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Coronavirus - the new strain XX

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Of the larger European countries latest deaths: UK 185, Spain 155, France 94, Germany 69, Italy 48 and Poland 8.
AFAIK Europe is more open to travel etc than the UK. So is our high figure explained by different definition of Covid death ? Different vaccine ? Wave timing ?

Just to look at France in a bit more detail

In France the deaths are at 92 a day, and the new hospitalisations are at 455 a day - both figures the latest 7 day averages. That means 20% of the people going into hospital die.

In the Uk deaths are at 141 a day, and new hospitalisations are at 1004 a day - again weekly average. That means 14% of the people going into hospital die.

The French have vaccinated about 70% of the whole population. I can’t remember how many we have vaccinated but it’s about the same I think. Of course we have vaccinated more over 16s and that’s presumably part of the reason why we have a better recovery rate.

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/m...et-dans-le-monde-en-cartes-et-graphiques.html

The interesting question for me is how they’re keeping down the number of people going into hospital, and I haven’t got a clear answer. The movement of people who aren’t vaccinated is seriously limited. I don’t know what’s happening vis-à-vis home working compared with the UK. Schools have only been open a couple of weeks. I think we have similar rules regarding self isolation. England at least seems more densely populated than France. It could be that French people are more healthy to start with.
 
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This article also mentions the shortage of available bioprocess engineers. My guess is capacity will be scaled up but it will take a few years.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/a-plan-to-break-the-vaccine-manufacturing-bottleneck-51621952245
Don't really know how anyone can claim that boosters for rich countries isn't a problem for low income countries waiting for their 1st doses. Supply is clearly constrained: a dose given here is one not given there.
 
Don't really know how anyone can claim that boosters for rich countries isn't a problem for low income countries waiting for their 1st doses. Supply is clearly constrained: a dose given here is one not given there.

Regarding boosters, here's an interesting article - what should be the dose ? Maybe 1/5 of the original dose is a sufficient booster, so the boosters consume only 1/5 of the full doses:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/94500
Seems like an important question if we're supply constrained.
 
I have a huge amount of sympathy with the question of booster here vs first dose somewhere else, but a dose not used here will not - necessarily - make a dose available in another country. That's just how the distribution of pharmaceuticals works, something I had experience of when a colleague asked the company I worked for to make excess supplies available to third-world countries. With the best intentions, it just wasn't possible.
 
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The problem being that poorer countries can't afford the Pfizer asking price. There's more than sufficient being produced, as Gordon Brown explained last week as I posted, enough to vaccinate the world twice over.
 
The problem being that poorer countries can't afford the Pfizer asking price. There's more than sufficient being produced, as Gordon Brown explained last week, enough to vaccinate the world twice over.

Well they may reduce the price to poor countries for PR. Even if it’s possible to force them to reduce their price, the consequences for future state/private company projects are frightening to contemplate.

But there’s another way into the problem, a self interested one. It may (or may not) be arguable that it’s in the interests of rich nations to vaccinate poor nations - that there are gains of influence, and maybe even health gains too. If those arguments hold water, and I don’t say they do, then the way forward is obvious. The rich countries buy the vaccines and make a present to the poor countries - or rather to those poor countries which are cooperative.

By the way, having seen a programme about a Bob Geldof and Live Aid on TV a few weeks ago, I’m feeling a bit sceptical about the chances of vaccinating Africa, I can’t stop all sorts of racist thoughts are coming into my head (we give them to the poor countries, they’ll sell them back to us for a profit . . .)
 
Well they may reduce the price to poor countries for PR. Even if it’s possible to force them to reduce their price, the consequences for future state/private company projects are frightening to contemplate.

But there’s another way into the problem, a self interested one. It may (or may not) be arguable that it’s in the interests of rich nations to vaccinate poor nations - that there are gains of influence, and maybe even health gains too. If those arguments hold water, and I don’t say they do, then the way forward is obvious. The rich countries buy the vaccines and make a present to the poor countries - or rather to those poor countries which are cooperative.

The G7 refused
 
Don't really know how anyone can claim that boosters for rich countries isn't a problem for low income countries waiting for their 1st doses. Supply is clearly constrained: a dose given here is one not given there.

Did I say that Sean?

I just asked out of interest what the constraints were to scaling up production.
 
30 597 cases reported today, 201 deaths and 688 admissions (13th)

And all the high school kids have been asked to take two tests a week, and in fact the first two tests would have been done at school. And the number of PCR tests are increasing but the number of cases are going down! Either they're not doing it, or the tests aren't working, or the results aren't feeding into the numbers, or a little miracle is happening.
 
And all the high school kids have been asked to take two tests a week, and in fact the first two tests would have been done at school. And the number of PCR tests are increasing but the number of cases are going down! Either they're not doing it, or the tests aren't working, or the results aren't feeding into the numbers, or a little miracle is happening.
I think the obsession with schools is going to be one of those things that look a bit mad when the history books are written. I wonder what would have happened if all that energy had gone into worrying about work instead.
 
New ONS data on long covid in children:

“The best data by far on #LongCovid is out from the ONS

For kids, the news is incredibly reassuring - parents minds should be put to rest

Rates of common symptoms after #COVID19 at 12 w for kids are extremely low (0% to 1.7%) compared to controls”

https://twitter.com/apsmunro/status/1438461046956646405?s=21


This is all in line with the ZOE Study I think.
I think the obsession with schools is going to be one of those things that look a bit mad when the history books are written. I wonder what would have happened if all that energy had gone into worrying about work instead.

Interesting to think about why this obsession happened, I’ve got some sketchy ideas about that, to do with the way some groups have tried to use the crisis for party political ends, and maybe thought that kids would have more emotional leverage than work.
 
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