What is going on in Israel?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-58245285
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-58245285
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
It depends on whose analysis you read. If you look at some of the interpretations of the early data from Israel, it may be a sign that vaccine efficacy is waning and that people will need boosters soon.
If you look at some of the other interpretations of Israel's vaccine data, you see some problems in their take-up rates. In particular that the over 70s in the UK are 95%+ double vaxxed. In Israel that number is "only" about 85% - which might not sound like a big deal, but actually means they've got at least three times as many people (per 100k population) in the highest hospitalisation/mortality risk groups.
The UK has decided it can cope with more cases, as long as hospitalisations don't rise too high.
Israel hadn't got quite as big an advantage from the vaccines as they'd hoped. Combine that with the vaccines not stopping infection with Delta as well as it stopped Alpha - just a lot more strain than they were expecting.
Incidentally, the UK remains on a tightrope and it's anyone's guess where we'll be once schools/colleges reopen and autumn/winter really kick in. Getting back to normal anywhere is going to be a bumpy ride.
Interesting. So, just out of curiosity, what would be an acceptable number of cases and innocent deaths for you before you'd be willing to accept a lockdown? Because if freedom of the people is what you're worried about then you'll be very impressed to learn that, thanks to NZ's quick and decisive actions, we've had far more freedom and than pretty much the entirety of the world put together given that the cumulative length of our LDs so far have reached a total of 2 weeks. You know, since our leaders are acting quickly and decisively and listening to science and not weird, misplaced hysteria.
In regards to the analysis you you mentioned in regards to Israel. A Pre Paper of Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare Services (MHS) did a study about the vaccin efficiency in regards to the hypothesis of a decreasing protection. It is interesting insight for more information about the situation in Israel
‘Quote’
To this end, we conducted a retrospective cohort study comparing the incidence rates of breakthrough infections between early and late vaccinees, using data from Maccabi Healthcare Services (MHS), Israel's second largest Health Maintenance Organization, which covers 2.5 million members (25% of the population) and provides a representative sample of the Israeli population.
‘Taken together, the study suggests a possible relative decrease in the long-term protection of the BNT162b2 vaccine against the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2. This preliminary finding should be evaluated in future studies, including a comparison to long-term protection against different strains, and prospective clinical trials to examine the effect of a booster vaccine against breakthrough infection.
full study https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.29.21261317v1.full.pdf
the vaccines are doing an important service in decreasing death and severe hospitalization. Surges will almost be unavoidable, considering factors as effciancy waning, immune evasion of variants etc. The more data available the better comparison and studies can be done for further improvement. It will be a bumpy ride, I don’t think nobody expected a walk in the park in regards to the public health strategy.
Eating disorders in youths highest since records began? Up 300-400% in UK; reporting on it now on beeb breakfast.
Gonna be more and more grim figures as time passes and the full effect of the last 16 months on youths is realised I’d imagine
Gonna be more and more grim figures as time passes and the full effect of the last 16 months on youths is realised I’d imagine
It seems like there's going to a bit of a spike in cases from the Boardmasters festival in Cornwall. Very much concentrated in the young, so hopefully a temporary glitch.
A group of friends went and one of them thinks she has covid now. Seems like it might have been a bit of a super spreader event.
G7 summit in St Ives. They’d love you to think it was “random” but it was without any doubt down to that.
It's really interesting reading posts from people in Aus/NZ from a UK perspective.
Locking down due to one case seems absolutely insane/tyrannical - although I'm more than aware that we have been dealing with our (more than) fair share of insanity from a gov management perspective here over the virus.
What I am interested in hearing, however, from posters in that part of the world is - even with a strong vaccine roll-out - what's the expectation? You're always going to have cases as global industries open up, and the most vulnerable to the virus (who have drastic underlying health issues that covid accentuates) are going to remain vulnerable even once vaccinated. So does the current stance last indefinitely even with the vaccine?
