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Coronavirus - the new strain XVIII

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Seeker_UK said:
Just to take one for the team, I followed the link. Warning, it contains Toby Young.
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Me too, but didn’t get that far! To argue that selective use of the y axis is bad, using a different selected (and arguably more inappropriate) y axis ended my interest….
 
sean99 said:
I wonder if this is wishful thinking ? Delta has shown that the virus can increase the R0 AND become more virulent. A virus with 20% mortality could still spread pretty effectively provided people were contagious for at least several days before becoming incapacitated.
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Many times in human history, virus and bacterial outbreaks have become effectively less virulent by wiping out most of the population who lack protective genes. See what happened when Europeans spread disease like mumps and measles into the Americas as an example.
The virus has not become less dangerous, we have evolved
 
Ponty said:
I share your concern. It’s almost inevitable there will be a variant which evades current vaccines. If it doesn’t evolve naturally it will appear anyway IMHO. What do we do, lock ourselves up in case it appears?! We’re at the point where the vulnerable and enough of the general population are vaccinated, so really have to crack on and take whatever level of personal risk one is comfortable with. When I think about it, that’s what I’m seeing people do.
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I wasn't trying to make any point about lockdown / opening up, just thinking out loud that we really don't know where we're at in the pandemic at present. The current vaccines seem incredibly effective against all variants (perhaps with the exception of SA, which doesn't seem to have spread very well), so there's a very good chance that if we can crack on with vaccinating the planet we'll put this behind us. On the other hand, given the very long duration between becoming infectious and eventual death (weeks) there is a small but concerning possibility that this could mutate in a way that causes the deaths of a really significant percentage of humans and/or forces lockdowns much more draconian than anything we've seen in the west so far. Let's hope not. I hope future historians compare this to the 1918 flu, and not to the plague of the middle ages.
 
mandryka said:
But you’ve been vaccinated! What am I missing? Why shouldn’t vaccinated people feel perfectly confident to lead a rich social life, with no social distancing?
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Because the vaccine is far from 100% effective against Delta, because if I still get infected even if I don't get as ill as I might have done before I have no idea the vaccine's effect on preventing Long Covid (and nor does anyone else yet), because even if I get infected and I'm OK I could pass it on to someone else.... and so on. The vaccine is a big help, but it is not a 100% solution.
 
tiggers said:
Because the vaccine is far from 100% effective against Delta, because if I still get infected even if I don't get as ill as I might have done before I have no idea the vaccine's effect on preventing Long Covid (and nor does anyone else yet), because even if I get infected and I'm OK I could pass it on to someone else.... and so on. The vaccine is a big help, but it is not a 100% solution.
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Very fair observations. One I’d make is there is a tendency to go really panicky when things get 1st announced. The science then catches up. The Delta variant, and waiting to confirm current vaccine efficiency against this variant is a good example - following from this weeks announcements.

In other news, my 1st of 2 full PCR tests following on from Saturdays travels on three trains, and a day at Edgbaston, has come back negative. I task the 2nd test tomorrow.
 
Nothing is risk free. Operations, medical procedures etc.

I do sometimes feel that the media on both sides of the issue doesn’t help, in some ways it’s an easy gig for them,so easy to spin out endless copy. This has led to a hyper state amongst the population who otherwise behave in contrary ways when it comes to health.

Let’s hope the new different is a state of being that we can rub along with.
 
tiggers said:
because if I still get infected even if I don't get as ill as I might have done before I have no idea the vaccine's effect on preventing Long Covid (and nor does anyone else yet),
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That’s like saying that you won’t have a rich social life because you’re scared of getting irritable bowel syndrome after a dose of gastroenteritis.


tiggers said:
Because the vaccine is far from 100% effective against Delta,.
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Not as far as I know

tiggers said:
because even if I get infected and I'm OK I could pass it on to someone else.... .
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Not sure what to say about this. It feels like an act of supererogation, but I will think about it.

tiggers said:
... and so on.
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What do you mean by that? What else?
 
