Re: Coronavirus (R.I.P Captain Sir Tom Moore 1920-2021)
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Sort of, yes. It's difficult to get over the fact that mutations and evolution don't have a 'direction' - there's no conscious effort to change, change happens spontaneously and at random. Even hardcore geneticists explain this poorly (I am not, my background is molecular microbiology with a healthy chunk of protein structures and functions) If the virus is not reproducing, then mutations will not happen, mutations are usually because of bad copying of the RNA (possibly coupled with damage to the RNA) The virus has no way of changing itself if it's just floating about as it can't make or change proteins in response to antibodies. Mutations can be silent with no change, lethal in that the virus cannot function any more or somewhere where the action of the virus changes.

Now what can happen is if you get infected and the virus can reproduce. Then you have a race between the immune system and virus reproduction. If you are vaccinated, then your immune system has a 'head start'. This will reduce or eliminate the amount of reproduction the virus can do before the immune system wipes it out. If during reproduction, a mutation occurs, then the fun can start. If you have a million virus without a mutation that allows it to avoid the immune system and one virion that does, then that million will be wiped out and the one will reproduce. Natural selection in action...

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus (R.I.P Captain Sir Tom Moore 1920-2021)
 

Merkel is covering Merkels backside here! Speaking to my German colleagues, they are pretty angry that Germany didn't go solo like the UK and are blaming the German Government for this..

Re: Coronavirus (R.I.P Captain Sir Tom Moore 1920-2021)
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Happy to engage if others prefer. It is indeed the executive arm of the EU - as I said that makes it a political entity in it’s own right.

Without the executive arm (as you correctly identify it) it’d merely be a talking shop. Policy decisions would outright be taken by a vote of leaders/Ministers of Member States (Council) or the Parliament. It’d lack its own identity.

Re: Coronavirus (R.I.P Captain Sir Tom Moore 1920-2021)
 

That'll take a lot of cloth.:D

Re: Coronavirus (R.I.P Captain Sir Tom Moore 1920-2021)
 

Germany, Poland and now France restrict the upper age limit for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55901957

Re: Coronavirus (R.I.P Captain Sir Tom Moore 1920-2021)
 

Could be an convenient/interesting strategy. Utilises vaccines where known to be most effective and allows them to skip hardest to reach age groups and get straight into 55-65 year olds in mass vaccination sites.

While I’m sceptical of the real world performance of the AZ vaccine on the ground - and I think we can see Government are particularly concerned that 62% reduced by the 1 dose strategy doesn’t give much headroom against the new UK/SA hybrid variant - my cynicism goes in all directions.

I wonder if the Sputnik V vaccine at 92% will push the Government to revisit it’s strategy and go for the half dose/full dose AZ that discovered highest results by accident - I think Sputnik V does the same low then high dose.

Re: Coronavirus (R.I.P Captain Sir Tom Moore 1920-2021)
 

RIP Sir Tom.

As China is the world's second largest economy, you'd think that the other countries affected by covid would sue them. It may not be possible to sue them for bringing the virus into the human food chain if it is their culture to eat such things, but they certainly made the situation much worse by initially trying to keep it quiet.

Re: Coronavirus (R.I.P Captain Sir Tom Moore 1920-2021)
 

Not to worry, we’re going to get the AstraZeneca vaccine into the arms of a very large number of people here, and the data coming from that will soon leave them looking silly.

It is a strange decision really, and hard to understand unless they think the quantities of the various vaccines they expect to receive mean they won’t end up leaving their most vulnerable citizens waiting longer, with the attendant risk, before they get any kind of vaccine at all.

I’m curious though, whether your scepticism is based on a deeper understanding of the science, or just general cynicism?

Re: Coronavirus (R.I.P Captain Sir Tom Moore 1920-2021)
 

I wouldn’t describe it as a deeper understanding of the science, no. But I don’t see much science in the decision going against the advice of those who conducted the trials.

All other trials are finding that results against UK and SA variants are lower so unless we have a case of British exceptionalism I’d expect 62% to drop on the basis of one dose and drop against new mutations. To what degree is unknown.

Watching the Government spring into action like I’ve never seen it before with door to door testing makes me naturally wonder what do they know that I don’t?

Re: Coronavirus (R.I.P Captain Sir Tom Moore 1920-2021)
 

https://twitter.com/Coronavirusgoo1/...32557325062146

:)

Re: Coronavirus (R.I.P Captain Sir Tom Moore 1920-2021)
 

Fretting about the South Africa variant is a red herring, given that deployment decisions were taken well before the data around it had been collated, or indeed that there was evidence of community transmission in the UK. Nobody can be said to have taken a risk with that. The timing doesn’t fit.

Furthermore I think you’re misunderstanding the words of advice from the vaccine manufacturers, none of whom have said “don’t change the dosage schedule” - what they have said is, “we have no data for that schedule” which is a bald, factual statement and exactly what you would expect from a scientist qualified only to report what their actual trial results are.

In fact there is evidence that the first dose of any of the approved Covid vaccines is sufficient to very significantly reduce the incidence of serious disease. This is the public health outcome the UK government is pursuing at the moment; the first aim is to stop people dying of it. The AZ CEO said as much last week, and endorsed the UK government strategy for both the Pfizer and AZ vaccines. Of course I’m aware you rejected that when it came up in discussion last week - that’s why I tend to be cynical about your profession of concern, and tend to ascribe it to cynicism yourself. I don’t think you’re engaging in good faith with data or genuine public health policy aims, and are instead taking the usual path of least resistance, which is to assume everyone involved is incompetent, on the take, covering their own backs, etc.

---------- Post added at 18:02 ---------- Previous post was at 17:55 ----------

Yup ... that’s still pre-print, but given that it builds on earlier work and is not inconsistent with what you’d expect from comparable vaccines there’s reason to be confident in the findings. I’m pretty sure Pascal Soirot had this research very much in mind when giving his interview last week.

And of course the point about comparable vaccines is worth stressing again and again. UK government policy in this area is not being developed in an absolute vacuum.

Re: Coronavirus (R.I.P Captain Sir Tom Moore 1920-2021)
 

I’m not sure how the South African variant (or indeed any) can be described as a red herring. We’ve always known mutation possible, and indeed likely. The absence of community transmission was simply a matter of inevitability with no border screening or enforced quarantine.

Rather than go round in circles for weeks I’m more than happy to just wait and see what happens as this should become clear in the near future and lockdown restrictions ease. If deaths and hospitalisations among the vaccinated age groups are eliminated or significantly reduced that will clearly vindicate the strategy.

If not I’m sure there will be a new variant along to blame and restrictions continue while further rounds of vaccination are developed.