SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

[Ferguson’s Hairdryer]

That's awful behaviour. Scum of the earth I'd go as far as.

It is disgusting behaviour, risking the health and lives of others. At the very least because she’s not isolating she might force someone to catch it and isolate over Xmas

 

[Brwned]

Considering numerous experts are still - as of right now - not entirely convinced that omicron definitely causes milder disease than delta it’s a huge stretch to try and claim that the policy makers missed a trick by not assuming this was a certainty back when the decision was made to start boosting the younger cohorts.

And you also can’t divorce that decision from the ongoing delta wave, affecting all ages, at the time. Sure, the younger ages didn’t have all that much to fear from delta (although 0.2% hospitalisation rate is not to be sniffed at) but, again, these people weren’t living in a bubble.

And that’s without even getting into the tenuous upside of not boosting. That they will have better immunity next winter. It’s all about loading more and more immunity into the population, as safely and quickly as possible. Boosters are a no brainer in this context. There’s going to be an absolute shit-load of (almost all mild) breakthrough infections in the mix as well. That combination should leave us pretty well set for the next wave. And is far more acceptable to the public than choosing not to boost (with boosters available) and deliberately letting hundreds of thousands of people get avoidably unwell because there’s a possibility this might give them better long term immunity. I’ve known plenty of young(ish) vaccinated people get breakthrough infections that would be classified as “mild” who have felt like absolute shit and have taken a long time to recover (some of them still not fully over it) That’s really not a palatable choice to individuals if they could get a similar immune boost which gives them nothing worse than an achey delt for 24 hours.

Fair enough, I agree it's a stretch.

Other than our general risk tolerance / preference, I think the main place we diverge here is our assessment of vaccine efficacy. You're sure there's going to be a shit-load of breakthrough infections post-booster, and if that is the case then my entire argument is at least redundant, and probably stupid. Inevitably booster + mild infection would be better than 2nd dose + mild infection.

I'm much more optimistic that the booster will prevent infection in the short-term. I've just not seen the evidence that the risk of breakthrough infection post-booster is that high. We'll definitely find out soon!

Do we know how long the immunity lasts after the booster?

Not really, mostly for practical reasons. From the PHE study (pages 6-8) we saw immunity start to wane 10 weeks after the second dose, which echoes what they're saying now about the booster. We don't have much data after 10 weeks as the booster roll-out started properly in the beginning of October, 12 weeks ago.

While that makes for an interesting headline, it doesn't tell us much. Even though the level of protection against symptomatic disease started to drop 10 weeks after the 2nd dose, it didn't drop by much: for AZ it dropped from 65% to 60%, for Pfizer it dropped from 90% to 80%. And more importantly, protection against hospitalisation hardly dropped at all: from 95% to 90% for AZ, and from 98% to 96% for Pfizer (or thereabouts). Or as PHE put it:

In most groups there is relatively limited waning of protection against hospitalisation over a period of at least 5 months after the second dose.

When you get to 6 months the declines were more substantial after dose 2, and no-one in the UK has been boosted for that long. Israel might have some data on that but I've not seen any.

One other thing worth mentioning about the "immunity begins to wane after 10 weeks" headline is that we know immunity wanes quicker among more vulnerable populations, and it's the more vulnerable populations that got boosted first. So we should assume it'll wane slower for the general population than whatever the waning is now. And given how much the booster multiplied the number of antibodies, it's waning from a much higher bar so it seems reasonable to assume protection will last longer post-booster than post-dose 2. Even with Omicron's capacity for immune escape, from what I can tell. EDIT: Maybe not with Omicron.

It's worth saying that immunity isn't really a binary thing either, so there won't be a point that immunity will last until. There'll likely be some level of immune response for years to come from that second vaccine dose - that's what they saw post-MERS trials - it just becomes less effective as the volume of immune first responders (antibodies, B-cells, T-cells) declines. The dose of infection we get varies so a low-dose infection can still be fought off by a low-dose immune response.

The figures about waning immunity look at the average person with the average dose of infection, which is useful at the population level but less useful at the individual level. In other words we shouldn't think about those timings as cut-off points for when we suddenly stop being immune to covid, it's more complicated than that.

 

[Wibble]

I'm into my third day of symptoms today (had a positive pcr test yesterday) and feeling quite rough now

I'm starting to get a bit short of breathe which is worrying, but had an old asthma inhaler lying around which did the trick

Are there any over the counter treatments which can help? I guess just all the regular cold and flu stuff?

