Ss the FT notes this morning:
Good for them. It really is about time someone in the UK paid attention to this variant.
Latest reports suggest that this version of Omicron is about as contagious as measles, with an R of something like 12. It is rampant, in other words.
Reinfection of those who have had previous versions of all versions of coronavirus is likely to be high.
The likelihood of long Covid risks, or those associated with the Omcron BA.1 variety, which include type 1 diabetes in children and apparently increased risk of serious heart-related disease across age groups, seems to be significant.
As Israel is finding, fourth doses of vaccines are not working.
Only elimination will work.
So why aren't we working for elimination is my question?
Why is there no plan for clean air?
Why isn't home working still being encouraged?
Why are children and students mixing without masks?
What type of insane world are we living in where this is the current chart of Covid deaths:
A lot of fuss was made of two people dying in snow this weekend. A jumbo jet's worth of people are dying unnecessarily from Covid each week and apparently we do not care.
Except I do. But the government is refusing to do anything about it.
Add that to the charge sheet, I suggest. They continue to pursue a policy of democide when this crisis could be managed with the appropriate focus on cleaning the air being made. I believe they are culpable for those who die unnecessarily as a result of their negligence.
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I do not criticise your argument that this is not over; the over-obsessive ‘back to normal’ urgency of a freakish no-matter-what neoliberal commercial society that values everything everything by the measure of money alone. Nevertheless, may I draw attention to a New York times article of January 30th in which this was reported: “So far, BA.2 doesn’t appear to cause more severe disease, and vaccines are just as effective against it as they are against other forms of Omicron. But it does show signs of spreading more readily. ‘This may mean higher peak infections in places that have yet to peak, and a slowdown in the downward trends in places that have already experienced peak Omicron,’ said Thomas Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London.”
Maybe….
Agree. The complacency and outright lying about the pandemic being “nearly over” and how we can all relax and get back to “normal” as soon as possible is criminal negligence by the government and should be widely condemned in all the media and not just the FT.
The addition of reinfections to the government report of new covid case numbers, which was implemented yesterday, showed a rise of some 30,000 new infections nationwide, From 62,000+ on Sunday to 92,000+. I was shocked to see that Co Durham (where I live) appeared to have accounted for 9,000 of those cases, which is nearly one third of the total (though I’m half hoping that this is an error).
There are still huge questions to be asked about long term damage caused by covid infection and there is Long Covid to consider. Is the long term health of our citizens being impaired?
I’m still masking…
Me too…
The impact on productivity of long Covid is also being ignored. Anecdotally, companies are reporting below par performance throughout the recovered workforce. These Covid infections were almost entirely from their children, many in poorly ventilated schools. The only quantitative study I have seen is in footballers, suggesting a 6 per cent reduction in effectiveness on the field.
Also, life expectancy is being affected with China passing the US in 2021.
Putting all the health eggs in the vaccine basket is horrible planning.
It’s covered properly in Sky News today also.
I keep on hearing of infections in the few streets around where we live. Our neighbour next door just caught it from kids in the school where she works. She cares for her mum who has dementia who caught it from another of her carers. Across the way another woman carer caught it from one of her clients. Down the road another carer caught it from one of the other carers who had also infected two of her clients. Amongst my work colleagues several caught the original version in early 2020 and are still suffering fatigue, inflammation and general malaise. Others have caught Delta more recently, mainly from their children. The vaccines may be lowering the incidence of severe illness and admission to hospital but they seem to do little to prevent infection and transmission. Israel is a case in point. There is a strong resistance against allowing the use of re-purposed drugs of known safety level many of which are known to reduce entry of the virus into cells, reduce replication, and mitigate the cytokine storm. There is strong resistance to heeding the mass of evidence on ventilation. Meanwhile Pfizer is resisting release of the vaccine trials documentation and the rate of MMR vaccine take up has taken a big hit in the UK. In other words, trust in public health is being trashed like everything else.
When you read the story of the last case of smallpox that occurred in Birmingham in the late 70’s
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/21/it-was-a-total-invasion-the-virus-that-came-back-from-the-dead
it makes abundantly clear how far we have gone down the road of privatisation, financialisation, erosion of trust and community, cynical dismantling of local services, and a lot more besides.
Thank you for everything you are doing to provide quality information to turn the tide against all this.
Thank you
As usual, Radio4 PM really curious about Denmark lifting protections despite soaring cases, but totally incurious about another 1600 UK deaths in the last week (not a mention) , and a million children off school. The presenter happy to say how mild Omicron has been compared with ‘worst fears’ – not mentioning 10,000+ deaths since Dec 1st and 1.3 million with long covid.
What have we become?
I wish I knew…..