Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Billy Jean King]

Only if you had your mind set on zero COVID and think that the AZ was the only option as a vaccine available to us. Again the vaccine teams especially the Oxford team are updating their vaccine to deal with the SA variant if their test results aren't up to it. It shouldn't be difficult for them.
 

Forget the SA variant it's a red herring that I never once mentioned. Natural R is 4, that was confirmed last week. That is the figure quoted for the most prevalent variant currently in the UK.

[Bairnardo]

Forget the SA variant it's a red herring that I never once mentioned. Natural R is 4, that was confirmed last week. That is the figure quoted for the most prevalent variant currently in the UK.

Against which the current vaccines have proven to be effective no?

[Billy Jean King]

You might like to start the morning with a bit of fear and hyperbole, but I like to start my morning with a cup of coffee and then some mini weetabix chocolate chip, then I think about leaving the house.

Honestly I don't and I am not convinced by the argument BUT you can see the scenarios where restriction free new cases would be wildly higher than anything seen. Yes the majority will be mild to moderate but a % of a very high number in the form of those that do develop into hospital cases and death could still be an issue especially in winter.

All I'm saying is no matter how unpalatable the scenario is you can see where they are coming from and it can't just be dismissed as fear. It could happen, it's not particularly far fetched.

[Billy Jean King]

At what point during all of this have the media been fueled by euphoria? I must have missed that.

The vaccine announcements for one.

[Elixir]

1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

It's more like the goalposts were planted firmly in the wrong place to start with by a media fuelled by euphoria. As I just posted they knew natural R without mitigation yet chose to ignore that. It's not really difficult to see where this sort of stuff is coming from. Cases with R between 3 and 4 will be wildly beyond anything seen before. Look at numbers now with lockdown and an R barely above 1 ! Come Autumn we could see very high hospital and death numbers again.

The one upside of an R that high is that herd immunity would be reached far faster assuming it can't be caught twice.

 

3 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

1 hour ago, Snafu said:

Only if you had your mind set on zero COVID and think that the AZ was the only option as a vaccine available to us. Again the vaccine teams especially the Oxford team are updating their vaccine to deal with the SA variant if their test results aren't up to it. It shouldn't be difficult for them.
 

Forget the SA variant it's a red herring that I never once mentioned. Natural R is 4, that was confirmed last week. That is the figure quoted for the most prevalent variant currently in the UK.

 

Where are you going with this 'natural R is 4' talk?

 

[Billy Jean King]

So just like Infleunza then whick kills 15k on average in the UK?  As I keep saying, people need to get their heads round the fact this ain't going away and it will still kill people, and quite possibly in significant numbers now and again.  Once everyone is vaccinated (who want it) we must get on with life, and that is what will happen regardless of negative soundbites from politicians. Votes count.

The models suggest it could be 5 times that number, no one really knows we need to wait and see. I agree 100% at flu levels it's not an issue. I'm not in that camp at all.

[madwullie]

1 hour ago, Snafu said:

Only if you had your mind set on zero COVID and think that the AZ was the only option as a vaccine available to us. Again the vaccine teams especially the Oxford team are updating their vaccine to deal with the SA variant if their test results aren't up to it. It shouldn't be difficult for them.

 

That tweak won't be ready till autumn. What, 8 months? What do we do in the meantime. Tjis shit needs discussed, data needs analysed - no fear porned in the bin and a massive shrug because vaccines always work. 

Does it not seem strange we're the only country working like this - doing the one jag stuff, insisting the vaccines will be fine while everyone else is saying its risky? Last time we let the tories take us our own way we totally fucked ourselves in March. 

All I'm saying is there's nothing wrong with being a bit more careful and listening to more opinions than

1. A wildly hyperbolic msm who swing from telling us we've saved the world to proclaiming well be in restrictions till the 2030s

2. Our favoured twitter accounts we follow because they say the things we want to hear and have a similar view on this stuff as we do. 

[Billy Jean King]

Against which the current vaccines have proven to be effective no?

A small bit it reduced to 3.5 to 3. Still way too high. It's all hypothetical for now, we have to see how it pans out. All I'm saying is I can see in the scenarios being banded about where problems could still lie.

[effeffsee_the2nd]

best just stay in lockdown forever then eh

[Bairnardo]

1 minute ago, Billy Jean King said:

8 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Against which the current vaccines have proven to be effective no?

A small bit it reduced to 3.5 to 3. Still way too high. It's all hypothetical for now, we have to see how it pans out. All I'm saying is I can see in the scenarios being banded about where problems could still lie.

Are you saying a fully vaccinated population drops R from 4 to 3?

