Covid

[Deleted]

For broader Covid related discussion

[Danny]

Nov 23, 2021 12:56:29 GMT @tw said:

Erm, your posted graph of covid in a few european countries since June...seems to have disappeared.

The graph you post is unfortunate in that it doesnt run for a long enough time. Sage said from the start, and nothing has been said to disagree, covid will not end until enough people are immune. At the start the only way to do that was by being infected. Then drug companies claimed they could create an effective vaccine in a record time, and much of the world tried (and largely failed) to halt the disease temporarily by lockdowns and testing. Anyway, the past history and how many people have already been infected influences the current evolution of the disease. So...its no good starting the graph  in June this year.

Some little while ago now gov spokesman said more than half of youngsters had already had covid. In the summer sage said what happens next will depend how may have already had covid and therefore acquired natural immunnity. Zoe reckon natural immunity generates lower immediate antibody levels but immunity lasts longer. I think lots of people would agree it is different in nature.

Next we have the problem the graph is based upon UK government official cases numbers. We know they are under estimates.  This similarly applies to other countries, at least that their figures are not likely to be directly comparable to UK or other international case numbers. We can really only compare trends, as any nations numbers probably  indicate when its going up and down.

Looking at the graph at face value, it seems to say the Uk has had more cases for longer than its neighbours.  But the others seem to have started in on outbreaks now. Netherlands and France had cases before but it faded back, cant say why simply based upon this.

Given that the total of cases is represented by the area under the graph, and Sage still think it ends when enough are immune, examining that area says we have had a lot more cases, so europe should expect a lot more now. But as I said, this doesnt go back in time enough to determine whether others already had more in the past.

Then we have the consensus that vaccine protection from infection wears off in about 3-6 months. What happens about  risk of severe disease or death...remains to be seen.

Oh, and people should remember that most people have always been safe from covid and all naural outbreaks have been self limiting well short of seeingly infecting the great majority of the population. Which in fact probably meant they had enough immunity that despite being exposed they never got symptoms.  Even now testing in the UK would be expected to miss most cases.

[Danny]

Nov 23, 2021 16:42:33 GMT James E said:

Unvaccinated people have 14 times greater risk of Covid death (in the US)

www.newscientist.com/article/2237475-covid-19-news-unvaccinated-have-14-times-greater-risk-of-covid-death/

...or 32 times, according to this UK study

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/anti-vaxxers-covid-deaths-ons-b1949037.html

So risk of death in the UK is now 1/32 what it was at the outset - most people having been vaccinated?

Whereas some 140,000 people have died, if instead under the situation we now have that the great majority, and especially the older who were the ones dying, have now been vaccinated, then the total would have been only  about 5,000?  Which isnt worth taking any special measures for. So its all over and what the heck are we doing still having restrictions?

Methinks there's a mistake in the calculations you offer. (Hint: more people have died since being vaccinated than your number suggests is possible)

Perhaps one of the problems, confirmed by a lot of studies now, is that imunity to infection wears off over some 3-6 months after vaccination. It seems the UK government  at least also believes immunty from death and serious illness also wears off, otherwise it would not be offering a third vaccination to high risk people.   The implication of all this is the elapsed time since vaccination is rather important in stating what protection a vaccine might provide. Averaging since vaccination began wont hack it. Maybe there was a figure of 1/32 immediatley after second dose vaccination (though I havnt seen that reported either).

The independent article you quote reports ONS data which covers a period jan-sept 2021, which would certainly include the period of maximum protection for most concerned. Remember most people had a 3 month delay between first and second shot, so most people will only now be in the period 3-6 months where vaccination is expected to have worn off.  Unfortunately the ONS dont seem to have attempted to track how risk changes over time.

The react and zoe figures clearly show resistance to infection has worn off in their most recent results. Its reasonable to asume resistance to death would fall too. Unfortunately there is no certainty the timeframe or extent would be the same, because different parts of the immune system may be responsible for preventing infection or preventing it getting serious.

 

[jib]

@danny

"So its all over and what the heck are we doing still having restrictions?"

