Coronavirus Super Thread ( merged )

[Irufushi]

1 hour ago, The Mighty Thor said:

We did. 

 

Italy's hospitals were filling up with folk suffocating on their own lungs and we had the Cheltenham festival. 

Remember that?

Had a few winners, enjoyed the atmosphere.

 

would do again. 

[The Mighty Thor]

2 minutes ago, Nucky Thompson said:

Sage scared that their credibility will be shot. Stand firm Boris 

 

New Covid lockdown warning as angry SAGE scientists demand Boris ACT NOW | UK | News | Express.co.uk

You do realise Boris isn't standing firm.

He's hamstrung. Impotent. Can't do a thing without recalling parliament which he's petrified of doing as The ERG lunatics will hammer him. 

[The Mighty Thor]

4 minutes ago, Irufushi said:

Had a few winners, enjoyed the atmosphere.

 

would do again. 

You'll be able to go in 2022 I'm sure. 

[Nucky Thompson]

Just now, The Mighty Thor said:

You do realise Boris isn't standing firm.

He's hamstrung. Impotent. Can't do a thing without recalling parliament which he's petrified of doing as The ERG lunatics will hammer him. 

Bah humbug 

 

 

[Adam_the_legend]

Interesting read

 

 

Prof Lockdown's 'apocalyptic' omicron claims undermine faith in vaccines and have fuelled unnecessary shutdowns

Professor Neil Ferguson's team forecast thousands of deaths a day from the latest variant but new evidence suggests it may be far milder

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard23 December 2021 • 7:33am

 

The Covid modellers at Imperial College have begun to back down. About time too. Over the past few weeks, they have made extreme claims about the omicron variant that cannot be fully justified by fundamental science, let alone by clinical observation.

Academic etiquette restrains direct criticism, but immunologists say privately that Professor Neil Ferguson and his team breached a cardinal rule by inferring rates of hospitalisation, severe disease, and death from waning antibodies, and by extrapolating from infections that break through the first line of vaccine defence. 

The rest are entitled to question whether they can legitimately do this. And we may certainly question whether they should be putting out terrifying claims of up to 5,000 deaths a day based on antibody counts.

“It is bad science and I think they’re being irresponsible. They have a duty to reflect the true risks but this is just headline grabbing,” said Dr Clive Dix, former chairman of the UK Vaccine Task Force.

Needless to say, these headlines have spread as fast as omicron itself. Britain is the Covid laboratory of the developed world, and what Imperial says right now has global resonance. Its dire warnings are contributing to some European countries imposing full or partial Christmas lockdowns.

Advertisement

Governments are so alarmed by the possibility that healthcare systems might collapse under pressure that they have neglected the opposite risk - and much more probable outcome - that omicron will largely bounce off a population where almost everybody has cell immunity from vaccines or past infection, and in the case of Britain where most vulnerable people have been triple jabbed for good measure.   

“To talk of 5,000 deaths a day is a very high number. It is risky to push apocalyptic scenarios that are highly unlikely to happen,” said Professor Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Genetics Institute.

“What I am more worried about is a loss of trust in governments and public institutions for crying wolf. The mood is changing everywhere."

Prof Balloux, who used to work with the Imperial team, said he understood why they had focused on neutralising antibodies: they are easy to measure and tell you how well the front-line fighters are doing against infection. But this has led to great confusion.

Advertisement

The second line of defence, what really matters for serious illness, comes from B and T cell memory - either from jabs or prior illness. This carries on long after antibodies are no longer circulating in the blood. Cell memory is much harder to measure but is known to last much longer. 

“Cellular memory is still there for omicron and remains intact,” Balloux said.

The first studies from around the world have begun validating the potency of cell memory against omicron, more or less as theoretical science would predict. 

A team at the University of Cape Town found that double-jabbed patients still had 70pc of the CD4 T cell response against the new variant, and full CD8 protection, despite the mutations.

“T cells are holding out against omicron, and the data is very consistent across vaccines,” they told the US magazine Science. “From everything we know about T cells, this is what they do - control a virus once you’ve been infected. So this is their time to shine.”

You would not know this from the series of claims in the past few weeks by Prof Ferguson and his team that omicron “largely evades immunity”, even if they are technically within their rights to use this construction. 

Advertisement

Imperial might struggle to substantiate their initial warning that a 4.5 fold reduction in neutralising antibodies will lead to a “drop in vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation)”. 

They certainly cannot quantify hospital figures or project extreme death rates without taking into account the full effects of cell memory, which they fail to do. 

Their assertion that vaccine efficacy for double-jabbers ranges from zero to 20pc was misleading. Nor can they legitimately assert that there is “no evidence of omicron having lower severity than Delta” since their sample was vanishingly small, the timeline was too short, and they did not know the denominator of actual omicron infections since so many asymptomatic cases passed undetected. The clinical pattern worldwide suggests otherwise. That is "evidence".

Their hospitalisation assumptions have already been undermined by better data from Danish hospitals. The emerging ratios are a small fraction of the Imperial claims. 

“B and T cell protection is holding up well but they did not have an immunology group working with them. They are just modellers who plug in what they are told on vaccine efficacy (ie antibody counts) and come with this data,” said Dix. 

Advertisement

He wrote a robust critique of some of the claims, as did Professor James Naismith from Oxford University, though in gentler language. 

There is an interesting twist to this. The AstraZeneca adenovirus vaccine scores well on cell memory and may ultimately protect better than messenger RNA jabs such as Pfizer-BioNTech, now that we are relying more on this second line of defence. He believes the UK should have stuck with AstraZeneca for mix-and-match boosters.

Dix said the political class in the UK - and more broadly in Europe - does not understand the difference between front-line antibodies and lasting cell memory, and is therefore succumbing to unnecessary alarmism. 

He assumes that Professor Chris Whitty and his close colleagues do understand but went along with Imperial’s claims as a tool of public policy, hoping to cajole more people into getting booster jabs. Anthony Fauci in the US is apparently thinking along the same lines. But it is a double-edged strategy. It risks a loss of faith in vaccines altogether.

Advertisement

Dix said it is inexplicable that the NHS is not publishing daily data giving the exact percentage of those in hospital with omicron by vaccine status, comorbidities, and whether they were admitted for Covid or for another reason. They should publish the numbers needing oxygen, and those going onto critical care, as other countries do. 

“It is not that difficult to put together the data. It would make a huge difference to public confidence,” he said.

The global picture emerging from lab studies is not only that cell memory works like a charm, but that omicron may be inherently less dangerous than delta. 

Research by the Cambridge virologist Ravi Gupta found that the omicron spike protein cleaves far less efficiently than earlier variants, and replicates most in the upper respiratory tract rather than in the lungs where it does most damage. 

“I think the evidence is mounting that the virus potentially causes less progression to severe disease,” he said.

It confirms earlier work from Hong Kong University and is extremely encouraging. “If you have to pick between bronchitis and pneumonia, I can tell you, take bronchitis any day,” said Balloux.

Advertisement

Balloux said the sketchy clinical evidence from South Africa, Denmark, Australia, and London is that the case fatality rate of omicron for populations with broad immunity is 25 to 30 times lower than the earlier pre-vaccinated waves. 

There is a 90pc drop in hospitalisation rates, and a further two-thirds drop in death rates after admission. This takes it down to the levels of seasonal flu.

He said data from Australia is the most “elegant” yet, showing two simultaneous outbreaks of Covid in a well-vaccinated population, one delta, the other omicron. The hospitalisation rate of omicron is roughly half. 

