.

It is wholly dysfunctional and I am furious that my freedom to go about my business freely is now a conditional freedom that the NHS can repeal upon request if they are in a spot of bother with too many customers and not enough staff.

They are not feudal Lords!

I suspect a lot of people in the UK will see the NHS in a very different light after this.

The problem here is what they abolish it into. If we went for a European style model I would support that and I suspect many others would too. It seems to work for them (ignoring their equivalent covid hysteria) and support for disadvantaged people is available. The American system though is the one the Government seem most interested in and that is a very bad system.

I do agree though that no institution should ever be viewed as a sacred cow and be supported through virtue signalling instead of meaningful scrutiny and physical improvements.

 

[yorkie]

Worse, only a narrow clique of experts is listened to. Eminent experts such as Sinetra Gupta who have questioned the extreme orthodovy have been frozen out.

Check out my posts in the Scientists endgame thread; if you have a few minutes spare, listen to the podcast I linked to (around the 12 minute mark) where one of the leading virologists on earth expresses his views regarding the media's fixation with hysterical scientists.

Indeed certain Twitter conversations and podcasts can be very interesting when scientists disagree with each other; one of the worst aspects at the start of the pandemic for me was not knowing who to believe but as time has gone on, I've become much more comfortable with where we are heading and what the endgame is. Omicron is precisely in line with predictions made all along, in terms of transmissibility,/fitness, likely severity and even the apparent recombination with an existing HCoV were all predicted in podcasts I've listened to.

Others may prefer to listen to Eric Feigl-Ding and still believe that the virus should be eliminated, but that's their problem, not mine

I won't discuss Sinetra Gupta here because her beliefs are a huge subject and it's been discussed elsewhere e.g. https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/the-great-barrington-declaration.210880/ and that is a topic which I very much think should be re-visited once we have reached endemic equilibrium but it's best avoided in this Omicron thread.

 

[21C101]

The problem here is what they abolish it into. If we went for a European style model I would support that and I suspect many others would too. It seems to work for them (ignoring their equivalent covid hysteria) and support for disadvantaged people is available. The American system though is the one the Government seem most interested in and that is a very bad system.

I do agree though that no institution should ever be viewed as a sacred cow and be supported through virtue signalling instead of meaningful scrutiny and physical improvements.

This of course is the difficulty.

Australia appears to have replicated many of the benefits of the NHS without the fundamental difficulities.

The less said about their hysterical Covid response the better though.

 

[DustyBin]

There's some good news from the ONS regarding antibody prevalence in the UK. As of week beginning the 15th of November the estimated rates are as follows:

• 95.3% in England
• 93.9% in Wales
• 91.6% in Northern Ireland
• 95.0% in Scotland

Coronavirus (COVID-19) latest insights - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

This is higher than I expected to be honest and whilst antibody levels may wane, and variants such as Omicron may partially evade immunity, we no longer have an immunologically naive population by any stretch of the imagination. Whilst I realise we don't have all of the data, it looks extremely unlikely that Omicron will lead to anything like the peaks in hospitalisations and deaths we've seen previously.

 

[Megafuss]

Boris has clearly lost control of Government. You dont spend nearly three hours talking to announce...nothing

Contrast that to Nicola Sturgeon, who I dont agree with politically at all. She was asked a question today if Scot restrictions would change (realting to Christmas mixing) and she gave a clear answer.

 

[Drogba11CFC]

It has been thoroughly disheartening to hear, in recent weeks, the possibility of new restrictions and the usual suspects pushing for them.


Not being able to watch football for over a year took a massive toll on me, and I suspect many others as well, and the thought of it being snatched away again is too horrendous to digest, not mentioning the smug attitude towards football supporters by those in favour of restrictions. Yes, the Premier League has said that all matches will be televised if necessary, but not everyone has Sky and/or BT Sport and it's a luxury that non-league clubs cannot afford.


If more restrictions are brought in, Non-League football must be allowed to continue in front of crowds with no restrictions; not only are most non-league grounds outdoors but it will allow a form of escapism which will do wonders for people's mental health.

An email I have sent to the Non-League Paper.