For the vaccinated, yes.
The unvaccinated can wish it is, but scientifically, it isn't it (for them)?
Free society and all that though. 🤞

Zoe figures illustrate that there's a hard core of anti vaxxers who are 32 X more likely to die, acting as a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2

[Danny]

Nov 23, 2021 23:42:59 GMT jib said:

@danny

"So its all over and what the heck are we doing still having restrictions?"

For the vaccinated, yes.
The unvaccinated can wish it is, but scientifically, it isn't it (for them)?
Free society and all that though. 🤞

Zoe figures illustrate that there's a hard core of anti vaxxers who are 32 X more likely to die, acting as a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2

Zoe figures say you are more likely to catch covid now if you have been vaccinated.  They dont say anything at all about your likelihood of dying because they dont study who has died or their status. covid-assets.joinzoe.com/latest/covid_symptom_study_vaccines_report.pdf

There has not been a change in the age distibution of deaths- most people dying are exacty the same age as always. So the young are a negligible proportion of current deaths, as they always have been. Doesnt matter if they are accinated or not. Vaccines dont stop them dying because they never were.

[Danny]

Nov 23, 2021 12:16:19 GMT James E said:

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/23/covid-patients-in-icu-now-almost-all-unvaccinated-says-oxford-scientist

Nearly all Covid ICU patients now unvacinated people.

I replied to that on the other thread when JIB posted the same link... But as you missed it I shall reproduce it here:

Good mornign JIB.

I head the news interviewing someone from AZ about their vaccine. The guy was careful not to claim it was better than pfizer, but insisted there is no evidence it is not. He argued it creates a better t cell response, so may prove better in the long term. Now I would have posted myself that there is the possibility AZ turns out to be the better vaccine. Which would be par for the course for this government, each time it makes a choice. But its another situation in which lots of claims are being made when the reality is no conclusive evidence has been produced. The AZ man in fact said it may be the reason the UK is currently doing better is exactly because we mostly used their vaccine. Or maybe it isnt.

The guardian article makes two different claims at different points. The headline is 'Covid patients in ICU now amost all unvaccinated'. Later it quotes prof pollard as saying "ongoing horror of patients gasping for breath is largely restricted to people who are unvaccinated.' Which if it is the source for the headline, really isnt the same. Last I heard elsewhere was that the age profile of patients in hospital is essentially unchanged by the vaccination program. I remember some member of staff interviewed a while back, who said covid patients are typically fat old men. I think I heard maybe the proportion of women has increased?

The Prof also said "most of those who are fully vaccinated will experience only “mild infections” that are “little more than an unpleasant inconvenience”." Which has always been true of 'most' of the population, and in particular the younger half ...from the start. So it isnt actually a very impressive claim now the large majority of that whole population has been vaccinated. A number of experts have demanded to know why the Uk continues to vaccinate its younger people when there are still nations which have not received enough vaccine to treat their high risk. Another said the continuing program of vaccinating the young doesnt realy make much difference, especially since most have by now been infected anyway, and triple vaccinating the high risk is much more immportant.

I remind you of the Zoe finding that currently vaccinated people are getting more cases per capita than double vaccinted. And the React finding that vaccinated are slightly less likely to catch covid, but not much. Both these results show a falling differential, whch started with vaccinated people strongly less likely to catch covid. React suggest their finding may not be significant because the sample of unvaccinated is too small at around 1% of their random sample. And it may no longer be demograpically similar to those vaccinated. Unfortunately, claims for any vaccine effectiveness were based upon comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. So react are claiming this comparison ceased to be a valid one at some point...which could have been quite some time ago.

If unvaccinated are only 1% of the total as they have found, then if vaccine has succeeded in reducing serious cases to 1/10, we should now only have 1/10 the hospitalisations we had last year. Doesnt seem to be working out that way. Unless...vaccination has actually increased the likelihood of being infected. Which IS possible, because the official view is vaccination causes mild cases, and mild cases do not create a lasting immune response. So post vaccination you could easily fall into a cycle of repeat infections. The evidence desnt support the claim everyone being vaccinated will help eradicate covid or indeed reduce the chance of it reaching remaining high risk individuals. For a very long time we have only been vaccinating succesively younger people to create herd immunity, and it isnt going to happen.

