When will this shit end?

[JoeyT]

 

[stuartbert two hats]

57 minutes ago, kalifire said:

The latest PHE study refers to “increasing evidence” but that’s far from conclusive. I was using current WHO information which says the impact is basically unknown on these areas. 

WHO only just admitted it can be transmitted by air. It's definitely not unknown, there's tonnes of evidence.

[Crazyfool01]

Red arrows for doing covid testing … that’s a bit low even for you @StuMalinas …  

[kalifire]

13 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

WHO only just admitted it can be transmitted by air. It's definitely not unknown, there's tonnes of evidence.

That’s great, if true. Please point me in the right direction. 

WHO says there’s no established way of knowing whether any current vaccinations impact infection or transmission. 

[stuartbert two hats]

1 minute ago, kalifire said:

That’s great, if true. Please point me in the right direction. 

WHO says there’s no established way of knowing whether any current vaccinations impact infection or transmission. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/one-dose-of-covid-19-vaccine-can-cut-household-transmission-by-up-to-half

[Mellotr0n]

22 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

WHO only just admitted it can be transmitted by air. It's definitely not unknown, there's tonnes of evidence.

Yeah think vaccines cutting infection and transmission is hardly news by now. They definitely do.

Anyone with any doubts should look at Israel over the past few months. 

Edited May 8, 2021 by Mellotr0n

[stuartbert two hats]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/covid-19-vaccines-cut-infection-rates-after-the-first-jab-by-up-to-two-thirds-study-12214514

https://post.parliament.uk/covid-19-vaccines-and-virus-transmission/

 

As I said, there's loads. Seriously, Google it.

[stuartbert two hats]

7 minutes ago, Mellotr0n said:

Yeah think vaccines cutting infection and transmission is hardly news by now. They definitely do.

Anyone with any doubts should look at Israel over the past few months. 

Yeah, good point. You don't need to be a specialist to see it. Israel's R dropped at the same time they opened up. And if you look even a little closely at the data you can see that effect specifically in the vaccinated age groups. And you can see it in UK data too:

 

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/news/2021/march/covid-19-vaccine-linked-to-a-reduction-in-transmission/

[kalifire]

5 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

As I said, there's loads.

None that you’ve been able to produce. 

There’s certainly been studies that indicate a possible reduction of transmissibility and infection rates, none of which appear to have been recognised by the WHO.

This discussion is happening within the context of a newspaper article claiming the UK will be “Covid free”. Nothing I’ve seen supports that. 

[zahidf]

3 minutes ago, kalifire said:

None that you’ve been able to produce. 

There’s certainly been studies that indicate a possible reduction of transmissibility and infection rates, none of which appear to have been recognised by the WHO.

This discussion is happening within the context of a newspaper article claiming the UK will be “Covid free”. Nothing I’ve seen supports that. 

Lol. How do you think the WHO are going to determine it? From a study. It's also very clear from the data so far  

[kalifire]

6 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Lol. How do you think the WHO are going to determine it? From a study. It's also very clear from the data so far  

Maybe you should send them a strongly worded email.

[Toilet Duck]

13 minutes ago, kalifire said:

None that you’ve been able to produce. 

There’s certainly been studies that indicate a possible reduction of transmissibility and infection rates, none of which appear to have been recognised by the WHO.

This discussion is happening within the context of a newspaper article claiming the UK will be “Covid free”. Nothing I’ve seen supports that. 

So, there’s accumulating studies that indicate a reduction in infection and onward transmission following vaccination...the biggest so far is linked Here, not peer reviewed yet, but it doesn’t hint at a possible reduction in transmission, it shows a significant reduction in new community cases as a result of vaccination (significant is a very specific term in scientific publications, it’s not a hint, it’s actually demonstrated). Real world observations from both the UK and Israel further support this claim.

However, there’s a few caveats, which is what’s behind the WHO (and ECDC) from absolutely stating that the vaccines cut transmission. How different variants impact on this remains unknown  (multiple lines of data suggest that the vaccines all work pretty well against every variant so far, maybe a bit reduced, but still good protection from infection and excellent protection from severe disease/hospitalisation & death). How long that protection lasts for is also unknown (will the people vaccinated at the start of the programme have the same level of protection from picking the virus up and passing it on as those at the tail end in 6 months time?). While we don’t know these things, we can make an educated guess and also try to  mitigate against it (so updated vaccines and boosters likely to be rolled out to at risk individuals before the end of the year). 

You are right though, COVID-free is a bold claim (especially as we aren’t vaccinating kids yet, maybe not as important for primary school age, but 10-16 seem to pick it up and pass it on much like adults, so there will still be plenty of people for the virus to infect). If we want to spilt hairs, COVID is the disease and SARS-CoV2 is the virus. We won’t be SARS-CoV2-free by August, but it’s not impossible that we are pretty much COVID-free since those left vulnerable to infection aren’t all that vulnerable to disease. 
 