Sorry to hear that mate. I believe over the counter stuff is the usual advice. Have you had the booster yet? I'm guessing not. Look after yourself and get to hospital if you get serious breathing issues.

 

[jojojo]

The report you linked is week 49, the week 51 is update is out now. Protection from infection is diminishing fairly quickly in the first boosted. A complication there, as always, is that the early boosters were given to the most vulnerable - oldest, clinically risk and to frontline healthcare - so it may not be as bad as it looks. Unfortunately by definition the highest risk groups are also amongst the ones becoming vulnerable again fastest, and we're already seeing hospitals lose a lot of their staff to positive tests.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-surveillance-reports

There's a good explanation of the data at:

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Anustart89]

A girl I know has had a positive PCR last week and still been putting her child in nursery and been going out Christmas shopping and everything. Unbelievable.

I’ve managed to avoid covid, that I know of, although I did have a really bad chest for almost 6 months last year to the point I had X-rays and stuff done. I’m asthmatic but have never been that bad before or after, looks coincidental. Would be just my luck to go to the Trafford Centre tomorrow and catch it.

Wouldn't that sort of negligence be criminal?

 

[golden_blunder]

My elderly parent-in-laws arrived today from England for Christmas. Mother-in-law has tested positive in a LFT just now. No PCR slots available. Merry Christmas

 

[golden_blunder]

What’s the incubation period for omnicron?

 

[jojojo]

What’s the incubation period for omnicron?

It's thought that the exposure to symptoms delay is shorter than for Delta - maybe between 3 and 7 days.

Take care guys. Try and have the best and safest Christmas you can.

 

[Wibble]

Definitely not the case in London. Now or ever. It’s seething with middle aged folk acting like teenagers.

Just saw that 70% of NSW infections are in the 10-39 year cohort. Stated the this is driven by Christmas parties and nightclubs but no data provided to prove it. 80% of NSW infections are now Omicron so it wouldn't be surprising if packed venues were super-spreader events.

 

[golden_blunder]

It's thought that the exposure to symptoms delay is shorter than for Delta - maybe between 3 and 7 days.

Take care guys. Try and have the best and safest Christmas you can.

The annoying thing is they paid a small fortune for flying to have a private PCR, which was negative but she says they only did the nose not the throat as well

 

[Wibble]

The annoying thing is they paid a small fortune for flying to have a private PCR, which was negative but she says they only did the nose not the throat as well

It could just be that the viral load was so low that the test was negative due to being so early in the infection.

 

[jojojo]

The annoying thing is they paid a small fortune for flying to have a private PCR, which was negative but she says they only did the nose not the throat as well

When did they do the PCR test?

 

[golden_blunder]

When did they do the PCR test?

Good question; not sure yet

 

[jojojo]

Good question; not sure yet

I mean the private one that gave the negative - when was that done?

 

[Brwned]

The report you linked is week 49, the week 51 is update is out now. Protection from infection is diminishing fairly quickly in the first boosted. A complication there, as always, is that the early boosters were given to the most vulnerable - oldest, clinically risk and to frontline healthcare - so it may not be as bad as it looks. Unfortunately by definition the highest risk groups are also amongst the ones becoming vulnerable again fastest, and we're already seeing hospitals lose a lot of their staff to positive tests.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-surveillance-reports

There's a good explanation of the data at:

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Oh

In that case I agree @Pogue Mahone it seems likely a lot will be getting boosted + infected and my theory’s completely redundant

 

[McGrathsipan]

Here we go its getting closer to me. One of my sons friends (9) was here yesterday for a few hours and again today. They are in school together also. The friend just had a positive antigen. I took the feckers to the local football club that I manage today so we could play on the Astro. 20 mins in a car with him. Then he was here in the house for a couple hours

He's off to get a PCR tomorrow. Don't suppose there is such a thing as false positive!!

I've a slight tickly throat now and I'm paranoid!

 

[McGrathsipan]

My elderly parent-in-laws arrived today from England for Christmas. Mother-in-law has tested positive in a LFT just now. No PCR slots available. Merry Christmas

Its a cuntt

 

[Carolina Red]

My elderly parent-in-laws arrived today from England for Christmas. Mother-in-law has tested positive in a LFT just now. No PCR slots available. Merry Christmas

Christmas at my in-laws just got cancelled as well. Father in law and brother in law are positive.