Whilst I have huge respect for how NZ in particular handled the initial waves of the virus, perhaps one way in which the UK benefitted from high case/fatality numbers was that it encouraged a very significant uptake of the vaccine amongst the adult population.
Will there be a rush to get the vaccine if you're entering the drive with virtually no trace of the virus domestically?
Locking down due to one case seems absolutely insane/tyrannical - although I'm more than aware that we have been dealing with our (more than) fair share of insanity from a gov management perspective here over the virus.
What I am interested in hearing, however, from posters in that part of the world is - even with a strong vaccine roll-out - what's the expectation? You're always going to have cases as global industries open up, and the most vulnerable to the virus (who have drastic underlying health issues that covid accentuates) are going to remain vulnerable even once vaccinated. So does the current stance last indefinitely even with the vaccine?
Whilst I have huge respect for how NZ in particular handled the initial waves of the virus, perhaps one way in which the UK benefitted from high case/fatality numbers was that it encouraged a very significant uptake of the vaccine amongst the adult population.
Will there be a rush to get the vaccine if you're entering the drive with virtually no trace of the virus domestically?
They had pretty much missed the whole pandemic last year, so a pretty susceptible population to begin with. Coupled with events with lots of people coming in from elsewhere and some pretty close interactions - g7, this festival - and it all kicks off.
It's just that the government don't care about how many people die, who died when and where they died either.
I'm currently abroad on holiday and it's illegal to not wear a mask, you have to write your address when you enter a supermarket or shop, they randomly block weeks where you cant leave your city etc.
When I remember how many people didnt wear a mask in England, it reminds you the lack of pressure the Government give - and you kind of wonder why.
Our slow vaccine uptake hasnt been due to any hesitancy but because the govt didnt approve the pfizer vaccine until Feb and hadnt preordered any meaning we were down the list on the supply line.
The general mood here is the vast majority want to be vaccinated and today the govt approved vaccinations for those 12 and above. The vaccinations have ramped up significantly in recent weeks and we should see the majority of the country vaccinated by December at the latest.
The reason for the locking down over one case was that it was our first case of Delta and we had watched what happened in NSW Australia so the govt decided to act fast. Everyone I know is pretty happy with that approach. It means our lockdown will be shorter and we will be back to work sooner. Im self employed and our quick approach in the past has meant I have lost very little work time in the last year or so. The elimination approach for NZ has worked really well, our economy compared to the rest of the world has done very well, so well the govt has this year had a record tax take.
Expectation here is that next year when we start opening up we will see those not vaccinated get sick and we will try and use the best lessons we see from overseas to manage that eventuality. If for example we hit roughly 80% vaccinated that will still mean 1 million people unvaccinated people. Im expecting to see us have a big surge in illness and deaths etc but I think it will end up being a lot less than if we hadnt gone down this path.
There is no winning with this.
If you remove the visible reminders of being in a pandemic, people will be very happy to act as if it's all over.
We had a social dinner (in the open air) in our little village yesterday. About 80 people attended. There was only one way into the square, we had to wear masks until we were seated, we all had our temperature checked, used hand sanitiser and had to show a green pass. Everyone also had to give their name and contact details and sign to say we understood that we could be contacted if someone subsequently became positive.
After that everything went along as normal, but we were all aware that these are different times. I'm all in favour of this kind of approach continuing as long as is necessary.
We had a social dinner (in the open air) in our little village yesterday. About 80 people attended. There was only one way into the square, we had to wear masks until we were seated, we all had our temperature checked, used hand sanitiser and had to show a green pass. Everyone also had to give their name and contact details and sign to say we understood that we could be contacted if someone subsequently became positive.
After that everything went along as normal, but we were all aware that these are different times. I'm all in favour of this kind of approach continuing as long as is necessary.
And that’s the million dollar question. How long is it necessary? And how do we even define necessary?
