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    Re: Latest data looking good - Dr John Campbell Archived Message

    Posted by Sinister Burt on December 6, 2021, 7:02 pm, in reply to "Re: Latest data looking good - Dr John Campbell"

    Thanks Margo. Here's an interesting post I came across that among other things says similar to that about the severity in Gauteng (I should have looked for this while posting the first one but there we are - blame Christine Pagel ). The source is via Dominic Cummings, whatever that means (not much). As an aside, I had covid about three weeks ago (double jabbed) - it was mild, snotty nose, bit of a temperature. I don't know if they'd have spotted more of it in the PCR surveillance here before now if that was omicron, but it could have been I suppose (though most common symptom reported by the ZOE app here has been snotty nose for a long while now (it still specifically mentions continuous cough and not snotty nose on the gov website for some reason (cough only the fifth most common symptom now)

    https://thezvi.substack.com/p/omicron-post-4
    "... In summary, the first impression on examination of the 166 patients admitted since the Omicron variant made an appearance, together with the snapshot of the clinical profile of 42 patients currently in the COVID wards at the SBAH/TDH complex, is that the majority of hospital admissions are for diagnoses unrelated to COVID-19. The SARS-CoV-2 positivity is an incidental finding in these patients and is largely driven by hospital policy requiring testing of all patients requiring admission to the hospital.

    Think about what this implies. If a majority of the cases that have Covid-19 were admitted to the hospital for unrelated reasons, then either Covid is somehow causing all these ‘unrelated reasons’ without making the patients sick with Covid in an obvious way, or the chance of hospitalization in the window when you have Covid less than doubles. You’re more likely to be admitted to the hospital and happen to have Covid, then for Covid to send you to the hospital.

    If that’s true, then that seems like a very mild disease indeed. Anyone else want to take a shot at interpreting the data here?"


    Some other relevant omicron data and analysis in the post too from other places (he's in the US), plus he started the post with this summary that still errs on the cautious side (it was numbered but they didn't survive the paste):

    "Thus, to headline the core takeaways at the top, here’s broadly where I’m at as of now (probability estimates at the end, as before). I’d be surprised if any of these were wrong.

    Omicron spreads far more rapidly than Delta and is going to take over.

    This will come at us fast. Omicron will be the majority strain by the end of January. This happening by end of year is on the table.

    Omicron re-infects those who have already been sick, or breaks through to those who have been vaccinated, much more than Delta.

    Previous infection continues to protect against severe disease, hospitalization and death.

    Omicron doesn’t cause substantially more severe disease than Delta when it infects you, but we don’t know if it causes less severe disease yet, our evidence is ambiguous.

    Omicron cases on average are much more mild because there will be a much higher percentage of re-infections and breakthrough cases, which are highly protected against severe disease.

    The big peak is probably within a few months, so you don’t have time to wait for an Omicron-targeted shot. The current shots will still work against severe disease, so strongly consider getting vaccinated or boosted if you can.

    The best thing we can do to minimize the harm Omicron causes is to ramp up production of therapeutics, especially Paxlovid, as rapidly as possible, along with the necessary tests and other logistics to get the treatments to people in time to matter. The goal is mitigation at this point, not prevention.

    There is going to be a period early in 2022 when there are quite a lot of Omicron cases, such that it will be difficult to remain uninfected and it will likely be difficult to get any kind of medical treatment at a hospital. Be ready.

    Also be ready in case of lockdowns and other government restrictions, especially if you live in Europe where they’ve shown a willingness to use them. And if you’re immunocompromised or otherwise at high enough risk you need to be sure to not get Omicron, then the price of success is getting super paranoid soon and lock down hard, for at least several months."

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