When will this shit end?

[eFestivals]

26 minutes ago, zahidf said:

 

I've sat on my arse as requested/required. Do I get a clap? 😛 

[zahidf]

On vaccinations, there isn't any evidence yet on whether or not it stops Covid being spread. We won't know till Feb. Most vaccinations to stop people catching it AND spreading it though. We could be lucky.

[Jime1977]

14 minutes ago, hodgey123 said:

It is my basic understanding from the information available at present that individuals can still be infected but will not be hospitalised or die. That is obviously great but means that the effect on R rates and the like may not be as pronounced as we might expect, but I do not see why this would be a barrier to loosening restrictions if the individuals that are vaccinated do not actually suffer any symptoms (thus no strain on the NHS).

It would of course mean we would need to be vigilant on booster doses to ensure that individuals are not unknowingly exposed when they are not protected if we are accepting that those vaccinated can still transmit the virus, as I am then envisaging a situation where the virus is being transmitted unchecked but causing little issues given the level of vaccinated people?

I believe that’s what the vaccines do - allow people to catch the virus, but not suffer enough to be seriously ill. The obvious problem is if they can still transmit it and have someone else get seriously ill. 

I presume the government is essentially going to say it’s Ok to reduce the protective measures when enough of the people who are most likely to be hospitalised are vaccinated (that should be actually vaccinated, not just in receipt of what I expect to be a shed load of letters posted on the 13th Feb...)

There will still be the problem of those who are younger so don’t get vaccinated as quickly and might suffer long Covid or worse if they have a condition they’re unaware of.

Also - good messaging is required if we want to avoid the vaccinated meeting up with the unvaccinated assuming they can’t pass the virus on. They should still be distancing etc. until we know for sure if that’s the case.
 

 

[Toilet Duck]

18 minutes ago, northernringo said:

Has there been any evidence either way yet that the vaccine reduces how infectious someone is with the virus?

If I understand correctly, if a person has been vaccinated they can catch the virus but will not get a serious infection from it (ignoring the 90% data for now).

Can this person still transmit the virus to someone who has not been vaccinated though?

Seems to me the answer to this question will have huge ramifications as to how fast we return to 'normal'.

So far what we have is decent pre-clinical evidence that viral load is decreased in vaccinated animals and this should suppress transmission. The Oxford trial also included weekly PCR self-swabbing for participants in the UK and has looked at the numbers of asymptomatic PCR positive cases in vaccinated versus control participants. That showed a 58% reduction in asymptomatic cases after vaccination. The problem with that is that the reduction was in the half dose:full dose vaccinated people (it was only 3% in the full dose participants) and that's not the regimen that is being rolled out. It also had a pretty big confidence interval (the lower one was down at 3%), so they aren't sure yet. It was statistically significant, but that doesn't always translate into anything clinically meaningful. However, what is being rolled out is two full doses with a 12 week gap. Buried in the Oxford trial results was pretty firm data that this had a significant increase in the amount of neutralising antibody present (it grew when more time was left between jabs), so this is expected to increase the overall efficacy of the vaccine as well as provide better protection from infection itself. J&J have seen similar things in their early data, Novavax as well and Moderna claim they see a big reduction in viral load (but I haven't seen that data). Pfizer are going to assess this at a later date in their phase 3 trial. They are collecting blood samples from participants 6 months after they finish to look at how well the immune response holds up and they can look at the same time for antibodies to other parts of the virus not contained in the vaccine which will let them see how many people became asymptomatically infected in vaccine versus control. My guess is it will provide a degree of protection from infection and onward transmission, but not sterilising immunity that would completely wipe out the virus...it should contribute to reducing R though.

[Lycra]

Whilst we many be ambitious in our targets that's no bad thing. Just look what's happening on the continent right now. In Germany many vaccination centres have had to temporarily shutter due lack of vaccine. The French have formed a committee to discuss who can be vaccinated (Macron got in and got his before he agreed they need one)....and the Dutch are scratching around trying to come up with a vaccination plan (does help that their Health Service IT system has failed!)

