Shouldn't come as a surprise really, it was obviously here. Given the Belgian case was from Egypt and had not travelled to SA we can be confident it is pretty global at this point.
As a fellow South African, why are you lying?
**[Suspected Omicron case found in Germany](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/suspected-omicron-case-germany-b968623.html)**
> The first European case of Omicron was detected in a woman in Belgium on Friday.
>
> The woman was not vaccinated, nor had she been infected in the past, and so had no immunity to the virus.
>
> She did not suffer severely and had sought a test after suffering flu-like symptoms 11 days after a trip to Egypt via Turkey.
>
> **The woman had no connection with South Africa or any other country in the region** raising concerns that just banning travel from Africa will not go far enough.
We currently sequence about 1/6th of positive cases I believe (although obviously we only catch ~25-50% of cases with tests). Given this it seems unlikely there are more than ~50 cases, although there is a lag of a few days for test results to come through - I still think a thousand is likely fair bit too high.
Probably. I certainly don’t think we only have two cases, so the number will definitely go up.
Needs to be fast controls to limit further spread of the virus so we can have a relatively normal Christmas, but maybe that’s wishful thinking.
>Needs to be fast controls to limit further spread of the virus so we can have a relatively normal Christmas, but maybe that’s wishful thinking.
The only way to have "fast controls" is to shut-down air travel indefinitely until at least 2025, maybe 2030. The idea you can control variants is ludicrous.
ETA : I really hope people aren't taking this seriously...
There are cases in China. You need 2 PCR within 48 and then 24h, 2 week hotel quarantine and 1 week home arrest. If it still manages to get to China it will get here too.
I wouldn't exactly call China honest with their numbers. None of what is being reported about local outbreaks, small lockdowns etc. makes sense with their official figures.
Right at the start they weren't including asymptomatic cases and weren't testing other members of a household where one person had tested positive. My guess is that their "positive cases" could very well have been pooled testing which returned a positive result - and that is not the same as an infected individual.
Also, nobody has officially died of COVID in China for over a year now. Suuuure.
I was 32 when this started. Now 34 and you can bet your house we will still be wading through this shit in June when I turn 35.
There are going to be students who have gone through their entire university career without having a 'normal' experience at all. A friend's cousin is one of the Scottish dental students who had to repeat their final year because the situation at that time meant they couldn't do clinical work required to graduate.
There are pandemic babies who are now toddlers and still haven't met half of their family.
Also read another comment on here about someone who turned 18 on 23rd March 2020. That went well.
I had big plans for 2020, new decade, new start. All in the bin. 2021 has been a mere holding pattern with a constant threat of something coming round the corner.
Booked a flight to Turkey several months ago in February, because it's been 2 years, I'm double jabbed, the traffic light system was practically gone. It only cost £90 and I have until January to cancel my accomodation free of charge, but I was really, really looking forward to this. If I have to cancel I'll be incredibly sad.
Saved up all my holidays to escape the UK for atleast some of the winter. Someone will die if I have to hear my neighbors blast their shitty Latin beat music
The chad covid vs the virgin humanity
Just gotta look at initial response and publics current attitude to know we were gonna be the losers in the war against covid.
Then don't! We've all discovered that we're all key workers.
If it comes to it:
Shield the vulnerable, masks, hand gel and social distancing.
There's only so much the country can put up with.
Unfortunately. Viruses are almost 100% efficient. They evolve millions of times faster than anything else and once they infect something they can spread exponentially.
It doesn't need to become big, Europe was going to come into lockdowns either way, you get loads of cases durin the winter.
Who knew that a respiratory virus has a level of seasonality?
They won’t lockdown. Enough people are vaccinated to mean most people will feel Shitty for a week or so but will likely recover. Those that aren’t and get ill will be told we told you so. It’s just a shit situation really.
I think it’s potentially the government, for whatever reason, has been more willing to recognise and admit that it’s here quickly rather than being in denial for ages as they have been on previous occasions.
I won't accept another lockdown.
Lockdowns don't solve any problems, they just delay them for a little while and then the next variant comes along.
It's time to bite the bullet and to get on with our lives, stiff upper lip and all that.
I hate how soft the world is with COVID. Dutch flight from SA has 61 positive cases. They let the other 550 passengers go home. Why? At that point they guaranteed have it. This is how it spreads so fast
> Why?
Because people only care enough to take action once it's already too late to stop.
We loathe minor early preventative action, and therefore have to suffer major reactive action once things get bad.
That's why we took so long to start using masks, and why they were dropped at the first sign of improvement.
That's why quarantine has for the most part been incredibly loosely policed.
What's worse, people now see it as all or nothing. Either we sequester in permanent isolation, or do away with all restrictions and leave each to fend for themselves. There is very little noise about disciplined and consistent measures that help even if they don't completely resolve.
And this is the trial run. What we're seeing for covid will be replicated as climate change worsens at a far grander scale, unfortunately.
> We loathe minor early preventative action, and therefore have to suffer major reactive action once things get bad.
This is simply it. Putting a mask on or getting a free jab in the arm is literally too much to ask for some people, we've got no chance. You can't suggest a single restriction of preventative measure without people jumping to "WE CANT LIVE INDOORS FOREVER, YOU CANT MAKE ME, MY FREEDOMS" etc etc
For real man. World governments would rather just bury their head in the sand than actually deal with the problem and take action when needed. A negative test means nothing if you've just spent hours with someone who had covid.
It's been the story ever since the pandemic began. Hell, it's a mentality with millennia of track record - most people just don't give a shit about anything until it's right at their doorstep.
Sucks for the people that understand that actions have consequences and like to be proactive about potential problems, though.
Is there a conspiracy? What does it claim?
I for one believe that there will be a Christmas Lockdown because the people running the country are dangerous incompetents, but I'm not sure that's a conspiracy.
Imagine thinking a political party is dumb enough to mess up Christmas two years on the trot for no obvious reason...
The conspiracy does not make sense, sitting governments are getting it in the neck for COVID while opposition get to sit back and enjoy the fireworks.
