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

golden_blunder

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If the Guardian report of that cluster is correct the residents had received their second doses of AZ during the previous week. So it may well be good news, in that they basically were able to fight off serious disease on the back of a single dose of vaccine.

The thing that does worry me is that it got into the home. Was that through an uncaccinated care worker or, less likely given the numbers of residents affected, an uncaccinated visitor? Does that mean that the testing regime for staff/visitors isn't enough to spot this version at its infectious stage? Plus, of course, it sends us back to the ongoing debate about care workers and vaccination.

The other big cluster being reported this week is the school in Long Eaton where they've got more than a hundred cases. They closed for the week after the cases were identified on Tuesday. We don't know the variant involved there, but there has to be a serious investigation of what happened and why. Including questions about whether the heating/ventilation system could be involved - something we've not really addressed so far but which has raised questions in quarantine hotels in some locations.
Wow. Secondary level?
 

Wibble

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Fecking masks back again.

First world problems but I haven't missed them.

A single case of unknown source who has now infected his wife but nobody else yet (early days). Or rather they know the source - hotel quarantine, a passenger from the US in Quarantine with an Indian variant not of concern. What they don't know is how this seemingly random person out in the community got it.
 

Wibble

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A friend of my son's tested positive neatly 2 months after getting his Pfhizer shots.

Tested negative a few days later - luckily a false positive.
 

Massive Spanner

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I'm still hoping they allow J+J for under 50s here later in the summer for those of us who likely won't get a first dose until July or August.
 

golden_blunder

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Yep. They don't split the hundred cases between staff/students, but it's apparently mostly year 7-9 affected. The school isn't huge, it's got about 950 students, so it must be a high percentage of those year groups (11-14 year olds).
Presumably it was different days and different groups so did they try closing individual classes?

in my sons school if someone tests positive the whole class is closed until they all get their tests
 

Penna

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The other big cluster being reported this week is the school in Long Eaton where they've got more than a hundred cases. They closed for the week after the cases were identified on Tuesday. We don't know the variant involved there, but there has to be a serious investigation of what happened and why. Including questions about whether the heating/ventilation system could be involved - something we've not really addressed so far but which has raised questions in quarantine hotels in some locations.
I think ventilation systems are definite possibility. You might remember the Legionnaires' outbreak in Barrow about 20 years ago, where a number of people died. That was a complete puzzle regarding transmission, until it was found that a faulty AC system in an arts centre was venting contaminated air into a narrow alleyway in the town centre. That explained the random pattern of infections.
 

djembatheking

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Your 22 year old son is still in school?
As Spanner said, mates he was in school with . he saw some lads he hasn`t seen for ages . There was a kid he used to play football with whose birthday was the day before his that he hadn`t seen since the under16`s. Seem to be moving fast with vaccines in Wales.
 

jojojo

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As Spanner said, mates he was in school with . he saw some lads he hasn`t seen for ages . There was a kid he used to play football with whose birthday was the day before his that he hadn`t seen since the under16`s. Seem to be moving fast with vaccines in Wales.
It's a tactical decision by the Welsh authorities. They're using their AZ stock on the older age group. They're using their Pfizer first dose supply on their 18+ group. The view they took was that with the advice on AZ they'd start using all their first dose Pfizer to vaccinate as many of the under 30s as they could, before hospitality reopens fully in the hopes it would help suppress case rates.

Scotland have stuck to the straight age/risk based priority system and use AZ (for 40+ from now on) or Pfizer (for any age group)

England have been stockpiling Pfizer, probably anticipating the JCVI advice, ready for a big push into the under 40s, starting in the next week or so. If things go well they'll be calling everyone before the end of June.
 

jojojo

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Presumably it was different days and different groups so did they try closing individual classes?

in my sons school if someone tests positive the whole class is closed until they all get their tests
The ramp up was very fast. The local area went from around 7 cases/day at the end of April to 43 on the 2nd May (that jump would be almost entirely from pupils doing their weekend LFT test) then flew up. The school didn't reopen on the 4th after the Bank Holiday weekend because by then they had over hundred positives.
y

Families and other close contracts have been encouraged to go to a test site at the school for PCR testing. They've identified about 200 cases now (not just pupils)

The pattern of the case growth suggests that a lot of people got infected more or less simultaneously (and then took it home to their families). It looks like a classic super-spreader event or super-spreader situation.

It's a really important investigation and I hope they publish what they learn. Unfortunately there may be problems when it comes to getting the really important details - there's a real conflict of interest between privacy and publication in this situation.
 

Flying high

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Had my first AZ jab yesterday. What a night. Started to get the shakes at about 11pm. I managed to sleep a bit but it's been like a bad fever all night. Must have drunk a small lake judging by how often I needed the toilet.

I'm feeling a bit better now though. I might even drag my ass out of bed by the time the match starts.
 

11101

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This just gives antivax nutters shit to cling to and feels totally unnecessary.
Equally, people will be questioning why they would be getting that vaccine as a 20 or 30 year old when their European neighbours have restricted it to the elderly only.
 