 

 

[ace56blaa]

16 minutes ago, hodgey123 said:

I mentioned a few days ago that a problem in the November and latest lockdown compared to March is employers that continue to insist that they are essential workplaces and remain open. My girlfriend's workplace - a small homeware retailer in Devon - has sent around communications today to all employees in head office outlining how they are within the remit of a key worker, and have even provided documentation for the employees travelling to head office to supply to the police if they are questioned when travelling in! The same documentation and rationale has been provided to my mother and sister who also work at Costa Coffee who have been despicable in their treatment of staff throughout. 

It is absolutely outrageous and if it weren't for my girlfriend I would be 'anonymously' tipping this to the local press to see if they could drum up some negative PR. Costa workers clearly cannot work from home but that does not mean that they are essential, whereas my girlfriend worked from home perfectly during a recent period of self-isolation as did the rest of her office.

This pandemic should have exposed how disgusting and unfair working practises in the UK are. Especially in the lower paid jobs that the majority of the population have. I have worked 6 or 7 different fast food and retail jobs and every single one with the exception of Greggs (who actually have pretty good pay and benefits for staff), treat their staff like crap, the majority of my jobs have tried to get away with underpaying me, overworking and in some cases "accidentally" not paying me for months at a time. It's got to a point where no one expects anything more than that. - This low paying jobs work on the assumption that they'll get mostly young people and temporary workers and once the worker has had enough of being treated like shit they'll move on. It's disgusting imagine if we had laws and practises that meant job security in these jobs, no more zero hour contracts, 

For some people this has gotten even worse due to the pandemic, where companies have binned staff hastily, tried to used government programs to profit, My company has binned off its entire staff twice only to bring them back when the government fixes furlough. - So it deffo fall on the government as well, because it's disgusting how most of the support have been put in hands of employers to decide the fate of their employees, how many more people would be better off with cash straight to their hands rather than relying on a job that is barely kept afloat by a closed economy. 

We need to fix work practises now. 

[DeanoL]

10 minutes ago, duke88 said:

If people are sticking to the rules, I don't understand how so many people can continue catching it. I don't have any close contact with anyone outside my household. Only time any of us leave is for exercise or to go to the shops. If these rules aren't enough to limit the numbers then we might as well just give up, there's no containing it.

I feel the same, and we do the same (except don't really go to the shops). Ended up with a cold today though. Fairly certain it's not COVID (none of the three main symptoms, just headache and blocked nose) but I guess that it could have been? I caught it off someone, despite having very few contacts, and if that person had COVID rather than a cold, I'd probably have that now. 

2 minutes ago, zahidf said:

On vaccinations, there isn't any evidence yet on whether or not it stops Covid being spread. We won't know till Feb. Most vaccinations to stop people catching it AND spreading it though. We could be lucky.

There's evidence it stops it being spread. Just not enough evidence to rely on at the moment. It could turn out to be blip in the data. But chances are higher that it has some impact on transmission than that it has none.

[parsonjack]

44 minutes ago, Toilet Duck said:

You're right, of course they should be piggy backing on the existing infrastructure (as well as using new sites for mass vaccination). Makes no sense for it to be either/or, so glad this seems to be moving. 

On the glass vials part, a bit of creative thinking might help speed things up. Rovi in Spain have signed a fill/finish contract with Moderna for their vaccine. They provide pre-filled syringes rather than multi-dose glass vials. Catalent are doing the same for them in the US. I know J&J are using Catalent as well, so hopefully different options will be available for a selection of the vaccines that don't need glass. 

We were only talking about this last night at home.....pre-filling syringes instead of vials.  We also wondered why no-one (yet) has designed the delivery into a pseudo-EpiPen approach to enable less skilled resources to deliver it?

