New variant has emerged in Africa, should we be worried?

My best wishes to those of you with family members who are currently I'll with or recovering from covid19. Such a disappointment for those hoping to spend time with family from South Africa as well. As for the post from the silly conspiracy theorist.........give your head a wobble

I do not see how you can possibly been in hospital and had surgery without being tested frequently for COVID, or at least not in any country with a leader that isn't a knucklehead. I assume you are American or Brazilian.

You say a lie doesn't like to be challenged. Fine, I am challenging you. Produce the research published in peer reviewed journals of repute where known experts in the field of viruses of this type are arguing along the same lines as you.

Produce the evidence that in a world where governments of all possible political persuasions have been voted into office by countries whose populations have completely divergent political views, say Belarus, Poland, Sweden , Britain, Venezuela and then explain how billions of people in the world can be brainwashed into one shared knowledge that COVID exists, kills people and many cases can be prevented and others ameliorated by vaccination, if they do not see the evidence before them every day.

I've also just had major life changing surgery all without the need to be tested for something I have no symptoms of!!!

No you haven't!

There is NO WAY you've just had surgery, life-changing or otherwise, without testing for Covid & MRSA.

Excellent. Reporting our anti-vax poster seems to have worked. People who spread such dangerous tosh have no place here.

Dickens I’m so sorry that you will be unable to reunite with your son and family this Christmas. Six years is such a long time to be apart, and you must be so disappointed. I do hope you can get together in the not too distant future.

Kali I hope your daughter recovers quickly and is well enough to enjoy Christmas.

Urmstongran I know exactly how your daughter feels. As I said up thread, I had Covid and like your daughter, I’m afraid of getting it again. The feeling of being unable to get enough air is quite terrifying and having had it, you never want to experience it again. Your daughter is much younger than me too, and she is the mother of young children, and would have the additional worry about them.

Sorry I forgot to include the adjective ’lying’. Operation without a covid test my a**e.

My sister-in-law has just had major surgery she has to isolate at home beforehand, PCR before admission and she was tested everyday during her stay in hospital.

Darn it, she has no chance to prove that she is not a liar by giving us all the corroborated scientific research that proves her arguments.

She has probably collapsed with the relief of not having to stand up to the challenge. I doubt she would have come back. her sort never do. Anyone ever asked Biscuitmuncher a question and got a reply? I thought not.

Maybe they are one and the same…?

ITV news earlier this afternoon showed a young man coming home knowing he was on the last flight from South Africa arriving to a big hug from a family member. No distance. I don’t understand wasn’t he told to take precautions as Covid takes a few days to show?

Thank you maddyone. We (and you and hopefully Kali’s daughter soon) are the lucky ones. Others have not been so fortunate and that is why it was so scary, is slightly less so now as hospitals not only have capacity this year but the medics have more knowledge and why the stupid & irresponsible comments from anew made me so annoyed. If these anti- whateverers ... vaccine, deniers..., conspiracy theorists all could see for themselves the absolute god-awful effects of Covid in their own circles they wouldn’t be so darned cavalier about its existence.

Rant over. And breathe .... ?

The new South African variant has been named ‘Omicron’ by the World Health Organisation.

I think we are past he point of worrying about people flying in and out, people just get different flights to evade the rules. It is all ridiculous.

It is to scare you, and they know that people (in the main) don’t actually look for themselves, or even have any thoughts other than the ones they’re fed every morning by Dr Killary. Wake up, or this won’t be the last Xmas or anything else you’ll have taken from you

I think this is always the give away. The accusation that our governments are trying to "scare" us - I mean, how in heaven's name does it benefit a government to scare its citizens? To wear masks, practise sensible precautionary measures, behave responsibly - wow! How scary!

Then the assumption that we're all too dumb to think for ourselves and only the poster has a pipeline to the truth which we're all too stupid to discover. Hence, the now obligatory, "wake up" call all these conspiracy theorists end their comments with.

Yes - like we're all going to ignore the advice and information from virologists and other experts in the field and listen to some random poster who gained a degree from The University of You Tube.

It was an interesting post, I'd love to have had the time to research the 'facts' presented, but ultimately couldn't be bothered.

It's probably too late to stop the new variant reaching the UK.

Over 80,000 rugby fans watched South Africa played England at Twickenham last weekend. Some of them had flown from SA. At least one of the Belgian cases appears to have been caught in Egypt, so it's already spread outside southern Africa. There are rumours that one case has already been identified in the UK.

Nevertheless, there's no need to panic. Despite the number of mutations (or, rather, because of the number of mutations), it's not known whether it's more deadly or whether vaccines are effective against it.

However, it makes sense for people to be especially careful about mask wearing and the other precautions about social distancing. That's all we can do.

So my granddaughter who works on a Covid ward for 12 hour shifts and has to wear full PPE is just working with imaginary patients, some of whom have imaginary deaths ? Really ? I take exception to those who belittle this terrible disease. I think they should be isolated from the rest of us.

I had major surgery last year and was constantly tested for covid, no visitors and pre-op tests for MRSA. In isolation before admission. What a lot of twaddle anew start.

Professor Semple on BBC news said that viruses mutate to become more transmissible and this is what Omicron has done. It doesn't mean it will necessarily cause worse illness.
It is important to carry on with masks, hand washing and distancing as another doctor advised as Omicron being more is likely to arrive in the UK.

infectious

Viruses mutate all the time. Many of the mutations mean that the virus becomes less transmissible, so they disappear. Successful mutations mean that the particular strain becomes dominant.

The concerns about Omicron are that nobody knows whether it makes people more severely ill or whether it responds to vaccines. Relatively few people in southern Africa are vaccinated, so scientists just don't know whether it would have spread so quickly, if more people had been vaccinated.

The worry is that there are so many mutations and tweaking the current vaccines isn't going to be a quick fix.

I don't think people should over-react, but I know I'm going to be extra careful and I hope other people are too. I'd really like to see mask-wearing in indoor spaces made compulsory. I'd also like to see relaxations on testing and quarantine reversed.

I agree Growstuff
I think many people, aided and abetted by the government ever since “Freedom day” have become complacent about the vaccine being the solution to everything, ignoring the value of common sense precautions such as “Hands, Face,Space “
Perhaps the vaccine will cope with this new variant, but it may be too late by the time we find out if it doesn’t. Without being panicked into over reaction, I would prefer a Belt and Braces precautionary approach.

Then vaccine will cope with this new variant. It may be less effective, but we've got a lot of wriggle room. You can bookmark me and come back later to tell me if I'm wrong. The impact of the vaccine on serious illness will be impacted by less than the impact on transmission.

Growstuff, do you agree? We all value your opinion.

The vaccine

I’d like to see mandatory mask wearing and the reversing of some relaxations too growstuff. And admission to certain indoor places being available only to those who are fully vaccinated or genuinely unable to be vaccinated for medical reasons - though I expect forged ‘vaccine passports’ would quickly follow.

Time for my usual rant. Bring back compulsory mask wearing for goodness sake. Plus don’t hand out exemption lanyards to every other person …….be stricter! Why, please somebody explain , England so stubborn about this ?..