I don't think the NHS or ONS have these figures. As they have never properly studied anti bodies or infection type.
Remember a positive LFT doesn't mean you have it. Yet we count LTF's in figures. a lot of people claim they had covid but that doesn't prove anything.
working on Javids numbers. you would hit the whole population being infected by Christmas. So in theory yes it could burn it self out. Like it looks to have done in SA. Was this predicted a very early on that in history a virus will mutate and become easier to spread but less dangerous ?
Sky did a bit about the numbers. ignore the guy tweeting it
Hmmm...
A few things to clarify the science here - it took me about ten minutes to find these out, so I remain entirely unconvinced that repeating stuff unchecked is in any way smart:
Is there evidence that Omicron can re-infect people who have already had Covid?
Yes.
www.sciencemediacentre.org
Do viruses always mutate to become less deadly?
No. (This is a dangerous myth entirely without evidence and anyone who repeats it needs their head checking)
A viral tweet shared online falsely claims viruses never mutate to become more lethal.
www.usatoday.com
See also Spanish flu...
The first strain of the Spanish Flu wasn’t particularly deadly. Then it came back in the fall with a vengeance.
www.history.com
How many cases of Omicron?
Tricky! That 200,000 number wasn't just pulled out of the air though, there's some logic behind it...
Analysis: Sajid Javid estimates there are 200,000 new cases a day – here’s why the experts suggest that number will soon multiply
www.theguardian.com
The key point is, even if the true number infected is much smaller than that, if it's doubling every two or even three days, then it's going to get much bigger very quickly.
If there was only one person infected on 14th December, and it doubled every three days, then by the end of January there would be 65,000 new infections on that day alone. Three days later, 130,000 new infections, and so on.
Will it burn itself out?
Eventually. But it might not be pretty if we don't slow it down a bit.
from the Guardian article above...
Prof Matt Keeling, of the University of Warwick, said if cases keep doubling we will effectively hit herd immunity. “Infection cannot keep doubling forever,” he said. “There are only a finite number of people to infect, and eventually the outbreak of Omicron would ‘burn itself out’ – but this isn’t going to happen until a lot of people have been infected, which we clearly want to avoid.
I wouldn't pretend for a second to know all of the facts. However, given what we do seem to know already, doing nothing on the basis that it
might be milder, or we should wait to see the impacts, or even that the Government are blagging the figures just to protect Boris, just doesn't look sensible to me.
