Covid Infections Continue to Plummet – as ONS Data Suggest Omicron BA.2 May Be Half as Deadly as BA.1
Covid levels continued to drop in England last week, falling to their lowest levels since the start of December before Omicron took off. MailOnline has more.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates 1.2 million, or one in 45 people, were carrying the virus on any given day in the week to May 7th, down a quarter on the previous week.
It marks the fifth week in a row that the ONS’s weekly infection survey – now the best barometer of the outbreak – has reported a week-on-week fall in cases, despite no Covid restrictions being in place.
The Government is relying on the study, based on swabs of 120,000 random people, to track the virus now that free testing has been axed for the vast majority of Britons.
Today’s estimate for England is the lowest since the week ending December 16th, when 1.2m people were also estimated to have been infected. At that point, the Omicron strain was just starting to take off and in the following weeks there were mounting calls to follow some EU countries in enforcing another lockdown.
Ministers also resisted renewed calls from NHS bosses for tougher restrictions last month when the BA.2 variant, an off-shoot of Omicron, pushed rates to record-highs.
Meanwhile, the ONS estimates one in 35 people were carrying Covid in Wales and Scotland last week and one in 55 in Northern Ireland.
It’s good to see the Mail drawing attention to the fact that these declines happen without the need for restrictions. Interesting that Scotland is doing worse than England despite keeping masks and vaccine passports in place for longer.
Another interesting point is that after the large Omicron wave, which reached around 8% prevalence in England during March, the current 2.2% prevalence seems low. However, it’s actually higher than was reached during the entire Delta wave during the latter part of 2021.
The breakdown by age shows an interesting contrast between Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 waves. BA.2 spread broadly throughout the age groups, and unusually for Covid had higher prevalence in older people than younger.
BA.1 on the other hand was much higher in younger people, with the 70-plus age group not getting above 3% and the 50-69 age group scarcely above 5%.
Despite this huge difference in prevalence in the most vulnerable age groups between the two waves – in the 70-plus age group, BA.2 was around two and half times more prevalent than BA.1 – the number of deaths in the two waves has been similar, peaking around the same level and with slightly fewer deaths overall in the BA.2 wave.
This seems to imply BA.2 was half as deadly as BA.1 or even lower. What explains this apparent difference in infection fatality rate? No vaccine booster programme was delivered between the two waves. Is it because it’s not winter anymore, so a seasonal effect, or is it some inherent property of the virus? Part of it will be mortality displacement, with many of those at high risk of death dying in the BA.1 wave so no longer around to succumb to BA.2. Whatever the cause, it’s good to see deaths remaining relatively low, with little or no excess mortality, despite the high viral prevalence of the last few months.
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None of this will matter if the UK cedes authority over health management to the WHO on 27-28 May in Geneva. Please write to your MP. I’m no expert but put this together for mine. Feel free to use, edit, improve but please do something. Sir, Can you confirm if UK Government intends to cede national sovereignty over the management of future health crises to the WHO. The existing WHO health treaty, called the International Health Regulations of 2005 (IHR) is being reviewed later this month with the intention of amending its clauses to empower the leader of the WHO to act unilaterally and bypass UK Government approval for any emergency action (such as masking, lockdowns, climate issues or anything Tedros considers to be harmful). This development has emerged quickly and covertly, without any public consultation for such a massive ceding of national power. There has been no public debate and no media coverage of this sovereignty-killing power grab. The 13 amendments proposed by the Biden government will be discussed under a cloak of darkness in Geneva, Switzerland, when the WHO World Health Assembly meets May 22-28. We worked hard during Brexit to fight for the British people to take back… Read more »
Thanks for that. I have seen a lot of people posting about this on gettr re the US ammendments. Some say it is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced in US law. Im sure there are ways and means with the dems in charge. Over here surely it would still have to be written into law through our parliament, if it was to have legal effect. Not that i would expect it to be opposed, other then by the same few freedom fighters against the initial emergency legislation. The blond baffoon has already told us he will lockdown again in the right circumstances, despite overwhelming evidence it causes far more harm than good.