 

[Brophs]

Here we go its getting closer to me. One of my sons friends (9) was here yesterday for a few hours and again today. They are in school together also. The friend just had a positive antigen. I took the feckers to the local football club that I manage today so we could play on the Astro. 20 mins in a car with him. Then he was here in the house for a couple hours

He's off to get a PCR tomorrow. Don't suppose there is such a thing as false positive!!

I've a slight tickly throat now and I'm paranoid!

I dunno why, but you giving his age in brackets there made me laugh.

 

[McGrathsipan]

I dunno why, but you giving his age in brackets there made me laugh.

 

[golden_blunder]

Here we go its getting closer to me. One of my sons friends (9) was here yesterday for a few hours and again today. They are in school together also. The friend just had a positive antigen. I took the feckers to the local football club that I manage today so we could play on the Astro. 20 mins in a car with him. Then he was here in the house for a couple hours

He's off to get a PCR tomorrow. Don't suppose there is such a thing as false positive!!

I've a slight tickly throat now and I'm paranoid!

Join the club. Feck it. Good luck to you

 

[golden_blunder]

I mean the private one that gave the negative - when was that done?

Tuesday and they flew today

 

[Dante]

It might be! All I’m saying is that for most people they don’t feel the full effects until the next day. I’ve known people who haven’t had any, though. It does seem that generally the booster is hitting people harder than the first two.

I think you might have been right. I'm beginning to feel it now.

Wouldn't go as far as to say I'm feeling ill. More so a bit foggy with a slight headache and a sore shoulder.

Kind of like the hangover after a night out when somebody punched me in my arm.

 

[jojojo]

Because we've had a lot of talk about tests recently a couple of observations.

With infection rates high, the odds of a LFT giving a false positive are lower than the odds of a PCR test giving a false negative. If the LFT says you're infected and the PCR says you aren't, you need to be suspicious - at least do another LFT test to make sure.

A PCR done one morning can be too early to pick up an infection that's visible on LFT the next day. A negative PCR done two days ago is basically useless today. PCRs can see a lower viral load, which means they can pick up an infection maybe a day earlier than a LFT and they may continue to give a positive result for days (or weeks) after the LFT goes back to seeing negatives again - in general though those late PCR positives are seeing dead viral material not the infectious kind. The early PCR positives are obviously useful though, and PCRs can pick up asymptomatic cases that LFTS miss - provided you get the timing right.

The FT did a graphic based on the data:

 

[jojojo]

Tuesday and they flew today

A PCR test done on Tuesday (however professionally done) is too early to spot an infection that starts testing positive on LFT today.

 

[Droid_Repairs]

Is there any reason to believe that further variants of the disease will continue to weaken? Or is it just as likely to mutate into a more virulent and/or dangerous strain?

Thanks.

 

[Liver_bird]

You’ve probably had it without symptoms or had it earlier with minor symptoms and thought it was a cold / flu, you have anything early 2020 from Jan/Feb ?

I have thought it’s possible that I’ve just been asymptomatic, but I have tested fairly regularly. I have nothing early to end 2020, the worst flu I’ve ever had is post a visit to Venice September 2019. A few months before the whole thing kicked off. Although quite a few people claimed the same thing so maybe it’s just a case of confirmation bias.

 

[McGrathsipan]

Join the club. Feck it. Good luck to you

Negative antigen for me just now. Wife is doing hers.

Poxy

 

[jojojo]

In that case I agree @Pogue Mahone it seems likely a lot will be getting boosted + infected and my theory’s completely redundant

Just to throw in a couple of numbers. Real world efficacy/effectiveness against Alpha, for people who had covid in the previous 6 months was around 80-85% against infection. That same calculation done now for Omicron would show a drop to around 20% - it's not just vaccine efficacy that wanes or took a hit against Omicron.

Looks like protection against hospitalisation post infection remains strong - but that's not an easy calculation to do. There's more or less no immune naive control group in the UK now. We've almost all either been vaxxed, or vaxxed + infected, or infected. Makes doing the analysis really messy. You can see things on population trend lines but there are lots of anomalies as you zoom in and the sub-group denominator errors start to take hold.

 

[Orton]

Got the booster the other day and felt like I’d had mad whiplash the day after. Neck was in agony. Feeling better now though.

 

[jojojo]

Is there any reason to believe that further variants of the disease will continue to weaken? Or is it just as likely to mutate into a more virulent and/or dangerous strain?

Thanks.

There's no reason to assume that new variants will get weaker or stronger. As long as they spread they're done their job before their host becomes immobile and useless at spreading it around.