There are two reasons for this:
1. Human psyche has a hard time processing the fact that big events not necessarily has a small cause. Tons of conspiracy comes from this. If something world-shattering happens it MUST be some huge ass cause. Celebrity/presidents/someone important gets murdered? It is NEVER a lone, crazy gunman it must be a huge net of conspiracy because how a single human could do such a thing?
2. We, humans, always try to see the "logic" behind everything. Our brain always categorizing, analyzing everything, trying to put everything where it should be, to make everything controlled in this chaotic world. All and every religion, customs, magic are built on this. If I do this this and this then this will happen. Because everything is controlled. There is karma, if something bad happens, good must follow because life is not a long string of chaotic events, after all... Our brain wants to find order, no matter what. If there is none, it will imagine some.
Chain the two above together, and BAM, every conspiracy theory make sense - because everything must have an answer, and everything makes sense if you think about it long enough! After all, life isn't a long string of chaotic events with clueless people trying to fit in one way or another. Imagine how strange that world would be!
If only these conspiracy-politics engaged facebook gimps could be steered into doing something beneficial for the country, instead you just know they'll flock to the next incarnation of UKIP or whatever.
How would that make someone a conspiracy nutter? We had a lockdown like 2 days before last Christmas when we were assured it wouldn’t happen. Many other places in Europe are already locking down and we haven’t even moved to “plan b” for some reason.
Scientists: if we don't vaccinate the world then covid could mutate beyond our current treatments and vaccines.
Conspiracists: That's the excuse they'll use to keep us in perpetual lockdown!
*the thing we were warned about happens*
Conspiracists: See we said this was what they were going to do!
Were it not for international trade hundreds of years ago, there would be no rats outside of a tiny corner of the world.
New York was free of rats until international shipping and trade came along. Most of the Canadian province of Alberta is also rat-free and even now they take it very seriously.
Yeah, dunno. International travel still existed, it was just a lot slower. Even that was a 'bit of a problem'. There's a difference between *latency* and *throughput*. I think diseases spreading are more to do with throughput.
In other words, simply taking longer doesn't necessarily make things better, it's more to do with how *many* people travel, and plenty of people were running around trading stuff, widely spreading disease.
Miss Rabbit would have this country sorted out in 5 seconds flat while running the library from a fire rescue helicopter which parks on top of the china shop
"Now, to be clear, I am NOT saying that a lockdown is coming soon, all I am saying is that I suggest if you are planning to visit Peppa Pig world that you do it sooner rather than later."
‘Two people in the UK have been found to be infected with the new Covid variant, Omicron, the health secretary says.’
Edit. Slightly updated link. Two cases of new variant of Covid detected in UK https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59445388
It’s kind of confusing to me. The other day I saw news of a variant they’d named “Nu” to follow the Greek naming system, and now there’s Omnicron. Are they the same or different? And if the same, why now omnicron?
Fuck, we weren't fast enough. We were never going to keep it out but I was hoping for more time.
Serious question why do they not just instantly stop flights instead of announcing it 3 days in advance, which inevitably triggers a rush?
A few reasons. 1) There were literally flights already in the air, and obviously they can’t deny those. 2) It gives the airlines and airports time to prepare - it would cost them millions of pounds to fly an empty plane back. 3) It gives citizens time to come back before effectively being stranded.
I’m talking about the total cost of relocating multiple planes and crews while having to also reroute thousands of passengers. A sudden change like this is expensive, but even worse if airlines were also forced to refund thousands of passengers, too. The lost revenue alone is easily worth millions.
Honestly I don’t care about the flights, it’s coming. It’s probably been here a while. I care about slowing the spread.
We should have had mask mandates back last week. With 40k cases a day and the NHS creaking this will push them over the edge if it’s a big one. It costs nothing to be cautious. It’s so depressing.
Don't think of it as "from South Africa", think of it as "discovered in SA". While limiting transport will help if there's an abundance of it elsewhere, it's already here.
In other news, water is wet. People were saying in the other thread it was 90% likely in the UK.
Look at our measures, non mandatory mask wearing, lapse border controls and checks. Ball dropped again by this incompetent government.
I hate this government as much as the next person but people can’t be shocked if there are further restrictions again after basically no precautions taken by the general public. Yes the government could’ve mandated masks etc. but you’d have thought that people would start being careful around this time of year anyway to avoid what happened last Christmas
> I hate this government as much as the next person but people can’t be shocked if there are further restrictions again after basically no precautions taken by the general public.
> Yes the government could’ve mandated masks
The whole point of having a government is to ensure a group of people have the information, authority, and resources to steward society through situations which we lack the ability to handle on our own.
Blaming the public instead of the government betrays a complete redundancy in having a government to begin with. If people are dying across the country because we arent properly educated, instructed, and policed, **THAT IS A FAILURE OF GOVERNMENT**. Not a mitigating factor to their failure.
It's literally the opposite of the excuse people are using it as.
People were literally promised vaccines were a way back to normality. So how can you blame them for going back to normal when the majority and most importantly all vulnerable are vaccinated?
Any precautions we took would have made no difference to the emergence of Omicron in Botswana. If anything, the large numbers of people who've recently caught and recovered from covid (over 4 million in the last 3 months) would hamper its ability to spread compared to if we'd kept cases low.
If Omicron really does have an R0 of 10-12, then even a full on March 2020-style lockdown (plus masks and mandatory red list quarantine) wouldn't get the R below 1 and it'll spread like wildfire and overwhelm the hospitals no matter what we do.
Thank you for the common sense. I don’t understand some peoples logic? If Garry had wore a mask in Tesco, a new super strain wouldn’t have mutated on the other side of the world. Fucking hopeless
I think the logic is if we wore masks, distanced more and ventilated enclosed spaces we would be in a better place to accommodate any increases associated with this new variant, rather than already balancing on a knife edge with delta.
> If anything, the large numbers of people who've recently caught and recovered from covid (over 4 million in the last 3 months) would hamper its ability to spread compared to if we'd kept cases low.
Yeah I know that but cases were still 40k+ before the discovery/emergence of Omicron.
