Coronavirus - the new strain XVIII
- Thread starter matt j
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The situation now is completely different to December.
We hadn’t given 36 million people first doses of vaccine, 19 million of which have had a second dose.
Infections, hospital admissions and deaths are all a lot lower.
We’re in a much better place all round.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
The Garden Bridge, the bridge to France, the bridge to Ireland, the Boris Burrow. Of course he’s for turning- he’s going to want to avoid further culpability for manslaughter. What the “Covid Recovery Group” imagine doesn’t change reality.
Excellent consistency from the DM,
Excellent consistency from the DM,
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Interesting report on the radio late yesterday - results from a study comparing older people (80+?) vaccinated 2 weeks and 12 weeks between first and second jabs. The people vaccinated 12 weeks apart had three and a half times the level of antibodies as those vaccinated 2 weeks apart.
Maybe 10-o-clock news R4 if anyone wants to check in full.
They keep pointing out that bringing forward vacciantions in the Indian strain hot-spots is not likely to help keep numbers down by much - it takes around 2 weeks after the first vaccination for levels of antibodies to be significant.
If the lockdown isn't enforced to cover the hot-spots, for as long as it takes, I can see major outbreaks spreading amongst the under-40's.
Political bitching about there not being a travel ban from India back last summer-autumn, has started.
Maybe 10-o-clock news R4 if anyone wants to check in full.
They keep pointing out that bringing forward vacciantions in the Indian strain hot-spots is not likely to help keep numbers down by much - it takes around 2 weeks after the first vaccination for levels of antibodies to be significant.
If the lockdown isn't enforced to cover the hot-spots, for as long as it takes, I can see major outbreaks spreading amongst the under-40's.
Political bitching about there not being a travel ban from India back last summer-autumn, has started.
gintonic
50 shades of grey pussy cats
at the moment, but some unknowns might mean that changes
possibly, but you cannot make your claim with any certainty
wow&flutter
pfm Member
What gets me is the unwillingness to shut down flights from emerging hotspots! Surely that would be a highly effective relatively simple action to reduce new UK infection rates!
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
The argument against local lockdowns was put forward yesterday on R4. Broadly: if you lock down a local area, you hit local businesses but people will just travel further afield to shops, pubs, restaurants, etc, which just increases the spread outside the local area. So, counterintuitively, you make the situation worse, both disease-wise, and economy-wise.
Seems like a credible POV to me, any thoughts?
Seems like a credible POV to me, any thoughts?
We hadn’t vaccinated millions in December either. If the vaccines are as effective as the data is saying, I don’t see how we can have a wave anything like what we’ve seen during last spring and winter.
Agreed, it's genuinely bewildering as to why this is not happening. I keep hearing people saying we are different to NZ, Aus etc. but that is just excuse making. The cost of lockdown 4 is going to far outweigh the damage to the economy caused by restricting travel. It's crass short termist stupidity that is at work here. As for this football final in Portugal.... words fail me but then football always was treated differently to anything else in this country for some stupid reason.
gintonic
50 shades of grey pussy cats
1) if they are effective - needs more data - might be too late if not enough people have had two jabs. Can't extend vax programme due to supply
2) the vax among the lower ages groups ( 80% of <30 years have not been vaxed) leaves us with a vax gap. These are the age groups more likely to refuse a vax and more likely to indulge in behaviour conducive to spreading.
gintonic
50 shades of grey pussy cats
early and incomplete data. We need more data to be certain.
If you watch Monday’s press conference, Prof Whitty outlined data which showed that there is a 55 to 70 per cent reduction in symptomatic disease from just one dose of Pfizer or AZ. For deaths and hospitalisations, that figure was 75 per cent to 80 per cent. So even after a first dose, there has shown to be a high degree of protection.
Then if you add a second dose in, he also outlined data which showed Pfizer has a 90 possibly 95 per cent effectiveness at reducing hospitalisations and deaths.
Astonishing real world data there.
