Coronavirus Thread

[filbertway]

I don't mind us following this "roadmap". Open up a bit, take 4 weeks and see how the numbers look. Open up a bit, take 4 weeks and see how it looks. 

 

I'm starting to think the talk of vaccine passports in the media is to help increase the take up percentage of the vaccine in younger age groups. If government has proved anything, it's that they're rubbish at getting out apps that work how they need to work (or even work at all) So I feel like a vaccine passport app seems very unlikely.

 

I can only imagine the government are being consistently negative in an attempt to worry people, who are currently on the fence, into taking the vaccine.

 

The data from Israel in the past few months already shows that getting a lot of people vaccinated has allowed them to re-open and still see a drop in the r-number, deaths and infections. I've been letting the negativity from the govt get me down in the past few weeks. I'm now looking at it as purely mind games on their part. Personally I'd probably go the other way and point to Israel's success and let that be the reason people should come forward and take the vaccine.

[Buce]

Israel and Chile both led on Covid jabs, so why is one back in lockdown?

Analysis: contrasting national outcomes highlight how easily UK could blow its chances

 

As mass vaccination programmes take hold around the world, some countries have begun to get on top of the virus while others have continued to struggle. Two countries that have streaked ahead with immunisations are Israel and Chile, but as Israel edges back to a new normal, Chile has been plunged back into lockdown. Can the UK and other countries repeat Israel’s success and avoid the setbacks of Chile?

What is happening in Israel?

 

Israel has recorded dramatic falls in rates of infection, hospital admissions and deaths after running what was the world’s fastest Covid vaccination campaign. The country of 9 million people has administered two shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to more than half its population. Daily life has returned almost completely to a pre-pandemic situation, with shops, hotels, concerts and cinemas open again. That said, restrictions are still in place, such as the need for face masks outside the home and limits on gatherings indoors.

An analysis by Eran Segal, a computational biologist at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, reported that since a January peak in infections, the country had seen daily drops of 96% in cases, 90% in critically ill patients and 85% in deaths. According to health ministry statistics, daily infections have plummeted to the low hundreds – a massive decline since January, when there were 10,000 confirmed infections a day at one point. On Tuesday, the total number of active cases was roughly half that figure.

 

What is happening in Chile?

Chile is in the enviable position of having vaccinated faster than any other country in the Americas. More than a third of the country’s 18 million people have received at least one shot of either Pfizer/BioNTech or China’s Sinovac Biotech vaccine. However, cases have soared to the point of overwhelming the health system and strict lockdown measures are back in place.

What went wrong?

The speedy vaccination programme appears to have instilled a false sense of security that led the country to ease restrictions too soon without people appreciating the ongoing risks. The country reopened its borders in November and in January introduced permits for Chileans to go on summer holiday. Without strict controls on people entering the country, and the lack of an efficient contact-tracing system, travellers may have brought infections back into the country that were not picked up.

The virus would have had more chance to spread when the schools reopened along with restaurants, shopping malls, casinos, gyms and churches. With transmission rates now so high in the country, a far greater proportion of the population will need to be vaccinated to get on top of the epidemic.

Are the two countries comparable?

Israel’s case has a key difference to that of Chile’s in that it has exclusively administered Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, whereas Chile is using Pfizer/BioNTech and Sinovac Biotech shots. It is unclear what difference, if any, that may have, but the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has been one of the strongest performers in clinical trials. Other differences between the countries – with vastly different societies and demographics, and possibly different virus variants in circulation – can also make comparisons misleading.

It may also be a question of time for Chile. While Israel is enjoying low infection rates now, the effect of the vaccine appeared to have taken longer to establish itself than first thought. In fact, the country suffered its worst rise in infections during the pandemic even after its vaccine drive was in train, with a strict and weeks-long lockdown imposed. That lockdown, similar to the one just put in place in Chile, will also have had an effect on infection rates.

Can the UK achieve what Israel has done?

The UK’s vaccination programme has been a rare highlight in an otherwise disappointing response to the crisis. Having secured early deals for vaccines from multiple manufacturers, the country started inoculations in December and ramped up rates into the spring. More than half of the adult population has now received at least one shot of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, with coverage standing at more than 90% in the most vulnerable over-70s.

But the UK can easily blow it. Prof Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, has said there will definitely be another surge in coronavirus when the UK comes out of lockdown. What is unclear is how bad the resurgence will be and when it will peak. Documents released on Monday by the government’s Sage experts suggest a third wave could peak in late July or August, with one pessimistic but plausible scenario anticipating a situation as severe as that experienced in January when half of all UK Covid deaths occurred. A major driver for that bleak outcome would be if the AstraZeneca vaccine turns out to be less effective at reducing infection, limiting its impact on the spread of the disease.