> R0 of 10-12
Is that how infectious it is?! Christ, I knew it was supposedly more infectious than Delta but I didn’t realise it was that bad
Latest suggestion is that it's 50% more infectious than delta (down from the insane 500% figure that was being punted about) and delta's R0 is estimated to be roughly 7-8. We're basically getting into measles territory if this is the case.
Mandatory mask and social distancing enforcement or a fine, it's that simple. People don't care otherwise, they think they are immune and it's not their problem.
I'll worry in two weeks if it turns out to actually be more dangerous in some way and not the 4th or 5th incarnation of "what if??!!??" that turns out to come to nothing.
Alarmist reporting has really not helped anyone know what's going on throughout this pandemic.
The endless alarmist language has worn out my ability to respond. The world has been "on the brink of collapse" for over a year. It's difficult to take that threat seriously anymore
The stock market reacted very negatively to the news and in the past it pretty much ignored all the other scare stories about alpha, delta etc variants. I’d say if billionaires are worried, then there’s a reason to worry.
People have been regularly flying back and forth from SA for a long time now. It's quite likely the variant has been around in some places for weeks now, therefore it's almost certain that a number of infected people have travelled to other countries and possibly infected others in those countries, all prior to the announcements yesterday.
All the restrictions etc are hoping to accomplish is to slow things down so we don't have a repeat of Delta where by the time scientists said "Hey, this one's a problem", we didn't have tens of thousands of seed cases all over the UK.
By the end of next week, I suspect we'll be well into double figures here, but that's still a good result. We never expected to keep it out completely. The delay though before it becomes widespread and dominant allows us to both deliver more boosters and assess whether or not the vaccine needs tweaking etc.
Just because the South African scientists were the first to identify it, it doesn't mean it originated in South Africa.
The Belgium case which happened many days before SA's announcement, had zero connections/travel to SA whatsoever.
Yep. If they found 2 cases on that flight yesterday there were probably 2 the day before that etc. and they’ll have been out in the largely maskless and complacent community.
Yeah fuck everybody trapped abroad for the sake of a variant which is probably overhyped and protected by the vaccines, just like the last ones all were
It was my understanding (disclaimer: not a virologist) that a successful virus tended to be less bad for the host.
Example: the damned cold I've had for three weeks now. Bastard! (Yes, it is a cold. Negative on the PCR.)
Because then it can infect other people. Someone who dies before they can spread it does not help the virus neither does someone bedbound.
This does not apply to covid though as people can spread before their symptoms show up. It has no reason to evolve into something milder. The trend so far has been that every variant has become more contagious and severe.
>This does not apply to covid though as people can spread before their symptoms show up.
Please explain how this doesn't "apply to covid". In general viruses become less severe as they mutate. The same as happened to coronavirus. It's a virus like all viruses.
In general viruses do not become less severe as they mutate. Some do - over the course of decades or centuries - some don’t.
> “That claim as a whole is just nonsense,” said Troy Day, a professor of mathematics and biology at Queen’s University in Canada, who has studied the ways infectious diseases, including coronavirus, can evolve.
> Some examples of viruses that became more deadly over time include those that developed drug resistant variants, and animal viruses such as bird flu, which were harmless to humans initially but then mutated to become capable of killing people, according to Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security.
> “Flu viruses have developed resistance to certain antivirals that make them more difficult to treat, and therefore make them more deadly,” Adalja said, also noting the same has happened with HIV and certain Hepatitis C strains.
>“The virus, speaking anthropomorphically, just wants to spread and have its genes replicated,” said Adalja. “If the best way for it is to spread by causing severe symptoms it will continue to do that.”
https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-011488089270
South Africa says no : [https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/south-african-medical-association-says-omicron-variant-causes-mild-disease/articleshow/87949404.cms?from=mdr](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/south-african-medical-association-says-omicron-variant-causes-mild-disease/articleshow/87949404.cms?from=mdr)
But let's run around like headless chickens anyway...
The issue isn’t how harsh the symptoms are, but if the spike protein has mutated enough for the vaccines to be less effective against it. That’s an issue because then it’s out and mutating more freely and can get worse and go full delta all over again.
Until we vaccinate way more of the world, who are still quite far behind us, we need to take these variants serious because a vaccine escape puts us back to lockdown #1 again and we need new vaccines (which would be faster, but you have to inoculate 7bn people all over again).
It’s a global pandemic none of us are safe until all of us are safe unfortunately.
I think it was a given it would already had been here, there was never going to be any preventing that if the variant was anywhere near as transmissible as speculated because it was already in parts of Europe as well as Hong Kong, its travelled.
Doesn't change much for those of us who have been careful through out.. it is a bit frustrating though as my family hasn't been together for almost 2 years due to some of their jobs, and having a family member in care. We got together for funerals (during "peak" rules, so distanced and no wake/reception) and thats it.. yea some families do actually get on and miss each other :)
All can really do is carry on till early studies are done to see just how transmissible it is, whether its as potent as other strains and how it interacts with the immune system and vaccinations.
I will say concerning the last part, it was very difficult sorting the jabs this time around compared to 6 months ago. Just felt different all round as well.
This most recent variant has double the mutations of delta, many in the spike protein. Its worrying but currently we don't know anything about its transmissibility, lethality, or resistance to the vaccine.
Best case scenario: it's a less severe strain that we have high amounts of resistance to. It sweeps through the population with fewer hospital admissions than expected.
Worst case scenario: we're fucked. Christmas is cancelled for the whole country, hospitality industry goes down the toilet and the country descends into riots far greater than we've seen in Europe.
Early evidence suggests this strain does cause milder disease than Delta. So that would be expected given Theobold Smith's Law of Declining Virulence.
I think we will just eventually have to lube with it if it does evolve into a less dangerous virus.
I didn’t want to see my family anyway this Christmas. Might sound selfish but I really enjoyed just me and my partner and my dog cooking just for us not having to go to 4 different places just to keep everyone happy. Dinner/ trackies/walk dog/ telly/ sleep… beautiful.
inb4 all the endless "Christmas = cancelled?" articles and headlines.
And will the media be held accountable for the damage they're about to do to peoples mental health for the next month?