No one seems to have discussed the proportion of unvaccinated people who are so because of medical problems being vaccinated. React argue the remaining unvaccinated are for some reason inherently less likely to catch covid, but it is similarly possible they have this backwards and they are more likely to become seriously ill. All this is part of the problem that the vaccinations program has been in no way akin to a carefully organised trial with control groups.

React invite people to particpate by random selection from medical registers. However on their numbers they have too few unvaccinated people - so unvaccinated are disproportionatley refusing to take part. As far as it goes, it confirms those they do have may not be representative, but it begs the question what sort of people refuse to take part at all, vaccinated or not and how this biases their study. (zoe in contast would seem to have too many unvaccinated respondents)

It is looking clear the indian strain outbreak has more cases than did the kent strain, perhaps double. This also may be evidence vaccination causes more repeat infections.

[leftieliberal]

Germany's problems with anti-vaxxers and politicians unwilling to take action:

www.spiegel.de/international/coronavirus-in-deutschland-wenn-impfverweigerer-auf-ein-land-ohne-politische-fuehrung-treffen-1636729575-a-1495255a-25af-4b8e-9727-4ea7f26db55f

[Danny]

Nov 24, 2021 14:10:19 GMT leftieliberal said:

Germany's problems with anti-vaxxers and politicians unwilling to take action:

www.spiegel.de/international/coronavirus-in-deutschland-wenn-impfverweigerer-auf-ein-land-ohne-politische-fuehrung-treffen-1636729575-a-1495255a-25af-4b8e-9727-4ea7f26db55f

The fundamental problem is the vaccines do not work very well.

The Uk tried using one vaccine with a second delayed three months, and its likely that was the correct strategy. because all the evidence so far is that a vaccine wears off after around 3 months.  The manufacturers hoped that a double dose a month apart would give long lasting protection, but it doesnt. So delaying the second 3 months created 3 months longer period of protection.

The question of protection against severe disease and against mild infection are being muddled here. In part because if the majority of the nation has a mild infection but a small minority are getting severe infections - then the people with safe infections become a route for infecting people with compromised immunity. But the situation now  isnt so very much changed from spring 2020, because that is exacty what happened then. The problem is the wider safe outbreak in the general population allows spread to  high risk people who because of their lifestyles are otherwise significantly isolated from general contact.  The main safe chunk of the population maintains the illness ready to jump to the high risk. Its true that if you can get rid of this main chunk, or shrink it substantially, then it will slow sread to the high risk. It is being argued this can be done by vaccination, but it was always possible to have done it last year by these safe people catching covid.  Evidence from Zoe is post infection immunity lasts longer than post vaccine.

The model I see is group A which is the great majority of the population, which is safe from severe disease. Then we have group B which always was isoated to a large extent which protects it from illness even though it is vulnerable.  There is a steady trickle from Group A infecting group B. Group A members infect others in A, but group B dont infect others in B (the obvious exception is people in communcal living in B like care homes or hospitals).  The rate of infection of B depends on the number infected in A, plus the time they remain infected.  Both these things cuold have been reduced fast last year by allowing wide spread of covid amongst group A. Thats what Sweden did and it came in at half our death rate.

The problem is both that we could have done this a year ago and therefore saved many lives. Likely avoided the indian wave this year altogether. That seems to be what's happening now in Sweden. And that infection is likely to create better targeted immunity than vaccine. Vaccines are designed to create high antibody response, which doesnt prevent spread of covid (for mechanistic reasons, because there is limited opportunity for blood antibody to intercept infecting virus), and while antibody ought to be able to prevent severe illness which would be transmitting through body fluids, the people dying have always been those with impaired immune systems - so they have always been the group least likely to benefit form a vaccine.

There is as yet no evidence three dose, or four or five will create significantly better longer term protection than one. The problem is they wear off, with a subsidiary problem that blood born antibody is not an adequate defence against airborn infections of the lungs. vaccines do not create killer t cell response, which is what our body needs to do to eradicate already infected cells.  Our imune system does that by experiencing infected cells. The idea of vaccines is to create a response without infecting, and therefore killing, our own body cells.  There is a fundamental flaw in any scheme which relies upon antibodies in blood to protect against any pathogen which doesnt travel through the blood.

