@Pogue Mahone told me pretty much the opposite of that when I was clamouring for us to open up more over the summer before the schools went back and the weather got colder. I'm interested to hear what he thinks about this.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
The first and most obvious difference is that the Uk was a lot more advanced in vaccine roll-out than we were earlier in the summer.
I also think the Uk got “lucky” by having enormous prior waves which gave a reasonable baseline immunity from prior exposure in the unvaccinated. Much more so than Ireland. It also helped them that the larger gap between vaccine doses caused immunity to wane a little slower.
Finally, as we discussed (literally yesterday!) Ireland has a track record of explosive growth (more explosive than the UK, even) whenever we ease restrictions. Hence the understandable desire to be cautious each and every time we take the brakes off.
I think he knows as well as anyone the kind of gamble that the UK took. Like everyone else he can also see what it's already cost - in terms of deaths and hospitalisations.
The key thing though is that no one knows what's going to work until we're through it - and the fairest time to look at the responses will be after we've got through the winter. A lot of people are looking at the UK with horror - 1000 deaths per week - and the NHS is massively overloaded with covid and backlogged demand. A lot of the stuff about trying to do better though is about deciding what are you willing to accept and for how long.
Sure but it always seemed obvious to me that September/October was the worst time to fully ease restrictions because of schools reopening and coming into the winter when the HSE is usually overwhelmed anyway. Couldn't they have started with stuff like back to office, increasing public transport etc sooner than that? Our vaccine rollout was already in a pretty good place by July. It seems like they were setting themselves up for the perfect storm by easing most major restrictions in the same month going into winter.
Given we don't have the historical data, I guess this is just an extrapolation from antibody levels i.e. x many antibodies from dose 2 lasted 6 months, so 10x could last 10 times as long? Seems a bit out there for a governor to be saying that when the medical experts haven't felt comfortable making such predictions!
He's not one to run his mouth so he will have been told that by the medical experts, but yes it will all be assumptions at this stage. Impossible to know for sure when the booster will drop off until it starts to happen.
Yeah, I don’t think any ID physicians/immunologists would make such a bold claim. Early data does look extremely encouraging though. Just like with the first wave of waning, Israel will be the canary in the coalmine on this one.
Israel have early data suggesting that it should last at least 9 months. That's based on lab work and extrapolations of course. There's also a suggestion that we're not just seeing higher antibody levels we're also seeing more varied ones and higher T and B cell responses. Hopeful signs, but no one will really know for a while.
It’s all ifs, buts or maybes.
I don’t think weather is a huge factor in what’s happening now. It’s been freakishly mild and dry over the last month. There’s only so many beer gardens and when pubs and restaurants open, they’re going to fill up no matter what month it is. If we’d gone into a similar period of crazy growth like we’re going through now in a much less vaccinated population (I’m in my 40s and wasn’t vaccinated until July; we didn’t catch up to UK vaccination levels until August) then we could have ended up in even deeper shit than we are now.
Meh, we could've ended up in deep shit earlier either and had more time to lockdown before Christmas. We might all be sitting at home drinking cans again at this rate!
Actually Ireland is one of the countries where case rates are tracking temperature changes more or less exactly! Not just a behavioural thing of course.
There's a thread full of graphs doing the rounds on Twitter. Basically to understand the graphs you have to know that a rising blue (temperature) line means a falling temperature. He's then applied a scale factor so that case numbers and temperature can appear on the same chart...
One for the stats and data vis fans
Ooh, good news about the T-cells and B-cells! Have they teased out that relationship any further yet? They knew antibodies were an imperfect proxy for protection and their supporting cast likely play a role in longer-term responses, but at that point they didn't have much data to go beyond that. Any new news?
Main hope now is surely it will fizzle out eventually to be just another virus that can still kill but not in the lethal ways of last 18 months.
Read the other day scientists were briefing that future great granchildren (if everyone isn't already dead due to climate change) will be getting the virus so it really isn't going to be eradicated anytime soon.
Seems the plan eventually to try to get cases down to below 20k in future winter periods so then death figures are similar to other diseases.
That's the reality really unless there's some other secret masterplan.
Nothing published (not even as a preprint) I don't think, just early press release type chatter at the moment. But that's also how we first heard stuff on waning in general.
Actually Ireland is one of the countries where case rates are tracking temperature changes more or less exactly! Not just a behavioural thing of course.
There's a thread full of graphs doing the rounds on Twitter. Basically to understand the graphs you have to know that a rising blue (temperature) line means a falling temperature. He's then applied a scale factor so that case numbers and temperature can appear on the same chart...
One for the stats and data vis fans
Correlation, sure, but causation?
Even if we focus on the weather alone (ignoring trends over time regarding vaccine waning, restrictions easing, offices and pubs filling up etc etc) wind and rain is much more likely to drive people indoors then a few degrees drop in temperature.
