The U.K. Health Security Agency, the successor organisation to Public Health England, is about to publish its first detailed analysis of Omicron which suggests it causes milder disease than the Delta variant. This will be helpful to those of us trying to persuade the Prime Minister not to impose any further restrictions, including half the Cabinet. The Telegraph has more.
The omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the delta strain in most Britons, government scientists are expected to say today.
The U.K. Health Security Agency is set to publish real-world data on the severity of the disease, which is expected to say that more people are likely to have a mild illness with less serious symptoms.
The political site Politico reported the findings this morning. It says that while omicron seems milder overall, the UKHSA has found it is not necessarily mild enough to avoid large numbers of hospitalisations. The experts have found evidence that for those who do become severely ill, there is still a high chance of hospitalisation and death.
Given that the transmissibility of omicron is very high, there is the chance that even though it is milder, infections could soar to the point that large numbers end up in hospital .
On Wednesday, the health minister Gillian Keegan said there were 129 people in hospital with omicron and there had been 14 deaths. Asked on Sky News whether a circuit breaker lockdown could happen after Christmas, she said: “We are waiting for data on the severity, we’ll still have to wait to see where we land on that, but we can’t really say, you know.
“What we’ve said is up to Christmas we’re fine looking at the data, looking at the numbers we have at the moment, but, of course, we have to look at where this virus goes, where this variant goes, so we have to look at that data.”
Boris and his health ministers have consistently said they’ll be guided by the evidence about Omicron and won’t make a decision about whether to impose tighter rules after Christmas until they have more data. Well, now they have, and it suggests the SAGE modellers have got their predictions wrong – again. You can follow updates on the Telegraph’s live blog and read the scoop in Politico here.
MailOnline has also written about the forthcoming UKHSA report and points out that official figures yesterday revealed that Covid was mentioned on 764 death certificates registered in England and Wales in the week to December 10th – 4% down from the previous week and the lowest level since October. It also has an interview with a medical professor who says it looks like Omicron daily infections are flatlining.
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious diseases expert at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline that Mr. Johnson had made the right decision as he slammed the modelling.
He said: “It’s not all doom and gloom, it does look like Omicron has stopped growing. The numbers over the last few days seem to have plateaued and maybe even be falling.
“It’s a bit too soon to be absolutely sure about that, but if it is the case Boris Johnson will breathe a sigh of relief. We have to be a little bit careful because it’s only a few days.
“And because we’re getting closer to Christmas there is nervousness that people may not come forward for testing because they don’t want to test positive and miss out on meeting relatives.
“Omicron overtook the other variants around December 14 so most of any changes from there on would be down to Omicron. So if it was still doubling every two days that would have shown and we should have been at 200,000 cases yesterday and certainly more than 200,000 cases today.
“But the fact it has been around 91,000 raises the point that it might actually have peaked. But it will probably take until at least Wednesday to get an idea of a day that is not affected by the weekend. But I am more optimistic than I was a few days ago.
There were 1.49million tests conducted today which is down from 1.56 million last Wednesday, but Professor Hunter said the “relatively small drop” in testing would not hide a virus truly doubling every two days.
Latest hospital figures show there were 847 Covid admissions on December 17, up only 7% on the previous week. There were a further 172 Covid deaths today, up 14%.
In epicentre London the wave also appears to be slowing after 20,491 cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, down slightly on yesterday’s tally of 22,750. It also marked the sixth day in a row cases have been above 20,000.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The self-isolation period has been cut from 10 to seven days, yet more evidence that the authorities know Omicron is milder than previous variants. The Telegraph has more.
Stop Press: A new study by the Scotland-wide Early Pandemic Evaluation and Enhanced Surveillance of COVID-19 suggests people who catch Omicron have a two-thirds lower risk of hospitalisation compared to people who catch Delta. The Telegraph has more.
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The short answer is ‘Yes’!
The main conclusion from the pandemic is that governments should have done very little at all. If they had done so, fewer people would have died, and we would be in much better shape economically.
