Omicron variant and the measures implemented in response to it

[birchesgreen]

Opps, fears of the variant have driven my company to cancel the xmas party.

Which was a shame as i had already thought up a good excuse for why i wasn't going.

 

[chris11256]

Opps, fears of the variant have driven my company to cancel the xmas party.

Which was a shame as i had already thought up a good excuse for why i wasn't going.

Similar here, senior management are in sheer blind panic mode. All in person meetings are banned, no more than two members of staff per room at one time.

 

[yorksrob]

I've said all along, if hypochondriac individuals want to lock themselves down, who am I to stop them. They can their lives and I won't interfere, and I'll live mine and they can stay out of my business.

The programmes moved onto ingrowing toenails now, so hopefully that will keep them occupied

 

[westv]

Opps, fears of the variant have driven my company to cancel the xmas party.

Which was a shame as i had already thought up a good excuse for why i wasn't going.

I've decided not to go to mine either. Black tie seemed just a bit too formal for me.

 

[philosopher]

Similar here, senior management are in sheer blind panic mode. All in person meetings are banned, no more than two members of staff per room at one time.

If this does turn out to be a fuss about nothing, which I suspect it will, the panic over this variant will have already caused immense damage. The hospitality industry now looks like it is facing another bleak Christmas due to Christmas parties being cancelled at very short notice and people putting off social gatherings. The Bank of England I suspect will hold off raising interest rates for yet another few months, potentially worsening the inflation issue. Finally the nation’s mental health will have taken yet another hit.

 

[jumble]

It all seems very odd that this variant has suddenly appeared and the governments reaction to it.

We are of course not told if the widely bandied figure if the vaccination may be 40% less effective means that the vaccine is 40 % less able to prevent transmission or it is 40% less able to prevent hospitalisation /serious illness
although the he WHO 20 hours ago said

Transmissibility: It is not yet clear whether Omicron is more transmissible (e.g., more easily spread from person to person) compared to other variants, including Delta. The number of people testing positive has risen in areas of South Africa affected by this variant, but epidemiologic studies are underway to understand if it is because of Omicron or other factors.

Severity of disease: It is not yet clear whether infection with Omicron causes more severe disease compared to infections with other variants, including Delta. Preliminary data suggests that there are increasing rates of hospitalization in South Africa, but this may be due to increasing overall numbers of people becoming infected, rather than a result of specific infection with Omicron. There is currently no information to suggest that symptoms associated with Omicron are different from those from other variants. Initial reported infections were among university students—younger individuals who tend to have more mild disease—but understanding the level of severity of the Omicron variant will take days to several weeks.

Update on Omicron

On 26 November 2021, WHO designated the variant B.1.1.529 a variant of concern, named Omicron, on the advice of WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE). This decision was based on the evidence presented to the TAG-VE that Omicron has several mutations that may have an impact...

www.who.int

I will take the charitable view that it is not the case that the government are sitting on a load of vaccines that are shortly to reach their use by date and they need to try and panic people fast to take up their third doses as this is the only thing that may make sense

 

[bramling]

If this does turn out to be a fuss about nothing, which I suspect it will, the panic over this variant will have already caused immense damage. The hospitality industry now looks like it is facing another bleak Christmas due to Christmas parties being cancelled at very short notice and people putting off social gatherings. The Bank of England I suspect will hold off raising interest rates for yet another few months, potentially worsening the inflation issue. Finally the nation’s mental health will have taken yet another hit.

Absolutely. Some very good points there.

If this turns out to be the case, the politicians need to be held to account for *another* knee-jerk decision.

Meanwhile, my town centre bursting today. Doesn’t feel like much of a fear factor there.

I wouldn’t under-estimate the mental health impact either. Lots of people really are at the point, after nearly two years, where they just want to get on with their lives. They are aware the risk hasn’t entirely gone away, but (especially having been vaccinated) they want to get on with life. We now have another unwelcome reminder and a load of renewed hardship, potentially over nothing.

 

[Smidster]

Absolutely. Some very good points there.

If this turns out to be the case, the politicians need to be held to account for *another* knee-jerk decision.

Meanwhile, my town centre bursting today. Doesn’t feel like much of a fear factor there.

I wouldn’t under-estimate the mental health impact either. Lots of people really are at the point, after nearly two years, where they just want to get on with their lives. They are aware the risk hasn’t entirely gone away, but (especially having been vaccinated) they want to get on with life. We now have another unwelcome reminder and a load of renewed hardship, potentially over nothing.

My only hope is that this might impact the public mood and reaction going forward.