[topmarksbri]

23 minutes ago, hodgey123 said:

I mentioned a few days ago that a problem in the November and latest lockdown compared to March is employers that continue to insist that they are essential workplaces and remain open. My girlfriend's workplace - a small homeware retailer in Devon - has sent around communications today to all employees in head office outlining how they are within the remit of a key worker, and have even provided documentation for the employees travelling to head office to supply to the police if they are questioned when travelling in! The same documentation and rationale has been provided to my mother and sister who also work at Costa Coffee who have been despicable in their treatment of staff throughout. 

It is absolutely outrageous and if it weren't for my girlfriend I would be 'anonymously' tipping this to the local press to see if they could drum up some negative PR. Costa workers clearly cannot work from home but that does not mean that they are essential, whereas my girlfriend worked from home perfectly during a recent period of self-isolation as did the rest of her office.

Part of the issue is that the actual guidance is incredibly vague (as ever):

Work - you can only leave home for work purposes where it is
unreasonable for you to do your job from home, including but not
limited to people who work within critical national infrastructure,
construction or manufacturing that require in-person attendance

 

That bit in bold could literally be anyone - "I think it's unreasonable for me to work from home because I don't have my ergonomic chair there" etc. Of course companies are to blame but companies care about one thing and that's the bottom line. Blame should be with the government for not giving clearer more robust guidance. 

[steviewevie]

11 minutes ago, JoeyT said:

If teachers are off because of Covid they can’t teach?

Much is said about the NHS but teachers also play an important part.

My wife has been expected to go to school with minimal PPE to teach year 1’s who have little to no idea as to what social distancing is...

schools are closed.

[hodgey123]

6 minutes ago, Jime1977 said:

I believe that’s what the vaccines do - allow people to catch the virus, but not suffer enough to be seriously ill. The obvious problem is if they can still transmit it and have someone else get seriously ill. 

I presume the government is essentially going to say it’s Ok to reduce the protective measures when enough of the people who are most likely to be hospitalised are vaccinated (that should be actually vaccinated, not just in receipt of what I expect to be a shed load of letters posted on the 13th Feb...)

There will still be the problem of those who are younger so don’t get vaccinated as quickly and might suffer long Covid or worse if they have a condition they’re unaware of.

Also - good messaging is required if we want to avoid the vaccinated meeting up with the unvaccinated assuming they can’t pass the virus on. They should still be distancing etc. until we know for sure if that’s the case.
 

 

Yeah, agree with everything you said. It sounds bad but I anticipate that we will get to a stage where there is a level of risk that we will tolerate (including a risk of previously healthy, young people getting long COVID) as the balance of public health vs. individual liberty is tipped in favour of the latter once the majority (if not all) of the vulnerable population are protected. 

Unfortunately, when you have a government as inept as ours, the messaging may not be great and I am not convinced that the vaccine roll-out will go without a hitch, but let's see. 

[xxialac]

4 minutes ago, Lycra said:

Whilst we many be ambitious in our targets that's no bad thing. Just look what's happening on the continent right now. In Germany many vaccination centres have had to temporarily shutter due lack of vaccine. The French have formed a committee to discuss who can be vaccinated (Macron got in and got his before he agreed they need one)....and the Dutch are scratching around trying to come up with a vaccination plan (does help that their Health Service IT system has failed!)

 

 

I agree totally. So far (and it's early days), other countries have made a horlicks of it.

But generally their governments have not performed anything like as poorly as ours through this crisis and aren't populated by thick, yes-man spivs who only got the top positions because they swore an undying pledge of allegiance to brexit.   

[Toilet Duck]

2 minutes ago, Lycra said:

Whilst we many be ambitious in our targets that's no bad thing. Just look what's happening on the continent right now. In Germany many vaccination centres have had to temporarily shutter due lack of vaccine. The French have formed a committee to discuss who can be vaccinated (Macron got in and got his before he agreed they need one)....and the Dutch are scratching around trying to come up with a vaccination plan (does help that their Health Service IT system has failed!)

