The Omicron variant

Good god man talk about a pessimistic outlook.

1) Omricon doesn't approach the transmissibility of measles.

2) Omricon is a coronavirus. A percentage of which also cause the "common cold".

3) You're really bringing cancer into it?

4) Yep it can stlll kill, but so far it's looking milder and the vast majority of those that have died of this virus throughout this pandemic have been over 60, already chronically unwell, the very overweight and the monumentally unlucky. The vast majority of the vulnerable in Ireland are vaccinated and a large percentage have also had boosters.

5) ah yes, 1918. A few differences there. We have far better therapies available today. We have vaccines for a start. The 1918 pandemic also had one other major difference; it was far more likely to kill young people in the prime of life.

What I'm struggling to understand is how some of you seem to be coming to the conclusion that omicron is a positive for us. A good virus off you like.

And I'm struggling to understand how some are hellbent on apocalyptic thinking with every headline.

"The pandemic is over" seems to me to be completely devoid of logic. We're witnessing a variant that is smashing through all kinds of immunity. The idea therefore that it will give us all a free boost of immunity and that will be that is laughable.

The majority of people in Ireland are vaccinated, a large percentage have had boosters. This reduces the risks of serious illness in omricon too. Having a breakthrough infection of omricon that results in a glorified headcold for a few days will also boost immunity. It could well give so called "super immunity" going on studies into those who caught covid previously and were vaccinated.

If omicron really did emerge from an immunocompromised person, well the chances of further VOCs emerging in the same way is increasing exponentially

"Smashing through", "increasing exponentially". Yeah, that's not exactly measured thinking. Where are you getting your exponential from? Omricon may have emerged from someone like a HIV sufferer who took a long time to expel the virus. We don't know. It certainly looks like something of that nature as there are way too many mutations in one variant to suddenly came along at once out of the blue. It might have come from a vaccinated, or partially vaccinated person who again didn't clear the virus in a short period of time, again giving the virus a chance to mutate so much. Again we don't know. That said I'd love to see an evolutionary tree of the different variants and where and how and from what source this one came from. It's a bit of an oddball.

"Faith" indeed.

The vast majority of those most affected by this virus are over 60 years of age. In Ireland that's 90% of ALL deaths. 40% of ALL deaths are in the over 80's. Even in the most affected demographic of all the over 85's you still had a 90% chance of not dying from covid 19.

And that was before vaccines, which massively reduce the risks of serious illness and death.

The vast majority of the Irish population are vaccinated. This is even more the case in the vulnerable demographics. A large percentage of whom have also had boosters. All of which reduce the risks of serious illness and death even with omricon.

The emerging pattern of Omricon is quite different to both the Alpha and Delta variants. The number of infected are higher, but the health services aren't seeing nearly the same corresponding hit from it.

Covid 19 has been overwhelmingly a disease of the old, the chronically unwell and the terribly unlucky. We did a pretty good job in protecting them and since vaccines have come along that's even more the case. Covid 19 has most of all shown up the lack of spare emergency capacity in world health services. It was and is not the end of times pandemic it was made out to be. That concern was understandable in the early days, but it became pretty clear from the actual data that it wasn't and that was early enough on too. The doom mongers going on about tens of thousands of deaths in Ireland were talking out their arses. So far the covid 19 pandemic is one of the least deadly in world history.

The extreme views are "it's only a flu" or "we're doooooooomed" types. The measured view is that it's been a tough two years, but that signs are good that we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, not a bigger train coming down the same tunnel. Talk about rogue variants "increasing exponentially" is at best daft.