In London, omicron has already blown through the residual pockets of vaccine refuseniks but has not led to comparable parabolic mayhem amongst the rest of the well-jabbed population. 

“It has already peaked in Gauteng (South Africa) and in all likelihood it will peak in London very soon. I am now quite confident that omicron won’t be as bad as they say,” said Balloux.

Global markets are sniffing this out and are learning to ignore the political noise. The equity rout earlier this week has already given way to a pre-Christmas relief rally. Airline and other "reopening" stocks are soaring again.  

Advertisement

The high probability is that omicron will disappoint the alarmists and frustrate those of a hairshirt Puritan character who almost seem to want lockdowns as a form of self-flagellation. 

The rest of us can get on with our lives and leave the antibody modellers to build castles in the air.

[luckydug]

9 minutes ago, Adam_the_legend said:

Interesting read

 

 

Prof Lockdown's 'apocalyptic' omicron claims undermine faith in vaccines and have fuelled unnecessary shutdowns

Professor Neil Ferguson's team forecast thousands of deaths a day from the latest variant but new evidence suggests it may be far milder

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard23 December 2021 • 7:33am

 

 

The Covid modellers at Imperial College have begun to back down. About time too. Over the past few weeks, they have made extreme claims about the omicron variant that cannot be fully justified by fundamental science, let alone by clinical observation.

Academic etiquette restrains direct criticism, but immunologists say privately that Professor Neil Ferguson and his team breached a cardinal rule by inferring rates of hospitalisation, severe disease, and death from waning antibodies, and by extrapolating from infections that break through the first line of vaccine defence. 

The rest are entitled to question whether they can legitimately do this. And we may certainly question whether they should be putting out terrifying claims of up to 5,000 deaths a day based on antibody counts.

“It is bad science and I think they’re being irresponsible. They have a duty to reflect the true risks but this is just headline grabbing,” said Dr Clive Dix, former chairman of the UK Vaccine Task Force.

Needless to say, these headlines have spread as fast as omicron itself. Britain is the Covid laboratory of the developed world, and what Imperial says right now has global resonance. Its dire warnings are contributing to some European countries imposing full or partial Christmas lockdowns.

Advertisement

Governments are so alarmed by the possibility that healthcare systems might collapse under pressure that they have neglected the opposite risk - and much more probable outcome - that omicron will largely bounce off a population where almost everybody has cell immunity from vaccines or past infection, and in the case of Britain where most vulnerable people have been triple jabbed for good measure.   

“To talk of 5,000 deaths a day is a very high number. It is risky to push apocalyptic scenarios that are highly unlikely to happen,” said Professor Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Genetics Institute.

“What I am more worried about is a loss of trust in governments and public institutions for crying wolf. The mood is changing everywhere."

Prof Balloux, who used to work with the Imperial team, said he understood why they had focused on neutralising antibodies: they are easy to measure and tell you how well the front-line fighters are doing against infection. But this has led to great confusion.

Advertisement

The second line of defence, what really matters for serious illness, comes from B and T cell memory - either from jabs or prior illness. This carries on long after antibodies are no longer circulating in the blood. Cell memory is much harder to measure but is known to last much longer. 

“Cellular memory is still there for omicron and remains intact,” Balloux said.

The first studies from around the world have begun validating the potency of cell memory against omicron, more or less as theoretical science would predict. 

A team at the University of Cape Town found that double-jabbed patients still had 70pc of the CD4 T cell response against the new variant, and full CD8 protection, despite the mutations.

“T cells are holding out against omicron, and the data is very consistent across vaccines,” they told the US magazine Science. “From everything we know about T cells, this is what they do - control a virus once you’ve been infected. So this is their time to shine.”

You would not know this from the series of claims in the past few weeks by Prof Ferguson and his team that omicron “largely evades immunity”, even if they are technically within their rights to use this construction. 

Advertisement

Imperial might struggle to substantiate their initial warning that a 4.5 fold reduction in neutralising antibodies will lead to a “drop in vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation)”. 

They certainly cannot quantify hospital figures or project extreme death rates without taking into account the full effects of cell memory, which they fail to do. 

Their assertion that vaccine efficacy for double-jabbers ranges from zero to 20pc was misleading. Nor can they legitimately assert that there is “no evidence of omicron having lower severity than Delta” since their sample was vanishingly small, the timeline was too short, and they did not know the denominator of actual omicron infections since so many asymptomatic cases passed undetected. The clinical pattern worldwide suggests otherwise. That is "evidence".

Their hospitalisation assumptions have already been undermined by better data from Danish hospitals. The emerging ratios are a small fraction of the Imperial claims. 

“B and T cell protection is holding up well but they did not have an immunology group working with them. They are just modellers who plug in what they are told on vaccine efficacy (ie antibody counts) and come with this data,” said Dix. 

Advertisement

He wrote a robust critique of some of the claims, as did Professor James Naismith from Oxford University, though in gentler language. 

There is an interesting twist to this. The AstraZeneca adenovirus vaccine scores well on cell memory and may ultimately protect better than messenger RNA jabs such as Pfizer-BioNTech, now that we are relying more on this second line of defence. He believes the UK should have stuck with AstraZeneca for mix-and-match boosters.

Dix said the political class in the UK - and more broadly in Europe - does not understand the difference between front-line antibodies and lasting cell memory, and is therefore succumbing to unnecessary alarmism. 

He assumes that Professor Chris Whitty and his close colleagues do understand but went along with Imperial’s claims as a tool of public policy, hoping to cajole more people into getting booster jabs. Anthony Fauci in the US is apparently thinking along the same lines. But it is a double-edged strategy. It risks a loss of faith in vaccines altogether.

Advertisement

Dix said it is inexplicable that the NHS is not publishing daily data giving the exact percentage of those in hospital with omicron by vaccine status, comorbidities, and whether they were admitted for Covid or for another reason. They should publish the numbers needing oxygen, and those going onto critical care, as other countries do. 

“It is not that difficult to put together the data. It would make a huge difference to public confidence,” he said.

The global picture emerging from lab studies is not only that cell memory works like a charm, but that omicron may be inherently less dangerous than delta. 

Research by the Cambridge virologist Ravi Gupta found that the omicron spike protein cleaves far less efficiently than earlier variants, and replicates most in the upper respiratory tract rather than in the lungs where it does most damage. 

“I think the evidence is mounting that the virus potentially causes less progression to severe disease,” he said.

It confirms earlier work from Hong Kong University and is extremely encouraging. “If you have to pick between bronchitis and pneumonia, I can tell you, take bronchitis any day,” said Balloux.

Advertisement

Balloux said the sketchy clinical evidence from South Africa, Denmark, Australia, and London is that the case fatality rate of omicron for populations with broad immunity is 25 to 30 times lower than the earlier pre-vaccinated waves. 

There is a 90pc drop in hospitalisation rates, and a further two-thirds drop in death rates after admission. This takes it down to the levels of seasonal flu.

He said data from Australia is the most “elegant” yet, showing two simultaneous outbreaks of Covid in a well-vaccinated population, one delta, the other omicron. The hospitalisation rate of omicron is roughly half. 

In London, omicron has already blown through the residual pockets of vaccine refuseniks but has not led to comparable parabolic mayhem amongst the rest of the well-jabbed population. 