 

 

Yeah, for all the giving out about the vaccine roll out in the UK, I think you guys are doing well. Why France are only discussing this now is mind boggling! (and Pfizer originally said they wouldn't ship until they saw the plans). Ireland isn't the most organised place in the world (especially our health service), but even we had our vaccination strategy sorted some time ago. The delay in the Oxford jab is the only thing holding us back really (though if J&J gets approved, then it slots into the same place and there's actually a chance that happens in the EU before the AZ one). It still wasn't built into our schedule till March at the earliest though. 

[hodgey123]

3 minutes ago, ace56blaa said:

This pandemic should have exposed how disgusting and unfair working practises in the UK are. Especially in the lower paid jobs that the majority of the population have. I have worked 6 or 7 different fast food and retail jobs and every single one with the exception of Greggs (who actually have pretty good pay and benefits for staff), treat their staff like crap, the majority of my jobs have tried to get away with underpaying me, overworking and in some cases "accidentally" not paying me for months at a time. It's got to a point where no one expects anything more than that. - This low paying jobs work on the assumption that they'll get mostly young people and temporary workers and once the worker has had enough of being treated like shit they'll move on. It's disgusting imagine if we had laws and practises that meant job security in these jobs, no more zero hour contracts, 

For some people this has gotten even worse due to the pandemic, where companies have binned staff hastily, tried to used government programs to profit, My company has binned off its entire staff twice only to bring them back when the government fixes furlough. - So it deffo fall on the government as well, because it's disgusting how most of the support have been put in hands of employers to decide the fate of their employees, how many more people would be better off with cash straight to their hands rather than relying on a job that is barely kept afloat by a closed economy. 

We need to fix work practises now. 

Totally agree. I have been incredibly fortunate personally as I have worked from home throughout and not stepped foot in an office and, when restrictions were loosening and there was a push back to office working, my employer was clear that no one would be expected or forced to go in if they did not want to. Unfortunately, my girlfriend has not been so lucky and it really has exposed as you say the toxic work presenteeism culture that still exists, not to mention worse as you have alluded to. 

What I don't understand with Costa is their business is a prime candidate to benefit from furlough but they are so reluctant to use it. My sister and mum were both either told to utilise annual leave or be redeployed to 'essential' stores that could operate as takeaways in November, and they have again been told the same this time. Why would they not use furlough?

[zahidf]

 

[SheffJeff]

Out of interest I remember months ago it being discussed that the K number was of more importance than the R number however it no longer gets a mention.  Does anyone know why this might be the case?  Possibly it's only the case when case numbers are low?  

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, zahidf said:

 

Make it 50mill by Feb then.

[Copperface]

7 minutes ago, Toilet Duck said:

So far what we have is decent pre-clinical evidence that viral load is decreased in vaccinated animals and this should suppress transmission. The Oxford trial also included weekly PCR self-swabbing for participants in the UK and has looked at the numbers of asymptomatic PCR positive cases in vaccinated versus control participants. That showed a 58% reduction in asymptomatic cases after vaccination. The problem with that is that the reduction was in the half dose:full dose vaccinated people (it was only 3% in the full dose participants) and that's not the regimen that is being rolled out. It also had a pretty big confidence interval (the lower one was down at 3%), so they aren't sure yet. It was statistically significant, but that doesn't always translate into anything clinically meaningful. However, what is being rolled out is two full doses with a 12 week gap. Buried in the Oxford trial results was pretty firm data that this had a significant increase in the amount of neutralising antibody present (it grew when more time was left between jabs), so this is expected to increase the overall efficacy of the vaccine as well as provide better protection from infection itself. J&J have seen similar things in their early data, Novavax as well and Moderna claim they see a big reduction in viral load (but I haven't seen that data). Pfizer are going to assess this at a later date in their phase 3 trial. They are collecting blood samples from participants 6 months after they finish to look at how well the immune response holds up and they can look at the same time for antibodies to other parts of the virus not contained in the vaccine which will let them see how many people became asymptomatically infected in vaccine versus control. My guess is it will provide a degree of protection from infection and onward transmission, but not sterilising immunity that would completely wipe out the virus...it should contribute to reducing R though.