The infection rate here has dropped today with Bolton taking over the number one spot. Since the neighbouring town and surrounding villages in the district have modest levels of infection the town itself is likely still the most infected place in the country. I think in Bolton much of it is the Indian variant whereas here it is not. We will see how the Indian variant spreads in comparison.
The response by the town to the outbreak seemed to be to largely ignore it and carry on as usual. I mentioned above that nearly a week after the outbreak in the school my next door neighbour but one didn't even know there was an outbreak and I am pretty confident that goes for a fair few others. It took five days before a mobile lab test truck arrived in the town. The school with the outbreak initially closed fully with the others in the town closing some years and requiring the children to pass a lab test. Early in the week there were substantial numbers of kids around in the shops and particularly the park. What proportion should have been at home isolating while waiting for lab test results I don't know. Of course after getting a clean result and before the school had them back they could be out and about. Infected adults wandering around that didn't want to take a test in case it was positive were possibly a bigger issue although they tend to social distance in a way that children don't.
There is no question that the easing of lockdown has lead to the outbreak here being worse than it would have been prior to the easing. We will have to wait and see how many in the town will be killed by it. The vaccination progression seems to be around average possibly a touch below around here. I am 60+ and the second jab is due in 2 weeks 15 weeks after the first which is fairly typical.
My view is that if there was a lockdown the day after nearly 150 staff and kids tested positive the number of infections would have been reduced and vulnerable people without children would have known the town was seriously infected. Given this would be a short term response to a local emergency rather than that national tiered business I would expect most local people to have supported it. Not all (as we can see in this thread) but the vast majority so long as the lockdown lifted promptly the local infection rate dropped to something like the national average.
gavreid
Pretty Words...
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) concluded there is a “realistic possibility” the strain is 50% more transmissible than the one that emerged in Kent. If the higher transmissibility is confirmed, the experts said moving to step three could “lead to a substantial resurgence of hospitalisations” that is “similar to, or larger than, previous peaks”.
Meanwhile, the deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said vaccines are “almost certainly less effective” at reducing transmission of the Indian variant.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...0831dd83f7a278#block-609f89808f0831dd83f7a278
Meanwhile, the deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said vaccines are “almost certainly less effective” at reducing transmission of the Indian variant.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...0831dd83f7a278#block-609f89808f0831dd83f7a278
gintonic
50 shades of grey pussy cats
which i did watch - but the context wasnt variants. You cannot always draw a conclusion from a generalised case to a specific case.
There seems to be quite a bit of opposition from politicians in Bolton/Greater Manchester to more local lockdowns. The Bolton Labour MP has spoken out against them and so has Andy Burnham, the Labour GM mayor.
I think you’ll come to a point where when everyone has been vaccinated where people won’t understand the need for lockdowns, masks, social distancing etc. It becomes a much harder sell and I think the government know that.
I’m really pleased that the government are going down the ‘ramping up the vaccinations’ route to deal with these outbreaks in Bolton rather than the local lockdown route or delaying step 3 on the roadmap. Using vaccinations as a tool and replacement to combat the virus should be the way forward rather than more damaging lockdowns.
You only get to run the experiment once!!
So far as local politicians are concerned - past comments from them make it patently clear that they are concerned about their popularity/re-election at a future date, rather than public health, and are thus of neither use nor ornament in the debate/decision-making.
mandryka
pfm Member
That’s why I say that the most interesting thing in yesterday’s presser was this
If he’s right, he’s doing the right thing IMO. If he’s wrong, he’d better be lucky.
As I've posted many times before, its a numbers game and a small percentage of a very big number is still a big number. Even at 95% effective that leaves 5% of the 36million vaccinated (1.8 million) plus 100% of those not vaccinated and at risk of significant illness (say another 8million or so) having the possiibilty of being hospitalised, long COVID and dying at a possibly enhanced rate compared to the Kent variant due to the higher transmissability.
Not as bad as before vaccination, but by no means something to be complacent about.
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