The booster program is essentially just can kicking for an extra three months.

[lens]

Nov 25, 2021 7:45:42 GMT Danny said:

Nov 24, 2021 14:10:19 GMT leftieliberal said:

The fundamental problem is the vaccines do not work very well.

? I can only say it depends on your definition of "very well"!

They may not absolutely stop anyone getting Covid, and we may need an ongoing programme of booster refreshers for some time to come, but what they do seem to have done is greatly lessened the severity of the illness in people who still catch it, and make them less likely to pass it on.

Our personal experience is that my wife finally caught Covid about a month ago. Frankly the experience for us was rather an anti-climax - for her it took the form of an average cold and was fully recovered apart from sense of smell after a few days. Most surprising was that nobody else in the household caught it. But I will be the first to admit that it may have been a different story if we hadn't all been fully vaccinated - friends who caught it in the pre vaccine period last year typically tell stories of being "very unwell", and in some cases hardly able to get out of bed for a week or two.

Regarding "other measures", then I remain sceptical of most with the exception of full lockdowns. It's interesting how little is now heard about the "app", and I take that as tacit admission that it's effectiveness has always been slight, though I doubt such will ever be officially admitted. It's ironic it took the "pingdemic" to get the powers that be to at least partially admit it, when it became obvious that it was overall doing more harm than good. Test and trace? My own experiences are that on the occasions I was contacted I never went on to develop any symptoms, and anyway the time delay was such that if I had been infected I'd probably have passed it on before being told to isolate.

Also interesting is that in July, when most restrictions were lifted, Scotland and Wales retained what are now referred to as "Plan B" measures - vaccine passports, compulsory mask wearing in shops etc. We've now got a few months of figures, and (I suspect to the embarrassment of Sturgeon and Drakeford) case rates there have actually been HIGHER than England. Which may explain why we haven't yet seen Plan B yet in England. It's privately realised it won't make much difference, and is more useful psychologically as "something up our sleeve short of full lockdown".

So lockdown. They do seem to work. But at a huge cost, both economically and personally.  They really aren't something which can be tolerated indefinitely, and they can be argued to not be a full cure as such, but more a means of delay. That means they have validity to put a break of cases when the health service is in danger of being overwhelmed, or even last year whilst the wait was for the vaccine, but now? Events in Europe have shown a public less willing to tolerate such, and it would be a brave politician who cancelled Christmas this year!

So to come back to vaccinations, I believe they do work well enough that now the only realistic route forward is to return as much to normal as possible and just accept Covid is now with us for the long term - but (in vaccinated people) no big a health problem than colds and flu have been in the past. For the unvaccinated...... I'm afraid there is a limit to how much some people can be protected from their own stupidity.

[Mercian as guest]

I expect it will be a few weeks before we have much idea how dangerous the new Omicron variant is. Apparently it's more transmissible and (as a non-scientist) I would expect that to be accompanied by a reduction in deadliness. This is because these things tend to evolve that way - e.g. common cold, and flu. If it is both more transmissible and more deadly then we're looking at something more akin to the Black Death and we're all banjaxed anyway. There doesn't seem to be any talk of that yet.
One concern is that even if this version just seems to be like a bad cold, governments might be reluctant to relinquish the social controls they have instituted during the pandemic.

[neilj]

Johnson announced masks to be mandatory on public transport and shops

Also anyone arriving in the UK will be asked to take a PCR test for Covid-19 on the second day and they must self-isolate until they provide a negative result.

[jib]

I've written in the main forum that this is a sensible move, even if only precautionary.

The new variant might turn out to be less deadly, but the Delta variant is rife in any case.

Hopefully it will spur the last of the vaccination deniers to review their own risk.

On a Wales level, I would not be surprised to see further restrictions here.

