[HN Gopher] The UK's delta surge is collapsing
___________________________________________________________________
The UK's delta surge is collapsing
Author : donohoe
Score : 146 points
Date : 2021-08-02 13:22 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nymag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nymag.com)
| arbuge wrote:
| Most news articles I see focus solely on the number of vaccinated
| people when estimating how far away countries are from herd
| immunity, which seems odd to me. Left out in the discussion seem
| to be the unvaccinated but already infected. As far as I know,
| prior infection confers at least some degree of immunity.
|
| It may also be the case that those inclined to be skeptical of
| vaccines were also the ones who exposed themselves to infection
| most during the pandemic, through disdain for social distancing,
| mask-wearing, etc. In other words those still unvaccinated in
| Western countries with easy access to vaccines have a pretty good
| chance of having been infected by now.
|
| Adding those two populations together would seem to indicate that
| most Western populations are already at herd immunity by this
| point, which would mean that these surges can be reasonably
| expected to become smaller and smaller. Unless of course some
| totally new variant capable of evading all existing vaccines and
| immunity from prior infection emerges.
| stefan_ wrote:
| This is an exposition on Dunning Kruger. What is it going to
| be, herd immunity or surges? Can't be both.
| nostrademons wrote:
| The herd immunity threshold changed with Delta, which I've
| heard has an R0 of 8-10 (compare 3.5-4.5 for the UK Alpha
| variant, and about 2.5 for the original strain). Instead of 60%
| vaccination, you'd need 90%, and will likely overshoot that.
|
| It wouldn't surprise me if the UK's cases are now dropping
| because they reached that threshold, but I doubt the US is
| there now. Probably Delta will blow through literally _all_ the
| remaining unvaccinated people and that 'll be the last surge,
| at least unless we get a vaccine-resistant strain.
| adventured wrote:
| > It wouldn't surprise me if the UK's cases are now dropping
| because they reached that threshold, but I doubt the US is
| there now.
|
| Given the enormous US Covid outbreak, the US is likely not
| far away. We're at 70% adult vaccination and had a minimum of
| 100 million prior Covid infections. Also throw in tens of
| millions of people that likely have natural immunity to
| Covid.
|
| The biggest question with Delta is going to be the matter of
| repeat infections and how long the vaccines, the vaccines +
| prior infections, and prior infections (without vaccination)
| all hold up against it. To say nothing of what variations
| will follow next after Delta. Is there actually herd immunity
| to be found with Delta, or will people just keep getting
| variations of Covid from here forward. I don't believe there
| will be herd immunity for any nations, there will just be far
| lower mortality rates due to prior virus exposure and the
| vaccines. Some non-trivial % of the vaccinated population
| will continue to get Covid. If there was a chance to squash
| Covid with the early strain via herd immunity, those days are
| very long gone.
|
| The great lie still being persisted for the benefit of the
| agitated public, is that Covid is going to go away courtesy
| of vaccinations. The authorities have pitched that to the
| public from the early days of the vaccines to try to max out
| the vaccination rates. Do this and Covid goes away. The
| vaccines are never going to stop Covid, they're going to
| continue to dramatically reduce the mortality rates (which is
| critical, however the public still doesn't widely grasp the
| reality of the forever Covid future yet).
| nostrademons wrote:
| U.S. is only at 50% fully-vaccinated, with several states
| in the high 30s to 40s. I could believe 70% with at least
| one shot but haven't seen any statistics to that effect; it
| doesn't matter much since Delta is still pretty dangerous
| to partially-vaccinated people. We had 35M recorded COVID
| cases; I'd believe about a 2:1 undercount, so about 70M
| total cases (~22%). Vaccines + previous cases was likely
| past herd immunity _for the original variant_ (hence why
| cases dropped dramatically after vaccines came out), but
| with Delta 's increased herd immunity threshold we should
| expect another 50-70M cases within the next few weeks.
| newacct583 wrote:
| > The great lie still [...] is that Covid is going to go
| away courtesy of vaccinations. The authorities have pitched
| that to the public from the early days of the vaccines
|
| That is (1) outrageously hyperbolized and (2) completely
| wrong. Delta wasn't known to have this level of
| transmissibility until the _last three weeks_. People,
| experts, doctors, "authorities", whatever, you want to
| label them 100% believed sincerely that we were on a path
| to the elimination of the outbreak.
|
| Cut the bullshit, basically. Yeah, yeah, I know it's HN and
| everyone wants to think they're smarter than everyone else.
| But you aren't. You're retconning brand new science to make
| prior understanding into a "big lie". That's really awful.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If the forever-COVID reality for 95+% of the population is
| "you really, really ought to get that annual booster shot"
| (instead of "get the flu shot iff it's convenient"), that's
| not actually so terrible.
|
| If it becomes century-long endemic in the population, kids
| are exposed to it, likely creating a productive exposure-
| related immune reaction until they're old enough to get an
| mRNA vaccine.
| adventured wrote:
| Definitely. I don't think it's terrible at all given the
| alternative is tens or hundreds of thousands of
| additional people dying from Covid per year in the US. I
| guess we'll soon see the extent to which the public can
| be convinced to get booster shots every year. The
| governments of the world will have their jobs cut out for
| them, there will be a lot of resistance to forever Covid
| vaccinations as time goes on (and very lucrative for big
| pharma; Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are going to make a
| stupid amount of money over the next few years).
|
| What will be interesting to find out in the near future,
| is if high vaccination rates + prior infections reduce
| Covid deaths below, say, 50k people in the US every year,
| or whether we're forever stuck with a sizable population
| killer no matter what (short of implementing elaborate
| forever cultural systems of lockdown; as in, those
| counter measures will have to become ingrained deeply
| into the culture, accepted and automatic). The next
| decade is going to be very weird and interesting on that
| front.
| nradov wrote:
| Vaccination is great but in addition to that we could
| also cut the ongoing death toll through public health
| campaigns to eliminate hypovitaminosis D. This could be
| done relatively cheaply.
|
| https://vitamin-d-covid.shotwell.ca/
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Where are you getting 100M confirmed infections?
| [deleted]
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| " Instead of 60% vaccination, you'd need 90%, and will likely
| overshoot that."
|
| 60% (Vaccinated + Previously Infected)
| samizdat311 wrote:
| These are very good points. I'd add that herd immunity isn't
| a clearly defined threshold, either. It's the point at which
| the effective R in a population is < 1 -- AKA exponential
| decay. With a circulating virus, depending on how _much_
| below 1 you get, exponential decay might take a few months or
| even a few years to get down to elimination.
|
| The current dip in the UK is trending toward the former. But
| it's further complicated by the fact that levels of immunity
| in the population will continue to oscillate up and down.
| (Nevermind that once schools open in September, 20% of the
| population with relatively sparse vaccination will be mixing
| in large cohorts).
|
| Another factor in herd immunity is vaccine efficacy - which
| is somewhere between 86% and 95% for the mRNA vaccines (and
| will continue to change). A herd immunity threshold of 90%
| presupposes a vaccine with 100% efficacy - when your vaccines
| are not that effective (not to mention, losing effectiveness
| over time) it bumps the threshold even higher.
|
| Right now, much of the population has some level of
| "sterilising immunity" from the first round of vaccines and
| previous infection (i.e. having enough circulating antibodies
| to potentially block symptomatic infection and transmission).
| But everything we know about existing respiratory viruses
| (and indications so far this year) suggest antibodies will
| wane.
|
| Of course, indications are most people will come away with
| robust cell-based immunity. (Those plucky T-cells and
| B-cells). But eradication for the UK looks *very* close to
| impossible given the near-total-abandonment of public health
| measures recently.
| lamontcg wrote:
| > But everything we know about existing respiratory viruses
| (and indications so far this year) suggest antibodies will
| wane.
|
| Not necessarily the case. Infections with HCoV-229E
| produces durable immunity and reinfection is due to
| antigenic drift:
|
| https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.17.423313v1
|
| That it at odds with prior studies that found ~12 month
| reinfections with coronaviruses, but it is with
| considerably better methodology.
