When will this shit end?

[DeanoL]

15 minutes ago, ErnestWorthing said:

I'm not trying to act smart I'm trying to educate you on really basic principles.  The R number is variables, that's literally the whole thing, it's a bunch of variables and some backward calculations.  You can't find an R rate in DNA. If we change variables the whole model changes, you can't re-calculate an R number using two points of information and it's laughable that you're attempting to do so.

I was taking R as 4 to be the R rate of the Kent variant in a UK under no restrictions (because that was the context we were discussing herd immunity in). 

[onthebeach]

5 hours ago, Ozanne said:

Covid: One dose of vaccine halves transmission - study https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56904993

I’m not sure how that works as it’s even better news! It looks like this is on top of the 60-65% reduction in catching Covid in the first place? So transmission 75-82% don’t pass it on?

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1387339447633580035?s=21

 

 

Edited April 28, 2021 by onthebeach

[zahidf]

 

[dingbat2]

13 minutes ago, onthebeach said:

I’m not sure how that works as it’s even better news! It looks like this is on top of the 60-65% reduction in catching Covid in the first place? So transmission 75-82% don’t pass it on?

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1387339447633580035?s=21

 

 

...so that means as long as the dominant variant has a natural r rate of nothing higher than 4 to 5 (1/0.75 - 1/0.82) then the virus will gradually fizzle out and without the need for any restrictions (lockdowns/social distancing, etc) once everyone has a single dose? Kent variant has r=4 so we hopefully we wont get any variant more transmissible variants that that, and the current vaccines can still fight it with the same effectiveness. Am I reading this correctly?

[zahidf]

Holy crap the Russian vaccine was dodgy

 

[efcfanwirral]

3 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Holy crap the Russian vaccine was dodgy

 

That is one hell of a mistake...

[JoeyT]

1 minute ago, efcfanwirral said:

That is one hell of a mistake...

Or part of Putin's big plan of Russian world domination...

[onthebeach]

4 hours ago, Barry Fish said:

I don't get how they can say they are facing a "difficult problem" and then say the second line...

At the very least give people a choice.  My wife is 39 year old secondary school teacher and is desperate to get ANY vaccine while people stroke their chins over this.  She faced a higher risk when she was on the pill FFS and she faces the daily risk of working around thousand plus staff and teachers.

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/chmp-annex/annex-vaxzevria-art53-visual-risk-contextualisation_en.pdf

These are the latest charts from the EMA which I appreciate is overall Europe figures for the rare blood clotting events v risk from Covid not UK yellow card reported figures. Note that AstraZeneca is now called Vaxzevria in Europe - that confused me! There are 9 charts showing risks v benefits for different circumstances - low/medium/high transmission rates and risk of hospitalisations/ICU admissions and deaths. I’ve chosen the example of low transmission as I’m sure that’s where we are at now and ICU admissions v rare blood clots per age group. 

From this it’s fairly clear why we have adopted a recommendation for other vaccines in the 20-29 age groups and there is a case for the same in the 30-39 age groups. 

I think this must be the dilemma that the MHRA are facing? It’s not really ‘chin stroking’.

Charts on this link are a very similar presentation to the UK ones that were shown in the first week of April and I think they are a very understandable way of presenting the information to the general public. I wonder if UK will update ours with the latest information they have?

Taken from this statement-

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/astrazenecas-covid-19-vaccine-benefits-risks-context

However, I do think there is definitely a case for explaining the risks v benefits to the <40 year age groups so a reasoned choice can be made of AstraZeneca now or wait for Pfizer/Moderna

[onthebeach]

54 minutes ago, dingbat2 said:

...so that means as long as the dominant variant has a natural r rate of nothing higher than 4 to 5 (1/0.75 - 1/0.82) then the virus will gradually fizzle out and without the need for any restrictions (lockdowns/social distancing, etc) once everyone has a single dose? Kent variant has r=4 so we hopefully we wont get any variant more transmissible variants that that, and the current vaccines can still fight it with the same effectiveness. Am I reading this correctly?