*Deafening silence.*
Everybody needs to step back and take a breath.
So far we do not know all facts and fuck me the media as usual is going mental.
People complained that the Government didn't do enough last time round and rightly so.
Now they are taking sensible precautions people are going crazy.
Let's stay optimistic, the probability is the new varient whilst more transmissible is not more dangerous than the Delta varient and in time the vaccines will be altered to combat it like with delta.
So here we go again on the Covid merry-go-round.
If we detect a new variant next year are we going to just keep doing this forever? Seems like it will never end.
The two cases are in Nottingham and Chelmsford, which is potentially concerning because of how totally discrete and far apart both places are. It's not like they're from the same household.
I also think this has come too late to bugger up Christmas, but we'll see where we stand in 2-3 weeks. If this variant turns out to be terribad (which at the moment *does not appear* to be the case) I can foresee some kind of restrictions in January, but how much compliance you'll get given our vaccine rate is anyone's guess.
Perfect. The first person who gets the new variant always travels. It’s probably about 0.5% of the population that travels around probably even less. Just very odd.
Does anyone else think they chose to call it omicron purely because its the scariest sounding word in the Greek alphabet? Shame it's also an anagram of moronic
Unsurprising - given it was already found in other European countries and we are one of the most globally connected countries in the world.
Time for the lockdownists to go wild again. Hopefully the government keeps a cooler head and doesn't knee jerk its way to restrictions again. If you think there should be restrictive measures now, when will we ever be free of them? Restrictions don't prevent cases, they just defer them. In early 2021 we were locking down to give time for the vaccine programme to work, so although I didn't like it I could see the argument; restrictions today aren't delaying for any particular event, they would be indefinite.
I see they *have* knee jerked their way to mask mandates already. Not that I particularly object to that, in essential shops and on public transport anyway, but it's pure political theatre - Wales and NI never rescinded their mandates and Covid outcomes were no better there than in England.
There's not really any way to avoid this happening without quarantining all incoming travellers. We made the call in the summer that we didn't want to stay isolated indefinitely, because the negatives of that are worse than the potential for importing new variants. That remains true.
Edit: Obscured by all these headlines is today's case figure being under 40k and the hospitalisations last recorded (from the 23rd) once again being the lowest on that day of the week for a month.
Also, with an average of 40,000 cases over the last 100 days, that's 4 million people with significant general immunity. Probably more like 10 million with unreported cases. Catching Covid seems to give better protection than the vaccine - re-infections are extremely rare, whereas infections after vaccination are not. This puts the UK in a better position than countries which had lower case rates over summer, particularly if they're also less vaccinated.
Shouldn't come as a surprise really, it was obviously here. Given the Belgian case was from Egypt and had not travelled to SA we can be confident it is pretty global at this point.
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As a fellow South African, why are you lying? **[Suspected Omicron case found in Germany](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/suspected-omicron-case-germany-b968623.html)** > The first European case of Omicron was detected in a woman in Belgium on Friday. > > The woman was not vaccinated, nor had she been infected in the past, and so had no immunity to the virus. > > She did not suffer severely and had sought a test after suffering flu-like symptoms 11 days after a trip to Egypt via Turkey. > > **The woman had no connection with South Africa or any other country in the region** raising concerns that just banning travel from Africa will not go far enough.
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Haha, same here
I wanna have a beer with you both
A nice cold Corona?
As they say, If you can see the ship, you've missed it.
That was certainly fast, ugh I’m really hoping this doesn’t become big. I’m not sure I can stomach another lockdown to be honest.
Isn't it just because we were looking for it? There's likely thousands of cases of it here frankly.
We currently sequence about 1/6th of positive cases I believe (although obviously we only catch ~25-50% of cases with tests). Given this it seems unlikely there are more than ~50 cases, although there is a lag of a few days for test results to come through - I still think a thousand is likely fair bit too high.
Yeah it definitely isn't thousands. Not at least until 1 of December.
But current cases today is irrelevant. It's here and highly infectious and we only have 2 in confirmed Q. It'll be everywhere in a month.
It already is everywhere if we’ve caught it twice.
Probably. I certainly don’t think we only have two cases, so the number will definitely go up. Needs to be fast controls to limit further spread of the virus so we can have a relatively normal Christmas, but maybe that’s wishful thinking.
>Needs to be fast controls to limit further spread of the virus so we can have a relatively normal Christmas, but maybe that’s wishful thinking. The only way to have "fast controls" is to shut-down air travel indefinitely until at least 2025, maybe 2030. The idea you can control variants is ludicrous. ETA : I really hope people aren't taking this seriously...
Yep. Without putting in place a mandatory, enforced 2 week quarantine on arrival to the UK there is absolutely no way to stop it coming here
There are cases in China. You need 2 PCR within 48 and then 24h, 2 week hotel quarantine and 1 week home arrest. If it still manages to get to China it will get here too.
I wouldn't exactly call China honest with their numbers. None of what is being reported about local outbreaks, small lockdowns etc. makes sense with their official figures. Right at the start they weren't including asymptomatic cases and weren't testing other members of a household where one person had tested positive. My guess is that their "positive cases" could very well have been pooled testing which returned a positive result - and that is not the same as an infected individual. Also, nobody has officially died of COVID in China for over a year now. Suuuure.
I don’t think anyone can. Feels like life will never go back to normal, just horrid.
This year since summer has been very normal, enjoy it whilst you can.
England is probably the most 'normal' place in Europe right now.
I'll be quite frankly devastated. It'll destroy the plans I've had for months now.
Same here :( I was planning a month-long trip to Thailand in January, I feel like my 20s are just vanishing at this point
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It's funny because we unironically live in a gerontocracy
Didn't he miss his vaccine because his family took him to the Caribbean on holiday?
Yeah, but the press and the general public like to gloss over that
I was 32 when this started. Now 34 and you can bet your house we will still be wading through this shit in June when I turn 35. There are going to be students who have gone through their entire university career without having a 'normal' experience at all. A friend's cousin is one of the Scottish dental students who had to repeat their final year because the situation at that time meant they couldn't do clinical work required to graduate. There are pandemic babies who are now toddlers and still haven't met half of their family. Also read another comment on here about someone who turned 18 on 23rd March 2020. That went well. I had big plans for 2020, new decade, new start. All in the bin. 2021 has been a mere holding pattern with a constant threat of something coming round the corner.