 

[21C101]

Mail is reporting that cabinet decision not to invoke more restrictions was because at least ten ministers (including the Chancellor of the Exchequer) "have concerns about the accuracy of expert modeling on the spread of Omnicron"

The same article extensively quotes Fraser Nelsons twitter debate.

Note that the concern isn't insufficient data, it is concern about poor data.

I think a spell has been broken today and Please God it will no longer be everlasting winter and never Christmas.

 

[brad465]

Mail is reporting that cabinet decision not to invoke more restrictions was because at least ten ministers (including the Chancellor of the Exchequer) "have concerns about the accuracy of expert modeling on the spread of Omnicron"

The same article extensively quotes Fraser Nelsons twitter debate.

Note that the concern isn't insufficient data, it is concern about poor data.

I think a spell has been broken today and Please God it will no longer be everlasting winter and never Christmas.

If Fraser Nelson's twitter debate with Graham Medley has influenced the Government's behaviour tonight, one wonders how long it'll be before outlets like the BBC report on it.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Regarding the forum and majority public opinion, while I don't believe they are aligned, based on my colleagues, friends and family months ago they were well apart and now they are not far and the distance between the two reduces by the hour. My younger brother has always been very well behaved and onboard with all restrictions, criticising those who don't follow them strongly. Today he rang me to say if restrictions come in, he still wants to come stop with me over Christmas as we have only seen each other 4 times this year. A HUGE change in his stance in the last 3 months and that is something I have seen across the board, whatever their stance was before it has moved alot to the (pick what we want to call the direction this thread has taken).

 

[duncanp]

If Fraser Nelson's twitter debate with Graham Medley has influenced the Government's behaviour tonight, one wonders how long it'll be before outlets like the BBC report on it.

Who wants to nominate Fraser Nelson for an award in the New Years Honours list?

If he has contributed to save the country from another lockdown, by exposing the sheer and utter lies emanating from SAGE, he certainly deserves something.

I bet you won't see Fraser Nelson interviewed on the BBC or Locktivist Sky News though.

 

[Yew]

All C19 fines have about the same status as a car parking ticket and appear to operate in the same way with a discount if paid early which I don't think happens with normal fines.

This means they are really just a penalty charge notice from what I understand thus no one is criminalised if they are unlucky to get caught. But most were not caught last time.

Does this mean we need to add a Covid prosecutions and disputes section to the forum?

 

[nw1]

The FBPE lot are wealthy middle class types who disproportionately benefited from EU membership (simpler frequent foreign holidays and cheaper domestic staff due to EU freedom of movement).

Similarly they are disproportionately insulated from the downside of lockdown as they live in large agreeable houses and have jobs that can be done at home in organisations that won't be bankrupted by lockdown.

Perhaps it's also sheep-like groupthink. There does seem to be a 'package' on the 'affluent left', in which you subscribe to pro-EU and anti-Tory views (which I would generally agree with) but also have to sign up to a pro-lockdown view to be part of the in-crowd.

What's healthy about this subforum is that most of us have a healthy 'mix-and-match' set of views on things such as lockdown, Brexit and the Conservative Party - supporting anything from none of them - as is the case for myself - to two of the three (though I haven't seen a supporter of all three contribute just yet...). There are few or no contributors with a sheep-like mentality. Elsewhere, I've seen lockdown sceptics been called anything from heartless money-grabbing capitalists to conspiracy theorists and even anti-Semites - that really is plain nasty. Perhaps some of the pro-lockdowners need to show a bit more compassion to people losing their jobs or suffering mental health problems.

 

[quantinghome]

If you think this thread is a 'lost cause', why do you keep spamming it every few minutes with your pro restriction rhetoric?

I'm not pro-restriction, but yes, good question!

In the case of the third, I think what you are proposing is far too extreme.

I'm NOT advocating that it needs to be done, I'm providing the logical basis for doing so IF there is such a significant threat to the NHS that it could no longer function effectively. Whether Omicron poses such a threat I'm not yet willing to make a prediction. Some on here are happy to do that and point to some positive research and data. Well, good for them. They may even be right!

If, for example, two full airbuses collided near Heathrow, with hundreds of severe burns cases, should we lockdown London for a week, as undoubtably anyone turning up with a heart attack would go untreated.

