Leaders will discuss the #Omicron variant and how EU countries can improve coordination on #Covid19 at today’s summit in Brussels, Taoiseach @MichealMartinTD says, amid ‘significant concern’ over the capacity of the variant to spread rapidly. | https://t.co/2t9wFp7e98 pic.twitter.com/KLV4Au6kjU
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) December 16, 2021
This morning.
Brussels, Belgium.
Meanwhile…
Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer
This morning.
Via RTE News:
increased risk led Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan to warn last night that anyone planning to spend Christmas with older family members, the immunocompromised or those vulnerable to the effects of Covid needed to now avoid crowds, limit their contacts, and work from home unless absolutely necessary.
This is the backdrop to today’s meeting of NPHET which is widely expected to make recommendations to the Government around reducing social mixing, as well as advising that all close contacts of those with Covid restrict their movements.
The possibility of tightening restrictions still further on hospitality led the Restaurants Association of Ireland to warn that such a move would have a “devastating economic impact on businesses already flattened financially”.
NPHET meets amid warning Omicron could cause record high in hospitalisations (RTE)
Meanwhile…
Holohan playing the “vulnerable” loved ones card again.
Do you remember last year when Luke O Neill said to put grandpa by the window, to bring his own dinnerware & not to pass the gravy boat.
Because that’s Science.
We may as well just stick the elderly outside in the shed. pic.twitter.com/m50SFJ4rIP
— 🇮🇪 & 🇬🇧 COVID 🧵 🧵 🧵 (@ThreadsIrish) December 15, 2021
Oh.
Meanwhile…
Scientists warn dogs may breed with bats and sharks creating airborne predators for which we are completely unprepared. https://t.co/UXACYqODjZ
— Dick Delingpole (@DickDelingpole) December 16, 2021
Ah here.
amplify the ping machine…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCITMfxvEc
What’s the predictions lads?
Will we still be able to go to Mass?
Ooh goody – more EU “coordination” on Covid19. That’ll make the situation much better. Remember when certificates were absolutely only for inter-nation travel, and to be over in 12 months, and absolutely not for use domestically?
Did the pandemic end after 12 months?
Depends on your definition of “end”
19 people died last week with / from Covid in Ireland.
Do we have to get to zero for it to be over?
19?
There were 47 deaths reported yesterday.
Only 19 occurred in the past 7 days.
You’d have to ask yourself where all these previously unreported deaths are coming from.
https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/surveillance/weeklyreportoncovid-19deathsreportedinireland/COVID-19_Weekly_Death_Report_Website_v1.6%2016122021.pdf
It takes a few days to register a death. I’d suggest that a big chunk of the were from the end of the previous week.
If you compare to last week’s report “Deaths by month” (page 5), you’ll see:
September +1
October +4
November +3
December +39
https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/surveillance/weeklyreportoncovid-19deathsreportedinireland/COVID-19_Weekly_Death_Report_Website_v1.5%2008122021.pdf
To labour the point, the breakdown of deaths for the last few months of 2021 are
September 178
October 211
November 217
December 57 (this is only up to 14th, and is underreported)
Yes
Very small numbers
https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068094
‘The notion, reinforced by dashboards, that a pandemic ends when cases or deaths drop to zero is at odds with the historical evidence that substantial influenza morbidity and mortality continues to occur, season after season, between pandemics…
..History suggests that the end of the pandemic will not simply follow the attainment of herd immunity or an official declaration, but rather it will occur gradually and unevenly as societies cease to be all consumed by the pandemic’s shocking metrics. Pandemic ending is more of a question of lived experience, and thus is more of a sociological phenomenon than a biological one. And thus dashboards—which do not measure mental health, educational impact, and the denial of close social bonds—are not the tool that will tell us when the pandemic will end. Indeed, considering how societies have come to use dashboards, they may be a tool that helps prevent a return to normal. Pandemics—at least respiratory viral pandemics—simply do not end in a manner amenable to being displayed on dashboards. Far from a dramatic “end,” pandemics gradually fade as society adjusts to living with the new disease agent and social life returns to normal.
As an extraordinary period in which social life was upturned, the covid-19 pandemic will be over when we turn off our screens and decide that other issues are once again worthy of our attention. Unlike its beginning, the end of the pandemic will not be televised.’
‘‘The notion, reinforced by dashboards, that a pandemic ends when cases or deaths drop to zero’
I have never encountered the notion that the pandemic will be over when deaths drop to zero anywhere, except in the form of Micko whining that there aren’t enough people dying for his liking.