There's strong reason to believe that they will appear weaker to us, as we build up immunity through vaccination and infection. In time it'll probably look like another cold to most of us. In an immune naive population, it could still wreak havoc though, even if we think it's milder.

 

[Lj82]

Now its been proven the vaccination in its current form has little effect on transmission i don't think this is even a starting point.

Trying to force people or discriminate against people doesn't encourage them to change their mind it just makes them double down on the original bollocks they believe.

Ignoring the very small chance that something goes wrong when they have got the jab is that just seen as collateral when you are forcing people.

Part in bold, not necessary. Singapore was probably the first to implement this and a big chunk of those vaccine reluctant people promptly signed up for their shots. The remaining ones are those you just can't change their mind no matter what.

 

[P-Ro]

This is a bit of a nonsense question but I'm curious anyway. A week ago when I went to get my booster I was wearing my ffp2 mask which supposedly gives you 95 percent effectiveness in filtration of air particles. I was told to put on a surgical mask which gives an 80 percent filtation effectiveness on top of the ffp2 mask I was already wearing. The surgical mask was tightly fitted against my nose/mouth. Does this mean:

a) No effect at all, I should have 95% protection from outside air particles
b) The effect of the ffp2 is to provide 95% protection against the 20% of air particles that get through the first layer: 1 - (0.2 x (1 - 0.95)) = 99% effective
c) There's some additional, unquantifiable level of protection from the surgical mask so it's somewhere between 95 and 99 percent.

 

[P-Ro]

This is a bit on a nonsense question but I'm curious anyway. A week ago when I went to get my booster I was wearing my ffp2 mask which supposedly gives you 95 percent effectiveness in filtration of air particles. I was told to put on a surgical mask which gives an 80 percent filtation effectiveness on top of the ffp2 mask I was already wearing. The surgical mask was tightly fitted against my nose/mouth. Does this mean:

a) No effect at all, I should have 95% protection from outside air particles
b) The effect of the ffp2 is to provide 95% protection against the 20% of air particles that get through the first layer: 1 - (0.2 x (1 - 0.95)) = 99% effective
c) There's some additional, unquantifiable level of protection from the surgical mask so it's somewhere between 95 and 99 percent.

or perhaps it's d) You have reduced the effectiveness of the mask to zero. Enjoy your covid over Christmas.

 

[hellhunter]

or perhaps it's d) You have reduced the effectiveness of the mask to zero. Enjoy your covid over Christmas.

Sounds more like nose AIDS

 

[F-Red]

This is a bit of a nonsense question but I'm curious anyway. A week ago when I went to get my booster I was wearing my ffp2 mask which supposedly gives you 95 percent effectiveness in filtration of air particles. I was told to put on a surgical mask which gives an 80 percent filtation effectiveness on top of the ffp2 mask I was already wearing. The surgical mask was tightly fitted against my nose/mouth. Does this mean:

a) No effect at all, I should have 95% protection from outside air particles
b) The effect of the ffp2 is to provide 95% protection against the 20% of air particles that get through the first layer: 1 - (0.2 x (1 - 0.95)) = 99% effective
c) There's some additional, unquantifiable level of protection from the surgical mask so it's somewhere between 95 and 99 percent.

Sounds a bit overkill if I'm honest, depends on so many other variables of the setting you're in.

 

[golden_blunder]

A PCR test done on Tuesday (however professionally done) is too early to spot an infection that starts testing positive on LFT today.

Thanks Jo

 

[arnie_ni]

I've a slight tickly throat now and I'm paranoid!

Girl at work tested positive and I have the same symptom as you. Waiting on pcr but lateral flows negative so far.

Can I still pick up a normal run of the mill cold with 2 vaccines and a flu jab?

 

[Volumiza]

I'm into my third day of symptoms today (had a positive pcr test yesterday) and feeling quite rough now

I'm starting to get a bit short of breathe which is worrying, but had an old asthma inhaler lying around which did the trick

Are there any over the counter treatments which can help? I guess just all the regular cold and flu stuff?

You ok buddy?

 

[McGrathsipan]

Girl at work tested positive and I have the same symptom as you. Waiting on pcr but lateral flows negative so far.

Can I still pick up a normal run of the mill cold with 2 vaccines and a flu jab?

God knows at this stage.

I've a banging headache. Extremely bad since about 4pm yesterday. But maybe that's a caffeine withdrawal since I only had one cup yesterday instead of the usual 4 or 5