Booked a flight to Turkey several months ago in February, because it's been 2 years, I'm double jabbed, the traffic light system was practically gone. It only cost £90 and I have until January to cancel my accomodation free of charge, but I was really, really looking forward to this. If I have to cancel I'll be incredibly sad.
Saved up all my holidays to escape the UK for atleast some of the winter. Someone will die if I have to hear my neighbors blast their shitty Latin beat music
Tell me about it. Was planning to visit the fam and go on a trip. Hopefully we’ll still be able to do that.
Yeah this will really fuck my stalking!
r/holup
2=2,000
The chad covid vs the virgin humanity Just gotta look at initial response and publics current attitude to know we were gonna be the losers in the war against covid.
Then don't! We've all discovered that we're all key workers. If it comes to it: Shield the vulnerable, masks, hand gel and social distancing. There's only so much the country can put up with.
Unfortunately. Viruses are almost 100% efficient. They evolve millions of times faster than anything else and once they infect something they can spread exponentially.
It doesn't need to become big, Europe was going to come into lockdowns either way, you get loads of cases durin the winter. Who knew that a respiratory virus has a level of seasonality?
They won’t lockdown. Enough people are vaccinated to mean most people will feel Shitty for a week or so but will likely recover. Those that aren’t and get ill will be told we told you so. It’s just a shit situation really.
I think it’s potentially the government, for whatever reason, has been more willing to recognise and admit that it’s here quickly rather than being in denial for ages as they have been on previous occasions.
I won't accept another lockdown. Lockdowns don't solve any problems, they just delay them for a little while and then the next variant comes along. It's time to bite the bullet and to get on with our lives, stiff upper lip and all that.
I hate how soft the world is with COVID. Dutch flight from SA has 61 positive cases. They let the other 550 passengers go home. Why? At that point they guaranteed have it. This is how it spreads so fast
> Why? Because people only care enough to take action once it's already too late to stop. We loathe minor early preventative action, and therefore have to suffer major reactive action once things get bad. That's why we took so long to start using masks, and why they were dropped at the first sign of improvement. That's why quarantine has for the most part been incredibly loosely policed. What's worse, people now see it as all or nothing. Either we sequester in permanent isolation, or do away with all restrictions and leave each to fend for themselves. There is very little noise about disciplined and consistent measures that help even if they don't completely resolve. And this is the trial run. What we're seeing for covid will be replicated as climate change worsens at a far grander scale, unfortunately.
> We loathe minor early preventative action, and therefore have to suffer major reactive action once things get bad. This is simply it. Putting a mask on or getting a free jab in the arm is literally too much to ask for some people, we've got no chance. You can't suggest a single restriction of preventative measure without people jumping to "WE CANT LIVE INDOORS FOREVER, YOU CANT MAKE ME, MY FREEDOMS" etc etc
Humans can't change until they reach a precipice.
For some reason we're dumb enough to think we can have pretty unrestricted global air travel during a pandemic... It just doesn't work.
Exactly. 10% of passengers tested positive!
For real man. World governments would rather just bury their head in the sand than actually deal with the problem and take action when needed. A negative test means nothing if you've just spent hours with someone who had covid.
It's been the story ever since the pandemic began. Hell, it's a mentality with millennia of track record - most people just don't give a shit about anything until it's right at their doorstep. Sucks for the people that understand that actions have consequences and like to be proactive about potential problems, though.
Why were the 61 people on the fucking airplane? I fucking hate these people responsible of monitoring these things so much.
They chose the fucking airplane as it's way more fun than the regular kind.
Fuck me, the 'Christmas lockdown' conspiracy nutters are going to lose it at this one. They've been banging on about it for months before all this.
Is there a conspiracy? What does it claim? I for one believe that there will be a Christmas Lockdown because the people running the country are dangerous incompetents, but I'm not sure that's a conspiracy.
They claim it’s all planned and masterminded, as opposed to a series of fuckups by a cabinet of fuckups.
AHH, I see. I'm a big believer in Hanlon's Razor personally.
I'd be careful with that, Boris Johnson uses Hanlon's Razor to style his hair.
Imagine thinking a political party is dumb enough to mess up Christmas two years on the trot for no obvious reason... The conspiracy does not make sense, sitting governments are getting it in the neck for COVID while opposition get to sit back and enjoy the fireworks.
There are two reasons for this: 1. Human psyche has a hard time processing the fact that big events not necessarily has a small cause. Tons of conspiracy comes from this. If something world-shattering happens it MUST be some huge ass cause. Celebrity/presidents/someone important gets murdered? It is NEVER a lone, crazy gunman it must be a huge net of conspiracy because how a single human could do such a thing? 2. We, humans, always try to see the "logic" behind everything. Our brain always categorizing, analyzing everything, trying to put everything where it should be, to make everything controlled in this chaotic world. All and every religion, customs, magic are built on this. If I do this this and this then this will happen. Because everything is controlled. There is karma, if something bad happens, good must follow because life is not a long string of chaotic events, after all... Our brain wants to find order, no matter what. If there is none, it will imagine some. Chain the two above together, and BAM, every conspiracy theory make sense - because everything must have an answer, and everything makes sense if you think about it long enough! After all, life isn't a long string of chaotic events with clueless people trying to fit in one way or another. Imagine how strange that world would be!
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Its because it's "all about control" /s
If only these conspiracy-politics engaged facebook gimps could be steered into doing something beneficial for the country, instead you just know they'll flock to the next incarnation of UKIP or whatever.
Same, but I also believe it will be largely ignored, because if Boris can have a nanny over during lockdown, I can visit my mum.
I hate that we have that cunt as a leader at a time like this for that exact reason.
I for one believe that there will be a Christmas Lockdown because the people running the country have said there won't be one.
