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Is it looking a bit like the assumptions that Omicron is intrinsically milder might not be holding? and most of the reductions in severe outcomes are due to resistance via vaccination or prior infection?
beginning to look that way to me
 
_Russ_ said:
Is it looking a bit like the assumptions that Omicron is intrinsically milder might not be holding? and most of the reductions in severe outcomes are due to resistance via vaccination or prior infection?
beginning to look that way to me
Click to expand...
I dont think the intrinsically milder possibilities have gone away, and the likes of Whitty were always keen to point out that any reduction in burden would also be down to population immunity via vaccines and prior infections.

I have no particular reason to doubt that Omicron is milder than Delta, but we do need to remember that Delta was more severe than previous versions of the virus. I'm not sure the severity of Delta really sunk into the minds of the masses because it came at the same time as we saw lots of protection via vaccines. And some people jumped on early indications of Omicron mildness a bit too early, and conflated these different sources of protection. But now more time has passed and claims that Omicron is intrinsically milder have held up. The problem seems to be that some people cannot help but think in binary terms about this, ie they end up expecting too much from this reduction in severity compared to Delta. Perhaps it would be helpful to describe Omicron severity compared to Alpha which cause the biggest chunk of last winters wave, but I am not setup to do that properly at this time. And we still have the big effect of vaccines to consider on top of that.

The next 7-10 days worth of death and intensive care data will cause my own impression of what the burden of this wave will be to firm up considerably.
 
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Hospital data for England continues to show the expected trends. The mechanical ventilation figures are where the good news lurks so far.

A fair chunk of this is probably driven by the potential of Omicron to cause lots of hospital outbreaks, but I'll wait till next year before delving into that aspect a bit more.

 
I think everyone is either off sick or staying at home for the moment.

I just cycled through Shoreditch about 30 min ago. Its a ghost town.
 
Well we've had the classic UK establishment trick - say we cannot act till we see more data, then later say 'oh its too late to act now in a way that makes a real difference'.

This is demonstrated via the latest 'analysis' from the BBCs Nick Triggle. He stick to his previous line which claims the strong measures would only have delayed the inevitable, a claim which is not entirely supported by the modelling that he is now happy to make use of in order to claim that its too late. That modelling does show some rebounding in some scenarios, but restrictions brought in earlier enough would have made a real difference to totals, not just the size of the peak, so I consider that Triggle is mischaracterising that aspect.

Its true that the modelling only shows useful peak reductions if measures were brought in before now. But also the modelling in question did not include a scenario where measures were never brought in on any of the dates they picked at all, so we will be in uncharted territory.

Its still not been a 'pure do nothing approach' because mood music and resulting behavioural changes were not subtle, and will act as the equivalent to a very mild lockdown, especially when combined with school holidays and lots of self-isolation during the peak in infections. But opportunities to reduce the size of this peak have obviously been missed and nobody really needs me to point that out.

Anyway I mention this now so that I can moan, but also so I can comment on the chance of further measures in January. Since they missed the chance to reduce the peak, I suspect they will only end up imposing other stuff if (a) this peak makes such a mess of everything that they feel the need to switch off parts of normal life in order to ease certain other pressures on the system for a while, or (b) if, after an initial big drop in cases after the peak, the Omicron wave gets stuck at a certain high level of ongoing infections, similar to what happened for many months with Delta. They probably now expect to be able to avoid doing such things, so there would need to be a very bad deterioration in order to force their hand on that. Plenty of messy disruption to come, and an ongoing need for people to behave differently for some time to come, and I rarely rule out some possible 'surprises' that will change my impression of what comes next. But for now, no sense that Johnson is going to have to appear on telly soon and say 'unfortunately.....'.

www.bbc.co.uk

Covid: More restrictions a last resort, Sajid Javid says

The health secretary believes the country must look to "live alongside" coronavirus in 2022.
www.bbc.co.uk

The problem facing the government is that the window to suppress the peak with restrictions may already have passed.

Modelling produced for government by Warwick University suggests even a return to lockdown with only schools open has virtually no impact on hospitalisations now.

To have had a significant impact measures would need to have been introduced on Boxing Day or a week earlier.

But even then the argument for them was unclear - in both scenarios infections and hospitalisations rebound once restrictions are lifted. Largely all it achieves is delaying and spreading out illness.

That could have been of benefit by evening out the pressure on the NHS.

But there is, of course, the wider costs of restrictions to society, the economy and mental health to factor in.

Some say it would also have bought you time to carry out more vaccinations, but with nine in 10 of the most vulnerable boosted and evidence protection wanes over time this may actually be the point in time when we have the most immunity across the population.

There are no simple solutions to this Omicron wave - and the options that the government did have may well have gone.
Click to expand...
 
Yeah. I just saw part of a BBC news broadcast and it was a similar story from another of their reporters - only start going on about that modelling now that the opportunities to have maximum impact are behind us. That modelling is weeks old and I dont recall the BBC pointing out at the time what it showed in terms of potential peak reduction.
 
