Good news from South Africa Of those admitted to hospital with omicron covid 4.5% died. This compares to 21.3% for delta covid. The number needing intensive care was 1% compared to 3%. The average time spent in hospital was 4 days rather than 8.8 days (we never get data on average length of stay do we?) 45% of patients were treated with oxygen, compared to 99.5% in the first wave Of course the data has limitations, the ‘population is different’ etc etc and we remain averse to learning or acting on anything that’s happened elsewhere, so best to ignore this, which suggests that COVID could soon become endemic rather than epidemic. It could be that Omicron is weaker, that vaccines are working, or that treatment has improved massively. Probably all three. The death rate from COVID at the height of last winter in the U.K. was apparently 1 in 30 cases (this seems way too high to me). Now it is 1 in 833 cases (although, for some reason, the data ‘lags by some weeks’ - why this should be when it’s is one of the most important bits of information we need, and we have had nearly 2 years to learn how to collect it in real time, is utterly beyond me). Some people will suffer hugely from this variant of covid, but far fewer than from previous versions.
That last sentence sums up covid on a whole. The varying degrees of severity of covid is what really bemuses me.
It bemused me to...on a completely personal level. Hubbie so so ill, me nothing. Am equally bemused by a litter of 4 rabbits we had...1 was the most ferocious b@@@@, one the sweetest most human interactive rabbit ever. One was constantly in trouble, lost or trapped. One stayed quietly in the background, totally quiet and nondescript Genetics eh.....never quiet got it
That's what many medical bods have been saying. It may not be killing us all but it's messing up the World economies....
I've got a pile of LFTs at home - the mrs has to take them every day. She's told me that as of today, over 60 members of staff have tested positive and are isolating at the HMP she works at....nitemare
I went to a funeral last Thursday, 200 + mourners no one has reported ill, Indoor bar at The Temperance in Fulham. I went to a wedding yesterday 200 + bloody great night ( free bar and Chelsea let in a late equaliser. ) I saw people I hadn't seen in ages. No masks or social distancing ,Hopefully I don't drop down dead in the near future. also met my mate in the pub tonight. Packed pub, if I don't go down with covid and end up on a ventilator this pandemic is a load of ****. Remember the people dropping down dead in in the middle of the street in China? It didn't happen here in the UK. It was Chinese Communist Party propaganda.
Mate it’s been China all along. They flooded social media with bots creating misinformation. I even caught an Iain Dale phone in where this Chinese guy was talking utter rubbish and Dale cut him off and basically said it was a manufactured call. I believe it exists and kills but we need to start living with this because more harm will be done if we don’t. Then the World needs to get together and sort out China. That regime won’t exist without money.
Wow, Pfizer is really enjoying this pandemic. Likely to make $36bn in revenue from its vaccine just this year. And now it has just had Paxlovid, a reworking of an HIV treatment, which looks to be a very effective course of anti viral tablets which reduces the chances of vulnerable people being hospitalised by 90% if they take it when they test positive, before it gets too serious. In the US this is selling at about $530 per course, the US government has ordered 10 million courses for $5.3bn. The U.K. has ordered 2.75 million courses of the treatment.
A decent doctor and pharmacist should be able to spot and mange risks. It’s a five day course of treatment, relatively short for serious drug interactions. And it’s only for people with a very high risk of very serious disease from COVID. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/heal...pills-covid-symptoms-may-risky-drugs-rcna9683
In Times today..? Covid is just seasonal flu. Usual deaths from seasonal flu in UK..is 10,000 to 20,000 a year. So let's call that 20-40,000 in the last two years. We have had 150,000. It is worse. And seasonal flu does not result in long Covid...and later deaths from that. It is alot worse!