[Deleted]

Repost for UKPR2. FT have a tracker for 'excess deaths' which Whitty et al have said is the 'better' measure for those who continue to indulge in league tables and cherry picking:

half-way-ish down in: www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938

using that measure reranks a number of countries compared to the simples C19 deaths that use 'apple v pears' measures for C19 deaths[1] (eg Portugal and Spain look worse, Belgium and Netherlands look better)

[1] Such as www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#main_table

[lululemonmustdobetter]

If the government was really serious about stopping the spread of Omicron they would at least close the primary schools earlier. Speaking as someone who had to pick up the burden of home schooling two children during the lockdowns I know how much of an inconvenience it would cause, but I also really want to have Christmas where we can get together as a family. I've lost count of the times prior to Covid one of my children bought back with a bad cold/flu right at the end of term. Given that the last week of term at primary schools seems to involve making xmas decorations, nativity play activities and watching films I know their education wont be damaged. Government's reason for keeping them open is purely economic. Secondary Schools are different - given that over 12's are eligible for the vaccine etc and they do tend to continue academic work till the end of term the balance may be on keeping them open.

[Danny]

Nov 27, 2021 10:10:24 GMT lens said:

It's interesting how little is now heard about the "app", and I take that as tacit admission that it's effectiveness has always been slight, though I doubt such will ever be officially admitted. It's ironic it took the "pingdemic" to get the powers that be to at least partially admit it, when it became obvious that it was overall doing more harm than good. Test and trace? My own experiences are that on the occasions I was contacted I never went on to develop any symptoms, and anyway the time delay was such that if I had been infected I'd probably have passed it on before being told to isolate.

There is still a problem in schools with mass sending homes of kids because of positive results. Whch are relatively common because of mass testing within schools. Again, the net result of this is most likely simply to prolong the outbreak by slowing down achieving immunity. Screening in schools as had the effect of making us  more at risk from the new strain.

Also interesting is that in July, when most restrictions were lifted, Scotland and Wales retained what are now referred to as "Plan B" measures - vaccine passports, compulsory mask wearing in shops etc. We've now got a few months of figures, and (I suspect to the embarrassment of Sturgeon and Drakeford) case rates there have actually been HIGHER than England. Which may explain why we haven't yet seen Plan B yet in England. It's privately realised it won't make much difference, and is more useful psychologically as "something up our sleeve short of full lockdown".

if you stop cases happening you arent preventing cases but only delaying them. The evidence from the vaccination program so far is really that protection from infection wears off in a few months. Might as well just catch it. You use restrictions to reduce cases but this will only lead to it springing back any time you relax those restrictions. They become permanent until you accept the transition period of illness. And choosing not to do this in summer was barking mad.

So to come back to vaccinations, I believe they do work well enough that now the only realistic route forward is to return as much to normal as possible and just accept Covid is now with us for the long term - but (in vaccinated people) no big a health problem than colds and flu have been in the past. For the unvaccinated...... I'm afraid there is a limit to how much some people can be protected from their own stupidity.

A brave politician who says people are too stupid to make their own decisions about risks. I am certain I have not benefitted from 2 years of lockdown having had covid in 2019. Its just about the second anniversary right now. So for me this has all been completely pointless. If I catch it again then its likely to be milder than first time around. This applies to anyone under 50 pretty much. Although a more sophisticated way to assess risk should now be possible based upon personal fitness where some younger people will be high risk, and some older can be given an all clear.


But by now a  large proportion of the Uk population has had covid. a significant number have had it repeatedly. reductions in mortality seen now are only partly due to vaccination, and they arent that brilliant anyway. Deaths are running around 1/2 to 1/10 what they were. There is also the problem that the most susceptible probably died first, before vaccinations were available. Mortality was already falling in the end of 2020.

[jib]

@danny

"If I catch it again then its likely to be milder than first time around."

But I thought you told everyone that your Roche test indicated you hadn't caught it?

Or have you caught it recently?

[leftieliberal]

New study says those who experience severe covid symptoms are twice as likely to die over the following year than those who have mild symptoms or are uninfected.

www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.778434/full

This just illustrates the importance of using excess death figures as a measure of covid deaths.

[Danny]

Nov 30, 2021 22:08:35 GMT jib said:

@danny
"If I catch it again then its likely to be milder than first time around."

But I thought you told everyone that your Roche test indicated you hadn't caught it?

I didnt say that. I recal posting that the result of my test was consistent with someone who had covid late 2019.   The evidence from both wider research and people posting on UKPR has been that neither vaccination or infection stop you catching it again. But the chances are it will be milder.