“It has already peaked in Gauteng (South Africa) and in all likelihood it will peak in London very soon. I am now quite confident that omicron won’t be as bad as they say,” said Balloux.

Global markets are sniffing this out and are learning to ignore the political noise. The equity rout earlier this week has already given way to a pre-Christmas relief rally. Airline and other "reopening" stocks are soaring again.  

Advertisement

The high probability is that omicron will disappoint the alarmists and frustrate those of a hairshirt Puritan character who almost seem to want lockdowns as a form of self-flagellation. 

The rest of us can get on with our lives and leave the antibody modellers to build castles in the air.

Well pasted. 

[Nucky Thompson]

8 minutes ago, Adam_the_legend said:

Interesting read

 

 

Prof Lockdown's 'apocalyptic' omicron claims undermine faith in vaccines and have fuelled unnecessary shutdowns

Professor Neil Ferguson's team forecast thousands of deaths a day from the latest variant but new evidence suggests it may be far milder

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard23 December 2021 • 7:33am

 

 

The Covid modellers at Imperial College have begun to back down. About time too. Over the past few weeks, they have made extreme claims about the omicron variant that cannot be fully justified by fundamental science, let alone by clinical observation.

Academic etiquette restrains direct criticism, but immunologists say privately that Professor Neil Ferguson and his team breached a cardinal rule by inferring rates of hospitalisation, severe disease, and death from waning antibodies, and by extrapolating from infections that break through the first line of vaccine defence. 

The rest are entitled to question whether they can legitimately do this. And we may certainly question whether they should be putting out terrifying claims of up to 5,000 deaths a day based on antibody counts.

“It is bad science and I think they’re being irresponsible. They have a duty to reflect the true risks but this is just headline grabbing,” said Dr Clive Dix, former chairman of the UK Vaccine Task Force.

Needless to say, these headlines have spread as fast as omicron itself. Britain is the Covid laboratory of the developed world, and what Imperial says right now has global resonance. Its dire warnings are contributing to some European countries imposing full or partial Christmas lockdowns.

Advertisement

Governments are so alarmed by the possibility that healthcare systems might collapse under pressure that they have neglected the opposite risk - and much more probable outcome - that omicron will largely bounce off a population where almost everybody has cell immunity from vaccines or past infection, and in the case of Britain where most vulnerable people have been triple jabbed for good measure.   

“To talk of 5,000 deaths a day is a very high number. It is risky to push apocalyptic scenarios that are highly unlikely to happen,” said Professor Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Genetics Institute.

“What I am more worried about is a loss of trust in governments and public institutions for crying wolf. The mood is changing everywhere."

Prof Balloux, who used to work with the Imperial team, said he understood why they had focused on neutralising antibodies: they are easy to measure and tell you how well the front-line fighters are doing against infection. But this has led to great confusion.

Advertisement

The second line of defence, what really matters for serious illness, comes from B and T cell memory - either from jabs or prior illness. This carries on long after antibodies are no longer circulating in the blood. Cell memory is much harder to measure but is known to last much longer. 

“Cellular memory is still there for omicron and remains intact,” Balloux said.

The first studies from around the world have begun validating the potency of cell memory against omicron, more or less as theoretical science would predict. 

A team at the University of Cape Town found that double-jabbed patients still had 70pc of the CD4 T cell response against the new variant, and full CD8 protection, despite the mutations.

“T cells are holding out against omicron, and the data is very consistent across vaccines,” they told the US magazine Science. “From everything we know about T cells, this is what they do - control a virus once you’ve been infected. So this is their time to shine.”

You would not know this from the series of claims in the past few weeks by Prof Ferguson and his team that omicron “largely evades immunity”, even if they are technically within their rights to use this construction. 

Advertisement

Imperial might struggle to substantiate their initial warning that a 4.5 fold reduction in neutralising antibodies will lead to a “drop in vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation)”. 

They certainly cannot quantify hospital figures or project extreme death rates without taking into account the full effects of cell memory, which they fail to do. 

Their assertion that vaccine efficacy for double-jabbers ranges from zero to 20pc was misleading. Nor can they legitimately assert that there is “no evidence of omicron having lower severity than Delta” since their sample was vanishingly small, the timeline was too short, and they did not know the denominator of actual omicron infections since so many asymptomatic cases passed undetected. The clinical pattern worldwide suggests otherwise. That is "evidence".

Their hospitalisation assumptions have already been undermined by better data from Danish hospitals. The emerging ratios are a small fraction of the Imperial claims. 

“B and T cell protection is holding up well but they did not have an immunology group working with them. They are just modellers who plug in what they are told on vaccine efficacy (ie antibody counts) and come with this data,” said Dix. 

Advertisement

He wrote a robust critique of some of the claims, as did Professor James Naismith from Oxford University, though in gentler language. 

There is an interesting twist to this. The AstraZeneca adenovirus vaccine scores well on cell memory and may ultimately protect better than messenger RNA jabs such as Pfizer-BioNTech, now that we are relying more on this second line of defence. He believes the UK should have stuck with AstraZeneca for mix-and-match boosters.

Dix said the political class in the UK - and more broadly in Europe - does not understand the difference between front-line antibodies and lasting cell memory, and is therefore succumbing to unnecessary alarmism. 

He assumes that Professor Chris Whitty and his close colleagues do understand but went along with Imperial’s claims as a tool of public policy, hoping to cajole more people into getting booster jabs. Anthony Fauci in the US is apparently thinking along the same lines. But it is a double-edged strategy. It risks a loss of faith in vaccines altogether.

Advertisement

Dix said it is inexplicable that the NHS is not publishing daily data giving the exact percentage of those in hospital with omicron by vaccine status, comorbidities, and whether they were admitted for Covid or for another reason. They should publish the numbers needing oxygen, and those going onto critical care, as other countries do. 

“It is not that difficult to put together the data. It would make a huge difference to public confidence,” he said.

The global picture emerging from lab studies is not only that cell memory works like a charm, but that omicron may be inherently less dangerous than delta. 

Research by the Cambridge virologist Ravi Gupta found that the omicron spike protein cleaves far less efficiently than earlier variants, and replicates most in the upper respiratory tract rather than in the lungs where it does most damage. 

“I think the evidence is mounting that the virus potentially causes less progression to severe disease,” he said.

It confirms earlier work from Hong Kong University and is extremely encouraging. “If you have to pick between bronchitis and pneumonia, I can tell you, take bronchitis any day,” said Balloux.

Advertisement

Balloux said the sketchy clinical evidence from South Africa, Denmark, Australia, and London is that the case fatality rate of omicron for populations with broad immunity is 25 to 30 times lower than the earlier pre-vaccinated waves. 

There is a 90pc drop in hospitalisation rates, and a further two-thirds drop in death rates after admission. This takes it down to the levels of seasonal flu.

He said data from Australia is the most “elegant” yet, showing two simultaneous outbreaks of Covid in a well-vaccinated population, one delta, the other omicron. The hospitalisation rate of omicron is roughly half. 

In London, omicron has already blown through the residual pockets of vaccine refuseniks but has not led to comparable parabolic mayhem amongst the rest of the well-jabbed population. 

“It has already peaked in Gauteng (South Africa) and in all likelihood it will peak in London very soon. I am now quite confident that omicron won’t be as bad as they say,” said Balloux.

Global markets are sniffing this out and are learning to ignore the political noise. The equity rout earlier this week has already given way to a pre-Christmas relief rally. Airline and other "reopening" stocks are soaring again.  