|
| And it is simultaneously: not clear that vaccines produce
| sterilizing immunity, not clear it is necessary to do that
| at all, and not clear if how much measurements of NAbs
| correlates with sterilizing immunity.
|
| I can tell you a story about how delta reaches 90-100%
| thresholds of herd immunity in this wave and burns itself
| out and we don't see it much again for 3-5 years in
| countries like the US/UK. Or I can tell you a story about
| how it keeps coming back every year with 2 or 3 waves.
| Anyone who tells you they know which of those outcomes must
| be correct probably knows a lot less about virology than
| they think they do (even if they have a degree). I'm
| reasonably hopeful its the former, but I never predicted
| delta and thought we'd be virus-free this summer and was
| wrong.
|
| Even in the worst case though the vaccinated/recovered are
| never going back to 2019 levels of susceptibility to severe
| outcomes, so we're looking at a steady drip-drip-drip of
| people killing themselves to avoid vaccination up until we
| get bored with that and they pretty much disappear (that's
| where T-cells and B-cells and cross reactive partial
| immunity to all future variants comes in).
| nicoburns wrote:
| > eradication for the UK looks _very_ close to impossible
| given the near-total-abandonment of public health measures
| recently.
|
| I don't support the recent abandonment of restrictions, but
| could that policy, followed up by stricter restrictions in
| a few months time actually be helpful for eradication?
| Eradication is likely a hopeless prospect in the UK anyway,
| because there is no political will for closing the borders.
| But it's interesting to conjecture.
| eloff wrote:
| > Probably Delta will blow through literally all the
| remaining unvaccinated people and that'll be the last surge,
| at least unless we get a vaccine-resistant strain.
|
| I think you're right, but that will still happen over years
| in multiple waves. Barring some sudden uptick in people
| changing their mind about vaccination.
| ikawe wrote:
| > and it may also be the case that those who have a tendency to
| be skeptical of vaccines also were the ones most out and about
| and exposing themselves during the pandemic, i.e. the ones with
| the highest chance of being infected.
|
| Sure, _maybe_.
|
| > [...] would seem to indicate that most Western populations
| are already at herd imnmunity by this point
|
| Given that infections are still rising pretty hard, what
| indicates to you that we are _at_ this point, and not, say, 6
| months out?
| basch wrote:
| Not as sensationally reported is that, fatality rate (the
| proportion of people who die of those who tested positive)
| appears to be falling slightly, and is at its lowest in 2+
| months.
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/map
| genericuser314 wrote:
| I think that's because of different vaccine uptake by age
| cohort. People 65+ have always been most likely to require
| intervention and they are also the most vaccinated age cohort
| - ~80% vaccinated in the US. [0]
|
| [0]: https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-
| trac...
| zwily wrote:
| This would most likely be due to the vaccines, no?
| billiam wrote:
| I don't know what the point of such conjecture is. Of course we
| don't know how much immunity comes from infection, and it is
| quite clear from the spread of delta that we are nowhere near
| herd immunity in the developed world, even in places like
| Israel. I had a coronavirus called a cold last year; does that
| mean I'm immune this year? Unlikely in the long term with
| COVID. The entire concept of herd immunity may be a mirage: if
| the (rare) breakthrough infections in vaccinated people like me
| spread just as much virus as unvaccinated, then there may be a
| huge potential for incubating new strains among the mRNA-ed
| that may elude all our current vaccines. And unlike a lot of
| viruses, the latest variants may be just as lethal as the
| earlier ones. Usually viruses become more transmissible and
| less lethal in response to rational behavior in their hosts--
| but humans are proving we're not rational.
| notJim wrote:
| > Of course we don't know how much immunity comes from
| infection
|
| Come on, this is silly. We haven't learned nothing over the
| last year. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-
| matters/lasting...
| throwaway8582 wrote:
| > I had a coronavirus called a cold last year; does that mean
| I'm immune this year?
|
| There are supposedly over 200 different viruses that can
| cause the common cold (https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-
| research-matters/underst...). So it's quite possible for
| immunity to any individual strain to last a very long time
| and still get multiple colds per year.
|
| > Usually viruses become more transmissible and less lethal
| in response to rational behavior in their hosts--but humans
| are proving we're not rational.
|
| Our own "rationality" doesn't matter much, if a virus leaves
| you bed-ridden or dead, that makes it very hard for you
| spread it regardless of your choices. The fact that we have
| so many different viruses which essentially cause more or
| less the same "common cold" proves that there is very strong
| evolutionary pressure for a virus to behave this way.
| rajin444 wrote:
| > Usually viruses become more transmissible and less lethal
| in response to rational behavior in their hosts--but humans
| are proving we're not rational.
|
| I was under the impression viruses became less lethal because
| if they became more, they'd kill off their hosts and be less
| likely to spread.
|
| There's a chance you get some super virus that becomes both
| more transmissible and lethal, but that is very rare (from
| what I can see).
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| Does that not assume that you're symptomatic at the same
| time you're spreading the virus? With covid you appear to
| be able to spread before you know you have it. Given that,
| what force would cause the virus to be selected for less
| lethality?
|
| With a different presentation of disease where symptoms and
| spread occur concurrently then there would be a pressure on
| the virus selecting for strains that arent so lethal a
| carrier has no chance to spread. In covid's case, that
| pressure doesn't exist as far as i can see?
| AbortedLaunch wrote:
| It depends. It's hard to model and even think about the
| selection pressures accurately. West Nile virus showed a
| marked increase in virulence in corvids recently as did
| rabbit hemorrhagic disease.
|
| And let's not forget about Mareks disease, where a non-
| sterilizing vaccine is thought to have contributed to a
| massive increase in virulence, killing nearly 100% of
| unvaccinated chickens now vs causing mild disease decades
| ago.
| infamouscow wrote:
| You're missing the point because the media (and their
| pharmaceutical advertisers) have framed everything in terms
| of vaccination, as if the human immune system is incapable of
| surviving COVID and it's variants.
|
| All viruses get less lethal as time goes on, not stronger,
| despite all the fear porn that has been indoctrinated into
| the public over the last year and a half.
| Angostura wrote:
| > All viruses get less lethal as time goes on, not
| stronger.
|
| Wrong. It's generally the case, because a virus that keeps
| its host walking around will tend to infect more people
| than a virus that sends them straight to the morgue.
|
| SARS-Cov-2 is unusual in that it's asymptomatic infectious
| period is really quite long. It's straight-to-morgue
| capabilities could become much more prevalent with hitting
| its infectivity too badly.
| anthonyu wrote:
| Certain viruses maintained their lethality as time went on.
| Smallpox was very lethal throughout time. Influenza
| lethality ebbs throughout history. I don't think we can or
| should depend on less-lethal, common-cold-like symptoms
| from Covid-19 at any point.
| nradov wrote:
| SARS-CoV-2 does cause common cold like symptoms in the
| vast majority of cases, just like other coronaviruses. In
| particular it's quite similar to HCoV-OC43. The only
| reason those other endemic coronaviruses don't kill many
| people is that most of us get infected as children and
| build up some immunity.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/
| rajin444 wrote:
| Is there a reason we shouldn't expect it to behave like
| most coroanviruses?
| cortic wrote:
| There actually is. The evolutionary selection pressure on
| most coronaviruses exists throughout its infectious
| stage. So in order to be more infectious for longer the
| coronavirus would become less symptomatic and so less
| serious.
|
| But with C19 we are aggressively isolating people with
| symptoms. This focuses evolutionary selection pressure on
| the initial infectious stage. In order to be more
| infectious the virus increases viral load and shedding,
| causing more serious symptoms; which would be an
| evolutionary disadvantage, except isolation renders this
| disadvantage moot.
