Is Covid now over?

Over 218k new cases and 2k hospitalisations today and the plan seems to be to "ride it out".
It's going to be tough and we can't keep vaccinating the nation every few months indefinitely so I guess this is now the time to "learn to live with Covid" - but they are going to have to get a lot smarter about balancing isolation and testing and safety. Something else is needed if we are going to minimise deaths and keep the NHS and businesses working. I don't know the answer but I do recognise the problem.

Part of the solution may be going down the path of Kidod Science and Tech Ltd - an Israeli company who have just applied to the UK medical regulator (MHRA) to approve their Virion Covid testing equipment.

It's a saliva based test that takes less than a minute to produce the results and claims to be as effective as a PCR test if not better.

It detects Covid biomarkers of reproduction which means it can tell if a person is infected and Covid is reproducing itself inside their cells. As the virus is in the air and we all breath it in anyway - usually without getting ill - the test targets "spreaders" only.

The Virion device is small, portable and just needs a computer to hook up to so would be ideal for access to public places and could be moved around from event to event - although even at that speed you'd need a bunch of them for larger events.

Early days, but it's an interesting approach worth investigating further.

It seems that we are trailing other countries in hospital bed capacity and that has to impact on Covid strategy. Back in the 1960's we had an impressive 10.7 beds per thousand people in the population but that has declined steadily over the years.

Currently, Germany has 8, France 5.9, Italy 3.1 and the UK 2.5.

I would imagine hospitalisations would be the key factor in determining a further Covid strategy review as we don't have the capacity of our neighbours.

Have you been living under a rock or something, hospitalisations have been the key factor in Covid strategy since day one - that's why everything that has been done up to now is to save the NHS service from being completely overwhelmed!

And although it is to some extent about bed capacity it still didn't prevent Germany, France, Italy and most everywhere else, still having to lockdown themselves to save their health services from collapsing due to the vast numbers succumbing to Covid.  We could have had the same bed capacity as Germany or better but it still would not have stopped anything different happening to what did happen.

The current strategy is now based on the facts that immunisation is preventing the need for mass hospitalisation - people getting jabbed stops them from getting seriously ill and needing to go to hospital.

Yes of course it doesn't stop folk fully jabbed from catching Covid - Starmer has recaught it again today and he's fully jabbed - and some will still need the hospital and some will die - but not in the numbers and volumes that we had at the beginning of the pandemic and again this time last year.

The biggest current problem seems to be not that the numbers in hospitals are outstripping bed capacity - they are not - but the contagiousness of Omicron is such that many hospital staff have caught it and are off work isolating and thus creating a shortage of doctors and nurses on the wards to run all the hospital services.

We won't move from the current plan B simply because we are lacking bed capacity - we aren't - the only reason we may move beyond it though is simply because of so many hospital staff being off work and having to stay at home because they or someone close to them have caught it and it is having an effect on hospital services.

It is still a fact though (whether you believe in being vaccinated or not) that those who are unvaccinated and catch Covid are the ones more at risk of needing hospitalisation and more serious treatment than those who have had a jab or two.

Also it is the old and vulnerable who are more likely to be the sickest and die from Covid (even though they may be up to date on their jabs) simply because they are old and/or sick to begin with and less able to fight Covid even with the help of the vaccines.

Put simply if non of the old and sick hadn't had the jab there would have been a lot more who would be dead by now - the vaccines give everyone a degree of protection but you also need to be somewhat healthy in body as well in order to resist it too.

Fwiw Omicron seems to have peaked in London and possibly the south east too, currently in the north west but beginning to take off in Yorkshire and the North east -

English Regions, Scotland, Wales, NI & RoI #covid19 cases per 100,000 reported in the last 7 days

Wales and Nth Ireland - catchup

Yorks & Humber move above London
East Mids move above London & East

England increases from 1,743 cases per 100k Monday to 1,799 per 100k Tuesday pic.twitter.com/CPzBuxlYm8

— andrew (@avds) January 5, 2022

Where has the Delta variant gone? It was everywhere but in a matter of weeks it's practically disappeared.

I'd assumed that with the rise of Omicron folk catching it would have immunity against Delta but apparently this isn't the case.

So what's happened to Delta?

wanderlust wrote:Where has the Delta variant gone? It was everywhere but in a matter of weeks it's practically disappeared.

I'd assumed that with the rise of Omicron folk catching it would have immunity against Delta but apparently this isn't the case.

So what's happened to Delta?

It's still out there.

