​​​​​​​I know it is the mood in the UK to dismiss and even descend scientists in order to create division, but please, you are more clever than that. When the most brilliant minds on the field say they do not know and that evidence is not there yet, I tend to believe them.
Or then write to the ECDC to tell them they are wrong:
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/public...isk-assessment

I am not dismissing any evidence. With due respect your the one dismissing the mass of evidence from South Africa and saying it doesn’t count.

Please quote me on that.

you said very clearly there was “no evidence yet”

does South Africa’s experience with omicron for the last month simply not count in your mind?

I also said there are too many confounding variables, but there are clues.
The South African experience are the clues, but this is not a clear evidence because of the confounding variables. Simpson paradox could explain as well the South African experience than Omicron being less virulent intrinsically.
In clear, I am not dismissing it at all. All I am saying is that there are several explanations to explain them, all of them perfectly credible (I am not invoking seasons or super powers).

yep. Back to the super human South African theory. There is plenty of evidence. To say as you did that there is “no evidence yet” is just factually wrong.

Hi

looks like large scale hogmanay events in Scotland are going to be cancelled following the first ministers speech.. other restrictions on hospitality are being announced.

Regards

Tbs

What super human theory ? I talk about Simpson paradox, as one example. Where is the super human theory in that ?

So, from 26 December in Scotland:

Indoor standing events limited to 100 people.
Indoor seating events limited to 200.
Outdoor events limited to 500.

All the above apply to public events, not private (e.g. weddings).

Return to mandatory table service in venues serving alcohol.

Return to mandatory 1m distancing between parties (not within them) in hospitality.

The last two times the Government dithered about making a decision (March and November 2020) it lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths and longer periods of restrictions - will we be lucky the third time?

I think yes - everything is different this time with a big proportion of people vaccinated and signs from Denmark that the case hospitalization rate is closer to 0.5% (compared to 1.3% for Delta). Still a very nervous time.

I think different people mean different things by the word "evidence". In normal speech, and to the lay man, signs, indications, provisional results, are all evidence. To the scientist, nothing is evidence until it is in official results or a peer-reviewed paper.

It always amuses me how the words "stress" and "strain" have their meanings exactly reversed between normal speech and engineering principles.

i think you are being very generous :)

i am not sure I agree with your suggestion, but for the sake of argument if South Africa doesn’t count as evidence yet, neither does Denmark. You cant have it both ways. There is a huge amount of data from South Africa already available spanning several weeks

The early UK data show no differences in hospitalization between Omicron and Delta, although the Omicron numbers are still small....There is detailed pdf and tables...

"Hospitalisation and asymptomatic infection indicators were not significantly associated with Omicron infection, suggesting at most limited changes in severity compared with Delta."

I have spent the last 2 weeks going through all the papers and meta data. And at the moment
- I am convinced Omicron is a lot more virulent than Delta (which really is saying something given that Delta crushed all other variants thank to its virulence)
- I still haven't a clue on the pathological profile of Omicron in the UK. Some data from SA is promising, but it's only been in the last few days that Omicron has taken off. It's just too soon to say.
The obvious point is that if Omicron has a pathological severity half that of Delta, but an R rate of say 4, then this isn't looking good. Plus the problem is that core civic services may not be sustainable if case numbers rocket.

Never said Denmark was evidence either. I said there might be less confounding variable (note the might) and it might have more weight due to that, at least it makes them more encouraging. Because you can not claim that data from Bengladesh and UK are not comparable while saying data from SA tell what will happen in the UK.