|
| Also natural immunity general focuses on the nucleus of
| the virus, vaccine immunity is to the spike. So this
| forces mutations in different proteins, which has
| different results.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _All viruses get less lethal as time goes on, not
| stronger,_
|
| This isn't true. Given certain assumptions, it's true _on
| average_ , but those assumptions don't apply in this case.
| infamouscow wrote:
| It's not an assumption, it's obvious to anyone that looks
| at data rather than of blindly listening to
| sensationalized media bullshit.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| No, it comes from this model:
|
| Highly-deadly diseases will kill their hosts quickly,
| limiting their spread. Therefore, one of two things will
| happen:
|
| * A less-deadly variant will emerge, spread faster, and
| outcompete its more deadly cousin.
|
| * The deadly disease will kill enough of the population
| that its R number drops below 1, and thus the deadly
| disease will die out.
|
| Therefore, observed diseases will tend to get less deadly
| over time.
|
| ---
|
| If you _look at the data_ , we're firmly in "kill enough
| of the population" town (to the extent you can stretch
| this model to our situation). The variants we're seeing
| spread are getting _more_ virulent over time, not less,
| because:
|
| * we don't want to die and we're doing stuff about that,
| meaning any model with "most individuals infected are
| removed from the model" in it is a flawed model; and
|
| * we have fast long-distance travel, so any population
| model that relies on Euclidean locality is a flawed
| model.
| infamouscow wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree with you (yet), but thanks for
| providing info rather than downvoting!
| dddddddan wrote:
| You haven't cited any data.
| eitland wrote:
| Agree.
|
| For a specific example the Spanish Flu hit harder later
| on.
| flir wrote:
| > All viruses get less lethal as time goes on
|
| Smallpox.
| christkv wrote:
| Smallpox luckily was a very stable DNA virus with a low
| mutation rate so it became possible to eradicate it.
| felipellrocha wrote:
| > Left out in the discussion seem to be the unvaccinated but
| already infected. As far as I know, prior infection confers at
| least some degree of immunity.
|
| We don't know how much, though. There are cases in which
| vaccine performs better than a natural infection, there are
| cases in which the vaccine performs worse than natural
| infection. Without time for a study, it's impossible to know
| where we lie with Covid.
| gpt5 wrote:
| It's not impossible to estimate for COVID. Re-infections in
| COVID are exceedingly rare.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| There's no way of knowing this, considering the amount of
| asymptomatic cases that are never tested or recorded.
| [deleted]
| aristophenes wrote:
| Without time for a study, wouldn't it make sense to assume
| the most common thing, that a natural infection provides more
| immunity than the vaccine? Taking the line of reasoning where
| we assume the worst case scenario until proven otherwise,
| would it be reasonable to assume long term medical issues
| from the vaccinations?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _Without time for a study, wouldn't it make sense to
| assume the most common thing, that a natural infection
| provides more immunity than the vaccine?_
|
| No, actually; the actual infection sometimes misfires,
| leaving dud spike proteins outside the cells. If the immune
| system finds those first, it'll attack the dud spike
| proteins _instead of_ the still-functional spike proteins,
| attacking all the viruses that _failed_ to get into the
| cells instead of all the viruses that might succeed. The
| mRNA vaccine doesn 't produce real, active viruses, so it
| doesn't have this problem.
|
| > _Taking the line of reasoning where we assume the worst
| case scenario until proven otherwise, would it be
| reasonable to assume long term medical issues from the
| vaccinations?_
|
| Assuming the worst-case scenario until proven otherwise
| _doesn 't work like that_. You have to look at the entire
| range of uncertainty, and choose the worst-case scenario
| for each question.
|
| Example: you want to know, worst-case, how many people will
| die from car crashes on a road in a year, so you assume
| that the cars involved in collisions are travelling at the
| fastest recorded speeds on that road (or in the 90th
| percentile of speeds on similar roads, or something). But
| if you want to know, worst-case, how long it'll take to
| travel the road, you should assume there'll be loads of
| traffic jams, or the road will be closed.
|
| So here's a worst-case scenario if people don't get
| vaccinated, bounded by my amateur knowledge of
| epidemiology: there's a large enough infected population
| passing the disease around for a _really_ deadly, fast-
| spreading variant to emerge, and its antigens are different
| enough from normal that everyone currently vaccinated is
| susceptible, hundreds of millions of people die, and COVID
| becomes a seasonal (but much more deadly) illness, killing
| hundreds of millions again every few years until it reaches
| an equilibrium of sorts. (A real epidemiologist would know
| more, which would _probably_ lead to a less apocalyptic
| worst-case scenario prediction - but it might lead to an
| even worse one.)
|
| Here's a worst-case scenario if people do get vaccinated:
| everyone is vaccinated, COVID-19 starts going away, then a
| month later, it turns out that the vaccines - _and_ real
| COVID-19 infections (there 's no mechanism in the vaccines
| that isn't also in SARS-CoV-2, excluding the needle /
| delivery mechanism) cause some complicated, heretofore-
| unknown-to-science time-delay mechanism that causes a
| severe allergy or autoimmune condition. Thousands die
| before we identify the problem, and tens of thousands die
| before our politicians get their acts together and
| authorise the mass distribution of anti-allergy /
| immunosuppressant medication (which we already have
| manufacturing plants and distribution networks for). We
| live with the aftermath, but getting infected would've been
| just as bad.
|
| This second scenario is a _lot_ less realistic than the
| global apocalypse one, because I had to pull side effects
| out of my ass. If the vaccines caused chronic fatigue
| syndrome, which is the only COVID-19-induced disorder
| caused by a mechanism that the vaccines _could_ share
| (because we don 't know what causes it), it would've
| started happening already. But it hasn't. Assuming some
| arbitrary thing we have a fair bit of evidence _against_ is
| not how you do worst-case scenarios, and it _certainly_
| shouldn 't be how you do actual planning.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| > _Here 's a worst-case scenario if people do get
| vaccinated: everyone is vaccinated, COVID-19 starts going
| away_
|
| How do you figure that last part?
| mrhands69 wrote:
| > Assuming the worst-case scenario until proven otherwise
| doesn't work like that. You have to look at the entire
| range of uncertainty, and choose the worst-case scenario
| for each question.
|
| It seems to me the worst case scenario is always applied
| when looking at things like natural immunity from prior
| infection, long covid, etc
|
| If you model Sars-Cov-2 after Sars-Cov-1 or MERS then you
| would be lead to believe natural immunity lasts around 5+
| years.
|
| Where is worst case scenario not applied? Anything to do
| with vaccines. We're not even allowed to question it.
|
| We are extremely conservative on one side of the coin,
| but not the other. Why?
| loonster wrote:
| Continuing with your thoughts, is it reasonable to assume
| that the selective pressure the vaccinated are placing on
| COVID variants are a good thing?
|
| I have no clue. I hope it works out well.
| svara wrote:
| Interestingly, you can get multiple-wave dynamics even when
| very far from population-level herd immunity, and even without
| taking into account changes in behavior (for example, [1]).
| That's because of stochasticity in the process due to the fact
| that (1) most people infect no one, but some people infect many
| ("overdispersion") and (2) the population is not well mixed.
|
| In practice, of course, people respond to news about Covid
| waves and that contributes to the wave-like dynamics.
| Furthermore, new variants of the virus will be able to reach
| people that were "cautious enough" for a previous variant. That
| alone would also give you wave-like dynamics, basically every
| new variant would affect increasingly harder to reach people.
|
| Anyway, the point is, seeing these waves is super natural and
| expected and we can't deduce anything about population-level
| immunity from them without looking really really closely.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4526984/
| bawolff wrote:
| > Adding those two populations together would seem to indicate
| that most Western populations are already at herd immunity by
| this point
|
| That's assuming that nobody who got covid later got vaccinated
| (or got it before the vaccine kicked in). That seems like a
| very unrealistic assumption to me. On the other side, there are
| probably a lot more cases than are reported.
|
| You're right that it almost certainly matters for heard
| immunity, but i think you need a much more complex model to
| know how much of an effect it has.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-
| updates/burd...