 

[MEGABOWL]

34 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Yeah, good point. You don't need to be a specialist to see it. Israel's R dropped at the same time they opened up. And if you look even a little closely at the data you can see that effect specifically in the vaccinated age groups. And you can see it in UK data too:

 

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/news/2021/march/covid-19-vaccine-linked-to-a-reduction-in-transmission/

It’s pretty well established all round. The WHO will be lost to move as usual, like they did with Masks and Airborne Transmission. But they aren’t the ultimate arbiter. We can all see the data.

[kalifire]

16 minutes ago, Toilet Duck said:

it’s not impossible that we are pretty much COVID-free since those left vulnerable to infection aren’t all that vulnerable to disease. 

But again, the context of this discussion is that the UK will be “Covid free”. Not ‘pretty much’ (which doesn’t mean anything) not that we’ll only be Covid free with non travel. 

It’s that the UK will be Covid free in the summer of 2021 and it’ll be back to normal.

That’s just a fantasy. 

[Mellotr0n]

18 minutes ago, MEGABOWL said:

It’s pretty well established all round. The WHO will be lost to move as usual, like they did with Masks and Airborne Transmission. But they aren’t the ultimate arbiter. We can all see the data.

This.

The WHO have just updated their advice to suggest the virus is airborne. We knew this over half a year ago.

I’m not saying they’re idiots, but they are very, very slow on updating guidance, so I wouldn’t go based on what they say. 

[Toilet Duck]

19 minutes ago, kalifire said:

But again, the context of this discussion is that the UK will be “Covid free”. Not ‘pretty much’ (which doesn’t mean anything) not that we’ll only be Covid free with non travel. 

It’s that the UK will be Covid free in the summer of 2021 and it’ll be back to normal.

That’s just a fantasy. 

FWIW, I agree, I don’t think the virus is going anywhere for some time yet...but I don’t think it will cause the same level of disruption we’ve had over the last year or so and I do think domestically, things should be able to be normal in the summer and as other parts of the world catch up, it should be similar there too (I’d expect that to be August in Ireland). After what we’ve just been through, steps out if this will be tentative, and that’s understandable, but it’s already better and it’s only going to improve from here on in. 

[zahidf]

 

Interesting 

[Avalon_Fields]

55 minutes ago, kalifire said:

But again, the context of this discussion is that the UK will be “Covid free”. Not ‘pretty much’ (which doesn’t mean anything) not that we’ll only be Covid free with non travel. 

It’s that the UK will be Covid free in the summer of 2021 and it’ll be back to normal.

That’s just a fantasy. 

I don't see it being an important aim right now to be fully free of Covid, as no country is likely to remain free of the virus permanently until the world situation is much more under control.

We certainly won't be back to fully normality, but we won't be too far off. There will be restricted foreign travel for the rest of the year at least. 99% there.

[stuartbert two hats]

I know the link between cases and deaths has been if not broken, then at least drastically changed - but this isn't nice to see.

The pattern with these rises has tended to subside after a few days, then head back down again. Even with the occasional weekly rise, it's almost always been down over 10-14 days.

This is not happening with Bolton at the moment. It's been a long time (3rd April) since cases were this high there. I wonder if the government will consider ramping up vaccination efforts in Bolton to aid with containment?

 

[Paul ™]

36 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

I wonder if the government will consider ramping up vaccination efforts in Bolton to aid with containment?

The Leicester of the North, lockdown and forget about them..

[Chapple12345]

I'm convinced something has massively improved with the data that they're not telling us, they wouldn't just allow this without some seriously good data on the back of it. But still, hugs for everyone my end 🙂

[steviewevie]

2 hours ago, zahidf said:

 

Interesting 

I was wondering what that was.

[steviewevie]

12 minutes ago, Chapple12345 said:

I'm convinced something has massively improved with the data that they're not telling us, they wouldn't just allow this without some seriously good data on the back of it. But still, hugs for everyone my end 🙂

I'm not hugging anyone. They can't make me.

[stuartbert two hats]

40 minutes ago, Chapple12345 said:

I'm convinced something has massively improved with the data that they're not telling us, they wouldn't just allow this without some seriously good data on the back of it. But still, hugs for everyone my end 🙂

I think it's in the public data. We were being prepared for cases to rises everywhere, but deaths to not increase beyond the capacity of the NHS. Cases have dropped, the vaccines have been a spectacular success. 

I don't think we need to invoke secret data to explain this - all* the public data is great.

* Apart from Bolton.

[Paul ™]

32 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I'm not hugging anyone. They can't make me.

Awww come here steviewevie 😍