BBC has always had a strong culture of top down management, guy at the top these days is Davie stood who was a conservative councillor for Hammersmith and was deputy chairman of the Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative Party
 
We kept to our plans of not going out over either crimble or the new year festivities.
I have one box of LFTs plus one from the previous box. That's two each ...

I am watching for the repercussions of the festivities to appear on the dashboard, and then we will see if there is progressions beyond infections ... at the moment it appears that the holiday season "lags" are still affecting the picture.

The spectacle of Glaswegians and others turning up - mostly maskless - in Carlisle and Newcastle for NYE partying binge drinking means I am heartily glad I wasn't out on the town ...
 
And now an indicator that despite what I described earlier in regards the government having deliberately squandered the opportunities to really minimise the peak of this wave via more restrictions, there are still areas where even that government now feel the need to go further, to stop resisting certain things they had resisted for a good while. Although their motives will include being seen to be doing something, to be able to point to this move and make claims about safety and how confident people should be to go back to school, and to offer this only at a time when some are calling for them to go much further. A small but meaningful concession that they've made use of like this before.

www.bbc.co.uk

Covid: Pupils to wear masks in class in England's secondary schools to tackle Omicron

The move aims to tackle concerns about secondary schools staying open for face-to-face lessons this term.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
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I don’t know if it’s true or not but I saw somewhere that the cost of fitting the necessary air conditioning / filters to every classroom in the UK is half that of the far more essential royal yacht.

I appreciate that fitting the equipment probably can’t be done in time now to do much about omicron, but had this been started in the summer of 2020…
 
And some comedy timing:

Ministers have been tasked with developing "robust contingency plans" for workplace absences, as the government warned rising cases could see up to a quarter of staff off work.

Public sector leaders have been asked to prepare for "worst case scenarios" of 10%, 20% and 25% absence rates, the Cabinet Office said.
Click to expand...

www.bbc.co.uk

Covid: Workplaces told to plan for absences of up to 25%

Rising Covid cases could see a worst case scenario of up to a quarter of staff off work, the government says.
www.bbc.co.uk

Call me old fashioned, but I reckon its better to make these plans quite some time before the massive rise in cases happens, rather than wait till you are in the middle of a giant wave before making a noise about developing such plans.
 
elbows said:
Call me old fashioned, but I reckon its better to make these plans quite some time before the massive rise in cases happens, rather than wait till you are in the middle of a giant wave before making a noise about developing such plans.
Click to expand...

You are indeed showing your age. Under the classic model, panic would set in far ahead of events actually transpiring. This would frequently give rise not just to contingency plans, but multiple stages of contingency expenditure too.

With modern Just-In-Time Panic techniques, you can achieve the same amounts of panic in much shorter timescales and be safe in the knowledge that any contingency you might be able to think of won't be able before either a) hindsight makes it the only possibility or b) everyone dies - but either way, lots of needless work and money will be saved.
 
elbows said:
Call me old fashioned, but I reckon its better to make these plans quite some time before the massive rise in cases happens, rather than wait till you are in the middle of a giant wave before making a noise about developing such plans.
Click to expand...
I'm now strongly suspecting that for my Civil Service workplace here in Swansea, and for other CS workplaces in Wales, NHS Walea and Drakeford have been handling things a bit better.

Shortly prior to Xmas, the bosses announced a possible plan to send people home, those who could not actually wortk from home. This would be on 'Special Leave' ;) , a CS-specific category of paid leave. Just for one day a week ......

When I go back next week, I'd now be absolutely astonished if this hasn't already been introduced.

My designated day off, I was told, will be Tuesday, which fits excellently with the many Jan and Feb Monday's I've already booked off on Annual Leave ..... :cool: :oops: ;)

(And in the interests of Public Health, I haven't worked any Fridays since October 2012 ......... ;) :D )
 
elbows said:
And some comedy timing:



www.bbc.co.uk

Covid: Workplaces told to plan for absences of up to 25%

Rising Covid cases could see a worst case scenario of up to a quarter of staff off work, the government says.
www.bbc.co.uk

Call me old fashioned, but I reckon its better to make these plans quite some time before the massive rise in cases happens, rather than wait till you are in the middle of a giant wave before making a noise about developing such plans.
Click to expand...
I heard they were unable to complete the contingency plans in time after half the team working on them went off sick.
 
It’s hard for me to get into a mindset that is only now creating plans for high absences and so on. We’ve had contingency plans in place for a pandemic scenario for I don’t even know how long — at least 10 years but probably a lot longer. These business continuity plans (or operational resilience planning, as it now is) get reviewed and updated every year. Advantages of working in a regulated industry, I guess — the regulator requires you to plan for things like pandemics (and a lot more besides). Apparently, though, the government doesn’t turn that lens on itself.
 
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