Northern Europe during Pandemic -- Summers 2020 & 2021 & onwards

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I've been sailing without any communications as the sat system was down. We just arrived in Las Palmas in the Canaries last evening from Gibraltar.

This thing is developing so fast that I hardly recognize the numbers.


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If we ever hoped that Omicron gives exclusively mild cases, I think we can lose that hope now.

Death rates are now clearly increasing -- over 2 already in the UK and even in Denmark. Only Sweden in under 1, and my guess is that this won't last long.

Interesting that case rates continue to fall in Germany. Don't know what that means. Maybe they're not testing much? Denmark has broken 3000 daily cases per million -- something I've never seen anywhere at any time. Crazy numbers. UK is headed there too at over 2500. Sweden is over 500.

Hospitalization are up sharply in the US and UK.

So much for the "end of the pandemic", which I felt sure we had reached, at least in Western and Northern Europe, a couple of months ago. I was wrong.

Don't know for sure but looking at the hospitalizations in US and Denmark they start to level even the Omicron cases rise. Could it be the Delta+ was behind most of them and now Omicron taken over they'll be less severe cases?

[sepharad]

Omicron appears to be the winner so far in the Viral Variant Sweepstakes.


High contagion with Low mortality. Spreads like mad while not killing its host, keeping the available hosts readily available.


I can't imagine Covid 19 competing with Omicron for prevalence.


It is definitely messing up lives.


I got shot 3 last week, stayed away from people last week. Trying to live life as "normally" as possible.


I read it's lower mortality is due to less damage to lung tissue, thank God for that.


Stay well friends.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

Don't know for sure but looking at the hospitalizations in US and Denmark they start to level even the Omicron cases rise. Could it be the Delta+ was behind most of them and now Omicron taken over they'll be less severe cases?

We can hope.


But death rates spiked up in Denmark -- you can hardly call three days at ths spiked up rate "levelled off".


And look at the death rates in Finland.


I can't say that it looks all that good.

Originally Posted by sepharad

Omicron appears to be the winner so far in the Viral Variant Sweepstakes.

High contagion with Low mortality. Spreads like mad while not killing its host, keeping the available hosts readily available.

I can't imagine Covid 19 competing with Omicron for prevalence.

It is definitely messing up lives.

I got shot 3 last week, stayed away from people last week. Trying to live life as "normally" as possible.

I read it's lower mortality is due to less damage to lung tissue, thank God for that.

Stay well friends.

We still don't know how much lower the mortality of Omicron is. It's now clearly not as benign as we hoped at first. Look at death rates rising in the UK. We shall see.

[sepharad]

Less than rates of deaths, is ratio. By that I mean, from Zero to two is a 200% increase in Mortality, which sounds terrifying, but when you realize that so far (a bit early) of 212,019 cases confirmed in the UK as of December 31st., there have been 981 hospitalizations and 75 deaths. Compared to Covid-19, thats much lower hospitalization and mortality. 0.035% or 1/3 of one percent mortality...so far. Thats what...about 1/7th the mortality of Covid 19?


We cannot 'know" what the mortality is, but we can extrapolate, I think. I am just an RN and not a Virologist, but that looks like the trend "Du Jour".


God-knows what next week and next month hold.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by sepharad

. . . from Zero to two is a 200% increase in Mortality, . . .

Might want to check the math there

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

We can hope.


But death rates spiked up in Denmark -- you can hardly call three days at ths spiked up rate "levelled off".


And look at the death rates in Finland.


I can't say that it looks all that good.




We still don't know how much lower the mortality of Omicron is. It's now clearly not as benign as we hoped at first. Look at death rates rising in the UK. We shall see.

Taking into account the delay in deaths those might have been mostly D+ case infections dating back some weeks ago..

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

Taking into account the delay in deaths those might have been mostly D+ case infections dating back some weeks ago..

That's what I thought, but by now already surely not?

[boatman61]

Don't worry DH... Pfizers riding in on their White Horse again promising another 'cure'... Boris has already ordered a few million dose's so lets see how things turn out..
Lives saved against lives lost..

https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/...y-side-effects

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Don't worry DH... Pfizers riding in on their White Horse again promising another 'cure'... Boris has already ordered a few million dose's so lets see how things turn out..
Lives saved against lives lost..

I wonder how many millions of people have been saved by the vaccines? Many, I guess.


I'm sure there will be a vaccine tweaked for Omicron, but how long will it take? I'm afraid it will be too late, considering how extremely contagious Omicron is.

[Zippee]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

Taking into account the delay in deaths those might have been mostly D+ case infections dating back some weeks ago..

If I recall correctly, Campbell and others have often mentioned an average time lag of 3 to 4 weeks after admission. Good post, and thanks for the reminder.

[Zippee]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I'm sure there will be a vaccine tweaked for Omicron, but how long will it take? I'm afraid it will be too late, considering how extremely contagious Omicron is.

So true. Perhaps a better hope - for the future - is for the US Army's "all-variant" vaccine. The contagiousness is amazing. It was not very long ago that we were looking at around 70,000 infections a day. Just saw this number hit just short of 500,000 reported today, with the observation that due to lack of testing and the severe lack of Omicron sequencing, the real number is estimated to be 700,000 closing on a million.

Unless a vaccine can be developed, manufactured, distributed and administered in the next couple weeks (not), Omicron will vaccinate nearly everyone all by itself.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I wonder how many millions of people have been saved by the vaccines? Many, I guess.


I'm sure there will be a vaccine tweaked for Omicron, but how long will it take? I'm afraid it will be too late, considering how extremely contagious Omicron is.

That's just it.. a guess... but hey the share price has doubled in less than a year and billions in profits so everyone that counts is happy.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/med...?ocid=msedgntp

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Zippee

. . .Unless a vaccine can be developed, manufactured, distributed and administered in the next couple weeks (not), Omicron will vaccinate nearly everyone all by itself.

Yep. Never since this pandemic started, have I been so baffled about what comes next.

[poiu]

Don’t panic people. It’s nowhere near as bad as the media tell you and as some figures indicate and we do know reasonably well how it will pan out as South Africa has already had its Omicron wave in cases. Cases peaked 3 weeks ago at a higher case rate slightly compared to Delta, but a steeper curve of smaller total area, therefore fewer total cases, but most importantly deaths were barely impacted compared to the Delta wave.

Deaths are probably at close to peak now at better than 15% of the previous death rate and a much lower figure still for total deaths. This will not be a disaster, it hopefully also will give us greater natural immunity without severe illness.

[Zippee]

Yes, the S. African numbers are looking good; still we should remember that hedging fact seems to be that the country is more youthful and that there was already a large previous exposure of the population which the experts believe may have increased their resistance (and lowered the death rate).


Still, the numbers are hopeful. Like always the answer is data, more data, and patience.