Wibble

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I think ventilation systems are definite possibility. You might remember the Legionnaires' outbreak in Barrow about 20 years ago, where a number of people died. That was a complete puzzle regarding transmission, until it was found that a faulty AC system in an arts centre was venting contaminated air into a narrow alleyway in the town centre. That explained the random pattern of infections.
We have had quite a few people who have caught SARS-CoV-2 when in hotel quarantine. So aerosol transmission does occur.
 

jojojo

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I posted this article back in November. Cynically, I could suggest the reason why airborne was played down and surface cleaning, hand washing etc was played up was because of early PPE shortages in hospitals. For it to continue this long is probably a mix of inertia and the fact that things like AC systems with inadequate filters, windows that don't open etc are more difficult to fix than telling people they should have sanitised their shopping trolley.

https://english.elpais.com/society/...he-coronavirus-is-spread-through-the-air.html

So if you're planning to restart socialising (particularly if you or one of them is vulnerable to infection) it's worth knowing what to look out for. In general if you're meeting indoors - look at shorter visits, ventilation, turn the background music down so you don't have to shout, avoid sitting face to face - it all may help. Facemasks help of course, but on some occasions the other rules may be easier to apply.

Take the specific numbers it mentions in that article as coming with lots of "more or less" provisos, but the broad sweep is probably accurate.
 

Wibble

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I posted this article back in November. Cynically, I could suggest the reason why airborne was played down and surface cleaning, hand washing etc was played up was because of early PPE shortages in hospitals. For it to continue this long is probably a mix of inertia and the fact that things like AC systems with inadequate filters, windows that don't open etc are more difficult to fix than telling people they should have sanitised their shopping trolley.

https://english.elpais.com/society/...he-coronavirus-is-spread-through-the-air.html

So if you're planning to restart socialising (particularly if you or one of them is vulnerable to infection) it's worth knowing what to look out for. In general if you're meeting indoors - look at shorter visits, ventilation, turn the background music down so you don't have to shout, avoid sitting face to face - it all may help. Facemasks help of course, but on some occasions the other rules may be easier to apply.

Take the specific numbers it mentions in that article as coming with lots of "more or less" provisos, but the broad sweep is probably accurate.
Here you suspect that the Feds want to downplay aerosol transmission so they don't have to take responsibility for quarantine leaving the states with little choice but to use hotels.
 

Pogue Mahone

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I posted this article back in November. Cynically, I could suggest the reason why airborne was played down and surface cleaning, hand washing etc was played up was because of early PPE shortages in hospitals. For it to continue this long is probably a mix of inertia and the fact that things like AC systems with inadequate filters, windows that don't open etc are more difficult to fix than telling people they should have sanitised their shopping trolley.

https://english.elpais.com/society/...he-coronavirus-is-spread-through-the-air.html

So if you're planning to restart socialising (particularly if you or one of them is vulnerable to infection) it's worth knowing what to look out for. In general if you're meeting indoors - look at shorter visits, ventilation, turn the background music down so you don't have to shout, avoid sitting face to face - it all may help. Facemasks help of course, but on some occasions the other rules may be easier to apply.

Take the specific numbers it mentions in that article as coming with lots of "more or less" provisos, but the broad sweep is probably accurate.
I would imagine the much more virulent new variants are the main reason behind the moving goalposts. The “close contact” referred to by the CDC was probably needed to pass on enough of a viral load of the original wuhan strain to infect anyone else.

You used to need to be right up in somebody’s face to get enough virus on board to catch covid. Or swipe a big goop of body fluids off a surface and into your eyes/nose. Now it takes a much smaller dose of viruses to trigger an infection we’re at a stage where it’s possible to infect other people over greater distances, via tiny aerosolised particles.

That El Pais article is from October last year. It would be interesting to see it rehashed based on the transmissibility of the new variants.
 
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jojojo

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I would imagine the much more virulent new variants are the main reason behind the moving goalposts. The “close contact” referred to by the CDC was probably needed to pass on enough of a viral load of the original wuhan strain to infect anyone else.

You used to need to be right up in somebody’s face to get enough virus on board to catch covid. Or swipe a big goop of body fluids off a surface and into your eyes/nose. Now it takes a much smaller dose of viruses to trigger an infection we’re at a stage where it’s possible to infect other people over greater distances, via tiny aerosolised particles.
Could be. But the early super-spreader events all suggested that airborne infection was viable - particularly those studies on restaurants and choir practices etc.

I can easily believe that those events got lost in the noise once widespread community transmission really kicked off though.

Interestingly we're back at that question again now as infection rates fall - like the school in Long Eaton that suddenly had 100 cases (and at least 200 now identified as part of that cluster) last week. If that's not the heating system or a mass choir practice etc then I'd be really surprised.
 

Pogue Mahone

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Could be. But the early super-spreader events all suggested that airborne infection was viable - particularly those studies on restaurants and choir practices etc.