|
| CDC estimated that 1/4 covid infections had an associated
| positive test. I did the same kind of napkin math you're
| referring too for Floridia a few months back and they'd could
| have been at 80% of the population with some level of
| immunity.
|
| But napkin math probably isn't a good way to run a pandemic
| response. Just like herd immunity doesn't really matter at an
| individual level.
| bawolff wrote:
| I'm also not sure how much the usa experience applies to
| other countries. They seem to have not liked lockdowns and
| masks very much.
| [deleted]
| nostromo wrote:
| I don't see why we should care about number of cases in countries
| with freely available vaccines.
|
| Disease (as reflected by hospital admissions) and death are what
| we care about. And those numbers are continuing to trend in the
| right direction.
|
| The US media is just addicted to fear at this point. With a more
| boring/traditional president in the office and the covid panic
| waning, there is a news vacuum. And the media is trying to fill
| that vacuum with the delta variant. But you can calm your nerves
| just looking at the data yourself and not reading anything the
| media has to say.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Because an uptick in cases always has resulted in an uptick in
| hospitalizations and death.
|
| Maybe you think things have changed (and indeed: I think
| vaccinations have changed the pattern of cases ->
| hospitalizations -> death). But ultimately: cases give us a
| glimpse of what is to come 3 or 4 weeks earlier.
|
| And lo-and-behold, the Florida hospitalization counts are now
| kicking up dramatically.
|
| Similarly: UK hospitalizations will be expected to drop
| (coinciding with the drop in case counts 3 or 4 weeks earlier)
| qeternity wrote:
| Deaths have absolutely plummeted, and correlations have very
| clearly broken from previous "waves". But in order to extract
| compliance from the population, there needs to be a call to
| action, so the goalposts were moved to infections, as opposed
| to hospitalizations/deaths.
| monooso wrote:
| The ONS regularly tests a random selection of people. Their
| results typically trail the daily infection numbers by two weeks.
|
| Notably, the most recent ONS samples demonstrated a sharp _rise_
| in cases. The suggestion is that cases are actually surging, but
| most are now either asymptomatic or at least very mild, and thus
| not reported.
|
| I guess we'll find out shortly whether that's the case.
| Animats wrote:
| The US CDC does this by re-using random anonymous blood samples
| drawn for other purposes, and by using test data from blood
| banks. The current data collected is for the presence of
| antibodies indicating people who've been infected. Not those
| vaccinated; they can distinguish that. This is cheap to
| measure, but runs about 6 weeks behind. Data here.[1] US
| average from late June is about 22% of the population. That's
| roughly how many people actually had the disease.
|
| That data should show the Delta variant surge as the data comes
| in.
|
| I still can't find a useful number for people with antibodies
| prevalent because either infected or vaccinated, although that
| is apparently tested.
|
| [1] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab
| IshKebab wrote:
| The ONS data doesn't show a sharp rise. If anything it is
| levelling off. I think tomatocracy is right - because the ONS
| survey measures _current_ infections rather than newly
| discovered infections it is likely to lag a bit and will
| probably start to drop soon.
| ddek wrote:
| Which ONS data are you referring to? The currently published
| data indicates the wave has at least plateaued, as I read it,
| in all but the youngest age groups.
| a_humean wrote:
| They are talking about the survey data, which doesn't rely
| upon the normal testing regime. They randomly contact and
| test individuals irrespective of their symptoms status, which
| is different from the normal testing regime that gets
| reported daily. I believe its a 20k sample size. The survey
| takes a lot longer time compile
|
| Most recent summary: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationa
| ndcommunity/healthan...
|
| Most recent data: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandc
| ommunity/healthan...
|
| Methods: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/
| healthan...
| timr wrote:
| It's important to note that this data sample ends on July
| 24, which is almost exactly the day that cases started
| rapidly declining across the UK.
|
| OP was not accurately representing the facts.
| monooso wrote:
| Thanks for adding the relevant links.
| makomk wrote:
| That summary seems to show infections plateauing in every
| age group except school kids. (And of course, with schools
| breaking up since then they're probably both less likely to
| get infected and less likely to get tested.)
| tomatocracy wrote:
| In particular, it's worth noting that the ONS survey tries
| to estimate an answer to the question "in the given time
| period, what proportion of the population would have tested
| positive?"
|
| Because people tend to continue to test positive for a
| reasonable period of time after they are first infected,
| this should be a lagging indicator of any peak in new
| infections having occurred.
| mixedmath wrote:
| I read this and think it's well written. I see it's published in
| The Intelligencer, which is apparently an offshoot of NYMagazine.
| I'm not particularly familiar with either, but I hadn't realized
| that news-type things would be discussed in them.
|
| Does anyone here have anything to say about their quality or
| their relevance to people who don't live in NY?
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| New York Magazine is certainly centered on New York City, but
| like many other New York-named publications (including the
| unrelated New York Times newspaper and the New Yorker
| magazine), it is actually national in scope. And many of the
| stories can even be international, insofar as culture and a not
| insignificant American export.
|
| It has always been well-regarded, think of it as a more puckish
| New Yorker (although in recent years, The New Yorker has
| certainly taken on more personality, especially online), and I
| would argue, was one of the first "prestige" magazines to
| really embrace online and digital expansion. It took until well
| into the 2010s for a lot of the Conde Nast and Hearst
| publications to even integrate their digital and print
| newsrooms, with digital often being treated as an afterthought.
| New York Mag really embraced online early and as a result,
| didn't have the same identity issues once the bottom dropped
| out of print's profitability. It used to be a weekly magazine
| but swapped to biweekly seven or eight years ago.
|
| I've been a subscriber since I was in college (which was before
| I moved to New York City), which coincided with the online push
| and the reign of editor-in-chief Adam Moss (who was EIC from
| 2004-2019), and since 2004, I believe NYMag has won more
| National Magazine Awards (which are sort of the magazine
| world's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes, albeit with less
| prestige) than any other publication.
|
| There are several "verticals" for New York Mag, which include
| Vulture (culture), The Cut (lifestyle and more of a focus on
| women), Grub Street (restaurants and bars), Intelligencer
| (tech, politics, ideas).
|
| Vox bought the magazine a few years ago, but it operates
| relatively independently from the other Vox media sites (Vox,
| The Verge, etc.), at least as far as editorial content goes.
| (I'm sure they share resources like HR and some ad sales stuff,
| same as Conde and Hearst and Meredith.)
|
| *I don't and have never worked at New York Mag, but as a former
| New York City-based journalist, I have friends who do or have
| worked there and I've met Pam Wasserstein, the former CEO
| (current president of Vox Media), socially a few times.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Do we have conclusive numbers on how long these vaccines last?
| I'm reading that Pfizer lasts about 6 months? There's no way
| there won't be a surge again next summer if that's the case.
| newsyyswen wrote:
| There are no conclusive numbers on how long they last, because
| there has not been a significant drop-off in efficacy yet.
|
| There is some evidence that booster shots after 6 months can
| provide better even better protection than the second shot
| after 3-4 weeks, but it's not clear whether they will be
| necessary yet, especially when so much of the world is still
| desperate to get the first two shots in peoples' arms.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| There's been enough drop-off in the Pfizer vaccine that
| Israel is starting boosters for people 60+. Their estimate is
| that protection against mild disease has dropped to 40% and
| protection against hospitalization to 88%.
| https://swprs.org/covid-vaccines-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly/
| dtech wrote:
| There has been shown a little bit of drop-off, but that is in
| the range of 95% to 80-90%, so still strong. Hard to say
| because the mutation in circulation have changed.
| tguvot wrote:
| slide 19: https://context-
| cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/do...
|
| slide 4+: https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/vaccine-
| efficacy-safet...
|
| and in general
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2109072
| sharken wrote:
| I have lost count of statements from epidemiologists who have
| grossly overestimated infection rates.
|
| Predicting the future is hard and if you're obviously not good at
| it, you should stop doing it.