Difficulties over vaccine supply already threaten to slow the UK’s immunisation programme and scientists modelling the epidemic say that if a slower rollout is not balanced by a slower relaxation of restrictions, we will see more hospital admissions and deaths in any further wave.

Whether the UK can emulate Israel’s apparent success comes down to multiple factors. It is unclear how big a part is played by the vaccines used. Outbreak modellers on Sage assume that the Pfizer vaccine is more effective at preventing infections – and so reducing spread of the virus – than the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. But there is little real-world data on the potency of the AstraZeneca vaccine when two shots are given three months apart, as is the case in the UK. The initial picture is that the delay improves the immune response, but the impact in the real world is unclear.

Differences in the vaccines are only one factor though. Unlike Israel, the UK is a global travel hub. This makes it much tougher to drive cases down to very low levels without strong – and highly disruptive – protection at the borders. This means cases are likely to be higher when the UK eases restrictions, meaning the epidemic could swiftly pick up again in the millions of people who have not been protected by vaccine.

Both Israel and the UK need to address differences in cultural behaviour, access to vaccines, housing density and vaccine hesitancy. Israel turned to free pizza and beer to encourage younger people – who are less at risk from the virus – to have the vaccine and similar enticements might work in the UK. Patterns of vaccine coverage in the UK show that the immunisation programme could easily result in a patchwork of high and low vaccination areas, with the disease more under control in richer regions and persisting in the more deprived areas.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/06/israel-and-chile-both-led-on-covid-jabs-so-why-is-one-back-in-lockdown

[Babylon]

55 minutes ago, Harrydc said:

It's absolutely nothing to do with 'self interest'... 

 

30 million people have this oh so precious vaccine. The old and vulnerable are all vaccinated. They account for 98% of deaths within 28 days of a positive test for any reason. 

 

We should not be in a lockdown anymore. There's no reasonable excuse.

 

Its just 3 weeks. 

 

It's just until the summer. 

 

Sacrifice Christmas to save Easter. 

 

When the old and vulnerable are vaccinated. 

 

When the over 50s are vaccinated. 

 

When everyone is vaccinated. 

 

When the whole world is vaccinated. 

 

This is never ending. 

Partially, partially vaccinated. Which renders every other point moot.

[Innovindil]

1 hour ago, Harrydc said:

It's absolutely nothing to do with 'self interest'... 

 

30 million people have this oh so precious vaccine. The old and vulnerable are all vaccinated. They account for 98% of deaths within 28 days of a positive test for any reason. 

 

We should not be in a lockdown anymore. There's no reasonable excuse.

 

Its just 3 weeks. 

 

It's just until the summer. 

 

Sacrifice Christmas to save Easter. 

 

When the old and vulnerable are vaccinated. 

 

When the over 50s are vaccinated. 

 

When everyone is vaccinated. 

 

When the whole world is vaccinated. 

 

This is never ending. 

Isn't 2% of the remaining population some 600 odd thousand people? 

 

Food for thought perhaps. 

[CosbehFox]

1 hour ago, Otis said:

Whilst Chile has a strict lockdown & their cases are 2 & half higher than ours with a population of less than a third.

 

Apples and oranges..

 

Chile is a worrying situation - they are back in a strict lockdown after successfully run down the cases in a previous lockdown and then getting a good number of their population vaccinated. So it's a lesson in how to not to 'fully open up' rather than an example of how lockdown's don't achieve anything. 

 

Two conclusions can be taken from that - the Brazilian variant in that region of the World may be beating vaccines and just further confirmation that standard of living/living conditions are a massive factor in this. 

Edited 7 April 2021 by Cardiff_Fox

[leicsmac]

19 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

A weak Government which is terrified of public opinion if it sees an increase in deaths again.  A huge contract for testing and IT to put in place this digital vaccination passport.  People in the home office and the police who would love to see us all carrying some form of ID we had to show when asked. People in the treasury who see the massive debt as a an excuse to make "austerity" look like a practise run.  All of the above?  Take your pick.

All absolutely fair concerns. And if the crisis that had generated them was caused by humans and could be solved easily by humans talking to each other - as almost every other political issue could - then I'd be joining you and anyone else clamouring about it as loudly as possible.

 

But this isn't a fight against a human opponent that can be intimidated or negotiated with. It is one against a force of nature itself - and hardly the biggest one on the horizon - and a virus cannot be bought, negotiated with or intimidated. It simply doesn't care how we choose to respond to it and it absolutely will not stop harming us. Not until we either vaccinate it as close to out of existence (or out of threat) as we can, or it mutates into a less harmful form through the vagaries of chance. It will not get tired, or bored, or complacent - we do.

