Not something that is intended to be discussed, no. It's not unusual to circulate controversial ideas with the intention of provoking a reaction and debate. What matters is what is actually the formal policy, and why and how it is administered.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

It's also not unusual for those with the power to influence events but apparently not in this case.

Great stuff. An excellent blend of JBM and other sources

Main takeouts for me

1. To answer the 'I thought this was milder / less dangerous'
if you kill 20% less but you’re 20% more transmissible, because transmissions are exponential, you end up with many many more people infected, and hence many more deaths.

2. Only 60% of the worlds population is vaccinated

3. Everyone IS going to get it, like it or not

4. The infection rate is going to be rapid and aggressive but hopefully this means less time until it runs out of hosts

Did you know? 98.0000001% of people are morons.

Yes, that about sums it up! Another interesting read here [Link] on the rapid speed at which Omicron appears to multiply (faster in bronchus than lung), how quickly people are infectious etc. Looks like it's going to burn its way through the population exceptionally fast, but that there are 'some' signs that it may cause fewer issues (though Delta had slower growth in the lungs too so who knows).

It's interesting how distinct it is from Delta. That opens up the possibility (not spoken about much) that if/when it dies back down Delta may pop back up again (though that's not as worrying a prospect as it once was). Time will tell of course. Can only hope for the best over the next month or two. The path is set!

Well in fairness we've heard both extremes. An 'its mild and the end of the pandemic!' and 'millions are going to get ill at the same time hence problems due to that'. The above two links are a very reasonable reading of the situation. I'd say that take down is that it appears to be so contagious that there's no pause button that will work on this one anyway.

Edited by BlueJay (16 Dec 2021 12.50am)

Oops I meant the take away.

I'm not sure what you mean in terms of being suspicious? As in to scare people into accepting another lockdown? If that does happen, it will come too late to achieve anything specifically due to how contagious it appears to be. It would be very hard to slow it down, and would re-emerge very fast even if we did.

It looks like this variant may be contagious within a day or being exposed to it, which would explain an especially fast spread and the inability to do much about it. Not saying that their projections are dead on, but I expect a good number of us will get it so they'll soon add up.