|
| The bit about vaccinated being eight times less likely to get
| infected, should make those who are still unsure think again.
|
| And on the other hand it should give pause to those thinking
| about enforcing vaccine mandates.
| christkv wrote:
| Same pattern in northern Spain that have very high vaccination
| rates.
| xrayarx wrote:
| Source please?
| euskera wrote:
| https://www.diariovasco.com/sociedad/salud/euskadi-
| vacunados...
| christkv wrote:
| Local Spanish newspaper
| https://www.elcomercio.es/asturias/asturias-acerca-
| inmunidad...
|
| 76% with one dose,66.7% with two doses. Number of cases are
| going down from about 400 a day a week ago to about 200+ this
| week per day.
| Angostura wrote:
| I suppose irts worth mentioning that while the reported number of
| daily infections is dropping in the UK, so is the numer of tests
| taken.
|
| Meanwhile hospital admissions and deaths continue to rise, albeit
| slowly. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk
| andy_ppp wrote:
| People in the summer in the UK spend plenty of time outside, I
| would think the winter is when things get interesting again.
| Let's hope we're out of the woods but the luck of the uk
| government isn't something I'd bank on!
| dmje wrote:
| UK citizen here.
|
| I just don't think this "collapse" is the case.
|
| My gut feel is that everyone has stopped doing lateral flow tests
| and reporting those tests: noone wants to be isolating now the
| summer holidays have started, and many people are now ignoring
| track and trace because they're scared of the possible
| "pingdemic". I know many people who have stopped scanning in to
| venues. I reckon many suspect they may have Delta but because the
| holidays have started and they've been cut loose from gov
| mandates of mask wearing etc, that the "crowd responsibility"
| factor has almost totally dissipated.
|
| There may be evidence otherwise but I suspect actual figures are
| far higher than is being reported.
| quenix wrote:
| Shouldn't we see this reflected in hospital admissions?
| lucb1e wrote:
| Hospital admissions usually are a bit delayed, but yes,
| presumably people won't be holding off on being admitted to
| the hospital the way they would hold off on getting tested if
| GP is right. (Personally I'm not sure how many more people
| will now, as compared to a few weeks ago, decide that testing
| is more of a nuisance than helpful for protecting your loved
| ones, but then I'm not from the UK so what do I know.)
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| Looking at the official data[0], the number of daily hospital
| admissions is still increasing:
| https://i.imgur.com/XkbImVg.png
|
| But hospital admissions usually lag behind the number of
| infections. If in a week or two admissions are still going up
| while the number of new infections drops, then this theory
| may be correct.
|
| [0] https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
| tialaramex wrote:
| They're a lagging indicator, as are deaths. So, eventually.
|
| If you stare at the government's site
| https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ hospital admissions seem to
| have levelled off, and _maybe_ deaths are levelling off but
| it 's too early to be sure.
|
| People get infected (and begin testing positive) first, then
| some of them get sick (a few more will seek a test and be
| positive) and _then_ some of those seek hospital admission or
| call for advice and the advice for their symptoms is "get to
| hospital" and almost all of the people who eventually die get
| admitted to hospital first, in some cases dying after weeks
| of attempted care.
|
| I think there's room for some pessimism without going so far
| as your parent poster, cases may be down but not as _much_ as
| it seems. Lots of people seem to have gone off around the
| country on holiday which seems crazy to me, but clearly didn
| 't make things _much_ worse. People can choose not to seek a
| test while they 're alive, but corpses have no say in what
| the post mortem data says.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > My gut feel is that everyone has stopped doing lateral flow
| tests and reporting those tests: noone wants to be isolating
|
| Okay that's easy to check: data should show a reduction in
| positive tests roughly on par with the reduction in number of
| tests.
|
| Recent peak value of tests per day was 16.42 per 1000 citizens
| on Jul 17th. At that time there were 630.57 positive test
| results per million citizens.
|
| On July 28th (latest data) tests declined to 13.46 and positive
| cases to 443.45. That's 18% fewer tests and 30% fewer positive
| cases, ballpark twice as much.
|
| I don't think your gut is telling you the full story.
|
| All values are 7-day rolling averages to avoid weekday spikes
| or anything. Source:
| https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
| (use the selector to switch between tests, positive cases, or
| other metrics)
| qeternity wrote:
| UK resident here: I don't know of anyone who has gotten covid
| in many months, and nearly everyone I know is vaxxed.
|
| I believe this Delta collapse. It's exactly what you'd expect
| given our pace of vaccinations.
| lucb1e wrote:
| If we're going by anecdotal evidence, I know many more
| people that get the flu every year than that got covid-19.
| But I don't think my (on average) responsible acquaintances
| with (on average) workable-from-home jobs tell the whole
| story.
|
| You're right though that the numbers somewhat suggest that
| we're managing to beat the Delta variant. Is it due to
| vaccinations? The vaccination rate has been slowing for
| months now, yet the UK still had that spike. The difference
| in people that decided to get vaccinated between early June
| (start of positive cases spike) and July 21st (when the
| decrease set in) is 9%. (from 59% to 68%). It doesn't seem
| to me that a few percent more vaccinations explains
| everything. A percentage in the upper 60s, for _first_
| vaccinations no less (not even a full vaccination), should
| not be enough to beat Delta from what I heard about the R0.
|
| (Data source is the same OWID link, you can configure it to
| show vaccination data.)
| qeternity wrote:
| I'm not saying it's due to vaccinations, I'm saying it's
| what you would expect given our pace of vaccinations. All
| we have are correlations.
|
| The reason I say this is that we have a relatively small
| population of unvaccinated people, and so with the high
| R0 of Delta, you'd expect it to rip through these
| unvaccinated pockets quickly and burn out, which is what
| we're seeing.
|
| I'd expect a few more Delta mini-waves similar to this in
| the coming months.
| malandrew wrote:
| And if we don't see a rise in hospitalizations that is any
| worse than a typical flu season, then it really doesn't matter
| that no one is testing.
| lucb1e wrote:
| _At least_ provide data if you 're going to be like "it's
| just a flu". I'm willing to believe you mean well if you are
| only talking about people that are fully vaccinated 14+ days
| ago, but in general this sounds like an excuse.
| aquadrop wrote:
| Cases don't matter, hospital admissions also show sign of wave
| going down. And that doesn't depend on people's mood.
| rbirkby wrote:
| ONS sampling disputes this.
| lucb1e wrote:
| For anyone else not from the UK, ONS seems to be some
| official body doing some sort of, well, sampling.
|
| Do you have a link to their current stats? I found this
| page[1] but it's not very accessible, not sure this is what
| you mean.
|
| [1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healt
| han...
| kmlx wrote:
| i think schools closing, euros ending, the nhs covid19 app ping
| and holidays starting are actually contributing to a lower
| number. scotland's early school holiday should correlate at
| least part of this hypothesis.
|
| a couple of q's thou:
|
| 1. where do you report lateral flow tests? i do mine at home
| every day as my work sent out boxes of them.
|
| 2. if a lateral flow is positive, aren't you supposed to do
| another and then a pcr test?
| kevinbowman wrote:
| > where do you report lateral flow tests?
|
| https://www.gov.uk/report-covid19-result
|
| > if a lateral flow is positive...
|
| I imagine that that report result site will refer you for a
| PCR test, although thankfully I've never personally been in
| that position.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > My gut feel is that everyone has stopped doing lateral flow
| tests and reporting those tests
|
| Is that where this data comes from?
|
| I'm not sure it is. I think it's separate sampling.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| It really makes me wonder why the authorities don't do proper
| randomized surveys? It is obvious that the testing numbers will
| go up and down as the population goes scared and then goes
| don't care.
| Kluny wrote:
| Cause they're already at maximum capacity with higher
| priority projects, I would imagine.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| there is some sort of on going testing with a set group that
| I've been told was randomly choosen.
|
| My sister/ husband and neice (uk based) are currently being
| tested once a month since the outbreak (mid 2020 ish) and
| they where told that they was picked at random,
|
| All of them have had covid - and probably would not have been
| discovered without this testing - since all their cases have
| been asymptomatic
| makomk wrote:
| The UK is one of the few countries in the world that does
| have proper randomized studies of Covid-19 prevalence, and
| has done since close to the start of the pandemic.
| Unfortunately the results lag behind the actual number of new
| infections by long enough that we wouldn't expect the drop in
| cases to cause a corresponding drop in the numbers coming of
| those studies just yet.
| Wolfenstein98k wrote:
| Important and underexamined question. What happened in the UK?