The progress of the virus has been remarkably uniform throughout the developed world, regardless of what governments have done.
Historical comparisons are real, modelling is the substitution of imagination for reality.
I don’t think it’s been as intelligent as imagination.
Who says imagination is intelligent?
Or, in this case, that there weren’t false assumptions fed into the modelling?
“Should We Have Relied More on Historical Comparisons, and Less on Epidemiological Models?”
Does a bear sh*t in the woods?
My response when I saw this last week was that it is basically the final vindication for all those who (correctly) characterised the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic as basically flu.
It’s a cold rather than a flu, but the significant point is that it is basically just another typical pandemic irruption of a seasonal respiratory virus, blown into a huge catastrophe by panic overreaction. Shame on them all.
“The infectivity and severity of SARS-CoV-2, whether assessed by statistical parameterisation (basic reproduction number and adjusted case or infection fatality ratios, respectively) or synoptic description (household attack rate, time to epidemic peak, and excess all-cause mortality rates), are well within the range described by respiratory viral pandemics of the last few centuries (where the 1918–20 influenza is the clear outlier)”
If those who hysterically shouted down the wise men and women calling for calm and pointing out that it was just another flu were honest, they would be apologising.
They aren’t, of course.
And yes, obviously policymakers should have looked at history rather than at manipulative, fantasy modelling results. It’s not as though we are short of precedents where panic overreactions based on modelling nonsense have led to costly disasters.
Can you think of any that didn’t involve Ferguson?
I agree, but I do believe one thing was different this time around. The French built the lab, the US paid for it, the Chinese released it and the UK helped to cover it up. That warrants some different actions – none to do with management more to do with the hangings.
Three of your four assertions are correct, but read this long article – https://www.unz.com/article/the-flying-pangolin/
Well – a statement of the bleedin’ obvious.
But – a well laid-out argument of the bleedin’ obvious is still worthwhile.
Bluntly – only the brain dead would place any faith in epidemiological modelling after the series of massive miscalculations that have occured.
Even in terms of the immediate history of this epidemic, a forecast based upon that reality is far more accurate than computer gaming.
When Vallance forecast the notorious ‘4000 deaths a day’ in the autumn, I deliberately wrote down (to avoid kidding myself) my own forecast based simply on trends and previous patterns. It was just intelligent use of historical real data – not at all sophisticated. It was essentially an intelligent guestimate.
The result was massively more accurate than any of the mathematical models.
Dominic Cummings has since confirmed that the Government did abandon its original plan at the last minute. He claims, “No10 was made aware by various people that the official plan wd lead to catastrophe.”
“Various people”? And “catastrophe” for who exactly? Was this the point they crawled out of their own little bed, and into another much, much bigger bed?
Those various people have clearly been proven wrong by Sweden, South Dakota, Florida&co.
But as nothing changes- to the contrary, they are doubling down on lockdowns et.al. as the only permitted response henceforth and are ready to sign away all their sovereignty here to the WHO in November- it is now very clear that they were and are following a totally different agenda with all this, and also that DC was and is neither in the loop nor as smart as he thinks he is.
it is now very clear that they were and are following a totally different agenda with all this, and also that DC was and is neither in the loop nor as smart as he thinks he is.
Cummings deserves a lamp post of his own, though of course lots of lamp posts will be needed.
Have they back-tested any of Prof Pantsdown’s predictions to see if any of his guff has had any merit at all, ever?
Just look at how ENORMOUSLY wrong IC was on vCJD prediction
… and the rest.
Ferguson from the Bill Gates’s Imperial College simply provides the numbers that his masters and government want. He is just a cog in the wheel, nothing more.
Exactly. A corrupt puppet.
A very rich corrupt puppet.
One can only hope he bumps into someone who can give him the attention he needs.
So long as they clean up afterwards.
