SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Berbaclass said:
Probably because there’s only a finite amount of them surely?

Most are either shielding or have sadly already perished you’d think?
Click to expand...

About 25% of the over 85s have had one dose of vaccination already, so I think the correlation is showing promising signs in hospitalisation rates.
 
Berbaclass said:
Probably because there’s only a finite amount of them surely?

Most are either shielding or have sadly already perished you’d think?
Click to expand...
Maybe, but they all drop at around the same time, hopefully it's not a coincidence.
 
Ugh.

“At this moment, we think that a vaccine could be a little less effective,” Professor Tulio de Oliveira, of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, who is leading South Africa’s scientific effort to understand the 501Y.V2 strain, told the Financial Times.“[But] between all the varieties of vaccines that are coming to the market, we still have strong belief that some of them will be very effective.”

The mutation in question, called E484K, changes the “receptor binding domain” — a key part of the spike protein that the virus uses to enter human cells. This is also an important site at which neutralising antibodies induced by infection or vaccination bind to the virus.

A team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle has assessed the ability of antibodies taken from people previously infected with Sars-Cov-2 to neutralise various new strains of coronavirus.

Their study, released on Tuesday but not peer-reviewed, found that “emerging lineages in South Africa and Brazil carrying the E484K mutation will have greatly reduced susceptibility to neutralisation by the . . . serum antibodies of some individuals”. However, the effect was much stronger in some people than others, the paper said.
Click to expand...

https://www.ft.com/content/c2aa5ea4-66b9-4f64-9e74-7c89c12f9461
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
Pretty poorly considering the UK have the highest total number of Covid deaths in Europe and the highest number of covid cases of any country in the World over the last 2 weeks, apart from the USA. We are in a steep ascent, unfortunately.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...es-have-the-most-coronavirus-cases-and-deaths
Click to expand...

They're pretty strange metrics to use. Picking a two week period without looking at volume of tests administered and not accounting for population when looking at deaths.

That's not saying the UK is doing well of course.
 
hp88 said:
Anyone doubting this should be forced to watch this again.

Click to expand...


Kind of wish broadcasters would coordinate their efforts to get this kind of footage in front of as many eyes as possible - heck, air it straight after a national address from the Prime Minister.

The wilful ignorance on display from some sections of the population has cost life after life after life.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
Ugh.



https://www.ft.com/content/c2aa5ea4-66b9-4f64-9e74-7c89c12f9461
Click to expand...

They’ve got very mixed results from just 11 samples, so I wouldn’t be getting too worries. Yet. Worst case we end up with an influenza situation, with annual boosters specific to whatever strain is on the increase. It’s also interesting that for some of the samples they compare the response to the immunity we get to measles. Which is lifelong protection from a single infection or vaccine.

One reason that influenza virus undergoes such rapid antigenic evolution is that neutralizing human immunity often focuses on just a few residues in hemagglutinin, such that a single mutation can dramatically reduce neutralization (Lee et al., 2019). In contrast, while measles virus can escape neutralization by monoclonal antibodies, polyclonal serum targets multiple co-dominant measles epitopes, meaning that no single mutation has a large effect on neutralization (Muñoz-Alía et al., 2020). Our results show that polyclonal antibody immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 RBD is sometimes focused as for influenza, but in other cases more broadly targets the RBD in a way that mitigates the effect of any single mutation.
Click to expand...
 
Dancfc said:
Don't know if this is the right thread to ask this so feel free to move it if not. I'm thinking of booking a flight to Rome late May/early June and there's some flights currently available for £20-40.

For that price would you say the risk (things not improving enough to go, unable to go because it's my time for the vaccine) outweighs the rewards (got a cheap flight safely booked when most have likely skyrocketed due to demand)?
Click to expand...

By the end of May there should be 22 million vaccinated, over two thirds of the eligible population. By August everybody should be done. As long as there are no curveballs in the meantime i'd say you'll be able to fly by then.

You can usually take anything the Italian government says with a pinch of salt, but so far the vaccination programme is going well.
 
11101 said:
By the end of May there should be 22 million vaccinated, over two thirds of the eligible population. By August everybody should be done. As long as there are no curveballs in the meantime i'd say you'll be able to fly by then.