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Lots of people either being vaccinated or infected seems like
| it would play a big role.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Probably both. We should remember what was the 1st approach
| to the Covid problem by Johnson (that is, well over one year
| ago): he wanted to achieve herd immunity without having
| enough vaccines or not having them at all, and initially
| there were no imposed lockdowns or infection prevention
| rules. The point is that along the extremely high death toll
| caused by that approach, a huge percentage of people over
| there might have caught the virus without symptoms, therefore
| becoming immune to a 2nd infection or at least immune to
| nasty symptoms. So it's entirely possible that the herd
| immunity was eventually achieved, although many, including
| me, would agree the price to pay has been not fair.
| Imnimo wrote:
| I don't really see how the level of immunity could be low
| enough in June to allow rapid growth, and then suddenly be
| high enough in mid-July to cause rapid decline. Wouldn't we
| expect a population close to herd immunity to see slow
| growth, and a population just over herd immunity to see a
| slow decline?
| tsywke44 wrote:
| If 70% of your population is vaccinated, it doesnt mean
| the virus spreads 70% slower.
|
| It instead means that there are 20 million potential
| virus hosts in the UK instead of 67m. Way more than the
| population of lots of EU countries.
| Imnimo wrote:
| I think it does mean that the virus spreads slower
| (although the exact amount will also depend on factors
| like how vaccinated people are distributed among the
| population). Whereas in an unvaccinated population, each
| infected person might spread the virus to (say) five
| others, in a 70% vaccinated population, on average 3.5 of
| those others would be vaccinated, so the virus would only
| spread to 1.5 others. This gives a slower rate of growth.
| Once that rate of growth falls below 1, herd immunity is
| achieved. When you are close to herd immunity, that rate
| should be just a little above 1, leading to slow but
| positive growth.
| sgt101 wrote:
| I think that the question isn't slow or fast, it's
| exponential or not exponential. If you are getting 9
| infections for every infection then that's a bit
| exponent. But, 2 for every infection is also an exponent
| - just a smaller one. Once you get below 2 for every
| infection then you are in the territory of slow growth -
| but not for long and not everywhere. The UK had a patchy
| delta wave, my guess is that when the non herd immune
| demographics and areas started to get herd immunity (drop
| below 2) then the breaks really slammed on.
| bigbizisverywyz wrote:
| >he wanted to achieve herd immunity without having enough
| vaccines or not having them at all
|
| Instead he managed to brew an exciting new variant, which
| is what every health official was warning against.
|
| And I'm guessing that unless the majority of the population
| are rapidly inoculated then exciting new strains could
| constantly evolve until we have something truly nasty.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Sounds like you want to pontificate just to have a moan
| off about the PM.
| zarzavat wrote:
| Choose your own adventure, coronavirus edition.
|
| You have coronavirus symptoms. During the middle of a surge in
| cases, the government has announced that all coronavirus
| restrictions have ended and everybody can go back to normal.
| The vast majority of older and vulnerable people have been
| fully vaccinated.
|
| Do you:
|
| A: get a test and risk having to isolate
|
| B: not get a test and live your life like normal as the
| government said you should
| sprkwd wrote:
| Anecdotally, everybody I know has deleted the app from their
| phone so they can't get pinged and live their life reasonably
| normally.
| karol wrote:
| Anecdotally, I never installed it for the same reason.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| I wonder how much is post-Snowden distrust of government
| software and how much is simply not wanting to be pinged?
| [deleted]
| mattlondon wrote:
| IMO it was most likely the Euros football/soccer championship
| leading to a lot of mixing in crowded spaces among younger men
| who maybe didn't yet have the vaccine or we're from backrounds
| that are the sort that typically ignore this sort of thing.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Yep, I know someone who went to one of the Euro matches. They
| got covid, and they also said that the facebook groups for
| supporters were absolutely full of people who had also gotten
| covid.
| gpt5 wrote:
| Would you also blame the Euro football for the rising Delta
| cases everywhere in the western world?
| mattlondon wrote:
| yes because the matches were all-over europe so same people
| who were in a packed pub a few days earlier were now on a
| plane to some other european country to watch the next
| match.
|
| further, the borders remained open so people mixed at home
| and then went on holiday/visited family etc. UK is a major
| international transport hub and also has a large population
| of Indian descent so we likely "imported" delta from India
| relatively early as a result and then likely helped seed it
| in other western nations.
|
| They should have put India on the red list several weeks
| earlier than they did when it was _obvious_ for anyone to
| see what was going on, but they delayed for unknown reasons
| joelschw wrote:
| The national football team also did really well in the Euro
| competition - this forced a lot of drunk people indoors and
| onto public transport.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| And also in to pubs...
| IfOnlyYouKnew wrote:
| People reading the news and individually deciding to be
| slightly more careful again.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Underexamined? Every major public health official and
| commentator has been discussing it on a near daily basis for
| weeks.
| tsywke44 wrote:
| Night clubs opened and were PACKED, a lot of young people were
| unvaccinated, causing hundreds of superspreader events every
| night for a few weeks.
|
| The % of total population who actually visits nightclubs is
| pretty low, so it took like a monh for this segment to hit herd
| immunity basically
| chippiewill wrote:
| That's not what happened. Cases started going _down_ right as
| nightclubs opened.
| tsywke44 wrote:
| Also lots of previously vaccinated people were exposed, but
| didn't get infected.
|
| Doesn't mean their immune system did nothing though. I'd
| wager a lot of UK population basically got an "organic 3rd
| vaccine dose". My prediction is they have probably the
| highest immunity rates in the world atm
| bostik wrote:
| > _a lot of UK population basically got an "organic 3rd
| vaccine dose"._
|
| Isn't that how the vaccination regime is supposed to work,
| actually? With two jabs in, contracting Covid still comes
| with something like 4%..20% hit rate.[ss] However, with two
| jabs the risk of hospitalisation is mercifully low, and
| roughly half of the cases are asymptomatic.
|
| So instead of vaccinated people overloading the NHS, when
| they do get unlucky, they are _much_ more likely to get
| through with only mild symptoms. For majority that
| "organic 3rd dose" works as a booster shot. They can still
| infect others, though...
|
| NB. As far as I know, there are no good studies on how Long
| Covid manifests in a vaccinated population. I _think_ the
| working assumption is that very mild symptomatic Covid also
| ends up with less severe Long Covid, but have heard of no
| data to back that up.
|
| ss: Depending on the study, the vaccine in question and the
| variant. IIRC 2xPfizer provides ~88% protection against
| Delta, 95%+ against earlier non-Beta variants;
| 2xAstraZeneca provides 60%+ protection against Delta, 90%+
| against non-Betas.
|
| Disclosure: UK resident, with two jabs.
| mattlondon wrote:
| As far as I know, long covid is directly related to how
| sick you get. you hear all these stories of people being
| bed bound for a week or more, high fever, struggling to
| breathe, etc etc.
|
| I'd think it sounds quite a lot like those people were
| really rather ill. I don't think people should expect to
| go back to running marathons or whatever a week after
| fighting to survive
|
| It's the same for flu and other major viral infections.
| It can take a while to get back to full health - I don't
| think covid is anything new here? Just the usual "you
| almost died"?
