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Corona / Covid-19 Virus - General Discussion (politics go to the Off Topic / Politics thread)

Actually yes but not because of anagrams.

It appears that the Swiss population will approve the covid law in a referendum today, which means we will be able to continue using certificates and give financial help to people who need it. The 2nd good news is that an initiative which wants to hugely improve conditions for health workers appears to be approved as well with a huge margin, if it makes the majority of cantons. What better way to say a hearty thanks to those who have been working under high strain and stress and low pay.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

I accept that the information on the Moronic Omnicron variant is very scarce but even Chris Whitty (Doctor Gloom and Doom) has said not to panic.

It appears that it gives very mild symptoms. This is what happens with Viruses, they mutate and often get more infectious and milder, that is how they survive.

So are all of our Politicians messing about trying to keep this out actually doing more harm than good? I believe so. We are all going to get Covid at some point. If you had a choice you would probably want to catch this latest strain based on what I read to date. (It is very early to make predictions I agree but the Newspapers and BBC – well all I can say is – SIGH)

United Kingdom

Archer-181 wrote:

It appears that it gives very mild symptoms.

Where are you getting that from? What I read (no scientific papers because there hasn’t been enough time for any study yet) is that we’ve no idea if it give worse symptom, similar or milder symptoms.

Archer-181 wrote:

So are all of our Politicians messing about trying to keep this out actually doing more harm than good?

That is possible. But essentially nobody is thinking that we can keep it out if it’s really that much more infectious than Delta. What they are probably trying to do is to buy time. If it’s held off for 2-3 months more, that gives time to change vaccines to target it, and start the distribution process. Probably not enough time to vaccinate people, but it would save a few months of carnage.

If it turns out to be less infectious or less harmful (or even similar) then borders can be opened again. But if you don’t close them now, by the time we know, it will be too late to close them to buy time.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Archer-181 wrote:

It appears that it gives very mild symptoms.

So ONE South African doc goes to the press and sais not to worry and that is it? She had 24 people to check, all young and healthy. Nobody knows what this thing will do to old, sick, frail people. And of course the press spreads the word “Nothing to worry about”. Who the hell is the AUTHORITY to determine this? One doc in SA and the press? What happened to peer review? What happened to those guys in Hong Kong? Also all mild symptoms? In Egypt? Elsewhere?

It’s like Wohan all over again. Oh, it’s nothing to worry about. Like hell it wasn’t. If this thing outsmarts the vaccines, if this thing is again tens of times more infective, if it can cause re-infection and all that, it is the ONLY thing to try to stop it from spreading. But as usual, it is too late already, it’s here. Everywhere.

Politicians never got their pants back on ever over Covid, do you think they want to be caught doing nothing AGAIN? Can they afford to make decisions based on Wild Arse Guesses yet again? They’ve killed enough people and maimed enough others by not acting in time before.

But never worry, they will screw it up by giving in to the screamers yet again. Until we have the disaster yet again on our front step. It has started already. “Flights suspended to SA and other countries with the new version” don’ t make me laugh. They are flying all the time, have to fill in some paperwork and bugger off to their “self isolation”.

Why not finally take one out of the book of Australia, NZ, Taiwan, China? Lock those people up in quarantine facilities, which are watched and guarded against transgressions. Sending them home, they will infect their families, who then go to infect others. and others. and others.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Is the stupidity irresponsibility, and ignorance of the news media the biggest problem in getting any message across to the population?

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

So ONE South African doc goes to the press

The one is quoting others as reporting the same.

Is the stupidity irresponsibility, and ignorance of the news media the biggest problem in getting any message across to the population?

I think the producers are required to produce material which is understood even by the totally completely thick – otherwise, in today’s “have to be seen to be kind to everybody” society, the channel will get labelled as “elitist”. I am ok with some channels aimed at the totally completely thick; the problem is when they are all like that. To get any meaningful info you have to buy (or pay for online) a newspaper.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Maoraigh wrote:

Is the stupidity irresponsibility, and ignorance of the news media the biggest problem in getting any message across to the population?

I think the media have a huge part in spreading of conflicting “information” and therefore creating an environment where fake and real news are very hard to differentiate.

However, the media take a lot of their uptake from conflicting information out of “science” and “experts”, who spread “research” which often is overturned the moment it’s published. Add to that the spin media need to generate “clicks” to satisfy their advertisers, they will often select “scientific” reports for their likelihood of doing so.

Enter politics, who are put under pressure by the media, economy and people alike and then will need to act on “expert” advice which often proves totally unreliable. Consequently there is a frenzy of different kind of regulations by different countries based on conflicting advice.

What all this does is generate a huge confusion and, foremost, a climate of DISTRUST. Which, in a situation like this pandemic, is literally lethal.

The current situation with “Omikron” is a clear example how that triangle works: Scientists publish super-preliminary findings, the media pick up on it and generate a frenzy, forcing the authorities hands to (over)react to cover their backsides. In fact, NOBODY knows yet what this thing does. So while it is a prudent reaction to restrict travel and quarantine suspect cases until we do, there is literally no real information to be had, so media will make it up, because they need to sell. By the time knowledge replaces guesswork, the damage is long done.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Let’s stay with the fact:
- We only know Omikron for a week now. In hindsight it has been identified in samples taken 3 weeks ago. This is a very short timeframe even for the speed at which virology is working theses days
- What we call Omikron today seems to be rather a family of variants than one single variant: Omikron itself comes in different mutations and still seems to be mutating rapidly.
- Initial data indicates that it is as contagious or even a bit more than Delta. It seems to replace Delta in the areas where it spread. Speed of spread in South Africa is fast, but not out of range of what we would also expect with a major Delta outbreak. Will be interesting to observe what happens in Botswana (where Omikron was actually first identified).
- We see increasing case numbers in Europe, but given the overall infection numbers across the different variants it also looks more like replacing Delta than fueling a next wave of infections. Therefore there is currently no evidence at all that vaccination is not effective against Omikron (although, it might still be possible that it is a bit less effective)
- One can impossibly tell anything about severity of diseases. It’s simply too early as like any other variant the time from Infection to ICU is typically more than 2 weeks so that one can simply not evaluate before at least 4 weeks have passed.

Germany

It appears to me that by now we have a highly sophisticated system of Covid response. We have installed sensors that detect when a horse has bolted, and now automatically slam all stable doors shut.

Sarcasm aside – if it turns out that Omikron is milder than or similar to Delta, the willingness of the population to accept Covid measures will go down further, you can only cry “Wolf” e few times…

Biggin Hill

Cobalt wrote:

if it turns out that Omikron is milder than or similar to Delta, the willingness of the population to accept Covid measures will go down further, you can only cry “Wolf” e few times…

The problem with that is, based on this one report of a SA doc, people suck up this “good news” like a sponge because they want to believe it is so.

But as @Malibuflyer reasons in his post, nobody knows yet. Too few time, too few data. As for the analogy with the horse bolting, we know that some have bolted indeed but right now the strategy such as to speak of one appears to be that they want whatever is still in the stable safely there before they will decide what to do.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland
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