The politicians have spent an awful lot of credibility on this - If it all turns out to be a bit of a dud then I would hope that the next time the public are a little more sceptical and a little less likely to fall in line behind restrictions before we have any real idea of the situation.

It is just a shame we have to put up with another 3 months of restrictions to get there.

 

[bramling]

My only hope is that this might impact the public mood and reaction going forward.

The politicians have spent an awful lot of credibility on this - If it all turns out to be a bit of a dud then I would hope that the next time the public are a little more sceptical and a little less likely to fall in line behind restrictions before we have any real idea of the situation.

It is just a shame we have to put up with another 3 months of restrictions to get there.

Well, it’s worked for Boris. Masses of media focus returned to Covid, less focus on his leadership suitability.

We mustn’t lose sight of this.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I will take the charitable view that it is not the case that the government are sitting on a load of vaccines that are shortly to reach their use by date and they need to try and panic people fast to take up their third doses as this is the only thing that may make sense

sounds reasonable assessment to me. The fact is we've gone from Delta to Omicron without any other variant being an issue so why now? This is being promoted by WHO to get the West to provide much more vaccine support to poorer nations and govt see it as a double opportunity to push the booster narrative as well as deflect attention off their own political issues.

 

[Ediswan]

I can't find a link to this, but R4 had an interview this morning regarding a community transmission case in Essex where the original arrival from South Africa was nearly two weeks ago. In other words, Omicron was in the UK before it was identified as a variant in SA.

 

[MikeWM]

and govt see it as a double opportunity to push the booster narrative as well as deflect attention off their own political issues.

But the way this is now being done is doing - probably irreparable - damage to public health messaging going forwards.

They can't say 'the vaccines work against the new variant' because there is then no argument for 'boosters'.

But they also can't say 'the vaccines don't work against the new variant' because then there is no point in getting the 'booster'.

So they have to say 'the vaccines may not work, we're not sure yet, but get the booster anyway'. It doesn't make sense, and people are incresingly noticing that it doesn't make sense.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I will take the charitable view that it is not the case that the government are sitting on a load of vaccines that are shortly to reach their use by date and they need to try and panic people fast to take up their third doses as this is the only thing that may make sense

I thought that the WHO had asked countries with vaccine stocks coming to the end of their use by date to send them on to third world countries.

 

[Busaholic]

If pi can be followed by r squared, then there need be no end to the enumerating of the variants

 

[jumble]

I thought that the WHO had asked countries with vaccine stocks coming to the end of their use by date to send them on to third world countries.

Maybe they did but if you were in charge here what would you do?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Maybe they did but if you were in charge here what would you do?

I have no connections whatsoever with the WHO and refuse to be drawn into answering hypothetical questions.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Absolutely. Some very good points there.

If this turns out to be the case, the politicians need to be held to account for *another* knee-jerk decision.

Meanwhile, my town centre bursting today. Doesn’t feel like much of a fear factor there.

I wouldn’t under-estimate the mental health impact either. Lots of people really are at the point, after nearly two years, where they just want to get on with their lives. They are aware the risk hasn’t entirely gone away, but (especially having been vaccinated) they want to get on with life. We now have another unwelcome reminder and a load of renewed hardship, potentially over nothing.

Regarding mental health absolutely.

Mine has generally been fine but is suddenly dropping because like you say it's just become too much. The constant worrying about what governments are going to do. The impending cuts, redundancies and reorgs at work to deal with less rail venue. The disruption to seeing friends and family, holidays. All first world problems but with a very real impact.

Like I say, up until now I've been fine but suddenly it is all deteriorating, and friends are telling me similar stories.

 

[brad465]

Absolutely. Some very good points there.

If this turns out to be the case, the politicians need to be held to account for *another* knee-jerk decision.

Meanwhile, my town centre bursting today. Doesn’t feel like much of a fear factor there.

I wouldn’t under-estimate the mental health impact either. Lots of people really are at the point, after nearly two years, where they just want to get on with their lives. They are aware the risk hasn’t entirely gone away, but (especially having been vaccinated) they want to get on with life. We now have another unwelcome reminder and a load of renewed hardship, potentially over nothing.

Yes I've felt a lot more miserable at times seeing the reaction to this variant, but was perfectly fine just before then and generally I've not been too impacted by restrictions overall (being a home worker largely and having never experienced furlough). If this is how I'm thinking there'll be many others thinking similar.

 

[Bikeman78]

One would have thought that the non-covid excess deaths over the past few months would be a good subject for a Panorama, or some such.