| nradov wrote:
| Right many types of viral infections can cause post viral
| fatigue syndrome. This is nothing really new, it's just
| getting more attention now because of the sudden surge of
| cases.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3063394/
| danenania wrote:
| Oh fun: the game where everyone puts their pet biases forward
| in an attempt to explain the behavior of a poorly understood
| complex system.
|
| It reminds me of the financial news. "Commodities markets are
| spooked as backlash to latest Justin Bieber video mounts!"
|
| In all seriousness, apart from the vaccination rate and
| strictly enforced lockdowns, I have yet to see an explanation
| for cases going up _or_ down in a particular region that isn 't
| contradicted by the results in some other region. I think we
| should just admit that except for vaccines and physically
| forcing 90% of the population into isolation, we don't have a
| clue what works and what doesn't.
| neves wrote:
| There's a lot of evidence about what worked what didn't work.
| Dozens of countries and well organized societies responded
| well to the pandemic.
| mariodiana wrote:
| I remember reading that the deaths in countries
| corresponded pretty tightly with obesity levels in the
| population. If that's true, that throws lots of "evidence"
| right out the window.
|
| Edit:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-
| obesit...
| sharken wrote:
| This BBC story speculates that Delta became the main
| variant in part due to the cold weather. But I'm not sure
| any one factor can be singled out.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57489740
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > There's a lot of evidence about what worked what didn't
| work
|
| If that was true why can I take the population adjusted
| graphs for any interesting statistic, overlay several
| countries or states, and see the shape of them all is
| basically the same?
|
| I would assert that for any of these non-pharmaceutical
| interventions to have been worthwhile the effect on such
| charts should be absolutely noticeable to any layman on the
| street. If you need PhD level math to tell a country who
| "did it right" apart from a country who "did it wrong"...
| it probably means that it wasn't worth "doing right".
| dcolkitt wrote:
| As a tangent, one way to get much more accurate data in a
| much quicker way is to accept human challenge trials.
|
| We don't even know the answer to whether delta is vaccine
| resistant. With challenge trials it would be dead simple.
| Take 10,000 vaccinated volunteers, randomize into a delta and
| alpha groups. Spray them in the face with Covid. Compare
| rates one week later. Question answered immediately with
| statistical certainty.
|
| Right now, we're trying to answer questions like this using
| nothing other than extremely messy observational data that's
| subject to all sorts of uncontrollable confounding variables.
| Wolfenstein98k wrote:
| The lockdown thing doesn't work as well as you'd think
| either.
|
| We have nearly the world's toughest lockdown in Sydney, and
| weeks later the cases are higher than ever.
|
| Same thing happened in Melbourne last year.
|
| It eventually works - but the UK eventually saw a similar
| precipitous decline, along the same timeframe, while only
| _relinquishing_ restrictions.
|
| The only common thread is that in 5-8 weeks, the spike
| reverses and plummets, regardless of policy.
|
| (Lockdowns may keep the spike much lower, along with the
| general spread. But I'm more interested in _why_ they seem to
| have no effect on arresting or reversing the spread once it
| takes hold.)
|
| Perspective: Aussie, plugged in, watching the West and India
| closely.
| jl6 wrote:
| The UK had a perfect storm of factors contributing to the
| severity of the Covid pandemic in that country: highly
| internationally mobile population, highly internally mobile
| population, a global travel hub, high population density,
| culture of close social mixing, no culture of mask wearing,
| colder climate leading to more indoor living, higher than
| average levels of elderly people, obese people, and of the
| ethnic groups most impacted by the virus, low appetite for
| strict enforcement of lockdowns, and low levels of government
| control over everyday living.
|
| Other countries had some of these factors. Few if any had all
| of these factors.
|
| What happened next? The vaccines turned out to be really
| effective.
| phatfish wrote:
| "Few if any had all of these factors."
|
| The UK certainly doesn't have all of them for a start.
|
| The lock-downs had high levels of compliance, just a lot of
| people moaning from their sofa (or whatever soapbox they have
| available, reach varies greatly, inversely with intelligence
| in many cases).
|
| Population density, travel hub, obesity levels, delayed first
| lock-down would be my list.
| JetSetWilly wrote:
| Probably schools and universities being closed.
|
| I'd support this by noting that the numbers in Scotland surged
| earlier then started declining earlier (where universities and
| schools go on summer holidays weeks before England). When
| English schools later broke up for summer, numbers there
| started declining too.
|
| So no doubt numbers will start going up again when school
| returns, and will do so first in Scotland - as the virus burns
| through the young, unvaccinated population.
| gsnedders wrote:
| Not sure it's quite this simple; look at the overall case by
| specimen and age demographics graphs on https://coronavirus.d
| ata.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=natio... (England only,
| because the data for rUK isn't available).
|
| Note the peak is around a week _prior_ the end of the school
| term in England (23 July), and this is true across basically
| all age groups.
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| The Euro finals were on 11th July and for a lot of schools
| the holidays started on the 15th July
| drcongo wrote:
| Most of England's private schools broke up one week prior
| to the state schools.
| de_keyboard wrote:
| Most children don't go to private schools.
| jtbayly wrote:
| But if it rose earlier and fell earlier, the simplest
| explanation is simply that the course of the disease was...
| earlier there, isn't it?
| JetSetWilly wrote:
| It is possible, but there's still large cohorts of the
| population (ie under 18s) who have not had the virus and
| are not vaccinated, you would expect that when they go back
| to large scale mixing in schools together that transmission
| will increase among them and case numbers will go up.
|
| And this isn't really an issue so long as the overwhelming
| majority of the old and vulnerable are vaccinated. But
| there still the potential for scary looking case numbers
| but not so much death numbers.
| 3dbrows wrote:
| The staggered school return times you mention could be one
| factor (as could better weather resulting in outdoor
| socialising instead of indoor). The effect when schools
| return (~2 weeks from now in Scotland) might be muted however
| as hundreds of thousands more vaccinations will have been
| done in the parent-age population. In Scotland, for example,
| over 90% of adults have received the first dose, and 72% the
| second (implying that ~18% are in the waiting period for the
| 2nd). Perhaps we should expect to see a spike in cases in
| children, but not so much among their parents.
| bigbizisverywyz wrote:
| Did we not see the same effect last year (probably for the
| reasons you mentioned)? Numbers declined in summer, but
| then massively rose again in Oct-Nov.
|
| I think this Autumn will reveal whether the vaccinations
| are giving us the protection needed to gradually open up
| society again.
|
| For my part I really hope it does, as it will also
| encourage other countries to do the same and give the
| vaccination campaign a worldwide boost.
| 3dbrows wrote:
| Let's hope the peak just gone is the last big spike. In
| the final analysis I imagine the British public's
| _willingness_ to get the jab will be seen as an enormous
| success factor, on top of the vaccine itself's efficacy.
| This willingness merits study. High social trust of the
| NHS, historic common understanding of vaccines and
| everyone knowing someone affected by the virus all play
| their part. As an aside, I believe this to have been the
| NHS' finest hour, and in future "the pandemic" will
| replace "the war" as the lynchpin reference point in
| time, as it were.
| makomk wrote:
| The UK government definitely seems to consider the
| British public's willingness to get vaccinated to be one
| of the key parts of the success story, from what I've
| seen. I will also say that their handling of issues like
| the AstraZeneca blood clotting issue has been really good
| compared to the shitshows elsewhere - careful, measured,
| with really clear communication about what they know and
| why it justifies the decisions about whether to vaccinate
| people with it.
| [deleted]
| jjgreen wrote:
| The collapse (unexpected by almost everyone) happened after
| "freedom day", when masks were no longer mandatory and it
| became legal to stand at the bar in a pub. Probably co-
| incidence.
| lumost wrote:
| There are many coincidences and spurious correlations in the
| world. It's informative to propose a falsifiable mechanism
| behind a correlation which can be tested independently.
|
| I could reframe your hypothesis in a falsifiable way such as
| "perhaps ending lockdowns in the UK caused individuals to
| spend more time outdoors or in open air restaurants rather
| than smaller closed doors activities such as dinner parties",
| or "perhaps ending lockdowns in the UK caused people to spend
| more time in other locations rather than large shared
| ventilation apartment complexes".
| jjgreen wrote:
| I make no hypothesis, simply note the order in which things
| happened (in England at least) as requested by the parent.