People who are double jabbed have 'high' protection against Delta but 'low' protection against Omicron.

Booster jabs gives the high protection against Omicron.

Obviously those with no jabs have no protection as such.

Omicron also spreads faster than Delta.

So what has happened is that Omicron has infected those who haven't had the booster which Delta hasn't been as successful at doing and that has fuelled the rapid rise in Omicron whilst Delta first remained 'stable' in terms of infections.

Obviously the faster spreading of Omicron has helped infect those who haven't been jabbed before Delta has time to reach them, meaning for Delta less chance to grow in the community.

So Omicron has grown in the community by infecting people in a way that Delta hasn't been able to successfully do (the double jabbed) and also by spreading faster than Delta, has taken an ever increasing percentage of those most susceptible to catching either strain of Covid (the un-jabbed) than Delta is able to do.

Anyone been following the Djokovic Aussie visa saga? Turns out he wasn't granted a medical exemption as claimed but then won his immigration detention case and the story rumbles on. But for obvious reasons only to himself, Nigel Farage - a keen admirer of Australian-style immigration policy - has got involved and visited Djoko's family in Belgrade to offer his support.
Andy Murray's Tweet on the irony of this brought a wry smile to my face.

I see our town is covering itself in glory yet again 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-59953966

The amount of comments i read on FB last night from fans saying they weren't going to the game because of the covid restrictions and having to show a covid pass is depressing as well. Its not as if it's just Bolton who have these restrictions in place but these brain dead fuckers are just clueless.

Norpig wrote:I see our town is covering itself in glory yet again 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-59953966

The amount of comments i read on FB last night from fans saying they weren't going to the game because of the covid restrictions and having to show a covid pass is depressing as well. Its not as if it's just Bolton who have these restrictions in place but these brain dead fuckers are just clueless.

I may have been mistaken but I'm sure I saw something about "considering increasing the number of match attendees who were checked for jabs from 20% to 50%"

Is that right? They only check 20%? If so, how does that work? Do people who are turned away just go to the back of the queue and hope they're not chosen the next time?

Maybe I dreamt it.

Thought this was interesting - not as though I see much changing in the road map out of Covid mind as it's too late for that now. -

Hospital admissions, meanwhile, are now rising sharply. This is because there is a delay between people becoming infected and falling seriously ill.

The latest available data shows there are almost 20,000 people in hospital infected with Covid. Some of these people will be in hospital because of Covid, while others will be in hospital for other reasons and simply have tested positive when admitted.



While hospital admission trends tend to lag about two weeks behind case numbers, Covid deaths tend to lag even further behind hospital admissions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59983239

Why don't we have a ONE DAY circuit breaker? 

Just one day where everything in the country is fully closed. Shops, petrol stations, corner shops. Full in your house lock down...

Call it TESTING DAY.

Everyone has to take a test that day. And only those with negative results are allowed out the next day. 

That way, every single person with covid has been caught in one go. And there should be zero people out spreading it because anyone who has it has to isolate. A week or so  later covid should be out of the picture.

As it currently stands, there are always enough people out spreading it to keep it ticking over, or worse.

Biggie wrote:Why don't we have a ONE DAY circuit breaker? 

Just one day where everything in the country is fully closed. Shops, petrol stations, corner shops. Full in your house lock down...

Call it TESTING DAY.

Everyone has to take a test that day. And only those with negative results are allowed out the next day. 

That way, every single person with covid has been caught in one go. And there should be zero people out spreading it because anyone who has it has to isolate. A week or so  later covid should be out of the picture.

As it currently stands, there are always enough people out spreading it to keep it ticking over, or worse.

I like it but if everyone is in isolation, the testing would have to be self-testing and I suspect that could be easily rigged.

wanderlust wrote:

Biggie wrote:Why don't we have a ONE DAY circuit breaker? 

Just one day where everything in the country is fully closed. Shops, petrol stations, corner shops. Full in your house lock down...

Call it TESTING DAY.

Everyone has to take a test that day. And only those with negative results are allowed out the next day. 

That way, every single person with covid has been caught in one go. And there should be zero people out spreading it because anyone who has it has to isolate. A week or so  later covid should be out of the picture.

As it currently stands, there are always enough people out spreading it to keep it ticking over, or worse.

I like it but if everyone is in isolation, the testing would have to be self-testing and I suspect that could be easily rigged.

What happens when the next plane, boat, train, car or lorry arrives from abroad?

Look at China and Australia who have sealed their boarders to stop Covid getting in - and failed.

