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

Massive Spanner said:
Right but that's at limited parts of the year. Couples and young people without kids can go at any time of the year, plus by the time we get regular adults vaccinated summer will be over anyway! Absolutely no chance people with kids are bigger drivers of tourism than people without. Then you have all the weddings that have been delayed, getting them back going would be absolutely huge for hotels.

Anyway it's a terrible idea. At least people with kids have their kids (for better or worse). What about adults who are stuck by themselves or shitty flatmates? Imagine telling them they have to wait to get vaccinated when they're probably already in an awful state of mind. Not everyone without kids is living with their other half happy out after all.
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It’s shit for everyone. In different ways. And there will be people taking lockdown worse than others in every possible category. Prioritising parents wouldn’t be about targeting the people worst affected by lockdown, though, it would be trying to prevent the people most likely to catch the virus from passing it on to others. It would also help kids in school, which is one of the priorities we’ve agreed on as a society.

This is all very hypothetical though. Just a thought, based on a single tweet. I have no idea how reliable that Danish data is.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
It’s shit for everyone. In different ways. And there will be people taking lockdown worse than others in every possible category. Prioritising parents wouldn’t be about targeting the people worst affected by lockdown, though, it would be trying to prevent the people most likely to catch the virus from passing it on to others. It would also help kids in school, which is one of the priorities we’ve agreed on as a society.

This is all very hypothetical though. Just a thought, based on a single tweet. I have no idea how reliable that Danish data is.
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Eh, have we? I don't recall agreeing to it. Though for a start maybe we should vaccinate the teachers before looking at the kid's parents.

I think people getting preferential treatment because they have kids would be a disaster. People are already fed up of this lockdown and we're seeing loads of idiots swarm the streets, imagine how much worse that would be if they were told they will be getting vaccines months after others just cause they don't have kids in school? Young people would probably give even less of a feck about the current restrictions than they currently do. Not worth it, terrible idea, down with this sort of thing.
 
Massive Spanner said:
Eh, have we? I don't recall agreeing to it. Though for a start maybe we should vaccinate the teachers before looking at the kid's parents.

I think people getting preferential treatment because they have kids would be a disaster. People are already fed up of this lockdown and we're seeing loads of idiots swarm the streets, imagine how much worse that would be if they were told they will be getting vaccines months after others just cause they don't have kids in school? Young people would probably give even less of a feck about the current restrictions than they currently do. Not worth it, terrible idea, down with this sort of thing.
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I'm not sure I count as young anymore, but I know I'm in the lowest priority band anyway so I'm not sure I'm massively bothered about what the precise order is of people who receive the vaccine before me. Either way, I'm going to be left with a massive sense of FOMO if you're all off having fun and I have to sit inside and wait for a vaccine to tick a box on an app or whatever.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
It’s shit for everyone. In different ways. And there will be people taking lockdown worse than others in every possible category. Prioritising parents wouldn’t be about targeting the people worst affected by lockdown, though, it would be trying to prevent the people most likely to catch the virus from passing it on to others. It would also help kids in school, which is one of the priorities we’ve agreed on as a society.

This is all very hypothetical though. Just a thought, based on a single tweet. I have no idea how reliable that Danish data is.
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Not only not knowing how reliable it is but also it is just fact stating. No external and/or latest circumstances being taken into consideration, i.e. the vaccination processes of different countries particularly the UK.

Basically akin to reading yesterday's foreign newspaper in which the fish and chips was wrapped in.
 
Dumbstar said:
Not only not knowing how reliable it is but also it is just fact stating. No external and/or latest circumstances being taken into consideration, i.e. the vaccination processes of different countries particularly the UK.

Basically akin to reading yesterday's foreign newspaper in which the fish and chips was wrapped in.
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Basically nothing like that.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Basically nothing like that.
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Fair enough. But hasn't the latest AZ study shown it is already somewhat effective against the Brazilian strain? Read it this morning on the BBC.

If that's the case, with the majority of Brits injected with AZ, then even 'somewhat effective' means our immune systems will be better equipped to handle the serious effects of P1, right?

So we're comparing apples (what's happening in Brazil) with oranges (UK)?
 
Dumbstar said:
Fair enough. But hasn't the latest AZ study shown it is already somewhat effective against the Brazilian strain? Read it this morning on the BBC.

If that's the case, with the majority of Brits injected with AZ, then even 'somewhat effective' means our immune systems will be better equipped to handle the serious effects of P1, right?

So we're comparing apples (what's happening in Brazil) with oranges (UK)?
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I hope so I just had the inoculation an hour ago.
 