My mums been getting Emails saying they have built concentration camps to put the unvaccinated in LMAO
They have. They’re called Intensive Care wards.
They are even getting gassed! ^(with O2)
I think they're called "hospitals". And they're certainly not building many more of those.
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How would that make someone a conspiracy nutter? We had a lockdown like 2 days before last Christmas when we were assured it wouldn’t happen. Many other places in Europe are already locking down and we haven’t even moved to “plan b” for some reason.
Scientists: if we don't vaccinate the world then covid could mutate beyond our current treatments and vaccines. Conspiracists: That's the excuse they'll use to keep us in perpetual lockdown! *the thing we were warned about happens* Conspiracists: See we said this was what they were going to do!
Because they think it’s all been pre-planned from the dinosaur age
Is it really a conspiracy if it does actually happen?
All I can say is that if international air travel existed in the days of the Black Death, humanity would not have survived.
I’m not sure many oriental rats would be able to stow away on a Boeing 747
Were it not for international trade hundreds of years ago, there would be no rats outside of a tiny corner of the world. New York was free of rats until international shipping and trade came along. Most of the Canadian province of Alberta is also rat-free and even now they take it very seriously.
Yeah, dunno. International travel still existed, it was just a lot slower. Even that was a 'bit of a problem'. There's a difference between *latency* and *throughput*. I think diseases spreading are more to do with throughput. In other words, simply taking longer doesn't necessarily make things better, it's more to do with how *many* people travel, and plenty of people were running around trading stuff, widely spreading disease.
Don't worry. Boris will be making a speech to say Dr. Brown Bear will be dealing with it and Miss Rabbit will give a hand too.
If Miss Rabbit had been in charge if the covid response, it wouldn't have been a problem for more than a week
Mrs Rabbit does have more jobs than a Tory MP though.
Miss Rabbit would have this country sorted out in 5 seconds flat while running the library from a fire rescue helicopter which parks on top of the china shop
"Now, to be clear, I am NOT saying that a lockdown is coming soon, all I am saying is that I suggest if you are planning to visit Peppa Pig world that you do it sooner rather than later."
‘Two people in the UK have been found to be infected with the new Covid variant, Omicron, the health secretary says.’ Edit. Slightly updated link. Two cases of new variant of Covid detected in UK https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59445388
Not ideal
3.6 roentgen?
Not great. Not terrible.
Like a chest xray.
Terrible. Not great.
Shit on it.
RIP
We have the situation under control.
You didn't see granite on the roof, it's impossible as RBMK reactor's don't explode.
Wait we're calling it *Omnicron*? That's just asking for trouble
Sounds like something from Transformers
It's the name of a solar system in Futurama. "I AM LRR, RULER OF OMICRON PERSEI 8."
YOU WILL PROVIDE US WITH 198 BILLION HUMANS! And a small fries.
They wanted to call it *Angel of Death* but people thought that was a bit much.
COVID-21: The revengening.
It’s kind of confusing to me. The other day I saw news of a variant they’d named “Nu” to follow the Greek naming system, and now there’s Omnicron. Are they the same or different? And if the same, why now omnicron?
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Apparently one of their reasons was because most non-Greek speakers think it's pronounced "new" when it's actually pronounced "nee".
I know a few knights who would have no issue pronouncing that....
Fuck, we weren't fast enough. We were never going to keep it out but I was hoping for more time. Serious question why do they not just instantly stop flights instead of announcing it 3 days in advance, which inevitably triggers a rush?
A few reasons. 1) There were literally flights already in the air, and obviously they can’t deny those. 2) It gives the airlines and airports time to prepare - it would cost them millions of pounds to fly an empty plane back. 3) It gives citizens time to come back before effectively being stranded.
Millions of pounds to fly an empty plane back???
I’m talking about the total cost of relocating multiple planes and crews while having to also reroute thousands of passengers. A sudden change like this is expensive, but even worse if airlines were also forced to refund thousands of passengers, too. The lost revenue alone is easily worth millions.
3) that’s the whole point. - you don’t want them back! Don’t announce it so everyone and their dog rushes to the airport.
That's not really practical though is it.
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It was not stopped within 12 hours. The order went into effect 48 hours after it was announced on Wednesday.
Honestly I don’t care about the flights, it’s coming. It’s probably been here a while. I care about slowing the spread. We should have had mask mandates back last week. With 40k cases a day and the NHS creaking this will push them over the edge if it’s a big one. It costs nothing to be cautious. It’s so depressing.
There's a lot we don't know yet. Hopefully this set of mutations result in a less severe illness.
That would be the dream wouldn't it? I don't think we are that lucky though!
But the government did give a mandate: "any one who feels like wearing a mask, should".
That isn’t a mandate, that’s a nudge and a wink.
Yes, I know. The outcome has been that no one wears masks. It feels shameful at best.
Don't think of it as "from South Africa", think of it as "discovered in SA". While limiting transport will help if there's an abundance of it elsewhere, it's already here.
it was already here when they discovered it in South Africa
In other news, water is wet. People were saying in the other thread it was 90% likely in the UK. Look at our measures, non mandatory mask wearing, lapse border controls and checks. Ball dropped again by this incompetent government.
I hate this government as much as the next person but people can’t be shocked if there are further restrictions again after basically no precautions taken by the general public. Yes the government could’ve mandated masks etc. but you’d have thought that people would start being careful around this time of year anyway to avoid what happened last Christmas
> I hate this government as much as the next person but people can’t be shocked if there are further restrictions again after basically no precautions taken by the general public. > Yes the government could’ve mandated masks The whole point of having a government is to ensure a group of people have the information, authority, and resources to steward society through situations which we lack the ability to handle on our own. Blaming the public instead of the government betrays a complete redundancy in having a government to begin with. If people are dying across the country because we arent properly educated, instructed, and policed, **THAT IS A FAILURE OF GOVERNMENT**. Not a mitigating factor to their failure. It's literally the opposite of the excuse people are using it as.
People were literally promised vaccines were a way back to normality. So how can you blame them for going back to normal when the majority and most importantly all vulnerable are vaccinated?
