Coronavirus

[Hom3r]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Where's all this increase coming from?

We wear masks.
We wash our hands.
We are aware of how this spreads.

Am I right in concluding that it's school children that are causing this?

Sadly we are not all wearing masks, I see many covidiots not wearing masks or just wearing them under the nose

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by jfman

I see the Government have masterminded another “short cut” giving more people the first dose and changing the timeframe from the second dose to 12 weeks from 4 weeks. Once again looking for an easy/quick way out rather than put in the hard graft.

Anyone aware of any other countries taking this step?

Hopefully doesn’t have a significant impact on effectiveness and/or gets more people the Pfizer vaccine.

If the circumstances change; which they have with the more infectious variant; then it's logical for the Government's approach to change.

Interestingly, they seem to be following Tony Blair's suggestion from a week ago.

We are in a race against time – we must change our vaccine policy now

Vaccine strategy should be changed – to get a single shot to as many people as possible to slow the spread of coronavirus.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-b1777845.html

---------- Post added at 12:53 ---------- Previous post was at 12:50 ----------

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

My former brother-in-law has just died in hospital from CV -contracted there. He was taken in for a gall bladder operation and duly contracted CV.

Very sorry to hear of your loss, Seph.

[jfman]

In fairness I'm less likely to trust an economic think tank fronted by a war criminal than Pfizer on how to distribute their vaccine.

[denphone]

Prime minister Boris Johnson will hold a press conference at 5pm GMT this afternoon.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55478521

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

If the circumstances change; which they have with the more infectious variant; then it's logical for the Government's approach to change.

Interestingly, they seem to be following Tony Blair's suggestion from a week ago.


https://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-b1777845.html

I have to admit I ignored the Blair headlines the other day on the basis that it was Blair. However having now read it, it seems he has either had sight of the same papers coming out of the JCVI, or else a second peer group that has reviewed where we are, and the data around the way the vaccine provokes immunity over two doses, and has come to the same conclusion as the JCVI, namely that the level of immunity after one dose is useful enough that vaccinating lots of people once outweighs the benefits of having fewer people vaccinated twice. He also seems to allude to the same emerging research that a longer gap between doses is more beneficial.

Very sorry to hear of your loss, Seph.

Indeed.

[jonbxx]

Just found an interesting paper in preprint status - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...0222315v1.full

This is a study of 12million people in the UK looking at differences in infection rates, hospitalisation, ICU admissions and deaths and whether those people have children or not. The conclusions are;

• If you have kids aged 0-11, the there is no increased risk of infection, hospitalisation or ICU admission but a reduced Risk of death for under 65s
• If you have kids aged 12-18 the there is an increased risk of infection but no other increased rates (hospitalisation, ICU admission and death) for under 65s
• Living with kids if any age reduces risk of non-COVID related death for under 65s
• For over 65s, there is no. Additional risk or reduction of risk living with kids of any age

There are some limitations in the study as it is a very broad one and they are listed in the paper.

The big questions are why this counterintuitive result happened and there are some ideas around cross protection due to other coronavirus infections, parental lifestyles being better than non-parental and general fitness of parents. I like the idea of the general snottiness of kids being protective for all who come into contact with them.

Big implications for school opening though.

Presumably, it mitigates in favour of opening schools?

Originally Posted by Chris

I have to admit I ignored the Blair headlines the other day on the basis that it was Blair. However having now read it, it seems he has either had sight of the same papers coming out of the JCVI, or else a second peer group that has reviewed where we are, and the data around the way the vaccine provokes immunity over two doses, and has come to the same conclusion as the JCVI, namely that the level of immunity after one dose is useful enough that vaccinating lots of people once outweighs the benefits of having fewer people vaccinated twice. He also seems to allude to the same emerging research that a longer gap between doses is more beneficial.

This was clearly something being discussed internally at either JCVI and/or elsewhere and he knew who the right people to ask about COVID and vaccines were. He obviously didn't randomly come to the same conclusion on his own.

His comments were met with derision by all the 'medical experts' on Twitter but it turns out a Prime Minister of 10 years probably has experience in quickly identifying who to listen too and which information is relevant.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Damien

This was clearly something being discussed internally at either JCVI and/or elsewhere and he knew who the right people to ask about COVID and vaccines were. He obviously didn't randomly come to the same conclusion on his own.

His comments were met with derision by all the 'medical experts' on Twitter but it turns out a Prime Minister of 10 years probably has experience in quickly identifying who to listen too and which information is relevant.

As I said previously it'll be interesting to see which countries adopt this approach and (if published) the emerging scientific evidence for it and ultimately the outcomes that result.