With schools opening on Monday. We can expect an increase in cases by the 3rd week of march onwards. But if the link between cases and admissions is severed we should expect less hospitalizations and then death. Lets bloody hope so!
 
Dumbstar said:
Fair enough. But hasn't the latest AZ study shown it is already somewhat effective against the Brazilian strain? Read it this morning on the BBC.

If that's the case, with the majority of Brits injected with AZ, then even 'somewhat effective' means our immune systems will be better equipped to handle the serious effects of P1, right?

So we're comparing apples (what's happening in Brazil) with oranges (UK)?
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No and no.

The Danish study I was referring to (re parents being much more at risk) was about the UK strain.

There’s no evidence that any vaccine works against the Brazilian (P1) strain. You might be getting confused with the South African strain?

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine had 57% efficacy in South Africa, where the variant is prevalent, versus 72% in the US, and Novavax’s vaccine had 49% efficacy in South Africa versus 90% in the UK. The “older” vaccines (including AZ) don’t have much useful data against this strain as it wasn’t around when they ran their big phase III trials. There was one small, more recent, study testing the AZ vaccine in South Africa which showed such disappointing results the South African government decided not to use it.

The P1strain in Brazil is even more recent and I don’t think we have any evidence of any vaccine working against it. It has similar mutations to the South African strain so the vaccines that work against that strain might work against the P1 variant (and the ones that don’t work might not work against this one either) But we don’t know yet. What we do know is that past infection with ‘original’ covid seems to give very little protection, hence Manaus (and loads of other regions in Brazil) is going through another massive surge, despite having enough prior infections that they should be close to herd immunity.
 
Pogue Mahone said:


FFS. I wish I hadn’t discovered this guy’s twitter feed now.

Anyhoo. This P1 variant is the final nail in the coffin of the Swedish herd immunity strategy. Looks as though Brazil is having to go through the first wave all over again, with prior infection giving little protection against the new variant. Grim.
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Honestly, you can generally ignore him. He's a joke among all the (weirdly large number of) infectious disease experts I've followed over the last year.
 
lynchie said:
Honestly, you can generally ignore him. He's a joke among all the (weirdly large number of) infectious disease experts I've followed over the last year.
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I ignore him because he's the ultimate bearer of bad news. I can't vouch for his credibility but anytime I've seen him on here he leaves me with a sense of dread.
 
Reddevildans said:
With schools opening on Monday. We can expect an increase in cases by the 3rd week of march onwards. But if the link between cases and admissions is severed we should expect less hospitalizations and then death. Lets bloody hope so!
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Last time we had lockdown with schools open, cases dropped, so there's no certainty that cases will rise. They might drop more slowly than they otherwise would have, but we're starting at a pretty low baseline, and primary school age kids currently have the lowest rate of infection of any age group, so are the lowest risk group to relax restrictions on.
 
lynchie said:
Honestly, you can generally ignore him. He's a joke among all the (weirdly large number of) infectious disease experts I've followed over the last year.
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Excellent. I’m trying to keep off Twitter to avoid having my mood soured like that. Appreciate you separating the wheat and chaff. It’s amazing how easy it is to get sucked into a doom spiral by carefully cherry picked worrying looking data.

Is he a joke for being constantly overly negative?
 
Vidyoyo said:
Is obviously wrong but did the public know that much about the benefits of/need for masks on March 4? I don't remember feeling that was the case.

Edit - Just went back through the thread and Elvz posted a tweet on March 4 saying we'd had a recorded 85 in total cases. How crazy does that seem now?!
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Probably not, but logic would say that if you cover your nose and mouth, you’re less likely likely to pass stuff on. Most people did that already when they sneeze for example.

I’m more than happy to continue wearing masks in shops after this is done, and also avoid hand shakes. I haven’t had so much as a blocked nose for a year now.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Excellent. I’m trying to keep off Twitter to avoid having my mood soured like that. Appreciate you separating the wheat and chaff. It’s amazing how easy it is to get sucked into a doom spiral by carefully cherry picked worrying looking data.

Is he a joke for being constantly overly negative?
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Partly his ridiculous negative bias, but also largely that he often indicates that he doesn't really understand the studies he's shouting about.
 
lynchie said:
To be honest, wish I had the willpower to stay off twitter. It's horrible for my mental health!
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Try it! Honestly the difference is amazing. Just delete the poxy app off your phone and away you go.

I’ve still got it on my work phone (which gets much less use) and I keep getting tempted into a wee scroll through Twitter whenever I get that phone out. Without fail I’m in a shitty mood for an hour or two afterwards.