Advertisement

The high probability is that omicron will disappoint the alarmists and frustrate those of a hairshirt Puritan character who almost seem to want lockdowns as a form of self-flagellation. 

The rest of us can get on with our lives and leave the antibody modellers to build castles in the air.

Interesting that other European countries might be bringing in restrictions based on the modelling from Imperial College 

[NANOJAMBO]

11 minutes ago, Adam_the_legend said:

Interesting read

 

 

Prof Lockdown's 'apocalyptic' omicron claims undermine faith in vaccines and have fuelled unnecessary shutdowns

Professor Neil Ferguson's team forecast thousands of deaths a day from the latest variant but new evidence suggests it may be far milder

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard23 December 2021 • 7:33am

 

 

The Covid modellers at Imperial College have begun to back down. About time too. Over the past few weeks, they have made extreme claims about the omicron variant that cannot be fully justified by fundamental science, let alone by clinical observation.

Academic etiquette restrains direct criticism, but immunologists say privately that Professor Neil Ferguson and his team breached a cardinal rule by inferring rates of hospitalisation, severe disease, and death from waning antibodies, and by extrapolating from infections that break through the first line of vaccine defence. 

The rest are entitled to question whether they can legitimately do this. And we may certainly question whether they should be putting out terrifying claims of up to 5,000 deaths a day based on antibody counts.

“It is bad science and I think they’re being irresponsible. They have a duty to reflect the true risks but this is just headline grabbing,” said Dr Clive Dix, former chairman of the UK Vaccine Task Force.

Needless to say, these headlines have spread as fast as omicron itself. Britain is the Covid laboratory of the developed world, and what Imperial says right now has global resonance. Its dire warnings are contributing to some European countries imposing full or partial Christmas lockdowns.

Advertisement

Governments are so alarmed by the possibility that healthcare systems might collapse under pressure that they have neglected the opposite risk - and much more probable outcome - that omicron will largely bounce off a population where almost everybody has cell immunity from vaccines or past infection, and in the case of Britain where most vulnerable people have been triple jabbed for good measure.   

“To talk of 5,000 deaths a day is a very high number. It is risky to push apocalyptic scenarios that are highly unlikely to happen,” said Professor Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Genetics Institute.

“What I am more worried about is a loss of trust in governments and public institutions for crying wolf. The mood is changing everywhere."

Prof Balloux, who used to work with the Imperial team, said he understood why they had focused on neutralising antibodies: they are easy to measure and tell you how well the front-line fighters are doing against infection. But this has led to great confusion.

Advertisement

The second line of defence, what really matters for serious illness, comes from B and T cell memory - either from jabs or prior illness. This carries on long after antibodies are no longer circulating in the blood. Cell memory is much harder to measure but is known to last much longer. 

“Cellular memory is still there for omicron and remains intact,” Balloux said.

The first studies from around the world have begun validating the potency of cell memory against omicron, more or less as theoretical science would predict. 

A team at the University of Cape Town found that double-jabbed patients still had 70pc of the CD4 T cell response against the new variant, and full CD8 protection, despite the mutations.

“T cells are holding out against omicron, and the data is very consistent across vaccines,” they told the US magazine Science. “From everything we know about T cells, this is what they do - control a virus once you’ve been infected. So this is their time to shine.”

You would not know this from the series of claims in the past few weeks by Prof Ferguson and his team that omicron “largely evades immunity”, even if they are technically within their rights to use this construction. 

Advertisement

Imperial might struggle to substantiate their initial warning that a 4.5 fold reduction in neutralising antibodies will lead to a “drop in vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation)”. 

They certainly cannot quantify hospital figures or project extreme death rates without taking into account the full effects of cell memory, which they fail to do. 

Their assertion that vaccine efficacy for double-jabbers ranges from zero to 20pc was misleading. Nor can they legitimately assert that there is “no evidence of omicron having lower severity than Delta” since their sample was vanishingly small, the timeline was too short, and they did not know the denominator of actual omicron infections since so many asymptomatic cases passed undetected. The clinical pattern worldwide suggests otherwise. That is "evidence".

Their hospitalisation assumptions have already been undermined by better data from Danish hospitals. The emerging ratios are a small fraction of the Imperial claims. 

“B and T cell protection is holding up well but they did not have an immunology group working with them. They are just modellers who plug in what they are told on vaccine efficacy (ie antibody counts) and come with this data,” said Dix. 

Advertisement

He wrote a robust critique of some of the claims, as did Professor James Naismith from Oxford University, though in gentler language. 

There is an interesting twist to this. The AstraZeneca adenovirus vaccine scores well on cell memory and may ultimately protect better than messenger RNA jabs such as Pfizer-BioNTech, now that we are relying more on this second line of defence. He believes the UK should have stuck with AstraZeneca for mix-and-match boosters.

Dix said the political class in the UK - and more broadly in Europe - does not understand the difference between front-line antibodies and lasting cell memory, and is therefore succumbing to unnecessary alarmism. 

He assumes that Professor Chris Whitty and his close colleagues do understand but went along with Imperial’s claims as a tool of public policy, hoping to cajole more people into getting booster jabs. Anthony Fauci in the US is apparently thinking along the same lines. But it is a double-edged strategy. It risks a loss of faith in vaccines altogether.

Advertisement

Dix said it is inexplicable that the NHS is not publishing daily data giving the exact percentage of those in hospital with omicron by vaccine status, comorbidities, and whether they were admitted for Covid or for another reason. They should publish the numbers needing oxygen, and those going onto critical care, as other countries do. 

“It is not that difficult to put together the data. It would make a huge difference to public confidence,” he said.

The global picture emerging from lab studies is not only that cell memory works like a charm, but that omicron may be inherently less dangerous than delta. 

Research by the Cambridge virologist Ravi Gupta found that the omicron spike protein cleaves far less efficiently than earlier variants, and replicates most in the upper respiratory tract rather than in the lungs where it does most damage. 

“I think the evidence is mounting that the virus potentially causes less progression to severe disease,” he said.

It confirms earlier work from Hong Kong University and is extremely encouraging. “If you have to pick between bronchitis and pneumonia, I can tell you, take bronchitis any day,” said Balloux.

Advertisement

Balloux said the sketchy clinical evidence from South Africa, Denmark, Australia, and London is that the case fatality rate of omicron for populations with broad immunity is 25 to 30 times lower than the earlier pre-vaccinated waves. 

There is a 90pc drop in hospitalisation rates, and a further two-thirds drop in death rates after admission. This takes it down to the levels of seasonal flu.

He said data from Australia is the most “elegant” yet, showing two simultaneous outbreaks of Covid in a well-vaccinated population, one delta, the other omicron. The hospitalisation rate of omicron is roughly half. 

In London, omicron has already blown through the residual pockets of vaccine refuseniks but has not led to comparable parabolic mayhem amongst the rest of the well-jabbed population. 

“It has already peaked in Gauteng (South Africa) and in all likelihood it will peak in London very soon. I am now quite confident that omicron won’t be as bad as they say,” said Balloux.

Global markets are sniffing this out and are learning to ignore the political noise. The equity rout earlier this week has already given way to a pre-Christmas relief rally. Airline and other "reopening" stocks are soaring again.  

Advertisement

The high probability is that omicron will disappoint the alarmists and frustrate those of a hairshirt Puritan character who almost seem to want lockdowns as a form of self-flagellation. 

The rest of us can get on with our lives and leave the antibody modellers to build castles in the air.

