So now we have Deltacron.

However, scientists stress there is now substantial immunity in the human population against both variants and there is no reason to think this will pose a danger to vaccines.

How is this compatible with rising cases and reported (anecdotally, of course, because officialdom isn't interested) multiple reinfections?

And where has this 'substantial immunity' come from when we know that the only way to achieve herd immunity is through preventitive vaccines? (i.e. not ones that just lessen the severity of the disease.)

Oops if your husband has had a PCR test, as our grandson did yesterday, they will know which type.

The 'substantial' immunity has come from a mix of vaccination and infection and a week or two ago stood at 97%

Professor Linda Bauld from Edinburgh is talking about the new variant deltacron on BBC news volver and she has said that it was sequenced at L’Institute Pasteur after being discovered in Cyprus earlier.

I have re read the Sky report, what have I missed?

Jaxjacky it was a LFT.
As was mine this morning.

Ah, ok, my daughter always gets a PCR follow up from a +ve LFT.

GG13, I have no special knowledge in this, just a scientific background in another area and an ability to read between the lines of news reports.

As growstuff says it doesn't matter who calls it what, but I know for sure that calling it "Deltacron" is more likely to cause alarm than calling it XYZ-123 or whatever its scientific name is.

I didn't see Bauld on TV, but I've got Sky on just now in case she comes on again. The only articles I have found online say that there are no large numbers of cases, there is no evidence that it is more or a concern than what we already have. We had a "deltacron" before, do you remember? Turned out to be nothing.

Now maybe this will be nothing and maybe it won't. But like Pantglas I'm a bit over the whole thing of "new variant, man the barricades!!" That's not putting my head in the sand, and its not ignoring the truth, its getting on with life.

volver

*GG13*, I have no special knowledge in this, just a scientific background in another area and an ability to read between the lines of news reports.

As growstuff says it doesn't matter who calls it what, but I know for sure that calling it "Deltacron" is more likely to cause alarm than calling it XYZ-123 or whatever its scientific name is.

I didn't see Bauld on TV, but I've got Sky on just now in case she comes on again. The only articles I have found online say that there are no large numbers of cases, there is no evidence that it is more or a concern than what we already have. We had a "deltacron" before, do you remember? Turned out to be nothing.

Now maybe this will be nothing and maybe it won't. But like Pantglas I'm a bit over the whole thing of "new variant, man the barricades!!" That's not putting my head in the sand, and its not ignoring the truth, its getting on with life.

I am also totally over the new variant man the barricades mentality.

I said right at the beginning that at some point we would have to get used to the idea that Covid is here to stay, just as we accept the many different strains of influenza and of course the common cold.

I said right at the beginning that at some point we would have to get used to the idea that Covid is here to stay, just as we accept the many different strains of influenza and of course the common cold.

You and many another, GG, including the sainted scientists . My view is that we need to stop obsessing about covid.

Tin hat firmly on

Baggs I put my tin hat each day before I log on to GN…

geez tin hat on

The variant which most people (approximately 80%) seem to be catching at the moment is Omicron BA.2, which is slightly different from the original Omicron. Nobody knows quite how serious it is or how effective vaccines are against it.

Anybody who is complacent really is living in a dream world. The virus will continue to mutate and vaccines won't be able to keep up. We can hope they will become less serious, but that's not guaranteed. Nobody seems to have come up with a plan for "living with Covid" apart from pretending it's gone away.

M0nica

The 'substantial' immunity has come from a mix of vaccination and infection and a week or two ago stood at 97%

How does anybody know that?

No growstuff, I'm not living in a dream world, and no matter how often you say it it doesn't make it true.

Most people know by now that viruses mutate continually and that there is no guarantee that they will become milder, so you pretending that we don't know that isn't valid.

The way we live with Covid is to stop obsessing about it. Despite all the scare stories we are still sequencing the virus and we are able to identify new variants. But we can no longer stop the operation of society in case the next one is bad.

Is it a problem that hospital cases are going up? Of course. Should we continue living half lives because of it? Definitely not.

Jaxjacky

Oops if your husband has had a PCR test, as our grandson did yesterday, they will know which type.

UK labs don't all have the capability to detect Omicron, especially as it has something called S gene drop-off, which means it can't always be spotted. The "stealth" variant BA.2 has a mutation which is difficult to distinguish with the standard tests.

volver

No growstuff, I'm not living in a dream world, and no matter how often you say it it doesn't make it true.

