Isn't that expected? Here it was mostly Pfizer which is 95% / 19 out of 20 effective.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
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They know the hospitalisations will double, they think they may quadruple - much higher than that or not falling back and they've got serious problems that even Boris can't easily ignore. What they'll do then will probably get decided in a Daily Mail opinion poll - so I'm expecting them to send a flag to everyone's house with a songsheet for a national street party of mourning.
We could be wearing masks for a while.
I'll certainly be wearing my mask still from Monday onwards. Was going to a music festival for a day in middle of August so will knock that on the head along with any live football match that has more than 5k. Small things but just feels too risky currently.
Must admit I was in favour of relaxing regulations compared to doing it from September onwards (which worked well last year). However I naively assumed it wouldn't happen until at least 75%/40m had their second doses which probably is still 4-5 weeks away. Oh and the euros starting and ending with 20k in the grounds rather than seemingly more thna 70k in for the final. Premier league imo should stick with 20% capacity they had for end of season games for first two months of this season but seems they really will be allowed full houses which seems mental and a massive breeding ground.
Must admit I was in favour of relaxing regulations compared to doing it from September onwards (which worked well last year). However I naively assumed it wouldn't happen until at least 75%/40m had their second doses which probably is still 4-5 weeks away. Oh and the euros starting and ending with 20k in the grounds rather than seemingly more thna 70k in for the final. Premier league imo should stick with 20% capacity they had for end of season games for first two months of this season but seems they really will be allowed full houses which seems mental and a massive breeding ground.
People and the media will talk about the fact that there’s little or no transmission outside. Never acknowledging the fact that people spend the better part of 2-6 additional hours mixing in internal spaces with strangers before, during and after the game they spend sat in that outdoor seat. Cabs. Buses. Trains. Tubes. Pubs. Concourses. It’s Fcuking madness.
We don't all do! In fact, it's only a minority who vote for them. Just a sadly large and growing minority.
Here's a question - we kept hearing about how the vaccines could be tweaked to keep up with any variants. But I've not heard anything about how they are getting on with that and updating them to deal with Delta. Anyone heard any updates?
As I said a few posts higher up, they’re trying to hit a moving target. Hard to know which variant to put their resources behind and even the most optimistic development timeliness would be six months or so. Six months ago Delta was only an issue in India. Feck know what variant we’ll be most needing vaccines for in another six months from now.
They got results from a tweaked version of the Moderna vaccine a couple of months ago. It was tested against the South African and Brazilian variants. Both a big deal when they decided to run these trials. Neither of them causing problems in Europe now.
I wore mine in the supermarket today, the only bod that did. Shameful really
Lots of trials underway. Some with tweaked vaccines, some just with boosters of the original vaccine. Moderna and AZ have done updated versions. Pfizer haven't decided whether they want to update theirs.
The main mutation targeted is the Beta strain as it seems the best at dodging vaccines so far and the antibodies to it, seem to neutralise the other common variants as well. It's not known whether they'll be used though.
There's an AZ phase 3 trial underway in the UK:
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How confident are people that the uptake of booster jabs will be high enough? I know a few people who got both jabs and are saying they just don't want to go through it again, especially those that were a bit ill afterwards initially. I'm not saying they're right, i'm just wondering if this might be an issue.
My first jab was a pretty bad experience and although i'm definitely having the second, I can't say I'm keen on going through all that again.
My first jab was a pretty bad experience and although i'm definitely having the second, I can't say I'm keen on going through all that again.
If it means safely seeing my nearest and dearest, put it in my veins.
I had a tough few days after my second shot, but presumably nowhere close to what id experience with the virus itself.
Booster for me. 2 days pain for months of gain.
This. It's not even an option. If the other alternative is getting covid
Not the best idea. Vaccinations are supposed to be intramuscular.
Thanks for the replies. Interesting stuff, but slower progress than I'd hoped for.
If anyone is interested The Economist updated their data on pandemic excess deaths this week.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker
Went to a kebab shop for my tea last night, in Wales where unlocking is behind England and masks still very much mandatory. I was worried as I left my car that I’d forgotten my mask, was ready to explain apologetically and suggest that they could take my order outside the door. Fortunately inside there were about six customers and a similar number of staff and not a mask in site - “Yes Boss?” Relief.
Thanks for the link. It's always interesting to see how admitted/confirmed covid deaths track their excess deaths.
Interesting also to see the impact of last year's lockdowns etc on things like flu rates, which meant some countries actually had below average death rates.
Thanks for sharing but disappointing study. It seems we don't see interesting and relevant data such the number of annual deaths over the last 5 years for each country.