The whole premise of the article is nonsense - no one in their right mind wants any kind of lockdown but the Torygraph insists on turning it into some kind of point scoring exercise. 

It's so childish and demeaning. 

[Adam_the_legend]

Just now, Nucky Thompson said:

Interesting that other European countries might be bringing in restrictions based on the modelling from Imperial College 

But a bit silly considering the different demographics, vax rate…etc 🙃

[Adam_the_legend]

1 minute ago, NANOJAMBO said:

The whole premise of the article is nonsense - no one in their right mind wants any kind of lockdown but the Torygraph insists on turning it into some kind of point scoring exercise. 

It's so childish and demeaning. 

You can debate the telegraph editorial, or even ignore it, but the quotes from recognised scientists is interesting, no?

[Victorian]

They've really got it in for the modellers and fair enough.  Nothing wrong with that.  But I thought there was an unwarranted insult of the CMO there.

 

Some fairly credible scientists were cited there and it was very interesting.

[Dazo]

2 minutes ago, NANOJAMBO said:

The whole premise of the article is nonsense - no one in their right mind wants any kind of lockdown but the Torygraph insists on turning it into some kind of point scoring exercise. 

It's so childish and demeaning. 

Point scoring, childish and demeaning you say 😂 sounds like this thread. 

[NANOJAMBO]

3 minutes ago, Dazo said:

Point scoring, childish and demeaning you say 😂 sounds like this thread. 

If the shoe fits...

[Malinga the Swinga]

13 minutes ago, Adam_the_legend said:

Interesting read

 

 

Prof Lockdown's 'apocalyptic' omicron claims undermine faith in vaccines and have fuelled unnecessary shutdowns

Professor Neil Ferguson's team forecast thousands of deaths a day from the latest variant but new evidence suggests it may be far milder

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard23 December 2021 • 7:33am

 

 

The Covid modellers at Imperial College have begun to back down. About time too. Over the past few weeks, they have made extreme claims about the omicron variant that cannot be fully justified by fundamental science, let alone by clinical observation.

Academic etiquette restrains direct criticism, but immunologists say privately that Professor Neil Ferguson and his team breached a cardinal rule by inferring rates of hospitalisation, severe disease, and death from waning antibodies, and by extrapolating from infections that break through the first line of vaccine defence. 

The rest are entitled to question whether they can legitimately do this. And we may certainly question whether they should be putting out terrifying claims of up to 5,000 deaths a day based on antibody counts.

“It is bad science and I think they’re being irresponsible. They have a duty to reflect the true risks but this is just headline grabbing,” said Dr Clive Dix, former chairman of the UK Vaccine Task Force.

Needless to say, these headlines have spread as fast as omicron itself. Britain is the Covid laboratory of the developed world, and what Imperial says right now has global resonance. Its dire warnings are contributing to some European countries imposing full or partial Christmas lockdowns.

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Governments are so alarmed by the possibility that healthcare systems might collapse under pressure that they have neglected the opposite risk - and much more probable outcome - that omicron will largely bounce off a population where almost everybody has cell immunity from vaccines or past infection, and in the case of Britain where most vulnerable people have been triple jabbed for good measure.   

“To talk of 5,000 deaths a day is a very high number. It is risky to push apocalyptic scenarios that are highly unlikely to happen,” said Professor Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Genetics Institute.

“What I am more worried about is a loss of trust in governments and public institutions for crying wolf. The mood is changing everywhere."

Prof Balloux, who used to work with the Imperial team, said he understood why they had focused on neutralising antibodies: they are easy to measure and tell you how well the front-line fighters are doing against infection. But this has led to great confusion.

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The second line of defence, what really matters for serious illness, comes from B and T cell memory - either from jabs or prior illness. This carries on long after antibodies are no longer circulating in the blood. Cell memory is much harder to measure but is known to last much longer. 

“Cellular memory is still there for omicron and remains intact,” Balloux said.

The first studies from around the world have begun validating the potency of cell memory against omicron, more or less as theoretical science would predict. 

A team at the University of Cape Town found that double-jabbed patients still had 70pc of the CD4 T cell response against the new variant, and full CD8 protection, despite the mutations.

“T cells are holding out against omicron, and the data is very consistent across vaccines,” they told the US magazine Science. “From everything we know about T cells, this is what they do - control a virus once you’ve been infected. So this is their time to shine.”

You would not know this from the series of claims in the past few weeks by Prof Ferguson and his team that omicron “largely evades immunity”, even if they are technically within their rights to use this construction. 

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Imperial might struggle to substantiate their initial warning that a 4.5 fold reduction in neutralising antibodies will lead to a “drop in vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation)”. 

They certainly cannot quantify hospital figures or project extreme death rates without taking into account the full effects of cell memory, which they fail to do. 

Their assertion that vaccine efficacy for double-jabbers ranges from zero to 20pc was misleading. Nor can they legitimately assert that there is “no evidence of omicron having lower severity than Delta” since their sample was vanishingly small, the timeline was too short, and they did not know the denominator of actual omicron infections since so many asymptomatic cases passed undetected. The clinical pattern worldwide suggests otherwise. That is "evidence".

Their hospitalisation assumptions have already been undermined by better data from Danish hospitals. The emerging ratios are a small fraction of the Imperial claims. 

“B and T cell protection is holding up well but they did not have an immunology group working with them. They are just modellers who plug in what they are told on vaccine efficacy (ie antibody counts) and come with this data,” said Dix. 

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He wrote a robust critique of some of the claims, as did Professor James Naismith from Oxford University, though in gentler language. 

There is an interesting twist to this. The AstraZeneca adenovirus vaccine scores well on cell memory and may ultimately protect better than messenger RNA jabs such as Pfizer-BioNTech, now that we are relying more on this second line of defence. He believes the UK should have stuck with AstraZeneca for mix-and-match boosters.

Dix said the political class in the UK - and more broadly in Europe - does not understand the difference between front-line antibodies and lasting cell memory, and is therefore succumbing to unnecessary alarmism. 

He assumes that Professor Chris Whitty and his close colleagues do understand but went along with Imperial’s claims as a tool of public policy, hoping to cajole more people into getting booster jabs. Anthony Fauci in the US is apparently thinking along the same lines. But it is a double-edged strategy. It risks a loss of faith in vaccines altogether.

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Dix said it is inexplicable that the NHS is not publishing daily data giving the exact percentage of those in hospital with omicron by vaccine status, comorbidities, and whether they were admitted for Covid or for another reason. They should publish the numbers needing oxygen, and those going onto critical care, as other countries do. 

“It is not that difficult to put together the data. It would make a huge difference to public confidence,” he said.

The global picture emerging from lab studies is not only that cell memory works like a charm, but that omicron may be inherently less dangerous than delta. 

Research by the Cambridge virologist Ravi Gupta found that the omicron spike protein cleaves far less efficiently than earlier variants, and replicates most in the upper respiratory tract rather than in the lungs where it does most damage. 

“I think the evidence is mounting that the virus potentially causes less progression to severe disease,” he said.

It confirms earlier work from Hong Kong University and is extremely encouraging. “If you have to pick between bronchitis and pneumonia, I can tell you, take bronchitis any day,” said Balloux.

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Balloux said the sketchy clinical evidence from South Africa, Denmark, Australia, and London is that the case fatality rate of omicron for populations with broad immunity is 25 to 30 times lower than the earlier pre-vaccinated waves. 