There’s a huge appetite out there to get back to normal (not “new normal”, “old normal”) and it’s going to get harder and harder to push back against this over the next few months (never mind years)
How do you feel about the supposed news that there won't be any more easing of restrictions here til late September? Seems a bit nuts given how many we have vaccinated now, but I know delta is an outlier.
Question then is what happens with the schools back and as we come into the winter and the HSE goes through its annual winter collapse, are we supposed to continue like this? It would be suicide for the government.
If there's one thing Covid has reinforced here in Ireland it's how rubbish the HSE is as a healthcare system. All those billions spent and it can't cope with any sort of increase in cases like other wealthy nations can. I firmly believe it's the main reason we've spent so much time under lockdown compared to other similar countries.
The HSE has been a shamble for decades. Not for lack of investment though. Our per capita spend on health has always been quite high. The HSE is just incredibly inefficient.
However I doubt there’s any real appetite to do the sort of root and branch reform we need (which would include a lot of pay-cuts and redundancies) in the current political climate.
Good example of a “scariant” amounting to not very much. If you hadn’t seen the follow-up tweet this could have been a stressful bit of news to digest.
I know, that's a very valid observation. If we were living somewhere else, no doubt people wouldn't have been so compliant - it's easy to get folk to go along with things when everyone knows everyone else.
So far this week we've had the UK announce that double-vaxxed EU covid passport holders who've had a mixed dose pattern - like Angela Merkel who had one AZ and one Pfizer - don't count as fully vaxxed under the terms of the UK's amber "no-quarantine if you're vaxxed" country scheme. I suspect this is partly down to the EU and UK failing to agree to the general principle that the EU and UK passes are considered equivalents.
And now we've got countries playing "guess how long vaccines last" games with travel.
Honestly, vaccines and test technology should mean people are making travel simpler - not thinking up increasingly bizarre sub-clauses to make it more complex and more unreasonable.
And now we've got countries playing "guess how long vaccines last" games with travel.
Honestly, vaccines and test technology should mean people are making travel simpler - not thinking up increasingly bizarre sub-clauses to make it more complex and more unreasonable.
Original tweet 1400+ retweets
Correction 135 retweets
Honestly, could people who have built themselves such a big platform not have a bit of care before trying to create panic?
Yeah, it’s not good.
As Sam Harris is fond of saying, the best way to understand human behaviour is to look at the incentives. With even the most distinguished academics on Twitter motivated by getting the most engagement you can see how reality gets easily distorted when compare those retweet stats.
Pagel is one of the worst I find for this kind of activity throughout the pandemic, I mentioned this a while ago on her:
Delta is hitting kids far more than before in our latest outbreak with nearly 10% in NSW and 26% in VIC being children. Not necessarily getting sicker but getting it far more often than with previous variants and it seems likely they are spreading it more often as well. AU is looking at authorising vaccination for all over 12's soon and I'd speculate maybe younger once the Pfizer and Modena trails finish.
NZ has 11 new cases and 3 of which are in Wellington - all others have been in Auckland I believe.
NZ has 11 new cases and 3 of which are in Wellington - all others have been in Auckland I believe.
Last edited:
When does the trials finish roughly?
I can't find anything on the Modena trials (so not sure I didn't misremember) but Pfiser have started and apparently,
NY Times said:
Presumably regulatory approval would then need to be finalised.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/26/us/politics/fda-covid-vaccine-trials-children.html
Had a bad headcold and hot/cold fever since yesterday morning and a couple others from a wedding I attended have the same but said they felt fine after a day. Had a tickley cough that worsened last night and now it have a pretty consistent dry cough. Tested negative three times in the last 48 hours though and just taken a fourth one. Got a PCR test on the way to be sure.
Edit: 4th test negative too.
Edit: 4th test negative too.
Last edited:
Colds are still out there and I think they're probably worse than normal in some people, because we've not been getting our usual quota of them.
Good idea to take a PCR test though, despite the negative LFTs, there's plenty of covid around. Whatever it is, get well soon.