The reason the progress may seem slow is a good one though. It's because the existing vaccines are working well. As soon as you change a formulation you've got an issue, do you make only the new stuff, or do you make the old stuff as well.
For Pfizer who've shipped massive numbers of vaccines, the changeover will cost production time as well as need a lot of testing. Getting it wrong, and producing a less efficacious vaccine against new variants than we've already got, would kill more people than it saves. Getting it right (for Delta and beta) might be irrelevant within months, and the production blip (or worse) could easily slow down rollout and kill more people than any temporarily improved efficacy saves.
The bigger research story is focused on things like booster cocktails, combined flu/covid jabs etc. Those won't appear overnight.
If we'd "really" already seen that we needed a new formulation for the autumn (and knew which mutation to target) I'm pretty confident we'd have got one. As things stand Pfizer in particular are more interested in the danger of poor immunity in some immune suppressed people and possible waning immunity against infection in more people (based on some very early data from Israel).
Right now there is data to suggest some of the main vaccines may be more effective against serious disease for the Delta variant than they were against the original virus, so as already said, which variant do they tweak it for? It's probably going to end up like the flu vacccine where they tweak it for the most likely candidates but half the time it ends up being the wrong ones.
This is back in the news again today in Italy. Over 1,000 scientists including some from our own government have now backed it, and been saying how dangerous it all is in light of how fast cases and hospitalisations are rising.
Isn’t that the point of looking at it in terms of % change and using a 5-year national average as the baseline? It normalises the data so you can make comparisons on both relative measures: how many more deaths are we seeing vs. in our own country vs. a 5 year average, and how much higher or lower is that relative difference / excess across other countries.
First thing is to stop all UK tourism to Italy. After all, the UK won't let us go back there without quarantining, even with a Covid certificate. It's ridiculous.
We already do restrict it. It's 5 days isolation plus a test at either end, or 10 days followed by a test. We have long since stopped policing arrivals though.
I would definitely back totally blocking UK arrivals into the EU again though i think the horse has already bolted on the Delta variant. It's the variants created by freedom day we need to avoid.
This is reassuring from a scientific adviser to the government:
"It’s widely accepted the number of cases would increase, we’ve known this would happen when we unlocked for many months now, we’d expect it.... so ‘dangerous, unethical experiment’ seems to be a very inaccurate description of what’s going on"
It's not an experiment because we expected it. Well that's a relief.
"It’s widely accepted the number of cases would increase, we’ve known this would happen when we unlocked for many months now, we’d expect it.... so ‘dangerous, unethical experiment’ seems to be a very inaccurate description of what’s going on"
It's not an experiment because we expected it. Well that's a relief.
I got pinged on Friday just as I was getting ready to leave for silverstone. First world problems and all. I didn't mind really as F1 is s big bag of boring shite but the camping and drinking would have been fun.
I had the opposite experience yesterday. Only saw one person without a mask, which is the fewest I've ever seen in there.
That's reassuring. I've just had my second dose of pfizer this morning, so hopefully I'll have a good level of protection. Still going to be wearing masks and avoiding crowds though, but I've always been pretty crowd averse anyway.
That's shit timing. As of monday, double-jabbed people won't have to isolate even if they come into contact with someone who's tested positive.
Just my luck. But given everything else going on it seems a little petty to moan about it. That isn't going to stop me from doing just that, mind.
Same, one or two without a mask in my regular superstore yesterday, where there were usually none. Expect that to change soon though.
Looking at the increasing case numbers, delta variant got hold first in some of the north west towns, Bolton, Blackburn, Preston, it's interesting to note that numbers here have plateaued or are falling slightly, as vaccination and previous immunity is swinging the tide. It's still increaing in the north west as a whole, but not the areas that got it first. Expect the same to happen elsewhere, in time.
That isn’t worrying at all though, is it? You are at about 50% of vaccined population, more than 60% with first dose already. That means vaccines are really efficient if the 50% of unvaccinated are generating 95% of cases.
So presumably the plan is open up for the summer, get everyone spunking the cash then lockdown in October?
Got pinged yesterday morning, contact dating back to Monday when I was off work and literally didn't leave the house, only person I saw was my Nannan who came over and doesn't even have a phone that can download the contact tracing app ffs. Typical on a scorching weekend!
No lockdown in Bolton, Blackburn or Preston etc, where Delta first took hold, and we're at the peak or past the peak here.
I wouldn't have opened up yet personally, I'd have kept things as they are a bit longer, but I don't think the decision is going to be reversed now. Unless something even worse comes along.
Those figures are 60 % and 75%, respectively, as of Friday. You’re spot on, though.
What's a nannan?