It's the R value for vaccinated individuals I want to hear first, if only to protect my own sanity. 

Geektastic: Looks like essential Christmas reading will be "The Omicron Strain", a thriller written by Stephen P Vincent in 2017 about a virus designed in a lab to wipe out humanity.

WHO just named the latest version of Covid "Omicron"!

They either read thrillers or they don't read them. I rather hope for the latter.

Hah, The reluctance to use Nu seems silly.
You don't have many Greek letters to spare. 

There is something else in the Greek alphabet, apparently Xi comes before Omicron.
So they skipped Xi, :-) 

ezbee:

 

There is something else in the Greek alphabet, apparently Xi comes before Omicron.
So they skipped Xi, :-) 

 

For obvious reasons, they probably didn't want that confused with the current Chinese leader.

sbiddle:

 

Anybody crossing the Auckland border at present only needs to have had proof of a test within the last 7 days. You don't need those test results back. This key detail also seemed to be lost on media during the week with the Hastings case where some seemed to focus on the fact the case had travelled without getting their result back.

 

I'd also be surprised if there are many people crossing the border regularly that aren't signed up for saliva testing which doesn't seem to be encountering these days long delays. It makes life so easy when (like I did this week) you can just spit in a tube, have self drop off at a drop off location and then just show the results from their website on your phone at the airport.

 

The shambles at the moment is that saliva testing isn't available to more people, but we know from the report last week just how badly the govt and MoH botched that up. I feel sorry for lots of people in Auckland in particular at places like medical centres who are doing their own surveillance testing with 1-2x weekly tests but are not eligible for saliva testing.

 

Many groups of travelers do need a negitive test in past 72 hours. See table here:

https://covid19.govt.nz/assets/resources/resources/COVID-19-Permitted-personal-travel-over-Alert-Level-boundaries-with-testing-requirements.pdf

tdgeek:

 

sbiddle:

 

So much scaremongering at present and very little sold data to back most of the claims. Despite media clickbait headlines there is absolutely nothing to suggest for example that it is resistant to current vaccines or that current vaccines have reduced effectiveness. Maybe that could turn out to be the case, but the current headlines are just nuts.

 

 

So, "The delta variant has two mutations in its receptor binding domain that help make it more transmissible. This variant has 10. It also has more than 30 mutations in its spike protein. "

 

Is that idle speculation? Carried out by a service that investigates mutations? No one is saying it may be more serious or more transmissible yet, they have said its too soon, so I don't see how informing the technical details of what they have found so far to be scaremongering. 

 

There is a rare and compelling press conference held in the last day or so by anybody who is anybody in South Africa on all things Covid. The purpose of the conference was to warn the citizens of the world that this is potentially a very serious milestone in the global pandemic.

The extraordinary mutation rate of Omicron was genome sequenced in South Africa. An evolutionary leap that was previously not seen with Covid and thought to not be possible.

The mutations to the receptor binding and spike protein are correctly reported.

The Behavior of Omicron in the wild (when they asked all labs to look for it) revealed that it has aggressively and rappidly overtaken Delta in the Gauteng region.

The rate of exponential growth they realized, started with a slow climb from 200 cases, to an exponential explosion of a thousand cases a day within little more than a week.

South Africa took the unusual step of putting their scientific reputation on the line and making a public declaration to the world, this concurred at the end of a remarkable chain of events that a Hollywood movie would be proud of.

1. They found it.

2. They asked all Labs to check for it.

3. They discovered it was concentrated in a region where it was dealing to Delta

4. They "called everybody in South Africa and met for sixteen hours straight crunching the Data"

5. They talked about what to do about what they had discovered.

6. They called the WHO

7. They decided to pul the equivalent of Ashleigh Bloomfield Ayesha Verral AND Michael Baker in the same presser to warn the world we need to be aware of the potential risk in the change in the way Covid is evolving.

The media did the rest....but the intent from South Africa is to make people a little alarmed...because the facts are very alarming.

Even if Omicron is less harmful that Delta, the evolutionary leap is cause enough for concern in how this pandemic is changing.

Three weeks we will know about hospital impacts. Four weeks we will know about deaths. The World needs to be paying attention right now.

New Zealand is no stranger to using advanced warning and global alarm to prepare to take  extraordinary measures like locking down an entire country after one reported case of Delta.

We rely heavily on these types of warnings due to our particular vulnerabilities.

if it is as bad as experts say then i would really hate to be unvaccinated when it arrives.

Eva888: Just checked it. The book is The Omega Strain, not Omicron

This looks like it: https://www.amazon.com/Omega-Strain-Herron-Action-Thriller-ebook/dp/B077Y6XR6Q

Not so long ago news was...

Scientists are mystified, and wary, as Africa avoids COVID-19 disaster
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-11-19/scientists-mystified-wary-as-africa-avoids-covid-disaster

Malaria infections growing rapidly as Covid interrupted Malaria prevention and treatment programs.

Japan had the self destructing Delta ?

Now... Omicron

Its back to 'hurry up and wait' as more information is going to take time, weeks or more as mentioned.
At least we have summer, and some time before winter comes.

vexxxboy:

 

if it is as bad as experts say then i would really hate to be unvaccinated when it arrives.

 

On the flip side, if it is good news, people will be miss directed to focus on the media beat up. As we saw with H1N1 and SARS 1. When really....we were only a matter of time away from the wolf arriving while the boy cried...this time there is a wolf.

a good article to put things in perspective and basically don't panic

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/456693/covid-19-at-the-moment-we-don-t-know-much-about-omicron-virologist

DS248:

 

Scott3:

 

...

 

In the news today that Auckland tests are now taking 5 days to process. I think this has been happening gradually and for some time (indicated by Monday case number dips following low sunday test numbers no longer happening), So I don't think the impact on the data will be massive.

 

Sucks for people isolating until they get test results though. And will require a rule change to get rid of anything that requires a result from a test in the last 72 hours...

 

...

 

This now a serious issue and requires an urgent fix.

 

Not just people requiring tests within the last 72 hours for crossing the Auckland border but is also affecting people undergoing medical procedures where the same is required.  Catch 22.

 

I got a test last Friday morning in Auckland and got my result by 4pm on the Saturday.

Interestingly the result came out of a lab based on Christchurch.