I had/have a cold too, since last thursday.
But the other night, be ears blocked and I've been having a lot of pain...got a Dr appointment later, he said it can happen and the body will fight off, but I have to push to get seen. Mine isn't covid.
But the other night, be ears blocked and I've been having a lot of pain...got a Dr appointment later, he said it can happen and the body will fight off, but I have to push to get seen. Mine isn't covid.
Definitely need a PCR. People use antigen tests wrong all the time. Should really only ever be used by people not feeling sick at all.
Yeah I’ve done it and sent it off. My friends have taken one too and it came back negative so hopefully just a cold.
Had exactly the same experience as yourself, sent mine off this morning.
I was at OT over the weekend and Lords for the Cricket on Monday - seems logical I may have picked it up.
Wasn't the wedding on Monday? Symptoms would hardly show that quick would they?
Yeah so it’s likely a cold considering I isolated before the wedding so I could make it. Quite a few of us seem to have it at this point.
Could be AIDS either.
In the context of Ireland's vaccine uptake, I really don't understand what the idea is behind the seeming ultra-slow re-opening of live events. For example, 40,000 people attended a game at Croke Park on the weekend but if the stadium had been hosting a music gig instead then capacity would have been limited to 200-500 people. There's a massive logic gap there.
I mean granted, not having to see Kodaline is always a plus but even still....
I mean granted, not having to see Kodaline is always a plus but even still....
Its quite amazing how even the most innocent of situations can turn out.
So currently in Auckland we have a strict lockdown. Stay in our own bubbles, stay within 1.5 kms of home for exercise etc.
I speak to my neighbour over the fence all the time, really good next door neighbours. We have been home this week since Tuesday when this latest outbreak kicked off. Later this afternoon he had trouble starting his car so i grabbed my jumper leads to get him started. Wasnt wearing a mask and didnt think anything of it. he has just rung my wife and I to tell us their sons school rang to say their son is a close contact of another schoolboy who has caught covid in this latest outbreak. That in turn because of that brief interaction means we have to self isolate and wait 5 days to be tested ( here testing is preferred on the 5th day from contact with someone possibly with covid) or if they get a negative result we are deemed to be clear.
Kind of surreal in a way.
So currently in Auckland we have a strict lockdown. Stay in our own bubbles, stay within 1.5 kms of home for exercise etc.
I speak to my neighbour over the fence all the time, really good next door neighbours. We have been home this week since Tuesday when this latest outbreak kicked off. Later this afternoon he had trouble starting his car so i grabbed my jumper leads to get him started. Wasnt wearing a mask and didnt think anything of it. he has just rung my wife and I to tell us their sons school rang to say their son is a close contact of another schoolboy who has caught covid in this latest outbreak. That in turn because of that brief interaction means we have to self isolate and wait 5 days to be tested ( here testing is preferred on the 5th day from contact with someone possibly with covid) or if they get a negative result we are deemed to be clear.
Kind of surreal in a way.
Hearing this almost rolls back the memories from spring 2020. In Europe we’re now living with the virus as normal due to high level of population now having been either exposed to covid, been vaccinated or both.
I heard on the news you have 90% of the population with at least 1 dose which is pretty impressive. Hopefully its working in making general life easier. Edit: I have assumed you are in the UK but suspect you arent.
A lot of people seem to be assuming that once you’ve had two you’re good forever!
@Massive Spanner
Ireland currently has second highest incidence of covid in Europe. Despite being much less open than most of the countries below us in that table. And having vaccination rates that are among the best by far. All of which explains why we’re less open then other countries. Far too many people not doing the right thing. Been our biggest problem throughout this pandemic.
Ireland currently has second highest incidence of covid in Europe. Despite being much less open than most of the countries below us in that table. And having vaccination rates that are among the best by far. All of which explains why we’re less open then other countries. Far too many people not doing the right thing. Been our biggest problem throughout this pandemic.