You might also recall that my reason for believing I have had covid was from being ill with a flu type disease with the correct unique symptoms and age risk profile for covid, which started with someone coming back from wuhan and imediately falling ill. Then the whole urban area of Hastings, Bexhill and surrounding catchment area had the second lowest rate of covid in the UK from the start of counting up to November 2020. The lowest was Torridge in Devon, and we are talking two orders of magnitude lower than typical. More like the outcome for Japan or China). Hardly any deaths for the whole of the official first wave.  This is pretty good evidence the area had already recovered from its own covid epidemic before counting or testing began.

Not only does that suggest I was one of the very first people in the country to have covid, but without intervention or testing  it went unnoticed. It died out by itself at a lower level than the Uk achieved with interventions. The subsequent lockdown locally did no good whatsoever up to the arrival of the kent strain, which affected hastings as much as anywhere else. But it isnt clear lockdown then did any good in reducing the severity of the kent strain outbreak either. At that time I was busy posting examples of places which caught covid first in the resurgent epidemic after the summer, where it was clear it was already dying down naturally before restrictions were introduced. just as it had done in Hastings.

Not only did i have covid but the whole epidemic was managed as well or better by carrying on as usual as per flu. Thats a damning indictment of intervention.

[Danny]

Dec 1, 2021 10:56:32 GMT leftieliberal said:

New study says those who experience severe covid symptoms are twice as likely to die over the following year than those who have mild symptoms or are uninfected.

www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.778434/full

This just illustrates the importance of using excess death figures as a measure of covid deaths.

Um. Maybe it indicates that people who are likely to die within a year are much more likely to have a severe case of covid? because they were already ill with what finally killed them?

Need to be careful about the direction of causality!

Thats a very odd study you know. The sample group is 13,638 patients of a hospital (hint:they were already ill) of whom 2,686 people died within one year. However 13,214 of them tested negative for covid, with just 178 severe covid and 246 mild or moderate.  So that has to be at least 2,000 people from a sample group of 13,000 who did not have covid who died within the year. Thats an enormous mortality implying once again the group as a whole was pretty sick and not representative of the wider community at all.

This is a study of people who did not die from covid, about what happened within a year of a hospital admission. If we look at different studies of people who did die from covid, then it has been demonstrated there are plenty of comorbidities. If you have other things wrong with you, inluding simply being over weght, then your chance of dying from covid increases.  I think its a reasonable assumption that such pre existing conditions make covid worse than it would otherwise have been however badly you do get it.

Now this study looked at people with covid and compares them to a group who didnt test positve. So what we have is an appplication of the fact that infection by covid is an indicator for underlying disease, which indeed showed up in the higher deaths total of those with this marker.

The defintion of 'severe' covid was a combination of testing positive and of being admtted to hospital FOR ANY REASON. The definition of mild covid was testing positive while being an ambulatory or day appointment patient for anything. So..people admitted to hospital were more likely to die in the folowing year than people who werent? Surprise?

[leftieliberal]

A useful popular science article on the distinction between eradication and elimination of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and why the best we can (probably) hope for is elimination. www.quantamagazine.org/will-we-ever-eradicate-covid-19-20211130/

Even elimination has some quite severe consequences in terms of restrictions on international travel as it implies that there will be parts of the world where the virus is still circulating after it has been suppressed elsewhere; even New Zealand with a combination of favourable factors has not been able to maintain a zero-Covid state.

[bantams]

@ Danny

The whole idea for vaccinations in the first place was to reduce deaths in the vulnerable in our society plus prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed.

It's not perfect but it's mostly working for those who choose to be jabbed. Have you been?

Based on hospital admissions there's a clear distinction numerically between those who have been jabbed and those who haven't. Those of us who have are likely to only get mild symptoms if infected again though we are just as likely as unvaccinated people to infect you if you're unvaccinated and you're much more likely to be hospitalised or worse.

[Danny]

Dec 1, 2021 16:00:07 GMT bantams said:

@ Danny

The whole idea for vaccinations in the first place was to reduce deaths in the vulnerable in our society plus prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed.

