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Originally Posted by Paul
What does 'more transmissable' even mean ?
I'm guessing it means you can catch it quicker ?
As yet Ive not seen a definition, just the phrase thrown about a lot.
Is it more likely to make you seriously ill ?
Is it more deadly than delta, the same, or is it milder ?
Again, Ive seen nothing so far to support it being one or the other.
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Your 2nd group is more to do with the severity of the disease.
Once it has made someone ill then this is the course of the disease, we don't know this for sure yet, as it will probably take a few weeks. But early indications are that it is milder than delta though this has been measured in a younger population.
Transmissibility is the basic idea of how the virus can infect others. So I suppose there are various factors at play, such as how much virus an infected person can emit, how much virus is needed to cause an infection, and how long it takes. So, i've heard people say recently that omicron can cause infection maybe 2-3 days after exposure, which I think is similar to delta, and less than the 5-7 days for Alpha and the original Wuhan strains. In itself that will make it more transmissible as it will spread through the population quicker. I guess this effect is down to the more optimised binding to the ACE2 receptor where it enters the cells. Not seen anything for omicron but they certainly said somewhere for delta that the viral load in an infected patient was higher, so it got around more, because people simply had more of it in them when they got infected, which means more virus is emitted, and if the infective dose is the same, this means you have a higher chance of getting infected. If it takes less virus to infect someone (e.g. because it is more efficient at entering cells) then that will increase it too...
If you look for example at
this (though I suppose you could look at anything on a quick search) you'll see it's a multi-factor thing:
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Transmissibility is determined by the infectivity of the pathogen, the contagiousness of the infected individual, the susceptibility of the exposed individual, the contact patterns between the infected individual and the exposed individual, and the environmental stress exerted on the pathogen during transmission.
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---------- Post added at 21:52 ---------- Previous post was at 21:49 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul
Thank you Hugh.
So still largely a lot of "if/maybe/might/could" guesswork - until more information on what is actually happening comes along.
I seem to recall this same thing around July 17th when cases were still rising at the point of restrictions being removed - predictions were even more cases, but what actually happened was a fall over the rest of July, much to everyones surprise.
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This is because it coincided with the end of the Euros, Wimbledon, and the school holidays.
Kids are super spreaders of any virus, there is no doubt about it.
If you look closely at the stats the virus has invariably gone down when the schools are closed (whether forcibly, as in March-Sept 2020, and Jan-March 2021, or during normal operations such as Oct 2021 and Jul-Sept 2021).
Whilst they may well be mildly affected by this virus, there is always the risk of breakthrough infections into older age groups, who maybe unvaccinated, or since vaccines don't give complete protection, where the infection escapes existing immunity.
If people think carefully about their Christmas mixing, and get their boosters when called, no doubt we'll see the same effect again.