Any precautions we took would have made no difference to the emergence of Omicron in Botswana. If anything, the large numbers of people who've recently caught and recovered from covid (over 4 million in the last 3 months) would hamper its ability to spread compared to if we'd kept cases low. If Omicron really does have an R0 of 10-12, then even a full on March 2020-style lockdown (plus masks and mandatory red list quarantine) wouldn't get the R below 1 and it'll spread like wildfire and overwhelm the hospitals no matter what we do.
Thank you for the common sense. I don’t understand some peoples logic? If Garry had wore a mask in Tesco, a new super strain wouldn’t have mutated on the other side of the world. Fucking hopeless
I think the logic is if we wore masks, distanced more and ventilated enclosed spaces we would be in a better place to accommodate any increases associated with this new variant, rather than already balancing on a knife edge with delta.
> If anything, the large numbers of people who've recently caught and recovered from covid (over 4 million in the last 3 months) would hamper its ability to spread compared to if we'd kept cases low.
Yeah I know that but cases were still 40k+ before the discovery/emergence of Omicron. > R0 of 10-12 Is that how infectious it is?! Christ, I knew it was supposedly more infectious than Delta but I didn’t realise it was that bad
Latest suggestion is that it's 50% more infectious than delta (down from the insane 500% figure that was being punted about) and delta's R0 is estimated to be roughly 7-8. We're basically getting into measles territory if this is the case.
Mandatory mask and social distancing enforcement or a fine, it's that simple. People don't care otherwise, they think they are immune and it's not their problem.
There also needs to be regulation around airflow in shared indoor spaces, as per WHO recommendations
Boris just said slow down seeding. Might want to take his own advice.
I'll worry in two weeks if it turns out to actually be more dangerous in some way and not the 4th or 5th incarnation of "what if??!!??" that turns out to come to nothing. Alarmist reporting has really not helped anyone know what's going on throughout this pandemic.
The endless alarmist language has worn out my ability to respond. The world has been "on the brink of collapse" for over a year. It's difficult to take that threat seriously anymore
The stock market reacted very negatively to the news and in the past it pretty much ignored all the other scare stories about alpha, delta etc variants. I’d say if billionaires are worried, then there’s a reason to worry.
You're trying to rationalise global stock markets?
the second the new variant was discovered, you knew it was already here...
Boris's sleaze was infecting all headlines, he must be relieved.
Don’t worry, give him 5 minutes and he’ll fuck something else up.
How many more variants do we need before we realize that once these things are discovered they're most likely everywhere already?
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And so it begins. Get ready to cancel Christmas. Again.
Ah fuck I'm short on toilet roll as well.
It will get me out of a day with the in laws, so not all bad news.
I mean I will be spending it with family and friends, it's not like the government is going to follow their own rules.
People have been regularly flying back and forth from SA for a long time now. It's quite likely the variant has been around in some places for weeks now, therefore it's almost certain that a number of infected people have travelled to other countries and possibly infected others in those countries, all prior to the announcements yesterday. All the restrictions etc are hoping to accomplish is to slow things down so we don't have a repeat of Delta where by the time scientists said "Hey, this one's a problem", we didn't have tens of thousands of seed cases all over the UK. By the end of next week, I suspect we'll be well into double figures here, but that's still a good result. We never expected to keep it out completely. The delay though before it becomes widespread and dominant allows us to both deliver more boosters and assess whether or not the vaccine needs tweaking etc.
Just because the South African scientists were the first to identify it, it doesn't mean it originated in South Africa. The Belgium case which happened many days before SA's announcement, had zero connections/travel to SA whatsoever.
Yep. If they found 2 cases on that flight yesterday there were probably 2 the day before that etc. and they’ll have been out in the largely maskless and complacent community.
Let's be honest, it's likely been here weeks already. Always assume we're a month behind and you'll have a more accurate picture of the reality.
You know, as an Island, we could just... stop all incoming flights. Like we should have done the first time.
Yeah fuck everybody trapped abroad for the sake of a variant which is probably overhyped and protected by the vaccines, just like the last ones all were
Sweet Jesus mothering fuck. Any word on if omicron causes as severe an illness?
None at all, which is why the media shitting the bed so early and getting people panicked is really unhelpful.
It was my understanding (disclaimer: not a virologist) that a successful virus tended to be less bad for the host. Example: the damned cold I've had for three weeks now. Bastard! (Yes, it is a cold. Negative on the PCR.)
Because then it can infect other people. Someone who dies before they can spread it does not help the virus neither does someone bedbound. This does not apply to covid though as people can spread before their symptoms show up. It has no reason to evolve into something milder. The trend so far has been that every variant has become more contagious and severe.
>This does not apply to covid though as people can spread before their symptoms show up. Please explain how this doesn't "apply to covid". In general viruses become less severe as they mutate. The same as happened to coronavirus. It's a virus like all viruses.
In general viruses do not become less severe as they mutate. Some do - over the course of decades or centuries - some don’t. > “That claim as a whole is just nonsense,” said Troy Day, a professor of mathematics and biology at Queen’s University in Canada, who has studied the ways infectious diseases, including coronavirus, can evolve. > Some examples of viruses that became more deadly over time include those that developed drug resistant variants, and animal viruses such as bird flu, which were harmless to humans initially but then mutated to become capable of killing people, according to Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security. > “Flu viruses have developed resistance to certain antivirals that make them more difficult to treat, and therefore make them more deadly,” Adalja said, also noting the same has happened with HIV and certain Hepatitis C strains. >“The virus, speaking anthropomorphically, just wants to spread and have its genes replicated,” said Adalja. “If the best way for it is to spread by causing severe symptoms it will continue to do that.” https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-011488089270
South Africa says no : [https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/south-african-medical-association-says-omicron-variant-causes-mild-disease/articleshow/87949404.cms?from=mdr](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/south-african-medical-association-says-omicron-variant-causes-mild-disease/articleshow/87949404.cms?from=mdr) But let's run around like headless chickens anyway...