The amendments do at first glance seem worrying, and would definitely appear to undermine our sovereignty. However if the WHO did declare a pandemic in, say, the U.K. and even impose a lockdown how would they enforce it? Could they pass new laws as the government did in 2020? I think not.
Although I never want to see another lockdown/vaccine mandate etc. I think that the only people who should worry about increased WHO powers are those that believe that these powers that exist on paper actually mean anything in the real world. As we’ve seen in recent years e.g. the use of chemical weapons in Syria, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine etc. whatever supranational bodies say and whatever resolutions they pass they’re all meaningless in the real world as supranational bodies are unable to enforce them.
Please refer to the Julia Hartley Brewer interview with a Barrister discussing the subject. The vote on the 28th of May is not the final roll of the dice, it’s a vote whether or not to take it to the final stage which happens in August.
Ive seen it thanks, but this is a big step on the ladder so it’s vital to let the government know we object.
Funny isn’t it there’s been a news blackout, no public scrutiny?
Why?
Mark Steyn of GB News had a guest on discussing the WHO treaty on Thursday.
Such a shame that his reach is so small.
In other news, ONS has estimated that the prevalence of a COLD had plummeted from highs over the winter of bla bla something million to bla bla something else. Stay tuned for more updates, if you can stand them.
Whoa. Summer cold season is upon us!
There’s a good chance that the low in cases will come next week.
Covid is a syndrome. A person can’t be infected with a syndrome – not even if they’ve got a smartphone.
Can people ‘catch a cold’ ?
Sure, if I’m talking colloquially to my mate, I’ll say “Aw mate, I’ve caught a cold”.
But I don’t lock people up for “catching a cold”. Nor make models for “catching a cold” and scare people into thinking “catching a cold” will kill them.
Not from a smartphone…..
Wow the infections are plummeting just like they did this time last year and the year before that.
It’s almost like this is the standard seasonal respiratory illness that always plummets around this time of year but branded covid rather than flu.
1 in 5 working age Scotch are registered as disabled. It’s a basket case of a province, with a low life expectancy, crammed with stunted and aging Professional Sick who will grasp at any excuse to malinger.
But, you know, shortbread, whiskey and freeeedommmm.
‘Whiskey’ = Irish whiskey, ‘Whisky’ = Scottish.
Low quality bait still reels ’em in.
Scotch is an American drink, not a nationality.
It’s not low quality bait, it’s ignorance.
It’s a bit like the difference between the term Sassenach being expressed as ‘Low Life’ when in fact it means ‘Lowlander’.
Jocks like to be precise, so don’t confuse the two when referring to the English.
I thought that Sassenach meant Saxon (English) but obviously I was wrong.
I am a Scotch. I agree that it’s not a nationality because Scotchland isn’t a nation, it’s just a province of England.
Jocks aren’t a collective, although I do agree that most of us trend towards pugnacious petty pedantry.
As a “proud Scot” … nah that’s not going to work!
I suggest we rename Scotland “Covidonia”. Yes us hairy chested blue faced caber tossers are insisting on wearing masks and distancing even whilst roaming the glens and striding over the mountains. Even in a country with about one person for every square mile, we are still not sure we are distancing enough.
🤣
And Omicrom BA.3 is half as deadly as BA.2 etc.
“based on swabs of 120,000 random people”: do they check the results against measurements in the sewage?
Or do they prefer unchecked results?
How do they test for covid?
Does anybody know?
A cold is not as bad as a bad, bad cold.
FFS!
So just another coronavirus now, perhaps. Next business.
In focusing on the dramatic rise and fall of cases, are we not setting a trap for ourselves? As cases ‘plummet’ we can all cheer and think of freedom but what about the inevitable rise or ‘soar’ as it’ll probably be referred to, in the autumn when the ghosts of SAGE/Govt will come drifting out of the shadows, saying about how right they were and how it’s time for another experiment in ruining our society? Getting caught in the trap of watching stats go up and down, which to be honest have no bearing on ordinary life, (who else is watching them apart from those creeps at SAGE and in Government) gives them far more importance than they’re worth. Have flu season stats had this much attention in the past? Somehow, I would like to change the record because this one is well and truly cracked!