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When will this shit end?


Chrisp1986

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2 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

Heard many different variations of what amount the actual mid feb target is. Have heard 15 mil 14 mil and 12.9. I think on Feb 15th ish we will be at about 14 million first doses. 

It's to have offered a first dose to everyone in Groups 1-4 by Feb 15th. Which equates to 15 million people in the UK.

As the takeup probably won't be 100%, the actual number of doses given can be below that and still meet the target.

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7 minutes ago, incident said:

It's to have offered a first dose to everyone in Groups 1-4 by Feb 15th. Which equates to 15 million people in the UK.

As the takeup probably won't be 100%, the actual number of doses given can be below that and still meet the target.

Yeah my reading is that they will say they 'offered it' to everyone in those groups by then and then move into the lower priority lists for vaccinations.

 

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Just now, squirrelarmy said:

I’m liking the alphabetical world leader idea. 
 

Angela, Boris, Cyril (SA), Donald...   

Etc.

There's a world leader called Donald?

I can only think of a failed reality show host.

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1 hour ago, Toilet Duck said:

Howdy, we do use Rand Rto give us an idea of what is happening in terms of transmission, but the major problem with picking a transmission or reproduction rate as a threshold for determining tightening or loosening restriction is the variability in those estimates. A while back we discussed how variation in the reproduction rate (K) meant that some people were essentially super spreaders, but others weren't. The new variants appear to behave a bit differently and anecdotally, reports indicate that in previous waves, while household contacts did get infected, it's much more frequent in this wave and entire families are being admitted to hospital. So, maybe the variants that are starting to take over now have less variability in transmission due to being more infectious, but it's still early days on that (models suggest that's the case, but the hard data is still being worked on...I think the modelling data is pretty convincing at this stage though).

If the reproduction rate is below 1, then yes, eventually widespread infection will fizzle out (how far below 1 it stays determines how quickly you get there), but that doesn't mean elimination. There's other places the virus can hide  e.g animal reservoirs, new people are born (who are not immune), immune function waxes and wanes (age, time of year, lots of things) and the vaccines don't provide 100% sterilising immunity, so some vaccinated people will still get infected and probably pass it on (how many, we still don't know for sure...and this is one of the major flaws in your calculation above, as we have no clear idea yet what the vaccines will do to the reproduction rate, only what they do to development of symptomatic disease/severe disease and death). There's suggestions that by by vaccinating the adult population (and probably adolescents towards the end of the vaccination programme), we force the virus to become an early childhood disease (with hopefully the same kind of mild symptoms that we see in that age group currently...as the father of an asthmatic 5 year old, this frightens me a lot!), but how that plays out is a complete unknown at the moment (childhood vaccinations are pencilled in for the end of the current vaccination programme, but whether they happen is entirely dependent on the companies providing data on safety and efficacy on that age group, which they don't have yet). So, rather than picking what kind of restrictions are needed based on specific effective reproduction rate targets, hospital admissions and fatalities will still be the primary measure used to determine what we can and can't do. There's also the unknown level of morbidity associated with mild infection in low risk individuals (those last on the list for vaccination), so while most expect things to loosen significantly once the at risk population has at least 1 shot (I'd define that as >45s plus those with specific co-morbidities below that age), the same curveball that always been there still remains (and new variants further complicate matters!).

If we were to just pick an RE to open up, currently in Ireland it's between 0.5 and 0.8 which would be tier3/tier4 in the above plan...however, while the case numbers have dropped significantly from our world-leading peak a few weeks ago, they are still 10x higher than when we came out of our previous restrictions at the start of December and hospital occupancy remains very high (though stabilising now outside of ICU). So, we are nowhere near starting to open back up again (March would be the earliest I'd expect, though they may look at schools after the mid-term, I have my doubts though)...but to come back to your question about how vaccination might influence all of this, as more and more people become vaccinated (in addition to those who have been previously infected as well as expected seasonality), yes, there will come a time (likely between Easter and Early summer) where a critical mass of people are protected from disease (not necessarily infection) and "b" in your calculation can start to be removed from the equation (if death were the only thing we were trying to avoid, "b" could be removed earlier, but it's not the only outcome we'd like to avoid). After that, depending on the levels of morbidity in low risk groups, "a" almost becomes moot (if there's still an avalanche of young people either too sick to work, with long term side effects or being admitted to hospital, then unfortunately we'll probably have to spend the summer vaccinating them too...at the rate you guys are currently going, >45s are due to have 1 shot by the end of April or thereabouts and I would expect things to get a lot better from that point on). 

Thanks TD for the comprehensive reply, really appreciate it. I suppose a lot of how this develops depends on if / to what extent already vaccinated people can still carry and pass the virus onto non-vaccinated people. As well as how the non-vaccinated people, especially the under 50s, spread it between themselves and how much pressure this then puts on healthcare system,  if and when restrictions start to get lifted and they return to work/go out. Very difficult balancing act

 

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19 minutes ago, dingbat2 said:

Thanks TD for the comprehensive reply, really appreciate it. I suppose a lot of how this develops depends on if / to what extent already vaccinated people can still carry and pass the virus onto non-vaccinated people. As well as how the non-vaccinated people, especially the under 50s, spread it between themselves and how much pressure this then puts on healthcare system,  if and when restrictions start to get lifted and they return to work/go out. Very difficult balancing act

 

No worries! Yeah, it is difficult to get right and it keeps changing as well! 

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1 hour ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

 

From what’s been mentioned in the past, Michael Gove and Matt Hancock are the two most cautious members of the cabinet, always favouring a slow release from restrictions and a very quick entry into them when data starts to go the wrong way. On the other hand Rishi Sunak is the most in favour of opening up, flanked by Priti Patel, Grant Shapps and Alok Sharma. I’m not sure where other members such as Dominic Raab/Robert Jenrick/George Eustice/Liz Truss lie on this and I assume Gavin Williamson is just left in the corner at cabinet meetings with the biscuit tin so he probably doesn’t get a say.

 

Fuckin hell, that list of names right there. When you see then all together like that, it really hammers it home.

Fuck me

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Yeah, I mentioned that a couple of weeks ago, really worried about Brazil, I think they will end up being hit harder than any other country, thanks to all the factors being against them - an incompetent president in denial not taking the pandemic seriously which only encourages the public to follow his lead, high case rates already, poor vaccination rates, collapsed healthcare systems, many very densely populated and poor areas. I fear its going to get a lot worse there before it gets better unfortunately, I hope I am wrong

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3 minutes ago, philipsteak said:

Fuckin hell, that list of names right there. When you see then all together like that, it really hammers it home.

Fuck me

65 million people and they're the top 10 names we can come up with??

Maybe we should be incentivising bright people to go into politics...

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