Can't see that happening too much but certain things like going to football matches might be restricted. I think we'll see more restrictions for those who aren't quarantined like in Austria and Italy.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Can we call this one Iota and then people can make jokes about not giving one Iota about this stupid new variant. We'll all love it for the next year in lockdown.
Had to call an ambulance for my son on Tuesday night, temperature through the roof, hallucinations, extreme pain, all due to covid. Covid has ripped through our household despite me being double jabbed and my wife being booster jabbed.
The ambulance paramedics (who I must say were amazing) stated categorically that every Covid case that has needed hospitalisation that they have attended have been for unvaccinated people!
Just seems strange why people still won't get vaccinated!
The ambulance paramedics (who I must say were amazing) stated categorically that every Covid case that has needed hospitalisation that they have attended have been for unvaccinated people!
Just seems strange why people still won't get vaccinated!
Will happen in Holland within 6 months I think.
Sorry to hear that mate, hope your son is okay. Must be extra tough when people close to you get that affected by the virus.
It’s a matter of time before this new variant gets to the UK and is the dominant strain. Then, if the current vaccines are not effective, we will be back to square one, with a long lockdown whilst a new vaccine is developed and rolled out, starting with the most vulnerable. And, the problem is this time, the Government has already said it can’t afford another round of Furlough / self employment support grants so we'll be on our own.
Not gonna lie, this new variant has got me more nervous about covid than any other other news in the last year or so.
Hope your son gets better soon! What age is he?
Let’s hope for the best folks
I agree that we should be proactive though, mask mandates; work from home where possible etc
just had a thought, the Irish rugby team are stuck out on SA at the moment, be interesting to see how that’s dealt with
I agree that we should be proactive though, mask mandates; work from home where possible etc
just had a thought, the Irish rugby team are stuck out on SA at the moment, be interesting to see how that’s dealt with
Thanks,
He is 8 years old,
The one thing that has really troubled me about this virus is how quick it went from no symptoms to full on.
Theres loads of Golfers stuck out there too!!
Fecks sake this is bad news. So many been killed by Covid and so much financial ruin.
A strain which is vaccine resistant will bring the world to its knees.
A strain which is vaccine resistant will bring the world to its knees.
Every time I have a bit of hope things are about to get better, we get some bad news 
How long do you reckon it takes before we can conclude whether or not the vaccine is effective against the new strain? If it has little to no effect, then wont that put us back to square one?
From a more "selfish" perspective: I have many international friends and acquaintances living in Norway who haven't seen their friends and family for 2-3 years now. They are fully vaccinated and finally ready to go on a prolonged Christmas vacation to see their families again. If they have to cancel their trip or end up trapped in their home countries, then it is going to be devastating for them.
My heart really goes out to them. I feel that this is a group that has been largely forgotten in this mess. People dying prematurely is of course the worst. Financial ruin is a solid second place. But to be cut off from friends and family for years is pretty awful too.
From a more "selfish" perspective: I have many international friends and acquaintances living in Norway who haven't seen their friends and family for 2-3 years now. They are fully vaccinated and finally ready to go on a prolonged Christmas vacation to see their families again. If they have to cancel their trip or end up trapped in their home countries, then it is going to be devastating for them.
My heart really goes out to them. I feel that this is a group that has been largely forgotten in this mess. People dying prematurely is of course the worst. Financial ruin is a solid second place. But to be cut off from friends and family for years is pretty awful too.
Why haven’t they travelled before now? For what it’s worth, I don’t think this new variant will stop anyone travelling this winter (other than to/from South Africa and Botswana anyway)
Sorry to hear about your son. I hope you get better news soon.
Couple of months I would expect. The vaccines have worked against all variants so far, there's nothing to suggest that it will struggle against this one so I'm quietly confident it'll be fine. It all depends whether you're a glass half full or half empty type of person.
Post-covid is beginning to feel like a fantasy and the lifting of measures belies the fact there is a pandemic. Perhaps instead of trying to imagine a world without covid we should be planning for a world where we co-exist with it.
Going back to normal seems increasingly less likely and the world should be looking at a cultural change. Pre-pandemic a lot of the far-east wore facemasks during the flu season and I believe facemask wearing will be standard in winter with summer being naked face season.
Futhermore the need to be at work in person is becoming less necessary inany professions. I think a 50/50 or 60/40 split will be massively beneficial to society although the wealthy nouveau aristocracy will cry that people want to be in the office all the time.
The unvaccinated will further become 2nd class citizens and I could see some countries forcefully inoculating them.
Every 6-12 months a new variant appears which massively puts back all the progress made. Covid 19 won't be defeated.
Going back to normal seems increasingly less likely and the world should be looking at a cultural change. Pre-pandemic a lot of the far-east wore facemasks during the flu season and I believe facemask wearing will be standard in winter with summer being naked face season.
Futhermore the need to be at work in person is becoming less necessary inany professions. I think a 50/50 or 60/40 split will be massively beneficial to society although the wealthy nouveau aristocracy will cry that people want to be in the office all the time.
The unvaccinated will further become 2nd class citizens and I could see some countries forcefully inoculating them.
Every 6-12 months a new variant appears which massively puts back all the progress made. Covid 19 won't be defeated.
For most of them their first legitimate chance to go back home was this summer. They all had different(but good) reasons to wait until Christmas. They also expected things to improve with the vaccine, of course.