There is a 90pc drop in hospitalisation rates, and a further two-thirds drop in death rates after admission. This takes it down to the levels of seasonal flu.

He said data from Australia is the most “elegant” yet, showing two simultaneous outbreaks of Covid in a well-vaccinated population, one delta, the other omicron. The hospitalisation rate of omicron is roughly half. 

In London, omicron has already blown through the residual pockets of vaccine refuseniks but has not led to comparable parabolic mayhem amongst the rest of the well-jabbed population. 

“It has already peaked in Gauteng (South Africa) and in all likelihood it will peak in London very soon. I am now quite confident that omicron won’t be as bad as they say,” said Balloux.

Global markets are sniffing this out and are learning to ignore the political noise. The equity rout earlier this week has already given way to a pre-Christmas relief rally. Airline and other "reopening" stocks are soaring again.  

Advertisement

The high probability is that omicron will disappoint the alarmists and frustrate those of a hairshirt Puritan character who almost seem to want lockdowns as a form of self-flagellation. 

The rest of us can get on with our lives and leave the antibody modellers to build castles in the air.

Mmm, an article suggesting, very politely, that the modellers got it wrong by only modelling worst case scenario. To think when I said approximately the same things, admittedly with none of the expertise this guy does, I had some on here slating me saying modellers were bang on and were definitely to be trusted.

How many times is Ferguson going to be 'the go to guy' when he consistently maximises prediction, in order to grab headlines and frighten the decision makers.

 

[Dazo]

Just now, NANOJAMBO said:

If the shoe fits...

Shoe, boot or cap. 

[NANOJAMBO]

4 minutes ago, Adam_the_legend said:

You can debate the telegraph editorial, or even ignore it, but the quotes from recognised scientists is interesting, no?

Of course, as our knowledge improves so will our behaviour change. I'm fine with that. 

[manaliveits105]

1 hour ago, Adam_the_legend said:

Your fear. Your fear of the virus, of the pandemic, and it seems your fear of good news. I’m not saying we should have just listened to what SA were saying uncritically but these new arguments about demographics, climate…etc seems like the ultimate straw clutching. I’ll assume if a new variant is found in, say, Alaska, which has a much higher death rate and transmissiblity than any previous one then no one on here will be calling for restrictions in the UK as it’s a “different country”. Yeh, I’ll not hold ma breath. 

The same doom mongers on this thread infest the brexit thread with doom and gloom - they are at it 24/7 

it must be a hoot at theirs over the festive season 

[Malinga the Swinga]

6 minutes ago, Victorian said:

They've really got it in for the modellers and fair enough.  Nothing wrong with that.  But I thought there was an unwarranted insult of the CMO there.

 

Some fairly credible scientists were cited there and it was very interesting.

Surely it's only unwarranted if it's not true. If it is, then the criticism, and it was very gentle, is indeed warranted.

 

[escobri]

Quick question as can't be bothered looking it up. Is that all venues/events in Scotland that required the passport effectively closed from boxing day?

[Victorian]

12 minutes ago, Malinga the Swinga said:

Surely it's only unwarranted if it's not true. If it is, then the criticism, and it was very gentle, is indeed warranted.

 

 

Well it's in two parts.

 

Dix said the political class in the UK - and more broadly in Europe - does not understand the difference between front-line antibodies and lasting cell memory, and is therefore succumbing to unnecessary alarmism. 

He assumes that Professor Chris Whitty and his close colleagues do understand but went along with Imperial’s claims as a tool of public policy

 

1.  Of course the UK CMO understands the various layers of the immune system.  

 

2.  He assumes he went along with following a model of allegedly poor rigour for a purpose.  I think it's equally poor to simply assume the motives of one of the most important scientists in the country.

 

Reasonable article,  albeit there's an inherent bias in outlook.  That part of it is howling though.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Victorian

[Malinga the Swinga]

18 minutes ago, NANOJAMBO said:

The whole premise of the article is nonsense - no one in their right mind wants any kind of lockdown but the Torygraph insists on turning it into some kind of point scoring exercise. 

It's so childish and demeaning. 

 

16 minutes ago, Adam_the_legend said:

You can debate the telegraph editorial, or even ignore it, but the quotes from recognised scientists is interesting, no?

Yet Njambo quotes article on SNP thread that is a lesson in childish point scoring, but because it comes from the viewpoint of anti tory, it's taken as gospel.

[Lord Montpelier]

14 minutes ago, Malinga the Swinga said:

Mmm, an article suggesting, very politely, that the modellers got it wrong by only modelling worst case scenario. To think when I said approximately the same things, admittedly with none of the expertise this guy does, I had some on here slating me saying modellers were bang on and were definitely to be trusted.

How many times is Ferguson going to be 'the go to guy' when he consistently maximises prediction, in order to grab headlines and frighten the decision makers.

 

He maximises the prediction to cover his ass, in my view. 

[Malinga the Swinga]

6 minutes ago, Victorian said:

 

Well it's in two parts.

 

Dix said the political class in the UK - and more broadly in Europe - does not understand the difference between front-line antibodies and lasting cell memory, and is therefore succumbing to unnecessary alarmism. 

He assumes that Professor Chris Whitty and his close colleagues do understand but went along with Imperial’s claims as a tool of public policy

 

1.  Of course the UK CMO understands the various layers of the immune system.  

 

2.  He assumes he went along with following a model of allegedly poor rigour for a purpose.  I think it's equally poor to simply assume the motives of one of the most important scientists in the country.

 

Reasonable article,  albeit there's an inherent bias in outlook.  That part of it us howling though.

Maybe the CMO did exactly as he was told to do to boost uptake of booster. Maybe, just maybe, pressure put on him and he had no option but to go along with it. He's only human, like us all, and felt it was best thing to do. I don't know and neither do you. Wouldn't be first person to exaggerate for what he perceives as greater good.

Maybe the CMO isn't an expert on the exact details and was assisted by other experts. Maybe they exaggerated some details.

Amazing how it's got an inherent bias because it doesn't say exactly what you want it to.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Malinga the Swinga

[Seymour M Hersh]

Two-thirds of new Covid hospital patients in England only tested positive after being admitted for a different illness, official data shows amid mounting evidence Omicron is milder.

[Victorian]

2 minutes ago, Malinga the Swinga said:

Maybe the CMO did exactly as he was told to do to boost uptake of booster. Maybe, just maybe, pressure put on him and he had no option but to go along with it. He's only human, like us all, and felt it was best thing to do. I don't know and neither do you.

Maybe the CMO isn't an expert on the exact details and was assisted by other experts. Maybe they exaggerated some details.

Amazing how it's got an inherent bias because it doesn't say exactly what you want it to.

 

Yet another bit of gaslighting at the end.  You did the same recently.  Rancid patter.  

 

The Telegraph has a libertarian,  Tory,  anti-restriction outlook.  That's all.

 

Maybe this,  maybe that.  All assumptions.  That's why it unwarranted on the CMO.

 

Maybe he's not an expert on the details?  What?  You can be assured that Chris Whitty is an equal to any specialist expert in his field.  The highest possible expertise.

 

You can either drop the rancid gaslighting or I'll just disengage completely.  It's beyond a cringe.

[Captain Sausage]

Don’t really see much wrong with that article…

 

The salient point is that people are losing faith with the modellers (particularly Ferguson and his team) as a result of consistent raising of alarm and continued failure to accurately predict what is going to happen. 
 