Most people know by now that viruses mutate continually and that there is no guarantee that they will become milder, so you pretending that we don't know that isn't valid.

The way we live with Covid is to stop obsessing about it. Despite all the scare stories we are still sequencing the virus and we are able to identify new variants. But we can no longer stop the operation of society in case the next one is bad.

Is it a problem that hospital cases are going up? Of course. Should we continue living half lives because of it? Definitely not.

It doesn't matter how often you come up with the same narrative, it doesn't make it true either.

growstuff

M0nica

The 'substantial' immunity has come from a mix of vaccination and infection and a week or two ago stood at 97%

How does anybody know that?

Really growstuff? Is questioning the validity of every stat the way that we're going to go with this?

97% is a bit of an underestimate, actually.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19latestinsights/antibodies

PS. I'm not living a "half life". Are you?

The stealth variant.

Yes, that's not scary at all.

Nobody seems to have come up with a plan for "living with Covid" apart from pretending it's gone away.

This is an unsubstantiated assumption.

growstuff you are very brave to volunteer to work in a school because I know you are quite high risk. I hope you’re wearing the ffp2/ffp3 type mask as they will afford extra protection. However children’s education is high priority for those of us who were/are teachers as you are.
I honestly don’t see why a few rules/restrictions couldn’t have remained. Mask wearing, hand sanitisers, social distancing. It’s not a lot, but probably gives some protection. I feel that the removal of these measures may have given out the wrong messages to many people, and they consider it’s all over, but it’s not!

growstuff

The variant which most people (approximately 80%) seem to be catching at the moment is Omicron BA.2, which is slightly different from the original Omicron. Nobody knows quite how serious it is or how effective vaccines are against it.

Anybody who is complacent really is living in a dream world. The virus will continue to mutate and vaccines won't be able to keep up. We can hope they will become less serious, but that's not guaranteed. Nobody seems to have come up with a plan for "living with Covid" apart from pretending it's gone away.

I don't think anyone is complacent, growstuff but I think they are pragmatic and most people realise that we cannot shut down society for an indefinite time.

If a new variant should prove t be more deadly then we might have to lock down again but for how long? A year? Ten years? Indefinitely?

growstuff

PS. I'm not living a "half life". Are you?

It depends what you define as a half life compared to a full life.

Mine is limited at the moment compared to what it was three years ago.

My life is also limited now Callistemon like your life is limited. The things we did without thinking we now don’t do, or we very occasionally and carefully. We don’t go to the cinema anymore, or to theatres or classical concerts which my husband loves. We used to travel, in this country and abroad regularly. We used to visit our family in the north, I’ve been north once only since this began and that was for my mother in law’s funeral. We ate out regularly, now it’s once in a blue moon. Hopefully it’ll be more in the summer. We cared for three of our grandchildren regularly who are now in New Zealand as a direct result of Covid.
On the positive side we see our two sons and their families every weekend again. We do family meals with them and we care for our nine year old grandson. But our life has changed radically, and to be honest, I don’t like it. Nonetheless we continue to take care as we don’t want Covid again.

What or who is the source of the claim that more people are dying from flu than Covid because that is not what the numbers from the Office for National Statistics say.

It is important to understand that the numbers reported by the ONS combine numbers for deaths from influenza and pneumonia. Even then, deaths where Covid was the underlying cause still exceeded the combined number of deaths where influenza and pneumonia were the underlying cause.

In response to a Freedom of Information request for influenza and Covid data for 2020 and 2021, the ONS wrote:

We do not currently hold analysis showing deaths from influenza separately from pneumonia in 2021. We intend to publish this information via NOMIS in July 2022.

Provisional ONS numbers for deaths in the week ended 25 February 2022:

Deaths involving respiratory disease (any mention on death certificate): 3351
of which death due to respiratory disease was the underlying cause: 1163

Deaths involving influenza and pneumonia (any mention on death certificate): 1676

of which death due to influenza and pneumonia was the underlying cause: 377

Deaths involving Covid (any mention on death certificate): 766
of which death due Covid was the underlying cause: 503

The week ended 25 Feb 2022 isn't an anomaly. Every week in 2022 has shown more deaths from Covid than from influenza and pneumonia. The good news is that numbers are coming down.