It certainly looks that way - but I’m sure there are more qualified people than me who could confirm this

[Mellotr0n]

1 hour ago, DeanoL said:

I was taking R as 4 to be the R rate of the Kent variant in a UK under no restrictions (because that was the context we were discussing herd immunity in). 

But also based on no immunity, right?

(It's obviously not an R of 4 now with no restrictions, due to the very high level of immunity we have.)

[Fuzzy Afro]

I for one am shocked that a vaccine made in Russia turned out to be a dud.

 

 

[dingbat2]

16 minutes ago, Mellotr0n said:

But also based on no immunity, right?

(It's obviously not an R of 4 now with no restrictions, due to the very high level of immunity we have.)

Yes the 4 is based on no immunity, no vaccinations and no restrictions, so the starting point for the virus effectively. Then each of these steps reduces that natural r rate down a bit, being

 - you've already had the virus so have developed antibodies

 - % of population which have been vaccinated, the effectiveness of the vaccine and the effect it has in reducing transmission to other people

- restrictions social distancing/lockdown/masks, etc

So each of these reduce the natural r from 4 to hopefully an effective r below 1 at which point the virus cannot spread exponentially and will slowly fizzle out

Edited April 28, 2021 by dingbat2

[JoeyT]

Deaths up, Cases down.

 

[JoeyT]

Symptomatic cases (which I assume the majority of PCR's are) dropping.

 

[JoeyT]

7 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Deaths rocketing - back to full lockdown!!!

7 day average by "date of death" is 18 down from 22 a week ago.

Still heading in the right direction 🙂

[Guest]

Vaccination update:

[stuartbert two hats]

4 hours ago, ErnestWorthing said:

Not sure that's how it works.  From wikipedia: 

" is not a biological constant for a pathogen as it is also affected by other factors such as environmental conditions and the behaviour of the infected population.  values are usually estimated from mathematical models, and the estimated values are dependent on the model used and values of other parameters. Thus values given in the literature only make sense in the given context and it is recommended not to use obsolete values or compare values based on different models.^[25] } does not by itself give an estimate of how fast an infection spreads in the population."

I think I agree with Bazza here.  It's accepted that R isn't a constant and is affected by a great deal of factors.  The point is that in order to make the calculations for herd immunity, you need to look at what R would be in a population without antibodies or NPIs.  Then you model the effect of immunity until R (with interventions) drops below 1, at which point the virus starts to naturally die off.

I think that's his point anyway.

[eFestivals]

8 hours ago, Hannibal Schmitt said:

It is clear that covid will always be a part of our life from now but it will be like other diseases. So with vaccination we can change the course of the disease to a rather mild one and most of all that it is not deadly anymore.

It was always going to be something milder once it was no longer a novel virus. 

[Crazyfool01]

Hancock’s defence of Boris incoming at today’s briefing 

[stuartbert two hats]

31 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Vaccination update:

It's funny to look at this chart - despite all the woe about supply, in terms of total doses, if you we've been above all prior weeks, provided you disregard that one mega week towards the end of March.

[Crazyfool01]

60 million more Pfizer ordered ... hope the rest of the world gets sorted first ... 

[efcfanwirral]

6 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

60 million more Pfizer ordered ... hope the rest of the world gets sorted first ... 

Ah yes "only for the vulnerable" unsurprisingly turns into ordering enough for everyone 

[Crazyfool01]

1 minute ago, efcfanwirral said:

Ah yes "only for the vulnerable" unsurprisingly turns into ordering enough for everyone 

I guess we don’t know on the varriants what is going to be necessary at this stage ... maybe covering bases ? For an updated vaccine ? 

[efcfanwirral]

Just now, crazyfool1 said:

I guess we don’t know on the varriants what is going to be necessary at this stage ... maybe covering bases ? For an updated vaccine ? 

Hopefully we send these out if it turns out it isn't needed for the non vulnerable- otherwise all this variant fear will just come true because we're having 3 while vulnerable people in poorer countries are having zero 

[steviewevie]

Just now, efcfanwirral said:

Hopefully we send these out if it turns out it isn't needed for the non vulnerable- otherwise all this variant fear will just come true because we're having 3 while vulnerable people in poorer countries are having zero 

they want to keep the vaccine bounce going as along as poss.