Coronavirus: General discussion (see opening post for rules)

[Ditto]

I hear that 3 million people have had an extremely negative impact on their health, by dying. Plus another 10 million at least with long lasting effects of being infected.

 

Not many people need to be moving countries, or counties. How did a variant spread so far so fast? It started in 1 person and ended up all over the world, after we knew what was going on.

Just a reminder that I'm not advocating unnecessary movement, but it remains unrealistic that restricting movement as you propose will be the singular solution to this or any other pandemic.

[Ditto]

People might not need to move, but goods do. And I'd guess at least some of the international transmission is trade related.

 

Exactly, in fact just consider the distribution of the vaccines. I doubt every country (or county) could produce and distribute it's own vaccines.

[Ditto]

The situation in Chile is of concern https://inews.co.uk/opinion/chile-covid-cases-vaccinations-record-surge-949038. However, with the news recently around the Sinovac vaccine efficacy, the true picture as to why they are having a third wave will take time to understand - is it due to variants, vaccine efficacy or unlocking too much too soon? Probably a mixture of all three.

[6Foot2]

I have just heard from a former colleague that a senior member of staff returned to work today after a near-fatal encounter with coronavirus.

 

Although he is back at work, he has forgotten lots (how to logon etc) He is tired, looks drawn and is aged terribly.

 

Such a shame: He's one of the good guys. It sounds like his return to work will be short.

Edited April 12, 2021 by 6Foot2
Revised some words.

[mavhc]

3 million deaths in and still so many people not taking it seriously.

 

So many candles will go out tonight. I wonder some days if we can see anything at all

[6Foot2]

Link: ‘Like VE Day’: Pubs across country packed as drinkers celebrate taste of freedom [Metro.co.uk]

 

 

London’s Soho was booming with customers as bars set-up outdoor seating areas in the street.

 

A video shows punters in the central London area spontaneously clapping and cheering as they made the most of their new freedoms.

 

Others could be seen raising a glass and dancing on the street.

 

People took to Twitter to praise the ‘carnival atmosphere’ with one proud Londoner tweeting: ‘Soho becomes electric. It’s evenings like this that London lives for’.

 

Journalist Matthew Thompson said: ‘Hard to believe this is central London on a Monday night as opposed to some decadent festival. Spontaneous cheering. People quite literally dancing in the streets- the liberation is palpable.’...

 

Perhaps the countdown to the next wave has already begun...

[E_G_R2]

With my 'old fart' had firmly screwed on and not taking into account that the sample is so small but why is it the young and un-vaccinated celebrating?

 

Maybe its a government plan along the lines of chicken pox parties to speed up the heard immunity

[6Foot2]

Link: NHS website crashes as over-45s told they can book Covid vaccine [The Argus]

 

THE NHS website crashed as people over the age of 45 were told they can book their first Covid jab in England.

 

Users attempting to book their vaccine were shown an error message with the site experiencing “technical difficulties”.

 

A message on the website read: "The NHS website is currently experiencing technical difficulties.

 

"We are working to resolve these issues. Thank you for your patience."

 

On social media, other users reported a message that said: "You are in a queue. Lots of people trying to book an appointment."

 

The technical glitch occurred just moments after people over the age of 45 were told they can start booking their vaccine appointments.

 

All adults in the UK aged over 50 have now been offered a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, paving the way for the next phase of the rollout...

[Ditto]

Link: ‘Like VE Day’: Pubs across country packed as drinkers celebrate taste of freedom [Metro.co.uk]

Perhaps the countdown to the next wave has already begun...

I counted 1 mask in that picture, being worn in a way that renders it totally ineffective.

[6Foot2]

Link: NHS Covid-19 app update blocked for breaking Apple and Google's rules [bBC News]

 

An update to England and Wales's contact tracing app has been blocked for breaking the terms of an agreement made with Apple and Google.

 

The plan had been to ask users to upload logs of venue check-ins - carried out via poster barcode scans - if they tested positive for the virus. This could be used to warn others.

 

The update had been timed to coincide with the relaxation of lockdown rules.

 

But the two firms had explicitly banned such a function from the start.

 

Under the terms that all health authorities signed up to in order to use Apple and Google's privacy-centric contact-tracing tech, they had to agree not to collect any location data via the software.

 

As a result, Apple and Google refused to make the update available for download from their app stores last week, and have instead kept the old version live.

 

When questioned, the Department of Health declined to discuss how this misstep had occurred.

 

Scotland has avoided this pitfall because it released a separate product - Check In Scotland - to share venue histories, rather than trying to build the functionality into its Protect Scotland contact-tracing app...