You can usually take anything the Italian government says with a pinch of salt, but so far the vaccination programme is going well.
Click to expand...
Ideal thanks for your reply.

I've decided to go for it, hopefully it's a similar song to what you've described elsewhere round Europe as I'm hoping to do interailing from Rome/Naples.
 
Adcuth said:
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/parents-working-jaguar-land-rover-19573368

JLR refusing to pay parents who need to take time off to look after their kids while the schools have been closed.
Click to expand...

How in the hell are JLR workers "critical" workers? The current situation with the virus is way worse than where we were in March, but the government response is so full of holes, even calling it half-arsed would be excessively complimentary. It's like a 16th of an arse. Maybe just the anus. It's an anus response.
 
lynchie said:
How in the hell are JLR workers "critical" workers? The current situation with the virus is way worse than where we were in March, but the government response is so full of holes, even calling it half-arsed would be excessively complimentary. It's like a 16th of an arse. Maybe just the anus. It's an anus response.
Click to expand...

All logistics workers - warehouse, transport, etc. are considered critical workers. The kids of logistics workers are eligible to go to school as well.
 
During the first lockdown, my wife's primary school had less than 40 key worker kids out of a total of 350. The number of kids coming in on Monday is over 200, due a loosening of the key worker criteria. She's basically been told it won't be any different than last term's bubble learning.

Unless hers is somehow exceptional, I don't see how schools will be much safer tbh.
 
Giant Midget said:
All logistics workers - warehouse, transport, etc. are considered critical workers. The kids of logistics workers are eligible to go to school as well.
Click to expand...

About half the country is considered "critical workers" this time around - it's ridiculous. There's been reports in Manchester of 50-80% of kids in some schools being sent in because their parents are so critical. It's a lockdown - furlough people, pay them to stay home, deal with the costs later. Otherwise these workplaces are going to be absolute breeding grounds for the virus.
 
lynchie said:
About half the country is considered "critical workers" this time around - it's ridiculous. There's been reports in Manchester of 50-80% of kids in some schools being sent in because their parents are so critical. It's a lockdown - furlough people, pay them to stay home, deal with the costs later. Otherwise these workplaces are going to be absolute breeding grounds for the virus.
Click to expand...

It wasn't particularly strict first time round and it's even less so this time. Driving to Dover on Day 1 i got stuck in traffic on the M25. In France at times i couldn't see another car in any direction.

Like most of the pandemic handling, it's been about soundbites and being seen to be doing something.
 
It's like this massive blindspot - I disagree with a lot of people here about how important young kids are to spreading this virus, but I agree that when the spread is out of control schools need to be closed. But somehow no one cares that the official advice is "stay at home, unless your boss thinks that might impact his annual bonus".
 
According to Apple’s data, public transport levels are at their lowest levels since July and cars since Spring. Still a level above the first lockdown but a level below the second.
 
Brwned said:
According to Apple’s data, public transport levels are at their lowest levels since July and cars since Spring. Still a level above the first lockdown but a level below the second.
Click to expand...

In London, there're definitely a lot less cars on the road than during the second lockdown.

One thing to note is that during the first lockdown the congestion charge was stopped, so a lot of people would drive to Central London.
 
Brwned said:
According to Apple’s data, public transport levels are at their lowest levels since July and cars since Spring. Still a level above the first lockdown but a level below the second.
Click to expand...
What are we calling the second lockdown here?
 
11101 said:
It wasn't particularly strict first time round and it's even less so this time. Driving to Dover on Day 1 i got stuck in traffic on the M25. In France at times i couldn't see another car in any direction.

Like most of the pandemic handling, it's been about soundbites and being seen to be doing something.
Click to expand...

my kids school have tightened it up again but really stepped up their online offering and are essentially just having classes at home.

They’re only letting families with 2 key worker parents back in school.
 
Apparently 40% more patients in hospital than at the peak in April...

Definetly doesn't feel anywhere near as 'lockdowny' as the first time.

Went into work today ( School) Car park was still almost full. Over 100 kids in some of the schools.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.