 

Knowing that, what can be done?

 

And, again, sterner challenges from the natural world await on the horizon, and if the response to this one is any judge, we might be found wanting. Which wouldn't be good.

 

16 minutes ago, Harrydc said:

I see absolutely no future. 

 

I do not want to bring any kids into this authoritarian totalitarian world we're approaching. It'd be cruel.

 

So that's a family out the window. 

 

It's about people in care homes who haven't seen their family in a year. 

 

It's about basic human liberties being snatched away. 

 

It's about the impending social credit system once these 'freedom passes' are out. 

 

But if you want to live in a world like this then good luck to you. 

Thank you for being so candid. I'm sorry, truly sorry, that you feel that way.

 

Personally, I think it would take a much, much crueller world than the one we inhabit now - or even may inhabit in the dystopia you speak of here - to convince me that is a worse option than a world where such a virus runs amok with all the body count that entails both through the disease itself, through lack of access to medical care for other illnesses, and through the social changes all of that would bring anyway. The deaths caused by the virus itself would be just the tip of the iceberg.

 

I want to live in a world where we can actually defend ourselves against whatever the natural world may choose to throw at us, by near any means necessary. Because it can be crueller and more efficient at killing than any human might dream of being.

[Spudulike]

7 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Chile is a worrying situation - they are back in a strict lockdown after successfully run down the cases in a previous lockdown and then getting a good number of their population vaccinated. 

 

Two conclusions - the Brazilian variant in that region of the World may be beating vaccines and just further confirmation that standard of living/living conditions are a massive factor in this. 

Is that true? Is there evidence of those vaccinated getting the Brazil variant or any other? The article says they rolled out Pfizer and Sinovac, perhaps they are not as effective against this strain as thought if this is true. In which case the Ox-AZ might not be either. 

[Leicester_Loyal]

36 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Partially, partially vaccinated. Which renders every other point moot.

By that logic everything will always be moot then, because even two doses doesn't provide 100% immunity or protection?

[KrefelderFox666]

Just saw the Snooker final being at full capacity but it does say "No under-18s, vulnerable adults or pregnant women will be allowed to attend".

 

I know this is part of testing a way back to having events running but surely that would go down as discrimination against those people. They should not be able to get away with that.

 

For information, I am not U18, I am not a vulnerable adult and I am not a woman, neither am I interested in watching the Snooker.

[KrefelderFox666]

Back to comparisons with Brazil, you really cannot compare the two countries due to economics and demographics. Brazil has a much poorer healthcare system for starts, the economy is fragile at best and poverty is high. You can understand why Bolsonaro wants the virus to crack on while the economy flows and he is potentially calculating that the weakest will pass away, in particular in favelas.

 

You can see why he has let the virus rip through the country but of course it is not the right thing to do on an ethic level. It's a very risky strategy either way.

[filbertway]

29 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Chile is a worrying situation - they are back in a strict lockdown after successfully run down the cases in a previous lockdown and then getting a good number of their population vaccinated. So it's a lesson in how to not to 'fully open up' rather than an example of how lockdown's don't achieve anything. 

 

Two conclusions can be taken from that - the Brazilian variant in that region of the World may be beating vaccines and just further confirmation that standard of living/living conditions are a massive factor in this. 

So it seems they've vaccinated 35% of their  population with at least one first dose. They also opened the company up in early 2021 which would lead to a drive in infections. 

 

I think it does serve as a good message that coming out slowly while we've not got 70% vaccinated is the safe option to take.

 

It's also positive if you look at their spike in infections and deaths last june. Then compare that to the spike of infections and deaths at the moment, the deaths have barely moved up despite a rather sharp uptick in cases.

[filbertway]

5 minutes ago, KrefelderFox666 said:

Just saw the Snooker final being at full capacity but it does say "No under-18s, vulnerable adults or pregnant women will be allowed to attend".

 

I know this is part of testing a way back to having events running but surely that would go down as discrimination against those people. They should not be able to get away with that.

 

For information, I am not U18, I am not a vulnerable adult and I am not a woman, neither am I interested in watching the Snooker.

Is this really good satire or not? I don't want to bite if it is

 

[leicsmac]

https://www.sciencealert.com/study-suggests-1-in-3-covid-19-survivors-suffer-mental-or-neurological-problems

 

Another possible complication.

