Start Date of Next Lockdown?

[Dragoljub Sudar]

I m not sure I'd take notice of any 'official' report where the sentence starts 'None of the cases are...'

Maybe this post should be in the 'pedants' thread.

[Angus French]

From a Guardian piece published a couple of hours ago:

The Guardian has seen leaked advice from UKHSA for [Sajid] Javid, marked “official, sensitive” saying: “The key point is that under a range of plausible scenarios, stringent action is needed on or before 18 December 2021 if doubling times stay at 2.5 days. Even if doubling times rise to around 5 days, stringent action is likely still needed in December.”

It adds: “The rapid spread of Omicron means that action to limit pressures on the health system might have to come earlier than intuition suggests.” Its calculations suggest that even if Omicron causes a less severe hospitalisation rate of 1% or 0.5% compared with Delta’s 1.5%, then “stringent national measures’” would be needed by 18 December at the latest.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Isn't this the report just referred to, with its implausible exponential scenarios?

[David Williams]

I don't see it as being implausible that case numbers should continue to double at the same rate from a small base for quite some time.

I did see a report in the Times the other day that said that experts were predicting/estimating that if delta continued at current levels, and omicron continued to grow, then by the time two-thirds of cases were omicron, hospital admissions would be double the current level if omicron only resulted in half the level of admissions that delta does. Which is not a prediction or an estimate, it's just simple arithmetic.

[NickFaulks]

I did see a report in the Times the other day that said that experts were predicting/estimating that if delta continued at current levels, and omicron continued to grow

I thought the experts were predicting that omicron would crowd out other variants, as delta has itself done. Using suitable starting assumptions, simple arithmetic can produce any answer you want.

[Angus French]

I thought the experts were predicting that omicron would crowd out other variants, as delta has itself done.

SAGE have said the two variants might co-exist. This piece suggests it could be possible for a person to be infected by both at the same time.

[NickFaulks]

SAGE have said the two variants might co-exist. This piece suggests it could be possible for a person to be infected by both at the same time.

I assume that if they had actually found such a person, they would have said so.

[John Upham]

I'm placing a bet on January 2nd, 2022.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Practically speaking, it needs to be passed by parliament first. And given what happened yesterday, would the PM dare?

[MartinCarpenter]

I did see a report in the Times the other day that said that experts were predicting/estimating that if delta continued at current levels, and omicron continued to grow

I thought the experts were predicting that omicron would crowd out other variants, as delta has itself done. Using suitable starting assumptions, simple arithmetic can produce any answer you want.

Well, there are a lot of people very heavily vaccinated against delta (also previous infections) but with much weaker protection against Omicron (even with boosters). Logically you'd think that would yield conditions to make coexistence reasonably plausible?

[Dragoljub Sudar]

Although the Pfizer booster apparently provides only up to 75% protection against 'infection', the latest indications are that it will provide over 90% protection v severe disease, and that is what really matters.

[Nick Burrows]

Interesting discussion/analysis of Omicron with some South African dude, who is predicting it will have a much smaller impact than the projections we are seeing regularly in the media:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWrjX1ty2EU