Kind of annoyed with myself for wasting a lovely sunny day subliminally stressing about that stupid P1 variant.
 
lynchie said:
Last time we had lockdown with schools open, cases dropped, so there's no certainty that cases will rise. They might drop more slowly than they otherwise would have, but we're starting at a pretty low baseline, and primary school age kids currently have the lowest rate of infection of any age group, so are the lowest risk group to relax restrictions on.
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Agree that we are at a low base. But should the lateral flow test results be added to national figures wouldn't you expect positive cases to go up. Twice weekly testing on about 10m kids. Figures are all heading in the right direction but I hope we don't get nervous about cases increasing. What's more important now is preventing admissions and hospitalizations.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
This article is interesting/surprising. Goes against the prevailing narrative in this thread anyway.

Anyone from the US know if it’s misleading in any way? Has Florida’s no lockdown approach really been as successful as it’s portrayed?
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Florida was very mildly hit in the first wave. Since 1st of June they have had around 50% more deaths than NY. Just looked quickly at worldometers numbers, didn't check excess deaths. Article needed subscription after couple of paragraphs, but the first ones were so badly written I am glad I didn't have to read whole thing.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
This article is interesting/surprising. Goes against the prevailing narrative in this thread anyway.

Anyone from the US know if it’s misleading in any way? Has Florida’s no lockdown approach really been as successful as it’s portrayed?
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Probably just a consequence of keeping Covid-19 away from the vulnerable and maybe also which clade of SARS-CoV2 is dominant.

Mr. DeSantis took a smarter approach. His administration halted outside visitations to nursing homes and bolstered their stockpile of personal protective equipment. Florida’s government also set up 23 Covid-dedicated nursing centers for elderly patients discharged from hospitals. Nursing-home residents who tested positive and couldn’t be isolated in their facilities were sent to these Covid-only wards. Florida set up field hospitals to handle a surge in cases that models predicted in the spring, although it never materialized.
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Similar reasons to why India and other places without too many vulnerable have little problem living without restrictions. Any country with a low median population age and not much health care for that population will barely notice COVID-19. Its the elderly and / or immunocomprimised you really need to protect.

The UK did the opposite of Florida to start with, sending hospital patients with COVID-19 back to care homes.
 
Mb194dc said:
Probably just a consequence of keeping Covid-19 away from the vulnerable and maybe also which clade of SARS-CoV2 is dominant.



Similar reasons to why India and other places without too many vulnerable have little problem living without restrictions. Any country with a low median population age and not much health care for that population will barely notice COVID-19. Its the elderly and / or immunocomprimised you really need to protect.

The UK did the opposite of Florida to start with, sending hospital patients with COVID-19 back to care homes.
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But Florida have high median population age.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
This article is interesting/surprising. Goes against the prevailing narrative in this thread anyway.

Anyone from the US know if it’s misleading in any way? Has Florida’s no lockdown approach really been as successful as it’s portrayed?
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Haven't they been fudging their numbers pretty much from the start? According to Rebekah Jones anyway, the data scientist who created their dashboard and was fired when she claimed they were underreporting.
 
massi83 said:
Florida was very mildly hit in the first wave. Since 1st of June they have had around 50% more deaths than NY. Just looked quickly at worldometers numbers, didn't check excess deaths. Article needed subscription after couple of paragraphs, but the first ones were so badly written I am glad I didn't have to read whole thing.
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That’s weird. I was able to read the whole thing first go. But it’s paywalled for me now as well. They did get pretty deep into the data around deaths/hospitalisations etc. Florida seemed to do much better than you’d expect.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
But Florida have high median population age.
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Yes, but they kept Covid-19 away from that elderly population, as explained in the quote. That is the main determinant of Covid-19 mortality.

Countries with very small relative vulnerable populations like India, have little or no problem with Covid-19 due to that.

Generalised lockdowns only help to the extent they keep Covid-19 away from that vulnerable group. That is what we're seeing with Florida, Sweden and other places compared to the UK, NY, CA.
 
Mb194dc said:
Yes, but they kept Covid-19 away from that elderly population, as explained in the quote. That is the main determinant of Covid-19 mortality.

Countries with very small relative vulnerable populations like India, have little or no problem with Covid-19 due to that.

Generalised lockdowns only help to the extent they keep Covid-19 away from that vulnerable group. That is what we're seeing with Florida, Sweden and other places compared to the UK, NY, CA.
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The main argument of lockdown advocates has always been that it’s not possible to let the virus spread among the young, while simultaneously shielding the elderly. I’ve been making that argument myself.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
The main argument of lockdown advocates has always been that it’s not possible to let the virus spread among the young, while simultaneously shielding the elderly. I’ve been making that argument myself.
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I think it does depend a bit on locality.