More suggesting that there aren’t enough people dying for us to still be in an emergency and imposing restrictions on people civil liberties
Except that ‘people dying’ isn’t the only metric, espectially if restrictions are keeping numbers of deaths down.
That’s a big ‘if’
Maybe, but a crucial one.
If I was one of the 850,000 planning to use Dublin airport over the holidays I’d be looking at the small print on my ticket right about now.
Of course Holohan knows what’s coming down the tracks but it would be a brave person to cancel Christmas – which is really what should be happening now.
Which is why pubs and restaurants will close on the Monday after New Year (3rd) and full lockdown with strict travel restrictions by the end of that week (7th) to allow everyone to get home.
Unless events overtake them.
Get a grip. Over 70s phizered up to the eye balls. Who will omicron kill exactly ?
It ain’t the killing.
But who runs A&E when all the doctors and nurses are at home self-isolating ?
While Delta cases still arrive along with all the new Omicron sufferers?
And this is while the health system is overloaded at this time of year anyway.
Then of course there’s the booster roll-out which is already taking vital resources away from normal health system.
It’s squeaky bum time for Mehole.
So to speak.
Yep, if Omicron is as mild as they say. We probably need a policy change to the self isolating rule.
IF
The delta variant hasn’t gone away you know.
Have all the other variants either?
The Delta variant established itself as the dominate strain pushing out other variants. That is likely to happen with Omicron but hasn’t yet.
Is it dominant in the UK yet?
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/1213/1266384-omicron-variant/
This!
Something has to change on policy.
The numbers will be so high, that a huge percentage will have to isolate, but how many will actually?
Instead, should we be telling the more vulnerable to shield again and let the rest ‘get on with it’?
If this new variant is so transmissible, I’m likely to get it in the shops even if I cancel all other meetings… so may as well think my Christmas will be isolation anyway…
Breakthrough infections have proven to be quite deadly for older people and other vulnerable categories.
Like flu then.
Yes the flu is also a viral infection.
Everything is “ quite deadly for older people and other vulnerable categories”
Not everything is as virulently infectious, though.
No lockdowns for flu though.
No. Well spotted. No flies on you.
Kinda puts paid to your comment then eh?
Which one? That breakthrgough infections are dangerous for the vulnerable, that the flu is viral, or that other things that are dangerous to the vulnerable are not as infectious as covid?
Yup
Predictable train crash in January
Cowards the lot of them
Lockdown 4, Tony’s time to shine.
that sounds like a horror film
I’d be very surprised if there’s another lockdown. All the data on Omicron suggests it’s very mild and doesn’t result in hospitalisation even in over 70 year olds. It basically sounds a bit like (whisper it) the flu.
Remember the flu? I wonder where that went..
Considering the huge uptake they had in their vaccination program combined with the government doing virtually nothing in the past two years to increase ICU capacity, they’re unlikely to want to return to lockdown because they’re running out of scapegoats to blame and the public seem to be increasingly waking up to the fact that we have an utterly inept government.
Flu fatality rates are very similar to CoVid-19?
The number of fatalities from the flu are nowhere near covid 19
There were 34 influenza deaths in the 2018-2019 flu season.
With,or from?
He knows that Gigs- he also knows that the way flu deaths are counted is very different- most death certs have something like pneumonia.
3,244 people were hospitalised with influenza during the last pre-covid flu season. The final total who died was 97 (I made a mistake with the earlier figure which was from an interim report). That is the number of people with a confirmed case of influenza that died and not just where influenza is the proven cause of death. Just the same as the way the Covid19 number are counted.
Covid 19 deaths are currently at 5,835 for a period of 21 months. Compared with 97 in a year. Keep denying the facts though.
source: https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/influenza/seasonalinfluenza/surveillance/influenzasurveillancereports/seasonsummaries/Influenza%202018-2019%20Season_Summary.pdf
I had the flu once and there was nothing mild about it. I was young, fit and healthy and it wiped the floor with me. I was raving, making deals with God (any God!) that if i was spared i’d go on to repent for all of my past transgressions and live a moral, upstanding life from then on in.
I wonder when references are made to the flu if it’s really just a bad cold that’s meant because any time I hear mention made of Covid being “like the flu” I shiver with the recollection of how horrible it was.
+1
I didn’t say Covid was like the flu, I said Omicron seems suspiciously like the flu.