So in layman's terms, what's the projected efficacy of one full AZ dose? 

As that's what a lot of people will be living with for up to three months.

It'll obviously be reduced I presume, although any protection is better than no protection, 

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, SheffJeff said:

Out of interest I remember months ago it being discussed that the K number was of more importance than the R number however it no longer gets a mention.  Does anyone know why this might be the case?  Possibly it's only the case when case numbers are low?  

I think it is to do with when cases are low, as you say....and at the moment it's through the flippin roof.

[philipsteak]

38 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Does anyone else read things like this and wonder what planet some people are living on? 

I don't have kids and wouldn't for one second suggest I know what's best for them, but from talking to my friends with kids, most of them seem to have basically done alright this last year. It's been far from great obviously, they've had moments when they've struggled but then so have the rest of us. It's basically been the kid version of "what, more of this fucking bullshit? Well go on then..."

And yes, I do appreciate that circumstances are going to vary quite a bit, but kids do seem to be pretty resilient 

[Toilet Duck]

3 minutes ago, SheffJeff said:

Out of interest I remember months ago it being discussed that the K number was of more importance than the R number however it no longer gets a mention.  Does anyone know why this might be the case?  Possibly it's only the case when case numbers are low?  

The variation in R hasn't gone away and as far as we know it is still not every infected person that goes on to infect someone else, so understanding that forms part of how risky certain activities are. What the K number of the new variant is hasn't been determined yet. Anecdotally, far more household contacts seem to be getting infected now, whereas previously it was under 10%. Does that feed into the suggestions that the new variant is more transmissible (and is it the change in K that helps describe that?) Don't know at this stage! Need more data to be able to say for sure. But if it is more transmissible, then it's likely that there will be less variation in who goes on to transmit it. 

[xxialac]

2 minutes ago, zahidf said:

 

Counter-arguments: it erodes trusts in our politicians to keep missing such targets by a mile to the point that people become disenfranchised. There is also no consequence of failure. 

Overpromise, underdeliver is never a good strategy in life. 

And "Even if not met it's likely to mean more done than if there was no target" is a nice straw man. No one is saying don't have a target - rather don't make it a grossly unrealistic one.

We will get nowhere near 13 million vaccinations completed by mid-Feb. Probably 50% out.

How are we doing so far with the target of "40 new hospitals built" by 2029?

[Toilet Duck]

3 minutes ago, Copperface said:

So in layman's terms, what's the projected efficacy of one full AZ dose? 

As that's what a lot of people will be living with for up to three months.

It'll obviously be reduced I presume, although any protection is better than no protection, 

The projected efficacy is 70% for one dose out to 12 weeks (100% protection from severe disease requiring hospitalisation from 10 days after the shot...according to the trial data and the MHRA authorisation).

[Copperface]

Just now, Toilet Duck said:

The projected efficacy is 70% for one dose out to 12 weeks (100% protection from severe disease requiring hospitalisation from 10 days after the shot...according to the trial data and the MHRA authorisation).

Thanks, that's pretty good. Definitely justified move from a public health view as well.

[DeanoL]

10 minutes ago, hodgey123 said:

What I don't understand with Costa is their business is a prime candidate to benefit from furlough but they are so reluctant to use it. My sister and mum were both either told to utilise annual leave or be redeployed to 'essential' stores that could operate as takeaways in November, and they have again been told the same this time. Why would they not use furlough?

There's still a cost to furlough for companies - national insurance contributions and any other benefits. Plus you can't furlough the cost of rent for all those stores. Anecdotally, they seem to be doing fairly well on takeout as they're the only place open and I think people want a warm drink for their socially distanced outdoor walks with a single friend.

(I still think they shouldn't be open though)