Keeping young away from old, and the working middle aged away from the frail old is easier in some places than others. Florida is where people go to retire - but they don't take their kids and grandkids with them. They don't look after the grandkids after school, and they don't live with their working age children.

Compound that with chronic underfunding (and underrating) of residential care in the UK and throw in a couple of dreadful decisions - like sending patients directly back to carehomes from hospital (untested and sometimes even after positive tests). Then stir in a couple of months extra time (and better weather) to sort out your PPE etc.

If you look at the UK deaths, they skew really heavily towards residential care and poorer communities. I don't know what Florida did with its poor people though, maybe they followed Trump's advice and didn't test them?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
This article is interesting/surprising. Goes against the prevailing narrative in this thread anyway.

Anyone from the US know if it’s misleading in any way? Has Florida’s no lockdown approach really been as successful as it’s portrayed?
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I guess its all relative. Floridas deaths per million might be in the middle of the pack as per the article but its still a pretty damning figure if taken in context of other developed countries rates and looks even worse if compared to world death rates per million, in the worst 5%. (20th worst)
So maybe it looks like a "success" in the US, but pretty awful in the bigger picture
 
Stack said:
I guess its all relative. Floridas deaths per million might be in the middle of the pack as per the article but its still a pretty damning figure if taken in context of other developed countries rates and looks even worse if compared to world death rates per million, in the worst 5%. (20th worst)
So maybe it looks like a "success" in the US, but pretty awful in the bigger picture
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But it still generates the question as to the efficacy of lockdowns within that context. Florida is part of the same larger ecosystem of the US, given that no states fully isolated themselves from the others. So it is a valid question to ask if in areas with a certain baseline of community spread, do you get much different outcomes based on level of restrictions or is there another variable that's the main determinant? California being one of the main contrasts as a state that was fairly restrictive in the latter part of 2020, and still seeing higher mortality than Florida.

I think that at least there's an overconfidence in the efficacy of lockdowns from some quarters. I don't think we have any other measures that are particularly good at reducing the spread of the virus (with the exception of the vaccine, which should eventually fully knock it out), so its understandable that we continue to use lockdowns or semi-versions of it, but I definitely don't subscribe to notions of "if we locked down properly for x time this would all be sorted" when you're dealing with high levels of community spread. I just hope that in years to come epidemiologists work through all of these different conditions and different outcomes and can come up with a solid theory of what measures are actually effective at reducing spread.
 
MTF said:
But it still generates the question as to the efficacy of lockdowns within that context. Florida is part of the same larger ecosystem of the US, given that no states fully isolated themselves from the others. So it is a valid question to ask if in areas with a certain baseline of community spread, do you get much different outcomes based on level of restrictions or is there another variable that's the main determinant? California being one of the main contrasts as a state that was fairly restrictive in the latter part of 2020, and still seeing higher mortality than Florida.

I think that at least there's an overconfidence in the efficacy of lockdowns from some quarters. I don't think we have any other measures that are particularly good at reducing the spread of the virus (with the exception of the vaccine, which should eventually fully knock it out), so its understandable that we continue to use lockdowns or semi-versions of it, but I definitely don't subscribe to notions of "if we locked down properly for x time this would all be sorted" when you're dealing with high levels of community spread. I just hope that in years to come epidemiologists work through all of these different conditions and different outcomes and can come up with a solid theory of what measures are actually effective at reducing spread.
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But Californias mortality rate is lower than Floridas. Florida 1472 per million. California 1370 per million
 
MTF said:
But it still generates the question as to the efficacy of lockdowns within that context. Florida is part of the same larger ecosystem of the US, given that no states fully isolated themselves from the others. So it is a valid question to ask if in areas with a certain baseline of community spread, do you get much different outcomes based on level of restrictions or is there another variable that's the main determinant? California being one of the main contrasts as a state that was fairly restrictive in the latter part of 2020, and still seeing higher mortality than Florida.

I think that at least there's an overconfidence in the efficacy of lockdowns from some quarters. I don't think we have any other measures that are particularly good at reducing the spread of the virus (with the exception of the vaccine, which should eventually fully knock it out), so its understandable that we continue to use lockdowns or semi-versions of it, but I definitely don't subscribe to notions of "if we locked down properly for x time this would all be sorted" when you're dealing with high levels of community spread. I just hope that in years to come epidemiologists work through all of these different conditions and different outcomes and can come up with a solid theory of what measures are actually effective at reducing spread.
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I agree with this. It’s also fairly obvious that a “one size fits all” approach is too crude. There are all sorts of regional/local factors that will influence the optimal balance between keeping the economy afloat and the health service functional. The challenge will be identifying these factors and working out if they apply in any given region.
 