I think the doomsday predictions of opening up in summer were the final nail in the coffin for many people and an abject failure this time, given the consequences we’re currently seeing, will see a majority of people tell them to **** it off. 

[Francis Albert]

23 minutes ago, Seymour M Hersh said:

Two-thirds of new Covid hospital patients in England only tested positive after being admitted for a different illness, official data shows amid mounting evidence Omicron is milder.

Worth bearing mind when we hear that rising Covid hospital admissions threatens the collapse of the NHS

 

[Dennis Denuto]

11 minutes ago, Captain Sausage said:

Don’t really see much wrong with that article…

 

The salient point is that people are losing faith with the modellers (particularly Ferguson and his team) as a result of consistent raising of alarm and continued failure to accurately predict what is going to happen. 
 

I think the doomsday predictions of opening up in summer were the final nail in the coffin for many people and an abject failure this time, given the consequences we’re currently seeing, will see a majority of people tell them to **** it off. 

I think the message had got through to make people get the booster as quick as possible, but the restrictions just seem like a kick in the baws. 

[Victorian]

1 minute ago, Dennis Denuto said:

I think the message had got through to make people get the booster as quick as possible, but the restrictions just seem like a kick in the baws. 

 

Well if it continues in this way then surely these restrictions will be very brief.  Any extensions will become ludicrous.

[pablo]

2 hours ago, Footballfirst said:

You will be aware that I like to play with stats. I've put together a table to compare the growth in cases between London and Scotland to see if there is any evidence of the current wave getting worse, slowing down or having turned the corner.

 

For London, it looks as if the peak rate of increase in cases occurred a week ago, and although the raw numbers are still going up they have slowed quite markedly.  For Scotland the position is less clear. The rate of increase has not been as high as London but it isn't clear, as yet, that the worst is over.  I think the best that can be said is that the wave has been flatter in Scotland thus far.

 

I hope that the booster programme and the limited restrictions and guidelines are having the desired effects, both in London and Scotland.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, that's interesting. To me that suggests that cases may have plateaued in London already. That's without any new restrictions and everything else that makes London life unique. If that plateau continues or we start to see a decline, the tougher restrictions in other parts of the UK are going to look unnecessary.

[Malinga the Swinga]

19 minutes ago, Victorian said:

 

Yet another bit of gaslighting at the end.  You did the same recently.  Rancid patter.  

 

The Telegraph has a libertarian,  Tory,  anti-restriction outlook.  That's all.

 

Maybe this,  maybe that.  All assumptions.  That's why it unwarranted on the CMO.

 

Maybe he's not an expert on the details?  What?  You can be assured that Chris Whitty is an equal to any specialist expert in his field.  The highest possible expertise.

 

You can either drop the rancid gaslighting or I'll just disengage completely.  It's beyond a cringe.

Chris Whitty is an equal to any specialist on his field. I'll wager he's not. I'll wager there a quite a few absolute scientific specialists that no way more than him, but who have either no desire to do the speaking and meeting part of job, or would speak in a technical language no-one would be able to understand.

FFS, I never said he was stupid, just he works in team and will have to listen to others as he can't possibly understand every single thing to expert level himself.

You're the ultimate pious know it all on this thread. You say you have ideas but want to keep them to yourself, then when another poster puts something down, you come out with 'i think the same'.

Had to look up gaslighting as had no idea what it meant. Rancid gaslighting! You slate other posters opinions continually but when someone disagrees with you, it's unfair, it's bullying or some other dressed up pretence.

Several posters have called you out for it, but to make things easier, don't bother replying and we'll do each other the courtesy of politely ignoring each other.

Goodnight, good luck and let's leave it there.

 

[Maroon Sailor]

11 minutes ago, pablo said:

 

Thanks, that's interesting. To me that suggests that cases may have plateaued in London already. That's without any new restrictions and everything else that makes London life unique. If that plateau continues or we start to see a decline, the tougher restrictions in other parts of the UK are going to look unnecessary.

 

Grinchola and that Welsh twat will be making sure that figures in Scotland and Wales meant we escaped a tsunami

 

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by Maroon Sailor

[Victorian]

****ing hell. 

[Robbies right hand man]

We are all Tynie_guy

[Mikey1874]

1 hour ago, manaliveits105 said:

The same doom mongers on this thread infest the brexit thread with doom and gloom - they are at it 24/7 

it must be a hoot at theirs over the festive season 

 

Toss up whether the unvaccinated in ICU or the fishermen chucking out their catch they can't sell have the biggest challenges. 

[Footballfirst]

6 minutes ago, pablo said:

 

Thanks, that's interesting. To me that suggests that cases may have plateaued in London already. That's without any new restrictions and everything else that makes London life unique. If that plateau continues or we start to see a decline, the tougher restrictions in other parts of the UK are going to look unnecessary.

It's a bit premature to make your last assertion, although it would be great if you are right.

 

London's daily cases are now 4 x Scotland's, up from 2x at the start of the month. Those case numbers are still being translated into hospital admissions, so I wouldn't go as far as restrictions being "unnecessary".

 

Give it a couple more weeks and we should have a better picture of the effectiveness of the messaging and/or restrictions both north and south of the border.  However, the next couple of weeks stats are likely to be all over the place with the holiday period, so it may be difficult to measure one way or the other.  

[Dennis Denuto]

15 minutes ago, Victorian said:

 

Well if it continues in this way then surely these restrictions will be very brief.  Any extensions will become ludicrous.

 It they also could have warned that these restrictions are what we will do from 27th if it is required, we will pull the plug if the data says so with no more notice. 
 

They have brought in restrictions that so far are not needed and are dubious if they make much difference. 

[Robbies right hand man]

I think we need to line with it. Otherwise we’d kill elderly, vulnerable and the poor.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Robbies right hand man

[Dennis Denuto]

3 minutes ago, Footballfirst said:

It's a bit premature to make your last assertion, although it would be great if you are right.

 

London's daily cases are now 4 x Scotland's, up from 2x at the start of the month. Those case numbers are still being translated into hospital admissions, so I wouldn't go as far as restrictions being "unnecessary".

 

Give it a couple more weeks and we should have a better picture of the effectiveness of the messaging and/or restrictions both north and south of the border.  However, the next couple of weeks stats are likely to be all over the place with the holiday period, so it may be difficult to measure one way or the other.  

But you have to agree that so far all the data looks better than was being predicted. 
 

Not to say that can’t change. 

[JudyJudyJudy]

Oh dear ! Thank god I avoid this place ! I prefer more spit and sawdust places 😂😎

 

 

https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/covid-scotland-popular-edinburgh-bar-22557857?fbclid=IwAR1cpXNL_SoBpMo2qq0RJlRJ3od2m6vAZnzzsittG-cYQ8Y-UN8IE9BdVvI

[Victorian]

Just now, Dennis Denuto said:

 It they also could have warned that these restrictions are what we will do from 27th if it is required, we will pull the plug if the data says so with no more notice. 
 

They have brought in restrictions that so far are not needed and are dubious if they make much difference. 

 

We'll see.  I think it's important to remember that the range of studies so far that present decent data are fairly limited.  I don't think anything much has been proved.  Maybe a bit more data of how the more vulnerable groups are affected will be sought.  

 

It was said a while back.  These appear to be precautionary restrictions.  If it all ends up as overkill then it's still a good outcome.

[Roxy Hearts]

5 hours ago, The Real Maroonblood said:

I hope she gets well son which I'm sure she will.