[FoxesDeb]

38 minutes ago, filbertway said:

Is this really good satire or not? I don't want to bite if it is

 

I think it's a serious post 

[KrefelderFox666]

39 minutes ago, filbertway said:

Is this really good satire or not? I don't want to bite if it is

 

All information is correct at time of posting!

[CosbehFox]

1 hour ago, Spudulike said:

Is that true? Is there evidence of those vaccinated getting the Brazil variant or any other? The article says they rolled out Pfizer and Sinovac, perhaps they are not as effective against this strain as thought if this is true. In which case the Ox-AZ might not be either. 

That's why I say may - Chile opened up the borders, so you'd expect it to be the Brazil variant to be causing the issue. The article also says the Sinovac has been predominantly used in Chile. 

[MattFox]

Astrazeneca isn’t going to be used on under 30’s

[GlennyFox55]

Just now, MattFox said:

Astrazeneca isn’t going to be used on under 30’s

Unless you’re getting your 2nd dose. 

[Legend_in_blue]

52 minutes ago, KrefelderFox666 said:

Back to comparisons with Brazil, you really cannot compare the two countries due to economics and demographics. Brazil has a much poorer healthcare system for starts, the economy is fragile at best and poverty is high. You can understand why Bolsonaro wants the virus to crack on while the economy flows and he is potentially calculating that the weakest will pass away, in particular in favelas.

 

You can see why he has let the virus rip through the country but of course it is not the right thing to do on an ethic level. It's a very risky strategy either way.

 

True.  Any decision will come with an element of risk.  

 

It's disappointing though that people read the headline figures and from that assume the worst.  More scaremongering once again, following on from when will the Brazilian variant find its way over here and so on.

 

If you compare countries, Peru and Brazil for example, Peru has had an extremely strict lockdown, whereas Brazil has not.  Per 1 million people, the death rate in Peru is worse than Brazil's (and the UK is worse than both).    

 

[RowlattsFox]

Rightly or wrongly, stuff like this isn't going to encourage people under 30 to get the jab. Bound to make more people sceptical of it all. Stuff like this happens all time time with various medications and who they should be used on but we don't see it.  

 

I just hope enough people over 40 have a jab to see us through because I do feel take up will be relatively low under 30. 

[KrefelderFox666]

3 minutes ago, RowlattsFox said:

Rightly or wrongly, stuff like this isn't going to encourage people under 30 to get the jab. Bound to make more people sceptical of it all. Stuff like this happens all time time with various medications and who they should be used on but we don't see it.  

 

I just hope enough people over 40 have a jab to see us through because I do feel take up will be relatively low under 30. 

There are other vaccines for the younger people to take. Moderna is coming on, J&J is due soon. By the time those start getting vaccinated out it'll be for the U50s anyway. It just means that the Astra Zeneca vaccine uptake may slow down. All depends on how much of the other vaccines get delivered over the next few weeks/months. The J&J is a single dose if I recall correctly, so those might be good for the younger people in June/July.

 

I think they have held back in the UK until the most vulnerable were vaccinated. When Europe was mentioning these findings, the UK didn't want to know. Evidently, because they wanted to avoid the last good chunk of the at risk group to be put off. No surprise on the timing of this communication.

 

It's obviously a rare side effect but it is good practice to make people aware to avoid any large compensation cases from family members when things do go wrong.

[Milo]

17 hours ago, foxile5 said:

The arts and culture sector have been ****ing shat on by the government during this. 

How so? 

[Innovindil]

People with a history of blood disorders that increase the risk of blood clotting should only have the AstraZeneca jab where benefits outweigh potential risks

 

Well that's me out of the race for an Oxford jab then. Balls. 

[filbertway]

6 minutes ago, KrefelderFox666 said:

All information is correct at time of posting!

I'd assume for the same reason people have to be a certain height to ride roller coasters. For those people's safety.

 

I will say though, the only one that makes sense to me is pregnant women or people who are immuno-compromised. Vulnerable people should have had a vaccine and u18s are pretty much safe.

 

I'd definitely argue that stopping people from doing something because it is dangerous to them is not the same as discrimination though.

 

[KrefelderFox666]

1 minute ago, filbertway said:

I'd assume for the same reason people have to be a certain height to ride roller coasters. For those people's safety.

 

I will say though, the only one that makes sense to me is pregnant women or people who are immuno-compromised. Vulnerable people should have had a vaccine and u18s are pretty much safe.

 

I'd definitely argue that stopping people from doing something because it is dangerous to them is not the same as discrimination though.

 

Shouldn't people be advised of the risks should they attend such an event rather than being outcast completely? Not quite sure what the danger to life is here when everyone has either been vaccinated or tested negative shortly before event.

 

If this is a sign of what is to come in the future then it's not good.