We completed vaccinating the high risk in the spring? Those producing the great majority of hospital admissions. So thats done and over then...?

It's not perfect but it's mostly working for those who choose to be jabbed. Have you been?

I answered htat before. No. No point. Worse, I think attempting to suppress spread is frankly counter productive. Its the exact opposite of what we need to do, get as much infection as possible to grow immunity. Re vaccinating with the self same vaccine isnt improving broad defence against covid.  The Zoe stats even suggest 3-6 months after vaccination, vaccinated people get more covid than the remaining unvaccinated groups. covid-assets.joinzoe.com/latest/covid_symptom_study_vaccines_report.pdf

Based on hospital admissions there's a clear distinction numerically between those who have been jabbed and those who haven't.

Based on population surveys of proportion getting covid infections, there isnt after about 3 months.

Those of us who have are likely to only get mild symptoms if infected again though we are just as likely as unvaccinated people to infect you if you're unvaccinated and you're much more likely to be hospitalised or worse.

This only ends after the general population becomes sufficiently immune to ignore covid infections and accept them regularly. You act as if 100 years of covid restrictions is acceptable. It isnt. We should have sought to normalise infection by the virus in 2020.

[bantams]

"We completed vaccinating the high risk in the spring? Those producing the great majority of hospital admissions. So thats done and over then...?"

Approx 90% of those in hospital now with Covid didn't bother to get jabbed. If they had bothered to get jabbed only about 60 would be in hospital now instead of about 6300. Approx 6 million haven't even had one jab, that's a lot of pressure on the NHS should the new variant take hold here.

[bantams]

"I answered htat before. No. No point. Worse, I think attempting to suppress spread is frankly counter productive. Its the exact opposite of what we need to do, get as much infection as possible to grow immunity."

No! You're crazy IMO not to get jabbed. And the NHS will thank you for overwhelming them with patients, they couldn't possibly cope with the numbers of seriously ill that would occur with a non vaccination policy!

As for immunity new workaround variants are coming along all the time so people will keep getting reinfected if we follow your strategy. Is it time to consider compulsory vaccination.

[Danny]

Dec 2, 2021 11:43:11 GMT bantams said:

Approx 90% of those in hospital now with Covid didn't bother to get jabbed. If they had bothered to get jabbed only about 60 would be in hospital now instead of about 6300. Approx 6 million haven't even had one jab, that's a lot of pressure on the NHS should the new variant take hold here.

I think you should accuse them rather less. There are quite a lot of people who have not been vaccinated for legitimate medical reasons. Many more than covid patients in hospital.

The difficulty I have in this is various people have cited statistics about people ending up in hospital which argue this is more likely if you are not vaccinated.

However, the Zoe and react population studies have both shown unvaccinated people currently to be no more likely to catch covid than vaccinated ones, and indeed Zoe are showing them less likely to cach covid if unvaccinated. (its entirely possible that those choosing to not be vaccinated include a disproportionate numer of survivalist isolationists who have no contact with others anyway, or like myself are people who have already had covid so are immune anyway). React argued their random sample of unvaccinated people which are at much the same risk as vaccinated ones  differs from the vaccinated sample demographically. But that doesnt invalidate the conclusion the  general population group of unvaccinated people has no more disease than the vaccinated, and might also be expeced to generate as few cases of severe disease.

Initially these two seem to be in conflct, but actually they are not comparing the same population groups. The national studies are looking at the whole population, and in particular both probaby dont get respondents in hospital. Whereas the hospital data is by definition then, people not in the other study groups.

So taking these results as both valid, what we see is that the majority of unvaccinated people are at no greater risk than the vaccinated. However a subset of that population is at significantly more risk, and is ending up in hospital.

Which brings me back to my opening statement where I suggested you dont blame people who are already sick for not being vaccinated because they are already sick, and then ending up as hospital covid cases.

It is likely that anyone who has a severe case of covid was also already a much more unhealthy person than the average citizen. That seems to be what these stats are teling us. We have known that fact for 18 months. It implies we ony need to vaccinate people at high risk, the rest willl do just as well without.