 

5 hours ago, Nucky Thompson said:

Worrying time for you Roxy, but youngsters will fight it off no problem 

I know someone in their 70's with a respiratory problem who caught it and they were hardly even bothered by it

Thanks guys, appreciate it 👍

[Fxxx the SPFL]

25 minutes ago, Francis Albert said:

Worth bearing mind when we hear that rising Covid hospital admissions threatens the collapse of the NHS

 

Scottish admissions have only went up about 40 in the last four days ICU down one today still low at 38

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

1 hour ago, NANOJAMBO said:

The whole premise of the article is nonsense - no one in their right mind wants any kind of lockdown but the Torygraph insists on turning it into some kind of point scoring exercise. 

It's so childish and demeaning. 

I don't think the "Puritans" in the article want lockdowns necessarily (Ferguson would just ignore it anyway, the hypocrite) but there are extremists amongst them who want a zero Covid policy, even now and masks to be worn in perpetuity. The joy for them is that they don't have to obtain consent from the polity, they just have to scream about collapsing health systems.

[Footballfirst]

3 minutes ago, Dennis Denuto said:

But you have to agree that so far all the data looks better than was being predicted. 
 

Not to say that can’t change. 

I am getting slightly more optimistic that the outcome will not be as bad as feared by some and that the worst could be over with early in the new year.

 

If that proves to be the case, I'd expect the same arguments to continue about the necessity of the messaging or restrictions. Some will argue that no action was needed at all, while others will argue that it was those messages and guidelines that suppressed the wave as people changed their behaviours. Note that the "restrictions" haven't come into play as yet. The whole of the UK is currently behind similar messaging and promotion of the booster programme.

 

Assuming numbers don't get much worse, it will be interesting to see if the UK Government continues to prevaricate, at the behest of the CRG on the Tory backbenches, or comes out with a definitive statement about the need or otherwise for some restrictions in England after Christmas.

 

If the numbers do get worse, then I think Boris will end up recalling parliament to introduce new measures with the expectation that Labour votes will get any proposals through, despite the opposition from within.  

[Dennis Denuto]

15 minutes ago, Victorian said:

 

We'll see.  I think it's important to remember that the range of studies so far that present decent data are fairly limited.  I don't think anything much has been proved.  Maybe a bit more data of how the more vulnerable groups are affected will be sought.  

 

It was said a while back.  These appear to be precautionary restrictions.  If it all ends up as overkill then it's still a good outcome.

Not if you rely on public buy in for health policies to work. 
 

And it’s ****ed up MY family Boxing Day, despite her saying she wasn’t doing that. 
 

It’s always been a balancing act, but for me it has tipped to far at the moment. 

[Victorian]

5 minutes ago, Dennis Denuto said:

Not if you rely on public buy in for health policies to work. 
 

And it’s ****ed up MY family Boxing Day, despite her saying she wasn’t doing that. 
 

It’s always been a balancing act, but for me it has tipped to far at the moment. 

 

We're all being impacted by the pandemic and the restrictions that come along,  whether that be necessary restrictions or,  as people may well continue to argue,  over-cautious restrictions,  etc.  

 

I always maintain that the uncertainty of how the healthcare system manages automatically takes precedence over all of our personal sacrifices,  to an extent.  I don't think anyone has had much of a handle on the likely clinical situation and it has probably led to an automatic policy of caution.  Probably with a bit of headroom.  It's great that the first signs are that the poorer case scenarios are not likely to transpire.  Apart from bizarre,  vendetta driven ramblings that some of us are disappointed,  surely everyone stands to benefit from the poor forecasts being averted.  

 

I certainly wont attempt to decide for people what they should or shouldn't think about disrupted Christmas plans.  Nobody can project their own priorities on to anyone else.  My own viewpoint is that there is a bigger picture that pushes back my short term considerations to less importance.  That's my own view and in no way is it something to be imposed on others.

 

I really hope this wave is as short lived as it appeared it was going to be.  Contrary to what some myopic people think,  the restrictions disappoint me because it presents the chance that it may be flattened and prolong a bit as a result.  Unsuppressed it was looking like a very short event.  I suppose the NHS problem is the critical factor.  We'll be in a bloody good position after this wave and that's where my focus is.

[Nucky Thompson]

4 minutes ago, Victorian said:

 

We're all being impacted by the pandemic and the restrictions that come along,  whether that be necessary restrictions or,  as people may well continue to argue,  over-cautious restrictions,  etc.  

 

I always maintain that the uncertainty of how the healthcare system manages automatically takes precedence over all of our personal sacrifices,  to an extent.  I don't think anyone has had much of a handle on the likely clinical situation and it has probably led to an automatic policy of caution.  Probably with a bit of headroom.  It's great that the first signs are that the poorer case scenarios are not likely to transpire.  Apart from bizarre,  vendetta driven ramblings that some of us are disappointed,  surely everyone stands to benefit from the poor forecasts being averted.  

 

I certainly wont attempt to decide for people what they should or shouldn't think about disrupted Christmas plans.  Nobody can project their own priorities on to anyone else.  My own viewpoint is that there is a bigger picture that pushes back my short term considerations to less importance.  That's my own view and in no way is it something to be imposed on others.

 

I really hope this wave is as short lived as it appeared it was going to be.  Contrary to what some myopic people think,  the restrictions disappoint me because it presents the chance that it may be flattened and prolong a bit as a result.  Unsuppressed it was looking like a very short event.  I suppose the NHS problem is the critical factor.  We'll be in a bloody good position after this wave and that's where my focus is.

[1874robbo]

6 minutes ago, Victorian said:

 

We're all being impacted by the pandemic and the restrictions that come along,  whether that be necessary restrictions or,  as people may well continue to argue,  over-cautious restrictions,  etc.  

 

I always maintain that the uncertainty of how the healthcare system manages automatically takes precedence over all of our personal sacrifices,  to an extent.  I don't think anyone has had much of a handle on the likely clinical situation and it has probably led to an automatic policy of caution.  Probably with a bit of headroom.  It's great that the first signs are that the poorer case scenarios are not likely to transpire.  Apart from bizarre,  vendetta driven ramblings that some of us are disappointed,  surely everyone stands to benefit from the poor forecasts being averted.  

 

I certainly wont attempt to decide for people what they should or shouldn't think about disrupted Christmas plans.  Nobody can project their own priorities on to anyone else.  My own viewpoint is that there is a bigger picture that pushes back my short term considerations to less importance.  That's my own view and in no way is it something to be imposed on others.

 

I really hope this wave is as short lived as it appeared it was going to be.  Contrary to what some myopic people think,  the restrictions disappoint me because it presents the chance that it may be flattened and prolong a bit as a result.  Unsuppressed it was looking like a very short event.  I suppose the NHS problem is the critical factor.  We'll be in a bloody good position after this wave and that's where my focus is.

Yeh we will until the next variant comes along that the devolved nations collectively shit their pants over.

[Victorian]

4 minutes ago, 1874robbo said:

Yeh we will until the next variant comes along that the devolved nations collectively shit their pants over.

 

Not necessarily.  Put your trust in the ongoing process of scientific learning.  More and more is gradually being learned by science as they go along.  We're getting closer to science providing advances in vaccine production that will directly address the issue of new variants.  As the Telegraph article touched on,  eventually there will be more faith and trust placed on the more elusive elements of the immune system.  Cellular memory.  

 

Don't depress yourself with fatalism about variants.  The boffins are alive to it.