It’s actually been one of the nicest autumns in Ireland I can remember. Very little wind and rain and freakishly mild. We haven’t even had our first frost yet. Which is a worry all in itself but one for the global warming thread!
Hopefully they’ll go down to my age group for boosters - I’m 39 in a couple of months so it’ll probably be just my luck that they say “nah under 40’s are rock solid on their immune system - no booster for you mate!”
Tested positive Monday, been feeling absolutely awful since Monday morning.
My legs have never felt as painful as they do at the moment.
I'm double jabbed as well, would hate to know how I'd have felt without a vaccine.
Whole household has been laid low since last week.
My legs have never felt as painful as they do at the moment.
I'm double jabbed as well, would hate to know how I'd have felt without a vaccine.
Whole household has been laid low since last week.
Wishing you a speedy recovery!
Thanks.
My wife has had it worse, she's been in bed since Sunday, and she's triple jabbed!!
Hope you all feel better soon.
I hope that you and your family get well soon.
She’s the second person I’ve heard about who’s got covid after being boosted. How long after the booster did she get sick?
A good friend of mine who’s an obstetrician got sick the day after her booster. Which is shitty luck as it’s too soon for the booster to kick in.
On the plus side, I know loads of double vaccinated people who’ve got covid and almost all of them have felt like absolute shit but none of them have ended up in hospital. Which is the main thing.
Get well soon @Champ I'm allowed out of isolation tomorrow and not feeling anywhere near as fatigued as even 2 days ago so hopefully when it starts improving for you all it will be quick.
Are there any tests you can do to check if you've had Covid?
About a couple of months ago, I was sick for about 5-6 days:
About a couple of months ago, I was sick for about 5-6 days:
- Exhaustion
- Diarrhea
- Fever
- Headaches
You can still get it after the booster - it isn't 100% effective but it greatly reduces the chance of it developing into serious illness.
were you vaccinated?
There's actually a quirk in the data that suggests that more people do test positive the day after a booster.
I've seen various suggestions from, "people tend not to notice symptoms" on the day or so prior to booster" because of the expectation/stress associated with getting it. To the more direct one that you feel a bit wobbly the following day due to the vaccine kicking in, and that may compound any nascent symptoms so you do get tested. Dunno' really, but you can see the down blip in the data.
There's actually a quirk in the data that suggests that more people do test positive the day after a booster.
I've seen various suggestions from, "people tend not to notice symptoms" on the day or so prior to booster" because of the expectation/stress associated with getting it. To the more direct one that you feel a bit wobbly the following day due to the vaccine kicking in, and that may compound any nascent symptoms so you do get tested. Dunno' really, but you can see the down blip in the data.
That’s fascinating. N=1 but my friend felt like shit the day following the vaccine and assumed that was the cause. It was only two days later as she felt worse and worse, then lost her smell/taste that she went for a test.
Single J&J. Just had my booster now
Except for diarrhea, those were my exact symptoms, when I had Covid. Lasted 2-3 days. However, what really made it obvious was the total loss of my sense of taste and smell.
I was told I could test positive for several months after I was healthy again, so a regular PCR test might be able to give you an answer.
Get well soon
That is the kicker for me, I can put up with feeling like crap for a few days/week, but hospitalisation is not an option.
The wife had her booster a few weeks back, probably three weeks or so.
I wouldn't know how to test it then. You'll have antibodies regardless.
J&J, AZ, Pfizer etc all produce antibodies to the spike bit of the virus. Infection shows as spike antibodies + antibodies to some other proteins. Some antibody tests can tell you which ones you've got, and even how many of them. I'm not sure how available they are though or what they'd cost if you were getting it done privately.
Looks like it's graphs day today.
Cases rising fast in parts of Europe. More disconcertingly it's almost as if they're rising in sync between some countries.
I don't know if that's a weather effect or if they all changed rules at the same time, but it's a sudden rapid jump - comparable perhaps to what was seen in Ireland? Countries are now looking at changing rules again. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
Some of the details are in the thread below. The first set of graphs show daily average based on the past 7 days - he's taking about the most recent date as the one that's above past pandemic levels.
Cases rising fast in parts of Europe. More disconcertingly it's almost as if they're rising in sync between some countries.
I don't know if that's a weather effect or if they all changed rules at the same time, but it's a sudden rapid jump - comparable perhaps to what was seen in Ireland? Countries are now looking at changing rules again. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
Some of the details are in the thread below. The first set of graphs show daily average based on the past 7 days - he's taking about the most recent date as the one that's above past pandemic levels.
Having poo poo’d your weather theory yesterday (because Ireland’s having a mild autumn) it’s hard to ignore what the only countries swerving this spike (so far!) Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece have in common.
They drink more wine than beer?
nice to know, thanks! Had no idea there was a way to differentiate properly between the different causes for antibodies in praxi
As someone who completely stopped paying attention to all this depressing shit once everyone was double jabbed, are the deaths/ICU admittance numbers going up along with infection numbers? I'm trying to understand why Ireland is going back into lockdown.