Six million people on waiting lists might be relevant. Likely to get worse before it gets better. All this talk about saving the NHS. It's already broken.

 

[bramling]

Yes I've felt a lot more miserable at times seeing the reaction to this variant, but was perfectly fine just before then and generally I've not been too impacted by restrictions overall (being a home worker largely and having never experienced furlough). If this is how I'm thinking there'll be many others thinking similar.

What f—-s me off the most with this is, apart from the passive-aggressive threats, is the way he has cracked so readily, having declared that July was “irreversible”. Much as we all knew his word means nothing, it’s now been very clearly demonstrated.

The fall-out from this is how on earth can anyone seek to plan for the foreseeable future, when essentially he’s prepared to u-turn at the literal drop of a hat.

Not fit for office, plain and simple.

 

[brad465]

According to this tweet from about 15 mins ago, Sajid Javid has said if Omicron is discovered not to be anymore dangerous than Delta, all measures being introduced will immediately be removed:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1465348094791405573

NEW: The Health Secretary has said if OMICRON is proven to be no more dangerous than the delta variant then all the latest measures will be immediately removed.

I haven't seen an article yet, which suggests this must be something he's just said in Parliament (I'm not watching that though).

 

[21C101]

According to this tweet from about 15 mins ago, Sajid Javid has said if Omicron is discovered not to be anymore dangerous than Delta, all measures being introduced will immediately be removed:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1465348094791405573

I haven't seen an article yet, which suggests this must be something he's just said in Parliament (I'm not watching that though).

Would love to be a fly on their wall in their media and focus group monitoring department.

 

[Darandio]

According to this tweet from about 15 mins ago, Sajid Javid has said if Omicron is discovered not to be anymore dangerous than Delta, all measures being introduced will immediately be removed:

Despite the in depth BBC live reporting of both the press conference and parliament, they've conveniently neglected to report this quote so far. Maybe it will be near the bottom of the Coronavirus page later tonight.

 

[21C101]

Despite the in depth BBC live reporting of both the press conference and parliament, they've conveniently neglected to report this quote so far. Maybe it will be near the bottom of the Coronavirus page later tonight.

Manchester Evening News has picked up on it.

Javid Quote “If it emerges that this variant is no more dangerous than the Delta variant, then we won’t keep measures in place for a day longer than necessary.”

Covid LIVE updates as Sajid Javid gives major statement on Omicron variant

Breaking news, updates and the latest coronavirus case numbers

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

 

[initiation]

“If it emerges that this variant is no more dangerous than the Delta variant, then we won’t keep measures in place for a day longer than necessary.”

So not quite the same as saying "all the latest measures will be immediately removed."
Judging by the spring (and then summer) roadmap, this will drag on.

If all the named restrictions are rolled back before 2022 I will eat my metaphorical hat.

Edit:
Just seen this quote from him in the summer....

Sajid Javid has said there will be “no going back” to Covid rules once England’s lockdown is lifted.

Sajid Javid Says There Will Be 'No Going Back' To Covid Rules Once They Are Lifted

New health secretary to update MPs on when England's remaining restrictions will be removed.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

 

[Yew]

Manchester Evening News has picked up on it.

Javid Quote “If it emerges that this variant is no more dangerous than the Delta variant, then we won’t keep measures in place for a day longer than necessary.”

Covid LIVE updates as Sajid Javid gives major statement on Omicron variant

Breaking news, updates and the latest coronavirus case numbers

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

It does however leave the possibility that if it is only 1% more of an issue, the restrictions could say.


I always get nervous with this sort of 'always' or 'never' stuff, it never gets through without some pedants picking up some obscure and unrepresentative edge case.

 

[DerekC]

I hope the armchair experts and professional cynics on this thread listened to the press conference this afternoon. Van Tam & Co gave what I thought was a pretty good explanation of what's going on and why.

 

[21C101]

I hope the armchair experts and professional cynics on this thread listened to the press conference this afternoon. Van Tam & Co gave what I thought was a pretty good explanation of what's going on and why.

I've no objection to the measures on returning international travellers. I would have no objection to the mask rules, if loose bits of cloth made a significant difference.

Given all the money they have spent, it is odd that the government have not had manufactured en-masse and handed out free FFP3 masks that do make a significant difference, like they did with condoms after Aids hit.

 

[westv]

I we going to be badgered to cover up on deserted platforms again?

 

[Bungle73]

I we going to be badgered to cover up on deserted platforms again?

LNER have already been telling people that they have to mask up on stations, which as far as I am concerned is total bs. They've restricted replies to the tweet though.