No, because that's a one-off event which the NHS and emergency services have plans to manage and regularly do exercises for so they are prepared for it. AFAIUI in that situation hospitals discharge a proportion of patients within hours to free up beds. More info: concept-operations-management-mass-casualties.pdf (england.nhs.uk)

We're currently seeing 900 people hospitalised per day, a similar scale to your emergency scenario. Of course we wouldn't lock down the population because that would do nothing to address the problem. But if we were seeing a major air crash every day with hundreds of casualties, how long do you think it would be before all flights were grounded?

Similarly, should we have locked London down during the blitz when healthcare services were far more stretched than anything Coronavirus has caused?

Hmmm. You know, I'm pretty sure we had some fairly extreme restrictions on everyday life during the Blitz. A lockdown would have done nothing to limit the capabilities of the Luftwaffe so wouldn't make any difference to the pressure on health services. Of course there were plenty of people objecting to restrictions back then as well, complaining about 'jumped up' ARP wardens and so on. No doubt some of the complaints were justified, but in the scheme of things ARP were necessary.

It is an extraordinarily extreme measure that should only be undertaken for an extraordinary situation (such as a large Ebola or Black Death outbreak). Actually in such a situation you would not need to lock down as people would be hiding at home or flee to the hills anyway.

Hyperbole aside, you have a point here. It may well be that by self-restricting now, we will have reduced the rate of Omicron spread so that we don't need further restrictions. Maybe. But I'll still maintain at this point: who knows?

Perhaps some of the pro-lockdowners need to show a bit more compassion to people losing their jobs or suffering mental health problems.

That's quite an assumption. I sure many "pro-lockdowners" have themselves lost their jobs or suffered mental health problems.

Well, that's me for now. I'm signing off for the evening. One final thing though - I remain hopefully that if any further restrictions are imposed they will be fairly shortlived. If you've watched The Shawshank Redemption, I'm very much in Andy Dufresne's "hope is a good thing" camp right now, not Red's "hope is dangerous" pessimistic view.

 

[DustyBin]

We're currently seeing 900 people hospitalised per day, a similar scale to your emergency scenario.

As a direct result of infection, or merely with?

 

[trainmania100]

Late last week my sister brought home coronavirus from her school. I'm taking rapid antigen tests each day and, suprisingly, I've been testing negative each day (she is testing positive, PCR sent off).

Seems unusual that, given she's 7 and running around the house with no simptoms, shouting and talking within 2m of me, and I still don't have it.

I am triple vaxxed, so grateful for now. Does it take a few days for the RAT tests to gain a positive result if I have recently been subjected to a breath of COVID ?

 

[nw1]

That's quite an assumption. I sure many "pro-lockdowners" have themselves lost their jobs or suffered mental health problems.

Hence my use of 'some', i.e. the ones with the most strident views towards lockdown-sceptical arguments.

 

[yorkie]

Late last week my sister brought home coronavirus from her school. I'm taking rapid antigen tests each day and, suprisingly, I've been testing negative each day (she is testing positive, PCR sent off).

Seems unusual that, given she's 7 and running around the house with no simptoms, shouting and talking within 2m of me, and I still don't have it.

I am triple vaxxed, so grateful for now. Does it take a few days for the RAT tests to gain a positive result if I have recently been subjected to a breath of COVID ?

Being exposed to Sars-CoV-2 does not necessarily mean you will test positive.

As soon as your immune system detects the virus it will be trying to fight it. As you've been vaccinated your immune system already has memory B & T cells that can recognise the virus and you will be mounting a robust immune response. If you are able to keep on top of the virus quickly enough, you will not test positive.

If your third dose was recent you will also still have active antibodies already produced without having to wait for your B cells to produce them; this is one of the reasons why the boosters are effective at preventing infections and not just against severe symptoms.

Even if you do test positive, that doesn't necessarily mean you are infectious, nor that you will have any symptoms.

If you are young, a healthy weight, fit & active, eat healthily, sleep well, relaxed, thinking positively and not feeling stressed, these will all reduce the chances of an infection developing. You may not be all of these things but if you can just be some of them, every little helps

 

[Freightmaster]

Well, that's me for now. I'm signing off for the evening. One final thing though - I remain hopefully that if any further restrictions are imposed they will be fairly shortlived. If you've watched The Shawshank Redemption, I'm very much in Andy Dufresne's "hope is a good thing" camp right now, not Red's "hope is dangerous" pessimistic view.

