corporate-wage-slave

Thanks for the kind words, I'm not setting myself up as a media mogul in this space, I know my limitations. I must admit I do wonder about some of the sensationalism in this space - yes it's a wretched respiratory viral disease with some interesting quirks to it, but from an immunity and public health perspective is somewhat less interesting than influenza. So I'm careful not to feed the beast and try to stick to a reasonably moderate tone, but I think we are all capable of doing that. We just need to be a bit cautious until we know the facts, and luckily they should be forthcoming fairly quickly.

florens

Great. There goes our planned trip to London. Haven‘t been in over 1.5 years. This is mental.

LonghornDXB

The cases in SA with the new variant are mostly very mild cases according to their Health authorities

corporate-wage-slave

That will require (yet another) amendment to the Statutory Instrument. One came out today to ensure Angola, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia are in scope for Red listing tomorrow, but no signs yet of the more substantive change needed for this. What they can do is give people a few days notice so they can get PCRs ordered, but allow NHS PCRs for anyone caught in the shorter time frame. But suffice to say that the digital ink will not be dry on the SI before the details get updated in either this thread or the UK Arrivals thread, both in the Coronavirus and travel forum.

LETTERBOY

If one were sitting on the fence about getting vaccinated, wouldn't you wait a couple of weeks to see if the current vaccines work for Omnicron first?

doctoravios

No, do not wait. Get vaccinated now.

corporate-wage-slave

I hesitate to detract from the simple clarity of that important reply, but the logic is that vaccination does not have an immediate effect, it takes a period of time before the antibodies reach a meaningful level, and longer still until B and T cell priming becomes useful. The antibody stage is particularly quick with Pfizer (and presumably Moderna) and even after 10 days we see a fall off in hospitalisation in the elderly, those with immunity issues, and co-morbidities. And as a reminder, you have a co-morbidity if you get a common cold and then COVID or vice versa. For younger healthier people then B and T is the sort of thing that keeps COVID down to a short term nuisance, and there are unconfirmed reports that Omicron is having these sorts of impacts - less of the loss of taste, more of tiredness and temperatures. Either way you want antibodies, B and T in the right place and early vaccination gives you the best chance of developing an immune structure in a timely way. One of the most distressing things we have in healthcare is family members begging us to vaccinate very sick COVID-19 patients - we can't and it doesn't work.

Do not wait. Get vaccinated now.

EsherFlyer

Someone still sitting on the fence is presumably not convinced by science, so why would waiting a couple of weeks for more scientific evidence convince them? I'd expect that once that evidence arose they'd find some new conspiracy theory, etc to reassure themselves that the best thing is to delay further. Luckily for them others are getting vaccinated so they might just benefit from the vaccine programme anyway.

84fiero

People are varied and complex, and don't all think the same way. Nor are humans consistently as rational as we like to think we are. No, the hardcore anti-vaxxers won't ever change, but that surely doesn't describe everyone who is still not vaccinated. It's hard to know for certain what would change a given person's mind. But I wouldn't rule out that this news might prompt some number of the unvaccinated to go and get it. Probably not a lot, but any amount is progress.

LETTERBOY

I was vaccinated months ago, I was speaking theoretically.

EsherFlyer

That would indeed be a good thing. The question / reply above though was not in relation to them responding to "this news" if that means the new variant, but about them still continuing to wait for some "future news" about vaccine efficacy. I'm really not sure what news might convince them, but as you say maybe there will be some moment of realisation. I suspect that offering them a box of chocolates is more likely to sway them than scientific evidence though.

dwugson

Why not book an arrivals test at Heathrow? As of late yesterday there were plenty of slots and the results are available by 10pm the following day thereby limiting your 'isolation'. I arrive a few days after you and had no problem reserving a slot. Now just hope the e-gates are open!

JNelson113

Sorry, I'm confused. Is it just a PCR required by day 2 or is it PCR required by day 2 AND quarantine until you have the negative results from that test? Please assume that the arrival is from the U.S. Thanks!

mikeyfly

Self isolate from arrival, so the sooner the day two test is taken and negative the quicker you can release yourself

paulaf

So 13 of these 60 or so have Omicron, is it reasonable to assume they were asymptomatic or mild symptoms otherwise they may not have felt well enough to fly, just a thought to add to the SA medics saying their cases were mild symptoms.