I can easily believe that those events got lost in the noise once widespread community transmission really kicked off though.

Interestingly we're back at that question again now as infection rates fall - like the school in Long Eaton that suddenly had 100 cases (and at least 200 now identified as part of that cluster) last week. If that's not the heating system or a mass choir practice etc then I'd be really surprised.
I don’t think it’s binary. I’m sure, given a very particular set of circumstances, it’s always been possible for infection to be passed on via airborne transmission. But there’s an increased focus on it now the virus has dramatically increased its ability to gain a foothold in a new host. Which seems reasonable to me.

We’re very definitely up against a different virus, in terms of transmissibility, these last six months. So makes sense that we might need to change the public health advice to reflect this modified threat.
 

jojojo

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I don’t think it’s binary. I’m sure, given a very particular set of circumstances, it’s always been possible for infection to be passed on via airborne transmission. But there’s an increased focus on it now the virus has dramatically increased its ability to gain a foothold in a new host. Which seems reasonable to me.

We’re very definitely up against a different virus, in terms of transmissibility, these last six months. So makes sense that we might need to change the public health advice to reflect this modified threat.
I kind of see it as the other way round. The emphasis should have been on aerosol spread from much earlier and the new variants (and lower general spread) have forced the issue to the front of the queue. Super-spreader individuals and events have always been the great randomisers in the R number debate.

I blame that movie, Contagion and all those images of fomite spread :smirk:

To be fair the, meet outside, "open the windows" advice was always there (in the UK at least) but it tended to get lost in the other advice about cleaning surfaces, groceries, deliveries etc. It then drowned in the silly debates about whether it was ok to sit on a bench and drink a coffee during a walk in the park, and actions like chaining off play equipment. Personally, I suspect some of the outdoor rules made indoor rule-breaking more common - but that may be influenced by what I've seen rather than what's generally happened.
 

Pogue Mahone

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I kind of see it as the other way round. The emphasis should have been on aerosol spread from much earlier and the new variants (and lower general spread) have forced the issue to the front of the queue. Super-spreader individuals and events have always been the great randomisers in the R number debate.

I blame that movie, Contagion and all those images of fomite spread :smirk:

To be fair the, meet outside, "open the windows" advice was always there (in the UK at least) but it tended to get lost in the other advice about cleaning surfaces, groceries, deliveries etc. It then drowned in the silly debates about whether it was ok to sit on a bench and drink a coffee during a walk in the park, and actions like chaining off play equipment. Personally, I suspect some of the outdoor rules made indoor rule-breaking more common - but that may be influenced by what I've seen rather than what's generally happened.
The messaging in Ireland has been very similar to the Uk re ventilation, outdoors over indoor socialising etc. going back to this time last year.

There’s never been any formal advice re cleaning deliveries or groceries. That seemed to be mainly down to very scared people choosing to use an abundance of caution. Surface cleaning probably still makes sense. One of those things that’s easy to do and has no obvious downsides.

I definitely think the severe restrictions on outdoor activities have been too cautious. Even in the face of these new variants. Locked up playgrounds, road blocks on the way to the beach and a ban on kids playing sport always seemed over the top and even more so with hindsight.
 

Pogue Mahone

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Hospital numbers continuing to fall too, which is awesome. Hopefully today's easing of restrictions doesn't bollock anything up.
I’m feeling very optimistic this week. First time in ages. Schools/colleges etc closing in a month’s time will add to the vaccine effect. We should have a decent summer. Bring it on.
 

Massive Spanner

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I’m feeling very optimistic this week. First time in ages. Schools/colleges etc closing in a month’s time will add to the vaccine effect. We should have a decent summer. Bring it on.
I wonder what effect the next phase of the vaccines will have going forward? A lot of the most vulnerable are already fully vaccinated and most over 60's have had their first dose, so surely it'll be diminishing returns from here on in won't it? Clearly that's had a massive impact thus far.
 

Pogue Mahone

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I wonder what effect the vaccines will have going forward? A lot of the most vulnerable are already fully vaccinated and most over 60's have had their first dose, so surely it'll be diminishing returns from here on in won't it?
It’s barely touched the daily case numbers, with the vast majority in people too young for a vaccine yet. That will be the next improvement you’d hope to see. Or at least keep them more or less where they are while society opens back up.
 

djembatheking

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21 year olds getting first jab in Anglesey now , things are much more like normal now , schools open , people visiting each other , definitely feels like we have cracked it here now .
 

jojojo

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Balls. From feeling very optimistic to stressed all over again. In the space of 10 minutes. Thank you Twitter :(
I saw that earlier on. The hope I'm clinging to is that when you look at the case heat maps in those high rate areas the dominant group are the under 25s (particularly secondary school age) - which might suggest that we haven't seen evidence for vaccine evasion so far. The flipside is that if it is a variant that's more dangerous for kids than the original variant (which has been suggested by some reports from India) then we may be about to swap one pandemic for another one. Let's hope the vaccines can keep it suppressed.