[LeMarchand]

Noticed that the staffroom sink is full of stuff that VIPs (Very Important Pedagogues) have left for someone else to do. Surely, in a pandemic, they should be doing their own washing up to limit potential spread*?

 

*Yes, they should be doing this anyway.

[Slarty66]

With my 'old fart' had firmly screwed on and not taking into account that the sample is so small but why is it the young and un-vaccinated celebrating?

 

Maybe its a government plan along the lines of chicken pox parties to speed up the heard immunity

While my wife was seeing a specialist at hospital yesterday the conversation turned to covid and they had experience of treating patients with the virus.

They said that we are at the position due to vaccines rollout to the most vulnerable that herd immunity can now be an option.

Especially with younger people. As they said its a balancing act but we could face another lockdown if infection rates rise sharply.

[paulkerton]

They said that we are at the position due to vaccines rollout to the most vulnerable that herd immunity can now be an option.

Especially with younger people. As they said its a balancing act but we could face another lockdown if infection rates rise sharply.

 

Herd immunity through infection should never be an option, but with who we currently have running things, certainly will be.

[E_G_R2]

While my wife was seeing a specialist at hospital yesterday the conversation turned to covid and they had experience of treating patients with the virus.

They said that we are at the position due to vaccines rollout to the most vulnerable that herd immunity can now be an option.

Especially with younger people. As they said its a balancing act but we could face another lockdown if infection rates rise sharply.

 

Israel are apparently almost there - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56722186

 

I'd guess that a circuit break (like the scientist wanted last year and Boris ignored) is more possible.

[Ditto]

Israel are apparently almost there - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56722186

 

I'd guess that a circuit break (like the scientist wanted last year and Boris ignored) is more possible.

I agree herd immunity via infection would be unwise - it will cost the lives of many more people, and those will include many more younger people who would otherwise have had a much greater amount of life to live without C-19. Besides, immunity through infection is not fully understood, but what is known is getting it doesn't mean you don't get it again, even ignoring variants. Bring variants in to the picture, and it makes even less sense. Vaccines are the strongest defence we have, and hopefully will be developed to defend against variants. Even then, it's not 100%. I expect they're will come a point where living life 'normally' will be traded with a certain infection and death rate (as we have currently with the common flu), but we are not at that point yet.

[elsiegee40]

The problem, as I understand it, is that we (will) have immunity as a population against certain strains of the virus but not against new variants which could still end up hospitalising or killing huge numbers of people.

 

So while we should be fine in our UK bubble, the problem is allowing people to come into the country from countries that are not in the same state that we are. That includes returning holidaymakers.

 

It only takes one person to bring back $nasty-variant from their week in the Algarve and we are back at square one.

Edited April 14, 2021 by elsiegee40

[TwistedHelixis]

Sorry, I havent read through the hundreds of pages on this post.

 

One of the issues I can see coming up is the issue that vaccinated people seem to be more lickely to get the 'worse' veriants than people that have actually had Covid, I think the latest research put it at 8 times less lickely to get the African verient than vaccinated people. This means that vacinated people are possibly more lickely to spread the worse veriants than people natually infected / immune.

[jmak]

I've mentioned it before - I know people who've had it twice. Not anecdotal - one's a doctor and the other is their partner and the tests were verified by a national lab as it was considered unusual at the time. Their second dose was milder, but after 6 months having been a keen runner, they're now only building up to longer walks and their senses of smell and taste are broken (they now can smell some things, but alcohol smells rancid and sweet things taste salty).

 

There also seems to be a big problem in some provinces of Brazil, whereby the second infection seems to be a different variant and causing serious illness.

 

At the minute, our death and hospitalisation rates are low, but half the population is unprotected. That gives a massive reservoir of potential infection for variants to develop against which the protection provided by the existing vaccinations is unknown. And that doesn't even include the important point that Elsie made about importing variants.

 

I have to admit that from feeling very hopeful when my OH got their vaccine on 1st January, I'm heading towards pessimism at the minute. I'm really missing friends and concerts and theatres and travelling and I'm not convinced it's getting much closer.

[enbiggen]

The problem, as I understand it, is that we (will) have immunity as a population against certain strains of the virus but not against new variants which could still end up hospitalising or killing huge numbers of people. So while we should be fine in our UK bubble, the problem is allowing people to come into the country from countries that are not in the same state that we are. That includes returning holidaymakers. It only takes one person to bring back $nasty-variant from their week in the Algarve and we are back at square one.

