Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

You can actually read quite a bit into the data already.

The Alpha case peak in Ireland was on the 10th of January with 1,310 cases per million per day on the 7 day average. The Alpha hospitalisation peak was on the 18th of January with 2,020 in hospital. So about 8 days from peak cases to peak hospitalisations. ICU's peaked on January 24th at 221, so about 12 days after peak cases.

8 days ago we had 1,359 cases per million (almost identical to the Alpha peak) on the 7 day average and today we have 656 in hospital. So a drop by a factor of 3 in hospitalisations vs cases. Its actually probably much better than that though because this year we moved straight from a Delta wave which persisted right until Omicron took off, so a lot of the hospitalisation is lingering from the early to mid December Delta wave. In December 2020 we went from almost zero covid at 60 cases per million on the 7 day average before Alpha took off so the hospitalisations were almost entirely from the late December early January Alpha wave. Obviously vaccination is going to be driving a lot of the reduction so its hard to draw a conclusion on the scale of the reduced virulence of Omicron. Unfortunately I do think it's too early to draw any conclusion on ICU's as 12 days ago the Omicron wave was really in its early stages.

The Delta peak is actually very interesting, hospitalisations peaked on the 22nd of Nov at 685 but cases kept rising until early December where they dropped slightly and flattened at a high rate of about 925 per million per day until Omicron took off. However hospitalisations fall off a cliff in late November as the boosters took effect. That makes it very difficult to compare the Delta wave hospitalisations to the current wave as Delta was characterised by waning vaccine immunity in the most vulnerable which was quickly negated by boosters, which began to be rolled out to this cohort in late October. Omicron, in terms of cases, is raging through a highly boosted population. However, real back of the paper maths here, Delta peaked at 980 cases per million on the 7 day average on the 5th of December with most of the vulnerable boosted, 8 days later there were 518 people in hospital. Thats about 1.89 cases per million per day for every hospitalisation vs a 2.07 number for Omicron. Obviously the higher the number of cases it takes to get a hospitalisation the better. This doesn't account for the backlog of hospitalisations in the drawn out delta wave but also doesn't account for the complete overwhelming of the testing system during the Omicron wave which means case number are far higher than reported.

Whats clear is that there has been a serious drop in the severity of covid compared to this time last year, you are at least 3 times less likely to end up in hospital if you are diagnosed with covid now vs in Jan 2021. Its likely Omicron is less severe than Delta but we actually don't really know how severe Delta was as it peaked during a booster campaign which seriously muted its hospitalisation rate. I actually have a lot of sympathy for the government trying to make a call on this, my feeling is that we'll be able to ride this out as we are now and then be able to relax restrictions in late January, id hate to be the one making the decision on it though. One worrying note was Holohan's estimate of 30k real cases when our confirmed cases were 20k and our positivity rate was 50%. Thats an insanely low estimate! I'd love to know where that number came from!

Red line indicates beginning of our severest wave . Cumulative . Not the same graph as LOTT posted from , and NOT referring to vaccinations ( he referred to exponential growth despite restrictions)

And the graph I was looking at was a graph showing exponential growth of the most infectious but currently mildest variant so far in Ireland and UK despite restrictions , and that has managed to evade our vaccinations for infection BUT NOT serious disease or death so far . Unlike the other variants .

Hence my post about deaths and ICU cases with this current surge .

That was my point to LOTT which you have missed again .

Great post, in a nutshell !

Why? To drag things out?

Both of those are on track to be accomplished.

Why?

The effect of restrictions must surely be measured in case numbers!? Restrictions are to "control" case numbers no?

I'm by no means defending them but restrictions were always to reduce the impact on hospitalisations, ICU and deaths.

Also...

"Hiding under your bed"

"Nonsense"

"Hysterical"

I wondered the same, as it would make more sense, and paint a completely different picture, if drawn a week or so after the majority of the population was vaccinated rather than the start date for vaccinations.

Yes but the pitch behind the Covid Pass was to prevent or greatly reduce transmission in indoor settings which clearly isn't true in reality with the effect of vaccines and NPHET & government have admitted as much by once again returning to add restrictions to the hospitality sector.

If the goal is not to prevent transmission but to prevent people at high risk of hospitalisation from being exposed in an indoor setting then surely the pass should be based on other factors as well. Unquestionably the greatest factor is age and also being immunocompromised.

Does anyone know what the changes to the isolation period that will be announced tomorrow are going to be? My husband more than likely has covid. 2 positive antigens! But can't get a test for 3 days. And then another 2 days before results. He has to wait on a text from the HSE with his appointment. I had to ring caredoc last night to get one as there was nothing on the HSE site.

Anyway I'm a teacher who is due to go back to work on Thursday. I won't be going unless we have results. My kids aren't vaccinated as they are primary school age. And as it stands today they can't return to school for 2 weeks if my husband tests positive. So obviously I will have to stay home to mind them as we can't send them to anyone else. I'm sure I am not the only teacher in this situation. There are no subs to be found. Staffing in schools is going to be a nightmare. Locally many businesses are closed this week as their staff are isolating.

Yeah, but there's more than a hint of looking for yet another group to blame with that type of commentary. We will come in a lot lower in boosters.

As regards the boosters there is a risk that far too much attention will be given to that waning and we could end up in a never ending cycle of using booster vaccines that are increasingly delivering diminishing returns. That is just bad medicine.