Stack said:
But Californias mortality rate is lower than Floridas. Florida 1472 per million. California 1370 per million
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For the total since the inception of this thing, yes. California ended up barely hit in the first wave on a relative basis, despite many of the first cases being detected there. Sure you can say I'm cherry-picking by saying "oh, only the 2nd wave". My point and that of others is that that was when the restrictions were most different. Restrictions were fairly tight in most of the US in March-May, and it's been in the Nov-Jan timeframe that Florida has been very open while California has been quite restrictive, and the case and death curves don't reflect any advantages of being more restrictive.
 
MTF said:
For the total since the inception of this thing, yes. California ended up barely hit in the first wave on a relative basis, despite many of the first cases being detected there. Sure you can say I'm cherry-picking by saying "oh, only the 2nd wave". My point and that of others is that that was when the restrictions were most different. Restrictions were fairly tight in most of the US in March-May, and it's been in the Nov-Jan timeframe that Florida has been very open while California has been quite restrictive, and the case and death curves don't reflect any advantages of being more restrictive.
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Sorry didnt mean to imply you were cherry picking, that wasnt my thinking. I guess the tricky bit is also working out the reasons for lockdowns in various places. To protect health infrastructure, to slow disease spread or even elimination and from there all the various differences between regions that can affect the outcomes. So a lockdown may have worked for certain outcomes in one region but those restrictions wont work elsewhere.
With respect to Floridas approach going forward it will be interesting to see how it works as the new more infectious variants spread (another variable factor). To be clear I honestly have no idea what the correct approaches should be, the eggheads will hopefully work that out going forward so when the next pandemic hits the world does a better job of dealing with it.
 
Vidyoyo said:
Is obviously wrong but did the public know that much about the benefits of/need for masks on March 4? I don't remember feeling that was the case.

Edit - Just went back through the thread and Elvz posted a tweet on March 4 saying we'd had a recorded 85 in total cases. How crazy does that seem now?!
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The public obviously didn't know the benefits of mask wearing, but there was plenty of scientific evidence that even wearing scarves, etc, can help.

This was all being debated on Reddit in the very early points of the outbreak

For me, Masks and Track and Trace have both been a huge disappointment. Track and Trace I think has done very little. Masks as well, there had been no guidance on building and using masks. No enforcement. I wear two cloth masks at work because I don't feel that one does enough, but the cloth masks that go around me head are so much more comfortable than the surgical/barrier masks that hang from ears.

Others at work wear barrier/surgical masks that they remove from their face every 5 minutes. Or scarves which they seem to wear with utmost reluctance.

It's ridiculous. But still, it's nearly over
 
rcoobc said:
The public obviously didn't know the benefits of mask wearing, but there was plenty of scientific evidence that even wearing scarves, etc, can help.

This was all being debated on Reddit in the very early points of the outbreak

For me, Masks and Track and Trace have both been a huge disappointment. Track and Trace I think has done very little. Masks as well, there had been no guidance on building and using masks. No enforcement. I wear two cloth masks at work because I don't feel that one does enough, but the cloth masks that go around me head are so much more comfortable than the surgical/barrier masks that hang from ears.

Others at work wear barrier/surgical masks that they remove from their face every 5 minutes. Or scarves which they seem to wear with utmost reluctance.

It's ridiculous. But still, it's nearly over
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To be fair, I was kinda thinking this yesterday when I popped out for a coffee. The masks thing seems confused because of the way it's been implemented as the main source of safety when, arguably, it should be supplementary.

Distance and controlling how many people gather in one space is, I would think, much more important yet I still notice some shops - definitely Wilko for one - just let loads of people in as long as they're wearing a mask.

Masks as a primary source of contact evasion makes a lot more sense to me when people are stationery and sat/stood in proximity for long periods (e.g. public transport). Gyms were horrendous for this when they were open.

Also you can largely wear any sort of covering with there being almost no rule on its effectiveness. I myself have worn a snood on a few occasions I've need to pop to the shop after a run. Please don't judge btw, I am but a simple man.

Track and trace is obviously a calamity.
 
madzo2007 said:
Theres a good read in the Sunday Times today about how the UK's herd immunity gamble cost lives. It talks about Cheltenham, Liverpool v Athletico and how slow we were to lockdown compared to other countries.

Link https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cheltenham-festival-failures-of-state-herd-immunity-coronavirus-gamble-cost-britain-26ln87pv3 (paywalled but free to read on Apple News for the time being)
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Whats the point of these articles? They really are no help at all
 
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