“Should We Have Relied More on Historical Comparisons, and Less on Epidemiological Models?” How can this even be a rational question? Of course this should have been the case. Ferguson et al., have a lot to answer for. To then use poorly designed and disproven models as ‘evidence’ for future planning policy, borders on the insane and is at the least a sacking/resignation offence. To then continue with a policy that has wrecked lives, the economy, livelihoods, education, hospitality, psychological equilibrium, is most certainly criminally negligent and worthy of a custodial sentence.
Time to go Johnson, Hancock, Gove, Whitty, Vallance and Ferguson.
I wouldn’t count on any resignations, they’re all smug in their fantasy that they’ve saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
You’ve missed Farrar, Semple & a couple of other criminals.
Sorry for repeating, but the modelling has been done to support the required messages that created the psyop that was necessary to bring about the public response to the strategy already decided. The modellers might have over-sized egos, but they are foot soldiers, they have done what their masters paid them to do.
Of course the application of brains and a bit of historical perspective would have been better. Actually the output of a community of chimpanzees would have been better. but spending much time on this misses the point.
There is absolutely no way, given what we know about the early timeframes for such things as the Drosten RT-PCR test, that this was an accident of history, a cock-up, a mistake covered up ever since, or even just a combined effort of useless individuals. This was planned and executed, albeit with the usual errors en-route of any grand stategy. If it was any of the afore mentioned cock-ups it would have been wrapped up and swept under the carpet last summer.
Exactly. The headline and article are disingenuous.
I keep on recommending it, but the Council of Europe report on the swine ‘flu non-pandemic really is essential reading, in so far as you can see a template for what actually happened over Covid.
It’s blindingly obvious – but I bet that if you do a search of the archives for the past two years, you will find no mention in the media – a mark of the raddled nature of current journalism. Any proper investigative journalist would have been showing it like a rash.
Indeed & this is how I ended up connected to Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, who pretty much shot the last Plandemic in the face.
The problem is that much of the population (and indeed, even especially our governing classes) lacks any historical knowledge of anything before yesterday. The little they do know is that our ancestors were bad, and stupid, and that we are much, much better than them in every way. Year zero advocates must always libel the past.
‘We’ were the victims of psychological, economic and biological warfare.
It’s easier for politicians to do something rather than nothing. Bunch of cowards.
Make that, criminals.
Your headline fundamentally equates to, ‘should we use knowledge and experience or go with guesswork?’
^^^THIS^^^
No sh*t, Sherlock.
GIGO
Well as we already know it’s been a case of garbage fed into the models and consequently we got got garbage out. Too many incorrect assumptions were made by the modellers who were too arrogant to correct the mistake preferring to keep repeating the mistake instead. Most notably the assumption that 100% of the population are susceptible and that our immune systems wouldn’t work.
And that it would kill a higher proportion of those infected than it actually did.
Should we have relied more on knowledge and experience and less on the guesses of narcissists?
The answer should be obvious.
You think? Modelling is no better than medieval alchemy or fairground fortune telling. We really are going backwards.
It didn’t matter what they did as the entire episode was & remains fraud
To me, a unreconstructed non scientist, it appears that the “modellers” and “Sage” and other ( malign) influencers are at their core politically motivated, on the Brexit side of the divide, in thrall to “big” organisations such as the EU and the WHO and therefore their psychological allegiances and bents infect their allegedly professional functions – this is illustrated by the people on “independent” SAGE and it is impossible not to see their mindset/direction of travel. I include career politicians in this description; they all have skin in the game. None of them are brainless but I can imagine that once they decide on how to impart their so called knowledge and experience wrapped round their true aim, they do not do a lot of..” now am I right here, is there something I have missed, I will seek another opinion ” or listen to the little man ( old norse meaning ) on their shoulder. They also know they are currently untouchable – how often do they stare down the barrel to justify their output. Having started on a course of action they know full well is wrong, none of them have the personal integrity to admit they might be wrong – their agenda/narrative prevents that, and the politicians need to get re -elected. Kings/queens new clothes for sure or ” Breaker Morrant Syndrome”. For this reason, I cannot see that powers acquired will be handed back, July 19th regardless, without something happening that forces this to happen….