I've seen these kind of figures before but this a good summary from Dr Susan Hopkins giving evidence to the HoC science committee this morning

  • The growth rate of Delta has increased by between 40% and 80%, compared to Alpha, Hopkins said.
  • Household infection rates suggest the chances of transmission within a household are 66% greater for Delta compared to Alpha, she said.
  • The secondary attack rate (the rate of spread to close contacts) for Delta is about 30 to 40% higher than it is for Alpha, she said.
  • Without any mitigating measures in place, R, the reproduction number for Delta, would be over 5, and maybe up to 7, she said. She said when coronavirus first appeared, the equivalent figure for the version then in circulation was 2.5. (This figure is also known as R0, or R naught. It is no the same as the R number published weekly, which is the estimate of the how the virus is reproducing taking into account the impact of the mitigating measures in place.)
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...08ee3a7beeaf24#block-60c9bd788f08ee3a7beeaf24

She added a comment about variants, there are currently 25 being monitored and 8 'under investigation'

"New variants, almost by definition, will be more transmissible or more vaccine-immune than the variants they are replacing."

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...08d3594f2ebdf2#block-60c9c6bd8f08d3594f2ebdf2
 
Witty stated double vaccination gave between 87 and 98 per cent protection against hospitalisation for delta. Is this enough - well I suspect a lot of people would be prepared to return to normal life if the 98 figure was correct. Of course others would still feel unsafe even then so the government has to make policy on the balance of risk.
 
jimbob75 said:
It's not a trivial decision. Vaccinating teenagers would not be for the benefit of that particular demographic.
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Who says? That might have been a valid argument 6 weeks ago but not anymore now that it's being widely deployed. Not the kids going to the new long covid hubs that's for sure. Kids have more chance of needing intensive care from covid than flu, that's a critical argument for me. Then you have the prospect of high case rates amoung teenagers and a mutant that better targets children developing, nevermind school closure and missed education. That needs to weighed against the risks, which appear to be similar to that of twenty year-olds...
 
gavreid said:
Who says? That might have been a valid argument 6 weeks ago but not anymore now that it's being widely deployed. Not the kids going to the new long covid hubs that's for sure. Kids have more chance of needing intensive care from covid than flu, that's a critical argument for me. Then you have the prospect of high case rates amoung teenagers and a mutant that better targets children developing, nevermind school closure and missed education. That needs to weighed against the risks, which appear to be similar to that of twenty year-olds...
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Certainly an argument to be had. But in my opinion not something to be undertaken without proper thought and balance against risk. To quote your link:

Prof Calum Semple, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said: “The risk of death [from Covid in children] is one in a million. That’s not a figure and plucking from the air, that’s a quantifiable risk.”

The University of Liverpool professor of child health and outbreak medicine told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We know in wave one and wave two put together there were 12 deaths in children – in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, put together – and that is rare because there are about 13 to 14 million children in the UK.
 
jimbob75 said:
Certainly an argument to be had. But in my opinion not something to be undertaken without proper thought and balance against risk. To quote your link:

Prof Calum Semple, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said: “The risk of death [from Covid in children] is one in a million. That’s not a figure and plucking from the air, that’s a quantifiable risk.”

The University of Liverpool professor of child health and outbreak medicine told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We know in wave one and wave two put together there were 12 deaths in children – in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, put together – and that is rare because there are about 13 to 14 million children in the UK.
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I understand that fully. One of the early concerns was a small number of cases of myocariditis as I posted at the time but the vaccine's been approved by the Regulator now. However, the government is experimenting with trying to develop natural herd immunity among children on the fly. Do you think they balanced the ethical implications of that and explained the strategy to parents? I'd be interested to know how many children lost parents too given that household infection is the predominant mode of further infection. Vaccination also limits serious symptoms.

Pfizer is now being rolled out across much of Europe, including France and Germany, so I want to know about what makes UK teenagers different...
 
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