I've been fairly cynical so far today so to continue in that vein a British Establishment echo chamber supporting reopening the economy might not necessarily give the best health outcomes in the medium to long term. Personally I was half surprised Blair didn't sign the discredited Great Barrington declaration.

The United States certainly appears under a lot of Covid pressure at the minute so I'd be keen to see if they adopt this approach.

[jonbxx]

Originally Posted by Chris

Presumably, it mitigates in favour of opening schools?

That’s what I am reading from it with primary schools being slightly safer than secondary.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by jonbxx

That’s what I am reading from it with primary schools being slightly safer than secondary.

... but if the mutated virus is more able to take over a human cell than the original strain, then might it not hit the younger children?

My understanding is that anybody carrying the virus can infect anyone else until their immune system can clear the virus out. If the strain infects more easily, then everyone is at risk. Am I right?

Originally Posted by jfman

As I said previously it'll be interesting to see which countries adopt this approach and (if published) the emerging scientific evidence for it and ultimately the outcomes that result.

I've been fairly cynical so far today so to continue in that vein a British Establishment echo chamber supporting reopening the economy might not necessarily give the best health outcomes in the medium to long term. Personally I was half surprised Blair didn't sign the discredited Great Barrington declaration.

The United States certainly appears under a lot of Covid pressure at the minute so I'd be keen to see if they adopt this approach.

One of the useful aspects of the UK government’s very early decision to treat this as a public health issue rather than a civil contingencies emergency is that it has left policy, where it was already devolved, in the hands of the devolved governments. The UK government has provided additional support in some areas, especially logistics with lab testing and military support, but the day to day decisions on how to organise lockdowns and now, how to organise vaccine rollout, are in the purview of Welsh Labour and the SNP.

Obviously there have been variations in the way lockdowns have been timed and how severe each tier of lockdown is, however overall, they have much more in common than not. Given Nicola Sturgeon, in particular, never normally misses an opportunity for differentiation and constitutional mischief making, this speaks volumes about how far the UK government is motivated by keeping the economy open and how far it’s actually following the science. It will be educational over the next few weeks to see whether the vaccine rollout strategy in Scotland or Wales diverges significantly from England.

British establishment echo chambers are anathema to Scottish nationalists. If that’s what is driving the emerging discussion around vaccinating more people once rather than fewer people twice, then we can expect Sturgeon not to touch it with a 10ft pole.

[jfman]

The Scottish Government is following the advice of the same group as the UK Government, so I doubt they will have separate scientific evidence to justify diverging.

As I say, let’s see what other independent countries do. Especially those primarily rolling out the Pfizer vaccine which I think they’ve said is 91% effective with one dose.

The change from 2 weeks to 12 weeks obviously allows them to push higher the figures for those vaccinated without such pressure on the ability of the distribution chains to ramp up. From the Government that counted a left glove separate from a right glove to massage the figures of PPE available I think I’ll retain my healthy scepticism towards British exceptionalism for now.

[denphone]

It looks like Matt Hancock will most likely announce these as the new Covid tiers in his announcement very soon.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/li...accine-updates

Areas being placed into Tier 4 include all of north-east England, Cumbria, Cheshire, Warrington, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen, most of West Midlands, all East Midlands except Rutland, large parts of South West.

Tier 3: Liverpool, Rutland, all Yorkshire and Humber, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, large parts of South West including Cornwall.

Nowhere will be in Tier 2. Only Isles of Scilly in Tier 1.

[jonbxx]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

... but if the mutated virus is more able to take over a human cell than the original strain, then might it not hit the younger children?

My understanding is that anybody carrying the virus can infect anyone else until their immune system can clear the virus out. If the strain infects more easily, then everyone is at risk. Am I right?

There are the unknowns...

It’s not clear at this point if the potency of the new strain is down to an increased effectiveness of the spike, better escape from the immune system, higher viral load when infected, higher susceptibility of children, or a combination of all of these factors.

It has always been the big question - do kids get infected and do kids spread it when infected? The study I posted answers the second part without answering the first, namely kids, if infected (and we don’t know this) don’t make parents and Carers sick. Of course, this might change with the new variant but either the study has not been done (or completed) or the data is not good enough yet.

Testing data is seemingly showing high levels of infection in kids. Of course, we don’t have much testing data for asymptomatic people including kids over the period that study covers.

If, and it is a very big if, the new variant is simply just more infectious, i.e. the R0 value is higher then all the numbers will shift somewhat towards the right in the diagrams in that paper. If the infectivity is 70% higher and the additional risks of kids being in school are tiny, then the risks from the new variant are 1.7x a tiny number.

In short ‘I dunno’.