[Danny]

Dec 2, 2021 11:49:58 GMT bantams said:

No! You're crazy IMO not to get jabbed. And the NHS will thank you for overwhelming them with patients, they couldn't possibly cope with the numbers of seriously ill that would occur with a non vaccination policy!

My best prediction is that if everyone currently unvaccinated who has no medical comorbidities for covid is vaccinated - it will make no difference to hospital admissions. WHO agree with this. They are telling governments to stop wasting vaccine on young (under 50) or already double vaccinated people.

[jib]

@danny

"So taking these results as both valid, what we see is that the majority of unvaccinated people are at no greater risk than the vaccinated. However a subset of that population is at significantly more risk, and is ending up in hospital."

That is patently ridiculous.

You are arguing that passengers in a sinking ship whom are wearing lifejackets are just as likely to end up in the water than those not.

I'd suggest I'd rather have the lifejacket of a COVID vaccination than chance my arm at swimming to safety unaided. Each to their own old boy.

[Danny]

Dec 3, 2021 23:29:27 GMT jib said:

@danny

"So taking these results as both valid, what we see is that the majority of unvaccinated people are at no greater risk than the vaccinated. However a subset of that population is at significantly more risk, and is ending up in hospital."

That is patently ridiculous.

You are arguing that passengers in a sinking ship whom are wearing lifejackets are just as likely to end up in the water than those not.

I'd suggest I'd rather have the lifejacket of a COVID vaccination than chance my arm at swimming to safety unaided. Each to their own old boy.

No. You can of course do what you want and I have no idea if you have had covid. If you have then you really are not at risk now and need nothing else.

If you are under 50 and havnt had covid then your statistical risk is negligible too, and always has been.

If you have been vacinated it won't stop you catching covid or catching it again, and the head of pfizer reckoned vaccination 3 will wear off after 3 months too (against infection, seems more lasting against death). So it isn't going to eradicate covid no matter how much we vaccinate.

As to the titanic, the situation now is more like anyone with a vaccination has been handed a lifeboat ticket, but anyone with a past infection has been given their personal 21st century self inflating life raft, and the rest have been issued with modern wetsuits and life jackets. There remains a problem only for those allergic to rubber.

If you want to extend the nautical analogy, titanic isn't really appropriate. Covid is more like the recent passenger liner which capsized within sight of land in warm waters.

[Deleted]

As well as vaccines then MHRA (UK) and some other countries have approved various drugs to reduce risk of hospitalisation and death in individuals who catch Covid:

Lagevrio (molnupiravir): www.gov.uk/government/news/first-oral-antiviral-for-covid-19-lagevrio-molnupiravir-approved-by-mhra
Xevudy (sotrovimab): www.gov.uk/government/news/mhra-approves-xevudy-sotrovimab-a-covid-19-treatment-found-to-cut-hospitalisation-and-death-by-79
Ronapreve: www.gov.uk/government/news/first-monoclonal-antibody-treatment-for-covid-19-approved-for-use-in-the-uk

The monoclonal antibody types of drug work by binding to the spike protein on the outside of the COVID-19 virus so might not be as effective on new variants but drug companies will be working very hard to 'tweak' their drugs to ensure they are as effective as possible - governments paying big $$ for 'Pharma Interventions' in the hope to avoid the socio-economic cost of lockdown ('Non Pharma Interventions', NPIs)

I'm certainly not claiming any expertise or going to predict what happens in the coming weeks and months but hopefully rapid roll out of boosters and use of some of these recently approved drugs will means UK (England specifically as that is my polity and the devolved govts have their own devolved powers) avoids a return to lockdown. 

[leftieliberal]

"The monoclonal antibody types of drug work by binding to the spike protein on the outside of the COVID-19 virus"

An antibody is a 'Y'-shaped molecule and the binding site is between the 'arms' of the Y. What will be important is whether the part of the spike protein that the antibody binds to have changed or not. While we know that omicron has a number of mutations in its spike protein we don't yet know how these affect the monoclonal antibodies. It may be that one is rendered ineffective, while the others remain effective. We have a degree of reassurance in that all the vaccines (which induce the body to create its own antibodies) are based on the original Wuhan strain yet seem to be effective against the variants before omicron.