[effeffsee_the2nd]

also what the f**k happened to the massively ramped up rapid testing & treatments ? wheres operation moonhowl from boris now? spring is only 6 weeks away chop chop

 

As for testing, Scotland seems to have been stuck on around 20k  per day for months now,

Edited February 8, 2021 by effeffsee_the2nd

[madwullie]

4 minutes ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

best just stay in lockdown forever then eh

Noone is saying this. Its a nonsense argument up there with You're happy to kill my gran so you can go to Benalmadena

[budmiester1]

21 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

23 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

Forget the SA variant it's a red herring that I never once mentioned. Natural R is 4, that was confirmed last week. That is the figure quoted for the most prevalent variant currently in the UK.

Against which the current vaccines have proven to be effective no?

Yesterday on the Andrew Marr show, Sarah Gilbert one of the Oxford team was saying that the AZ vaccine will always work due to the fact that it targets the identifiable protein spike of Covid-19, if the virus drops this spike it will die off, it's just how well the vaccine works is down to how much the virus mutates through time. Another thing I read ,on another forum by someone who appears to understand how things work, is that in the SA test of the vaccine was that they administered the second dose at 28 days, now apparently this is the worst time to give the second dose as the vaccines effectiveness drops off after a few days but then starts to regain effectiveness after 28 days and it becomes even more effective as time goes on. I'll see if I can find a link to the story. Found it https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1188440 

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by budmiester1

[Billy Jean King]

Are you saying a fully vaccinated population drops R from 4 to 3?

That was the figures last week. The estimated effect on transmission in the admittedly limited testing so far was a reduction of 1. Apparently that was better than they had hoped for as effect on limiting transmission was never the primary intended result, there not those sorts of vaccines. Someone posted this stuff over the weekend.

For the avoidance of doubt no way am I saying we should keep restrictions as come spring we will be in a good enough place to start lifting. What I am saying is that I don't find it too hard to envisage a situation come winter where sheer volume of new infections COULD still be high enough to permeate through to a level of hospital strain and deaths that COULD be higher than what authorities might deem acceptable whatever that figure is.

[Billy Jean King]

Yesterday on the Andrew Marr show, Sarah Gilbert one of the Oxford team was saying that the AZ vaccine will always work due to the fact that it targets the identifiable protein spike of Covid-19, if the virus drops this spike it will die off, it's just how well the vaccine works is down to how much the virus mutates through time. Another thing I read ,on another forum by someone who appears to understand how things work, is that in the SA test of the vaccine was that they administered the second dose at 28 days, now apparently this is the worst time to give the second dose as the vaccines effectiveness drops off after a few days but then starts to regain effectiveness after 28 days and it becomes even more effective as time goes on. I'll see if I can find a link to the story. Found it https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1188440

Of course it works I'm not doubting that and I believe it 100%. That isn't my point.

[Burnieman]

The models suggest it could be 5 times that number, no one really knows we need to wait and see. I agree 100% at flu levels it's not an issue. I'm not in that camp at all.

We have vaccines that reduce death to almost zero. How do they get to the point of modelling 130k deaths?

[The Moonster]

5 minutes ago, madwullie said:

Noone is saying this. 

Are they not?

15 minutes ago, Elixir said:

 

 

Where are you going with this 'natural R is 4' talk?

 

What's Rupert Beale talking about then? If he thinks the vaccine won't be enough to stop the NHS being overwhelmed, when will restrictions ever end?

Plenty of folk are talking like restrictions are now just part of life. If that doesn't worry you then fair enough, but I can't listen to that sort of chat for another month, I'm stressed up to my eye balls and I need something to aim for, preferably a date that I can go round and hug my fucking mum. 

 

[effeffsee_the2nd]

1 minute ago, Burnieman said:

16 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

The models suggest it could be 5 times that number, no one really knows we need to wait and see. I agree 100% at flu levels it's not an issue. I'm not in that camp at all.

We have vaccines that reduce death to almost zero. How do they get to the point of modelling 130k deaths?

use the same calculation as they daily express weather man?

[GiGi]

In a week's time they should have vaccinated the vast majority of over 65s and other clinically vulnerable people in the country. If restrictions don't start lifting at that point then it's boot in the pie for the Scot Govt time.

[Bairnardo]

That was the figures last week. The estimated effect on transmission in the admittedly limited testing so far was a reduction of 1. Apparently that was better than they had hoped for as effect on limiting transmission was never the primary intended result, there not those sorts of vaccines. Someone posted this stuff over the weekend.

For the avoidance of doubt no way am I saying we should keep restrictions as come spring we will be in a good enough place to start lifting. What I am saying is that I don't find it too hard to envisage a situation come winter where sheer volume of new infections COULD still be high enough to permeate through to a level of hospital strain and deaths that COULD be higher than what authorities might deem acceptable whatever that figure is.

I wonder what assumptions they are making on the effect of vaccines on transmission to come up with that. Testing showing it reduces transmission by as much as 70% doesnt seem to me like a scenario where we could still have an R of 3 in a highly vaccinated/previously infected population. Admittedly, I'm not a scientist. It just doesnt sound realistic