Exceeding testing capacity is being discussed, quite a lot. But not here.
It has already happened in the last 48 hours where for several hours at a time it was impossible to book a LFD or PCR on the NHS website due to lack of capacity. This will happen more and more for longer period of time.
And yes, having a stocked pantry and freezer as well as a stock of health essentials is not the worst idea now. It might be useless, but maybe it will be useful. There are possibility that vital infrastructure is disrupted (fire services, police, ambulance, electricity, medication deliveries, food and truck deliveries, workers in food stores).

If someone tests positive so they ask when symptoms began to calculate your 10 days?

Yes, assuming you are in England see https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/corona...nd-what-to-do/

So the day your symptoms start is day 0. You can stop self-isolation on day 11 assuming your symptoms have disappeared.

Exactly this, as I contributed last weekend in #8104 the real risk that the NHS and other essential services organisations are being tasked to consider is what contingencies they can put in place to continue to provide service if they have a significant number of staff off ill or self-isolating at or around the same time, and where staff have to be physically present onsite to maintain infrastructure to redouble risk assessments to keep staff separate and ventilate those spaces.

The NHS is under the triple whammy of winter pressure, it not having the necessary staff available due to self-isolation and dealing with extra COVID admissions albeit the latter is thankfully tempered with Onmicron not being so severe and it probably resulting in lass admissions per infected population than Alpha or Delta. Doing anything to minimise the risk of a hospital admission over the next few weeks would be sensible.

I am aware modelling is being done to consider just how pointly and tall the Onmicron spike is and what it might mean to general disruption to supply chains, utilities, etc. For example - what happens if several shifts of ATC at Swanick succumb to the virus all around the same time...

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And if you have no symptoms then day 0 is the day of the positive test.

Already some visible effects in London, where currently 30% of the fire services fire engine being out due to shortage of firefighters.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...on-cases-surge

Got my booster yesterday (pfizer). At night I had a slight headache and pain in the jabbed arm, took a paracetamol before bed and slept with no issues.

This morning I woke up with pain in my arm (nothing horrible, but noticeable). Took a paracetamol and I'm feeling completely fine at this stage.

True, but rules have changed at short notice in the past. This report suggests the Länder are still keen to see the Federal Government declare the UK a ‘virus variant area’.

https://www.br.de/nachrichten/deutsc...regeln,Srx0IBg

We’re due to fly to Berlin on Tuesday. Hard to feel confident about that, tbh.

You really think they'll change last minute after yesterday's decision?

It seems events are once again about to overtake us. Manchester Evening News reports a major incident declared in London and a COBRA meeting this weekend.

Edit: Happy to be wrong about this but I think a lot of parties are about to be pooped.

What’s the latest on the affects of this variant? Are there any latest studies showing good or bad news? Whilst I see cases rising, what’s the impact on healthcare?

No comments on this statement please but the media seem to be really trumpeting this. Rightly or wrongly.

Mr C-W-S do you have any of your marvellous insights?

Daily data:

Cases 90,418 (54,073 last Saturday)
Deaths 125 (132)
People vaccinated up to and including 17 December 2021:
First dose: 51,425,763
Second dose: 46,965,009
Booster: 27,156,276

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now up 44.4% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 5.9%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 112.4 today.

An example impact on healthcare is that one smaller NHS trust in London has approaching 100 staff with new infections today that daily figure having risen from half that number earlier this week, making a cumulative impact of several hundred staff now unable to work. Wind back two to three weeks to Delta days it was single figures staff reporting as new infections per day with the cumulative total well 50 at any one moment.

What I know in the specific trust I know the exact detail for is not unusual when compared to other NHS trusts across London.

So basically the hospitals are under real pressure for staff. And that's before you take into account more patients turning up presenting with COVID.

Rinse and repeat in other essential services, public sector or private, to varying degrees.

Had my Pfizer booster yesterday for the triple shot, fortunate to have had no side effects other than a slightly sore arm for all 3 of them. Mrs FW is rather jealous!

Maybe, maybe not; have had 3 people at one of the clients I do work for test positive in the last 2 weeks and they were all more than 2 weeks out from their third jabs.

If he's anything like one of the big vax centres near me, he might be working late. The one I went to yesterday is open till 23:30 tonight :eek:

Indeed. I currently work at a large grocery chain (other grocery chains are available) in online shopping fulfilment - so when you place your order, the people who collect, pack, drive and manager the payment. The good news for me (as someone who gets paid overtime and keeps getting negative tests) is that there is a lot of hours available. But that is because people keep coming up positive and having to self isolate. We are able to manage right now by people picking up overtime and some agency hires, but if things get much worse with regards to infections, we will be swamped by being understaffed - in addition to the fact that we are already suffering supply issues to even have the right stuff in store to supply.

And of course, ironically, once people are isolating at home, how do they get groceries? Online orders of course...