Latest terrifying Covid variant can be confused with a cold!!

[reddog]

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57467051

It is actually normal for viruses to weaken overtime due to mutations, the variants that are weaker have an advantage for replication, a variant that killed you immediately would not get very far.

So I am getting pretty sick of the press creating fear with talk of double mutants etc. (this is the so called quality press, not the Sun just that is taking this fear based approach)

[DonaldJTrump]

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57467051
(this is the so called quality press, not the Sun just that is taking this fear based approach)

BBC and quality press should never be used together

[Scorp1]

They haven't spend £2.4 million on a new studio conference / suite for nothing.

[AtW]

It’s NOT weaker - hospitalisations are twice as likely

[malvolio]

It’s NOT weaker - hospitalisations are twice as likely

...among those who have not had single or double vaccinations.

Perhaps look at the numbers...

[AtW]

...among those who have not had single or double vaccinations.

Perhaps look at the numbers...

Let's look at the numbers - it is reported a single doze of VZ does not do much, so we are talking about 60% of people at risk of double hospitalisation vs Alpha (Kent) variant, which in itself was estimated to result in higher hospitalisations than the original strain.

This is all with a fair few social distancing measures still in effect.

What would the spread be and vaccine efficacy on the first "Freedom Day"?

We are about to find out.

[NigelJK]

And the figure for those with immunity due to having had the virus?

[SueEllen]

And the figure for those with immunity due to having had the virus?

No-one knows as they aren't sure on long-term immunity.

Guess we will find out in 10 years...........

[d000hg]

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57467051

It is actually normal for viruses to weaken overtime due to mutations, the variants that are weaker have an advantage for replication, a variant that killed you immediately would not get very far.

So I am getting pretty sick of the press creating fear with talk of double mutants etc. (this is the so called quality press, not the Sun just that is taking this fear based approach)

1. Having cold symptoms doesn't imply it's weaker, it implies it has new symptoms
2. The delta variant and others have shown to be at least dangerous, if not more in some cases, than Covid 1.0, as well as much more transmissible
3. The "viruses only ever get weaker to survive" argument is not actually that factual, I was reading something about this common view last week. It takes only a little bit of critical thinking to realise that in the case of Covid, it doesn't make that much sense - by the time you get to the point of being seriously ill, you have already infected everyone. I'm not sure there's any evidence other super-transmissible diseases like mumps or measles have got weaker over the decades either. Remember that Covid has a baseline mortality rate of ~1% ish so it is never going to kill everyone anyway

This "fear based approach" is directly reported by the various medical groups - they are the ones pushing for continued restrictions and urging caution.

[SueEllen]

1. Having cold symptoms doesn't imply it's weaker, it implies it has new symptoms
2. The delta variant and others have shown to be at least dangerous, if not more in some cases, than Covid 1.0, as well as much more transmissible
3. The "viruses only ever get weaker to survive" argument is not actually that factual, I was reading something about this common view last week. It takes only a little bit of critical thinking to realise that in the case of Covid, it doesn't make that much sense - by the time you get to the point of being seriously ill, you have already infected everyone. I'm not sure there's any evidence other super-transmissible diseases like mumps or measles have got weaker over the decades either. Remember that Covid has a baseline mortality rate of ~1% ish so it is never going to kill everyone anyway

This "fear based approach" is directly reported by the various medical groups - they are the ones pushing for continued restrictions and urging caution.

I heard yesterday from some infectious disease boffin that we should compare the infectiousness of covid to measles.

This means in populations that have immunity it won't cause lots of harm to most people, but in populations with no immunity it will cause devastation.