How about "get busy living... or get busy dying"?






MARK

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

If your third dose was recent you will also still have active antibodies already produced without having to wait for your B cells to produce them; this is one of the reasons why the boosters are effective at preventing infections and not just against severe symptoms.

Hasn't worked for me

 

[yorkie]

Hasn't worked for me

When did you get your 3rd dose and when did you test positive and/or develop symptoms?

To be clear, if your symptoms are mild the vaccine is still working.

As a direct result of infection, or merely with?

With. Many admissions are incidental. I trust @quantinghome will agree?

....A HUGE change in his stance in the last 3 months and that is something I have seen across the board...

Indeed there has been a shift. This forum has many well informed people who were ahead of the curve and more knowledgeable than the population on average but people are now seeing the light.

If Fraser Nelson's twitter debate with Graham Medley has influenced the Government's behaviour tonight, one wonders how long it'll be before outlets like the BBC report on it.

I don't think the BBC will report on the specific debate on Twitter, though they will eventually have to admit that Omicron is milder and that even the optimistic models were wrong.

Perhaps it's also sheep-like groupthink. There does seem to be a 'package' on the 'affluent left', in which you subscribe to pro-EU and anti-Tory views (which I would generally agree with) but also have to sign up to a pro-lockdown view to be part of the in-crowd.

Yes you see that crowd on Twitter; they often have cold heart logos in their usernames (ostensibly to 'support the NHS' but in practice it seems to be a symbol demoting the supporting of restrictions such as lockdowns)

An email I have sent to the Non-League Paper.

A good letter which I thoroughly support. Make sure you get yourself to a forum event some time and we can talk about football

Does this mean we need to add a Covid prosecutions and disputes section to the forum?

We might if loads of people were to come forward with complaints, but as things stand I know of no-one issued with such a fine and given recent events I think few, if any, fines are likely to be issued in future

 

[trainmania100]

Being exposed to Sars-CoV-2 does not necessarily mean you will test positive.

As soon as your immune system detects the virus it will be trying to fight it. As you've been vaccinated your immune system already has memory B & T cells that can recognise the virus and you will be mounting a robust immune response. If you are able to keep on top of the virus quickly enough, you will not test positive.

If your third dose was recent you will also still have active antibodies already produced without having to wait for your B cells to produce them; this is one of the reasons why the boosters are effective at preventing infections and not just against severe symptoms.

Even if you do test positive, that doesn't necessarily mean you are infectious, nor that you will have any symptoms.

If you are young, a healthy weight, fit & active, eat healthily, sleep well, relaxed, thinking positively and not feeling stressed, these will all reduce the chances of an infection developing. You may not be all of these things but if you can just be some of them, every little helps

Thanks, I'm actually immunosuppressed so I'm quite suprised, but yes my third vaccine was recently, last week in fact.

 

[yorkie]

Thanks, I'm actually immunosuppressed so I'm quite suprised, but yes my third vaccine was recently, last week in fact.

That's a very short period of time and it can take up to 3 weeks to take full effect, but it may be just long enough to be starting to have an effect. Of course, you still have the effects of the previous two jabs.

It really is impossible to predict how any given individual will react though. I have a colleague who was far more ill with a "common cold" virus than she was with Covid, which was actually quite mild for her, despite her having underlying conditions.

Another possibility is that your sister is not (very) infectious. Do you know if she has Delta or Omicron? If she has not had a PCR test you won't know, and even then I think only a minority are sequenced (though we do more sequencing than perhaps any country other than Denmark, I think)

All people can really do is keep doing as much as possible to give them the best possible chance of fighting viruses, and if you do that, you'd have to be very unlucky to be seriously ill.

 

[21C101]

What Fraser Nelson has aired (blown out of the water) is that the authorities use modelling as a tool to justify policy, not to inform it.

This will impact public confidence in Climate Change forecasts as well.

 

[TPO]

Indeed. I don't trust the concept of a "circuit breaker". It won't work and theyll just make it drag on.

The circuit breaker lockdown concept was tried in Wales in October 2020.

It didn't work.

Last I heard, a definition of idiocy was doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome.......

TPO