It only takes one person to get in with Covid and it starts all over again!

And do you really think everybody would do a test on the day???

What about the anti-vaxers for a start let alone the millions of couldn't give a fuck that I've seen over the last two years of Covid???

Sluffy wrote:

Look at China and Australia who have sealed their boarders

No wonder Airbnb is on it's knees.

Maybe we should just accept that Covid was never as bad as “science” told us and certainly the Omicron variant is evidence that we are now dealing not with a pandemic but an endemic no worse than flu and should be treated the same way. Destroying the economy, childrens education and the health concerns of the majority with a waiting list of approaching 6 million was madness in the extreme. Governments worldwide have been conned into considering only one sided “scientific” beliefs 8nstead of countering it with the other major concerns relevant to the wider population. Let’s just hope this madness now ends soon since no evidence has ever been proved to validate any of the measures taken during the last two years. Please let’s just get back to using common sense and reasoned multi sided discussion.

Whitesince63 wrote:Maybe we should just accept that Covid was never as bad as “science” told us and certainly the Omicron variant is evidence that we are now dealing not with a pandemic but an endemic no worse than flu and should be treated the same way. Destroying the economy, childrens education and the health concerns of the majority with a waiting list of approaching 6 million was madness in the extreme. Governments worldwide have been conned into considering only one sided “scientific” beliefs instead of countering it with the other major concerns relevant to the wider population. Let’s just hope this madness now ends soon since no evidence has ever been proved to validate any of the measures taken during the last two years. Please let’s just get back to using common sense and reasoned multi sided discussion.

Wow!!!

No offence mate but you do seem to be a denier of most things including Covid.

The last pandemic we had was Spanish flu, which occurred at the very end of  World War 1, when the world was a different place in terms of not having the means of mass travel (no airlines for instance) and medicines and vaccines.

Back then 50 million died as the only solution they really had to deal with it was waiting for herd immunity to kick in.

Yes of course we (the world) could have done the same thing with Covid but at what cost - did you see the pictures from India when in hit there, when hospitals  were full and the mortuaries couldn't cope with all the dead bodies?

Don't you think the same would have happened here if there wasn't lockdowns and would people just accept that hospitals had to turn the sick and dying away and the dead couldn't be buried because there were to many to deal with?

Christ people have got their knickers in a twist when asked to wear a facemask, could you imagine public anger if people were dying on the streets here?

Governments through out the world did what they thought right in dealing with Covid and keeping their economies going but all of them, without exception, made some sort of provision for protecting their people from it.

And you reckon all this was one massive con???

Also you don't seem to understand that Omicron is not the same 'Covid' as what started in Wuhan - think of the Wuhan version as Neanderthal Man and Omicron as we are now - we both came from the same source but have evolved and changed.   Add to that, that millions throughout the world have had time to be jabbed to give us some protection from the worst of whatever version we may catch.

That's why Covid isn't as life threatening to us as it was two years ago.

I'm sure all the families of people who died in the ITU and other wards at my Hospital would disagree with you that Covid isn't a serious issue 63.

Sluffy wrote:

Wow!!!

No offence mate but you do seem to be a denier of most things including Covid.

The last pandemic we had was Spanish flu, which occurred at the very end of  World War 1, when the world was a different place in terms of not having the means of mass travel (no airlines for instance) and medicines and vaccines.

Back then 50 million died as the only solution they really had to deal with it was waiting for herd immunity to kick in.

Yes of course we (the world) could have done the same thing with Covid but at what cost - did you see the pictures from India when in hit there, when hospitals  were full and the mortuaries couldn't cope with all the dead bodies?

Don't you think the same would have happened here if there wasn't lockdowns and would people just accept that hospitals had to turn the sick and dying away and the dead couldn't be buried because there were to many to deal with?

Christ people have got their knickers in a twist when asked to wear a facemask, could you imagine public anger if people were dying on the streets here?

Governments through out the world did what they thought right in dealing with Covid and keeping their economies going but all of them, without exception, made some sort of provision for protecting their people from it.

And you reckon all this was one massive con???

Also you don't seem to understand that Omicron is not the same 'Covid' as what started in Wuhan - think of the Wuhan version as Neanderthal Man and Omicron as we are now - we both came from the same source but have evolved and changed.   Add to that, that millions throughout the world have had time to be jabbed to give us some protection from the worst of whatever version we may catch.

That's why Covid isn't as life threatening to us as it was two years ago.

Great post, proud of you.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:

Great post, proud of you.

Blimey!