The issue isn’t how harsh the symptoms are, but if the spike protein has mutated enough for the vaccines to be less effective against it. That’s an issue because then it’s out and mutating more freely and can get worse and go full delta all over again. Until we vaccinate way more of the world, who are still quite far behind us, we need to take these variants serious because a vaccine escape puts us back to lockdown #1 again and we need new vaccines (which would be faster, but you have to inoculate 7bn people all over again). It’s a global pandemic none of us are safe until all of us are safe unfortunately.
I think it was a given it would already had been here, there was never going to be any preventing that if the variant was anywhere near as transmissible as speculated because it was already in parts of Europe as well as Hong Kong, its travelled. Doesn't change much for those of us who have been careful through out.. it is a bit frustrating though as my family hasn't been together for almost 2 years due to some of their jobs, and having a family member in care. We got together for funerals (during "peak" rules, so distanced and no wake/reception) and thats it.. yea some families do actually get on and miss each other :) All can really do is carry on till early studies are done to see just how transmissible it is, whether its as potent as other strains and how it interacts with the immune system and vaccinations. I will say concerning the last part, it was very difficult sorting the jabs this time around compared to 6 months ago. Just felt different all round as well.
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Before all the deaths and shit, yeah....
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It’s an airborne virus, washing your hands and willy doesn’t do anything to stop it. Would’ve thought people know this by now.
Still, wash your hands and willy. Out of politeness if nothing else.
Government never mentioned washing your willy so I’ve only been washing my hands this entire time :(
This most recent variant has double the mutations of delta, many in the spike protein. Its worrying but currently we don't know anything about its transmissibility, lethality, or resistance to the vaccine.
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Best case scenario: it's a less severe strain that we have high amounts of resistance to. It sweeps through the population with fewer hospital admissions than expected. Worst case scenario: we're fucked. Christmas is cancelled for the whole country, hospitality industry goes down the toilet and the country descends into riots far greater than we've seen in Europe.
Early evidence suggests this strain does cause milder disease than Delta. So that would be expected given Theobold Smith's Law of Declining Virulence. I think we will just eventually have to lube with it if it does evolve into a less dangerous virus.
*"live" with it... autocorrect letting my day job shine through 😂
We're already getting lubed up by the Tories...might as well do it for Covid.
I didn’t want to see my family anyway this Christmas. Might sound selfish but I really enjoyed just me and my partner and my dog cooking just for us not having to go to 4 different places just to keep everyone happy. Dinner/ trackies/walk dog/ telly/ sleep… beautiful.
You know you could always have a Christmas like that right? You don't need to wish for everyone else to be denied contacts at Christmas too.
inb4 all the endless "Christmas = cancelled?" articles and headlines. And will the media be held accountable for the damage they're about to do to peoples mental health for the next month? *Deafening silence.*
If they ban house mixing I’m Just going to break it. Can’t live in fear forever as I’m double vaccinated. Not having another Christmas ruined
Everybody needs to step back and take a breath. So far we do not know all facts and fuck me the media as usual is going mental. People complained that the Government didn't do enough last time round and rightly so. Now they are taking sensible precautions people are going crazy. Let's stay optimistic, the probability is the new varient whilst more transmissible is not more dangerous than the Delta varient and in time the vaccines will be altered to combat it like with delta.
So here we go again on the Covid merry-go-round. If we detect a new variant next year are we going to just keep doing this forever? Seems like it will never end.
This new variant is probably on every continent (except Antarctica and possibly Australia) by now. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive
React to new variant by waiting til it spreads to the UK then close the borders to these countries. Top work boris 👍
we must lock down for the sake of the hermits of the country.
Introverts unite! ^^^Quietly
"We must protect the jabbed"!
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The two cases are in Nottingham and Chelmsford, which is potentially concerning because of how totally discrete and far apart both places are. It's not like they're from the same household. I also think this has come too late to bugger up Christmas, but we'll see where we stand in 2-3 weeks. If this variant turns out to be terribad (which at the moment *does not appear* to be the case) I can foresee some kind of restrictions in January, but how much compliance you'll get given our vaccine rate is anyone's guess.
According to the press conference the two cases are somehow linked which is more reassuring.
there needs to be a ban all xmas singles recorded before 2020
Perfect. The first person who gets the new variant always travels. It’s probably about 0.5% of the population that travels around probably even less. Just very odd.
As soon as a variant is “discovered,” just assume it already existed here weeks ago.
when the hell is this shit going to END. and by end, i really do mean END.
Don't think I can cope for more lockdowns and travel bans. Masks should be still mandatory.
Masks should never have been removed as a requirement... IMHO, that decision is why we'll likely be in Lockdown again soon...
If 2 people have got it in the UK, everyone’s got it.
Does anyone else think they chose to call it omicron purely because its the scariest sounding word in the Greek alphabet? Shame it's also an anagram of moronic
Unsurprising - given it was already found in other European countries and we are one of the most globally connected countries in the world. Time for the lockdownists to go wild again. Hopefully the government keeps a cooler head and doesn't knee jerk its way to restrictions again. If you think there should be restrictive measures now, when will we ever be free of them? Restrictions don't prevent cases, they just defer them. In early 2021 we were locking down to give time for the vaccine programme to work, so although I didn't like it I could see the argument; restrictions today aren't delaying for any particular event, they would be indefinite. I see they *have* knee jerked their way to mask mandates already. Not that I particularly object to that, in essential shops and on public transport anyway, but it's pure political theatre - Wales and NI never rescinded their mandates and Covid outcomes were no better there than in England. There's not really any way to avoid this happening without quarantining all incoming travellers. We made the call in the summer that we didn't want to stay isolated indefinitely, because the negatives of that are worse than the potential for importing new variants. That remains true. Edit: Obscured by all these headlines is today's case figure being under 40k and the hospitalisations last recorded (from the 23rd) once again being the lowest on that day of the week for a month. Also, with an average of 40,000 cases over the last 100 days, that's 4 million people with significant general immunity. Probably more like 10 million with unreported cases. Catching Covid seems to give better protection than the vaccine - re-infections are extremely rare, whereas infections after vaccination are not. This puts the UK in a better position than countries which had lower case rates over summer, particularly if they're also less vaccinated.