Really? Even if it spreads as quickly as Delta did and the vaccines prove ineffective?
i'm more than happy to let them stay there if it means never having to watch a game of rugby again.
I, for one, welcome our new disease overlords.
Unfortunately that’s not true. There’s good reason to suggest vaccines will struggle against this one, based on what we know about its structure. Although that’s not yet been confirmed.
Delta ran riot in India last summer and is only really starting to peak in Europe now. Plus there’s a much bigger flow of people back and forth (I think?) between India and Europe - than there is between Europe and South Africa.
If vaccines don’t give any protection at all then yeah, we’re screwed. I’m hopeful that boosted vaccines will give at least a reasonable level of protection. Time will tell.
We're back to square one
Better than being back to sweet square 
We really aren't. We know a lot more about the mitigations that work and we know a lot more about vaccines and treatments. If it really is significantly better at evading the vaccine, then we'll be looking at another round of modified vaccines available as boosters within months. That is not square one.
Half glass empty then, or rinse & repeat? Every variant so far that's come out of the woodwork has been dramatically more transmissible than the next, each with the same hysteria, and all major vaccines proving effective in the end. Ultimately the immune invasion is the key point on the variant, BioNTech say they'll know in 2 weeks which will be the first key indicator.
I Hope so. I dread the idea of going back into lockdown
Having looked at the data SA are providing I'm a little more skeptical of that death data now. I think given the size and poverty of the country deaths might take more time categorise and report. If you delve down into a regional analysis of their daily reporting most new cases are coming from Gauteng, but that 114 death figure is mostly made up of cases coming from the neighbouring "North West" region.
I think they might've just announced a slew of deaths all at once and which are unrelated to the current outbreak. Either that or discovery of this new variant has led them to test more strenuously in Gauteng than they had been prior and elsewhere. Then, like you say, there's every chance the thing's been circulating for a while.
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Not about being half empty or full. It’s about science.
Think of it this way, you can put cake in a metal tin or a silicon one. The silicon one is flexible and therefore can adapt to fit a more varied shape of cake. Thankfully our vaccines teach us to create antibodies which are more like the silicon. They provide multiple spike protein reference points which mean our antibodies recognise them and target them. It means there is some flex to changes in the spike protein. Just like the silicon container is more flexible to different shapes than the metal, our vaccines allow us to be flexible to different spike proteins.
But within reason. You simply can’t fit something which is round into the silicon tin if it’s rectangle. Even with the flex. It’s the same here. If the spike protein changes so significantly (and in this case it has, which is why there is concern) the vaccines can suddenly very quickly become irrelevant.
It’s not a simple yes or no, though. There is varying degrees of recognition. It might still recognise a few parts of the protein and so some peoples bodies may recognise it and deal with it. Some won’t. This is how you end up with a reduction in overall vaccine effectiveness across a population.
So the key question is by how much the change in the spike protein will reduce effectiveness.
Counter to that, there is only so much the spike protein can change as it has to be able to invade human cells so it may have mutations but it can't change totally so its completely alien to vaccine/previous infection.
All currently sounds like a massive scare story will wait and see.
I think you’re right in that it is highly unlikely to become completely alien to a vaccine or previous infection. But doesn’t mean it can’t have a significant effect. Anyway my post wasn’t about creating doom, I’m fine with posts like yours (for example) if you believe that it’ll probably be fine. I disagree more with posts who fail to acknowledge there is risk and instead just put it to a straw man “he must just be a pessimist” argument.
I think we will see vaccine efficacy wane. But I am hopeful that with our vaccine rate, along with boosters, and continuing to push vaccine roll out globally, things should hopefully be fine with, at worst, mild restrictions in the interim between developing an updated vaccine and now.
Harsh but fair.Better than being back to sweet square
Yeah that’s what keeps me sane and away from doom spirals of the virus getting fitter and fitter ad infinitum.
The worry with this one is that it’s almost a greatest hits of all the other variants so far. Mutations that have been proven to make prior variants better able to evade immune response or more transmissible, now combined into the same new variant. It wont necessarily be better at evading immunity than beta but beta’s immune evasion combined with delta’s transmissibility will be an almighty pain in the arse.
I hope it's more Now 94 than Now 2020
How long did it take after Delta was discovered to (broadly) figure out how effective vaccines still were against it?
Good question. I’m not actually sure. I don’t think vaccine resistance was a big issue for delta, so much as increased transmission. I think the main nasty surprise with delta re vaccines was how quickly protection waned. Which I don’t think is/was variant specific. It just wasn’t possible to know until fairly recently (when delta was dominant)I hope it's more Now 94 than Now 2020
How long did it take after Delta was discovered to (broadly) figure out how effective vaccines still were against it?
There's a confirmed case of the virus strain in Belgium now. I only got Norwegian news sources, but you'll probably find it on google.
Where have I failed to acknowledge risk? I've stated already that this will run like wildfire and I'm pretty much on the camp of lets see what comes back from the experts. What we've seen in this thread over the past couple of years is the hysteria around any new variant (Brazilian, South African etc), only for it to die down once the vaccines come back as being effective. If there's anything to levy then I'm probably putting confidence in the science/vaccines that will solve this. Given their track record, why wouldn't we be confident?
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