And what you describe sounds like a particularly harsh dose of flu.
Horrible to go through I’m sure but not a reason to impose restrictions on the rest of society.
Work out this simple equation.
If Omicron results in 50% fewer hospitalisations for people who catch it but twice as many people catch Omicron than Delta how many hospitalisations are there?
Then factor in twice as many nurses and doctors catching the new variant than before.
What’s the result?
‘If’
restrict your bowel movements
What is the severity of the strain ; does it warrant another lockdown – so utterly fed up with this. And they have the gall to speak with such authority because the computer told them .
lockdowns are for the little people
More PCR jiggery-pokery? Cue the next casedemic
https://mobile.twitter.com/FreedomPodcast1/status/1470721073813540865
‘The #PCR test was originally set up to look for 3 target genes of a #Coronavirus
The S gene was one of the three target genes
It only 2 genes or 1 gene was found, the test would be declared negative
For Omicron, it is said the S gene is missing.
This means now when the test returns 1 or 2 of the target genes (but excluding the S gene) then instead of being declared a negative – it is declared an omicron positive.
This adjustment to the test sensitivity will result in many more positives (FALSE positives)’
It certainly would explain the surge in cases in the UK- and if it is the case (pun), then you can be absolutely certain that governments know this.
PCR tests look for a number of genetic targets on the viral particle, including the S gene. With Omicron the S gene is not missing, rather is has mutated so that the sensitivity of the test S target is impacted. This is not unique to Omicron, and other mutations can result in the same result, or the S target can simply fail because of the test sensitivity (false negative). That is why they still have to do genetic sequencing to confirm Omicron. It is also wrong to say the overall test result is false if the S target fails; the reason multiple genetic targets are tested is because there is less chance of a false negative (not to increase false positives).
” It is also wrong to say the overall test result is false if the S target fails”
This isn’t what was said.
“the reason multiple genetic targets are tested is because there is less chance of a false negative (not to increase false positives)”
No one said “the reason multiple targets are tested is.. to increase false positives” either. Is it not the case that multiple targets are chosen to try to reduce the likelihood of both false negatives AND false positives?
The thread I linked to gives the example of Scotland in December 2020 when the Alpha variant was said to be prevalent.. Apparently the PCR tests didn’t detect the S gene for that variant either. The graph provided shows a steep upturn in cases in the various regions of Scotland, all at the exact same point in time. People such as Dr Mike Yeadon and Dr Clare Craig said at the time that this sudden, simultaneous rise is an indication of a change in testing protocol rather than a natural phenomenon -when identification of the S gene was no longer required, it inflated the number of positive cases.
You say: “That is why they still have to do genetic sequencing to confirm Omicron.” Call me cynical but judging on performance to date, I worry that unqualified Omicron tallies are going to feature in many a news story without the nature of the data being made clear.
The thread gives the example of how, according to the Scottish government, the Omicron data will be inflated.: It’ll be the same here in Ireland I suspect.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-update-first-ministers-statement-7-december-2021/
“Public Health Scotland’s weekly COVID report will, from tomorrow, provide more detail on both confirmed and probable Omicron cases in Scotland.
It will include data, not just on confirmed cases, but also on the number of PCR tests showing what is called the S-gene drop-out – this is not conclusive evidence that a case is of the Omicron variant, but it is highly indicative of it.”
I wonder how many commenters here went to the University of Facebook¹ ?
https://mobile.twitter.com/oliveblogs/status/1471442984956837890
¹ It’s crazy what you’ll learn
Don’t be obnoxious
…saw that…crazy indeed…
I think it’s more of spectrum though.- a matter of finding a healthy balance..
On one end of the scale you have extreme cases of people with a deeply ingrained inferiority complex who are of the mindset that it’s not their place to ever form a valid dissenting opinion on government policies even though said policies are having a hugely negative impact on their own lives and those around them.
On the other end of the scale, you have the kind of people who are compelled to explain to others what it means to receive a Covid injection by repeating inane,simplistic analogies that are doing the rounds on social media: eg “Getting the Covid vaccine is like wearing a seat belt” . Or who would actually go as far to dish out medical advice in the form of an order: eg “Get vaccinated” ;)P
Just heard on MSM that if you catch the Delta variant and the Omicron variant you will have a Nu (new) variant.
They are quite obviously running out of steam, it’ll be hard to keep up this farce for much longer.