Variants arise naturally, and similar variants can arise in multiple locations - there's nothing to stop a variant starting here. Which is why vaccination is the only route to get effective immunity, as natural immunity means spreading the disease increasing the risk that a variant of concern will spontaneously arise.

[enbiggen]

Sorry, I havent read through the hundreds of pages on this post.

One of the issues I can see coming up is the issue that vaccinated people seem to be more lickely to get the 'worse' veriants than people that have actually had Covid, I think the latest research put it at 8 times less lickely to get the African verient than vaccinated people. This means that vacinated people are possibly more lickely to spread the worse veriants than people natually infected / immune.

 

This seems logically unlikely, and it's not something that I've read, so I would need to see the source. (Editted: I suppose it could be that they don't have as wide an immunity?)

Edited April 14, 2021 by enbiggen

[jmak]

Further to previous post, even Boris is pushing that message:

 

Easing lockdown will inevitably create a rise in coronavirus deaths, Boris Johnson has said, crediting the lockdown rather than vaccines for “the bulk of the work” in reducing recent infection rates.

 

He said: “But it is very, very important that, if we are to get there in the way that we all want, people continue to be cautious and they continue to exercise restraint and just do the basic things to stop the spread of the virus – washing your hands, giving people plenty of space, doing things in fresh air.”[/Quote]

[elsiegee40]

Variants arise naturally, and similar variants can arise in multiple locations - there's nothing to stop a variant starting here. Which is why vaccination is the only route to get effective immunity, as natural immunity means spreading the disease increasing the risk that a variant of concern will spontaneously arise.

 

Yes, variants can arise naturally but the likelihood of them emerging is much reduced if there are few cases of the disease due to immunisation.

 

Emergence of a new variant requires transmission for it to happen.

 

This is why the risk is greater if we go somewhere where the virus is not under control.

[Ditto]

Sorry, I havent read through the hundreds of pages on this post.

 

One of the issues I can see coming up is the issue that vaccinated people seem to be more lickely to get the 'worse' veriants than people that have actually had Covid, I think the latest research put it at 8 times less lickely to get the African variant than vaccinated people. This means that vacinated people are possibly more lickely to spread the worse veriants than people natually infected / immune.

This isn't something I've heard before - the 8 times more likely scenario - is that compared to those who have had an earlier variant or no infection at all. In terms of 'worse', is that a case of a higher mortality rate. The UK variant was report by the BMJ as increasing deaths from 2.5 to 4.1 per 1000 detected cases. I've not tracked figures for other variants, but increases in death are significant. On vaccines, generally reports show efficacy is reduced for soma variants, but nothing so far to say completely ineffective. The following article from the British Heart Foundation pulls a lot of detail together in a convenient way.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/coronavirus-and-your-health/covid-variant

 

All-in-all, what is clear is it is a global pandemic and needs a global solution, which is why WHO are making strong comments about vaccine distribution.

[localzuk]

Sorry, I havent read through the hundreds of pages on this post.

 

One of the issues I can see coming up is the issue that vaccinated people seem to be more lickely to get the 'worse' veriants than people that have actually had Covid, I think the latest research put it at 8 times less lickely to get the African verient than vaccinated people. This means that vacinated people are possibly more lickely to spread the worse veriants than people natually infected / immune.

 

This seems like it might be a slight misunderstood factoid? If someone is vaccinated, they are less likely to end up in hospital with covid. My guess is that if they DO end up in hospital with it, the likelihood is that 8x more likely to be the African variant causing it? The vaccine doesn't stop the spread or catching of any variants of the virus. It instead gives your body the tools to tackle it better, reducing the risk of a severe infection/hospitalisation. Some of the variants seem to not be affected by the vaccine (ie. the antibodies needed are different), so if you do get the virus, and have severe symptoms, the likelihood is that it is the African variant (or other, non-covered variants).

 

Its why we'll likely need a booster jab in autumn, and why we'll likely need periodic new jabs as new variants appear.

 

I can't see any reason why being vaccinated would increase your likelihood of getting any form of the virus though.

[Ditto]

@localzuk - yes, I think that is a logical interpretation. I would add however that so far I haven't read anything that says any of the vaccines is entirely ineffective - in fact most reports show vaccines to be 'slightly' less effective. Going back to the BHF article, the worse case I see is at https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/coronavirus-and-your-health/covid-variant#SAoxford which reports efficacy as low as 10% for the AZ vaccine against the SA variant. However, it is noted the age range was low (average 31) and sample size small so it was hard to be conclusive and recommended more research was required. It is also worth noting just below this it reports "Moderna has developed a booster vaccine to target the South African variant (B.1.351), which is now in phase 1 clinical trials in the US." - Science is fighting back!