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| The drop actually started before freedom day. There's usually
| about a 2 week period between "cause" and "effect" in terms
| of cases anyway.
|
| It's much more likely to have peaked because of Euro finals
| on 11th July and school holidays starting on 15th July
| GuB-42 wrote:
| It has to be a coincidence. It happened almost the exact day,
| maybe even a little earlier.
|
| It should take about a week to start seeing the effect of a
| change in policy. From incubation time to testing to results.
| Usually, we count two weeks to be sure.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| The day restrictions were lifted was itself postponed from
| the previous month. Modelling was used to predict the day.
|
| It could be coincidence but this date was planned and
| intentional.
| coding123 wrote:
| Also people ditch the mask when they are "close enough" to
| the day. I saw the masks drop as early as a month before
| that date. I really don't think 100% of the shoppers in my
| grocery stores were vaccinated.
| mjw1007 wrote:
| More likely the causality goes the other way: if the models
| hadn't predicted (as they did) that cases would peak around
| that time, "freedom day" would have been scheduled for later.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| That's not how it happened: the date was set well in
| advance, and the drop at that time was not predicted.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Models predicted this? Link, please.
|
| From this article:
|
| > "Something strange is happening in Britain," the
| Washington Post declared this week. "COVID cases are
| plummeting instead of soaring." A few weeks ago, when the
| country's new daily-case total was around 60,000, the
| prominent British epidemiologist and government adviser
| Neil Ferguson declared that a rise to 100,000 a day was
| inevitable, and that 200,000 a day was possible. The
| country is now at 27,000 and falling.
| mjw1007 wrote:
| Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases
| model:
|
| https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploa
| ds/...
|
| That's showing hospitalisations rather than cases, and
| most scenarios show the peak in early August.
| Hospitalisations lag cases, and it looks like early
| August will be right: we haven't seen the peak yet.
| jtbayly wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-daily-covid-
| admissions...
|
| Peak was several days ago.
| mjw1007 wrote:
| It's bit early to be sure yet (the UK fall in cases has
| slowed greatly in the last week), but if that turns out
| to be true "the models predicted that cases would peak
| around that time" would still be OK for the purposes of
| this thread: the point is that it's unsurprising that
| cases began to fall within a week or two of "freedom
| day".
| ddek wrote:
| Tentative signs the virus has burned out, either through
| infections or vaccinations. The wave has been entirely confined
| to the younger age brackets who are far less vaccinated.[1]
|
| Being in central London right now, through anecdotal evidence I
| don't think we've suddenly become less sociable.
|
| - [1] UK infections grouped by age. School years 6, 7, 11, and
| 12 are ages 11, 12, 17, and 18 respectively.
| https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...
| smorgusofborg wrote:
| The Massachusetts study is rather confusing about delta and
| vaccination, but I think it emphasizes that demographics of
| who is socializing is skewed. So it might have burned out
| among those in the nightlife and still be highly dangerous
| among pensioners.
| wrboyce wrote:
| I don't think those ages are right (the maths do not follow,
| so I'm almost certain they are not). In y11 you turn 16, not
| 17.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum
| ddek wrote:
| Your right, I forgot about y13 being the last year. Y11 is
| GCSE year which ends at 16. I'm not sure why the the age
| brackets don't go up to Y13, when school ends.
| 0xTJ wrote:
| This gives me hope for Canada, where I am, won't face too many
| issues even as we slowly start to tick up from the bottom since
| major reopening happened, allowing indoor dining etc.
|
| In the last week, we've passed the UK in number of fully
| vaccinated people, but that's going to be slowing down as we
| start running of people who got their first dose during the big
| surge in shots here. Unfortunately, at 64% of the total
| population getting a first dose, the steep straight line in first
| doses suddenly curved to a much shallower straight line, to a
| rate similar to the current UK and US ones.
|
| I find the Our World In Data Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) data
| (https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus) very interesting.
|
| It doesn't help that Alberta, our country's Texas, has decided to
| fully open everything and get rid of their requirements. Starting
| 2 weeks from now, you won't even have to self-isolate if you
| _test positive for_ COVID-19.
| aquadrop wrote:
| When Texas removed mask mandate in March there were such claims
| as well ("it will be so bad, Texas is doomed"), but nothing
| happened and cases continued to go down as in rest of the
| country.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > It doesn't help that Alberta, our country's Texas, has
| decided to fully open everything and get rid of their
| requirements. Starting 2 weeks from now, you won't even have to
| self-isolate if you test positive for COVID-19.
|
| Just close down the border with them.
| neither_color wrote:
| Since when is Texas a pejorative? By itself it would be a world
| top-15 economy, and its pandemic performance was not an outlier
| or exceptional. If anything it, along with Florida,
| demonstrated that extremely strict lockdowns don't correlate to
| better outcomes. Nothing like Alberta.
| majormajor wrote:
| The numbers I've seen are that death rate per capita has been
| lowering California than Florida so far, so while I think
| investigation should be done about about "were the outcomes
| so much better to justify whatever additional cost[0]" I
| haven't seen anything suggesting that public health measures
| haven't had any effect.
|
| We should, of course, also wait until things have actually
| settled down and we don't keep having more periodic surges...
|
| [0] how costly, exactly, things have been is another question
| that needs more investigation, especially for all types of
| interventions. E.g. if, after 2022, nowhere in the US
| institutes another Covid mask mandate or lockdown, all the
| folks hysterical about how "Covid is just an excuse for
| democrats to take your freedoms away and never give it back"
| should rethink a few things.
| nradov wrote:
| Florida also has a lot more residents in the vulnerable 65+
| age group. So all else being equal we would expect Florida
| to have a much higher death rate.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| On the flip side, Florida has year round warm weather and
| sunshine. Not only does that sanitize viral particles,
| but it makes it easier to move socialization outdoors.
| techrat wrote:
| > Since when is Texas a pejorative?
|
| 'Pray for rain' type politicians and Taliban style
| government. (Rick Perry, the Bushes, Paxton and Abbott)
|
| Cronyism run rampant.
|
| Some of the most corrupt corporations.
|
| The electrical grid collapse/Result of letting corporations
| 'regulate themselves'
|
| Cowboyism/Ignorance as a virtue.
|
| One the most polluted states.
|
| The only reason Texas can be in the world top 15 economy is
| due to population and landmass size, along with its
| dependency on oil. But given Texas is second in state
| population behind California and California is #5 in the
| world, I'd argue it's not doing _as well as it could be._
|
| Oh, and the weather in Texas is less preferable to having a
| weasel clamp down on your balls.
| fm34t wrote:
| You are a toe-jobbing choad.
| michaelt wrote:
| Who said Texas was a pejorative?
| neither_color wrote:
| The derisive comparison to Alberta implies that Alberta is
| making a terrible mistake that somehow Texas made.
| brnt wrote:
| Mildly amusing that your sole defense is the size of the
| economy.
| nawgz wrote:
| Don't you think that both of these very red states are likely
| to have fudged the data the most out of anyone? I have seen
| that the numbers aren't so much worse than other places but I
| struggle to believe the data coming from these places.
|
| Additionally, pandemic aside, it should be clear that their
| policies are rooted entirely in oligarchy and have no concern
| for the population or its health (short- or long-term), their
| racism and misogyny are reaching to very regressive places
| (abortion bill), and their lack of regulation regularly leads
| to comical failures of infrastructure.
| merpnderp wrote:
| So your political prejudices are causing you to grasp at
| conspiracy theories? This is umpossible on the internet!
| nawgz wrote:
| Actually, it's not really my political leanings that are
| causing this, it's my observation of a complete
| Republican disregard for any COVID measures whatsoever
| that is leading me to this next thought. Anti-mask, anti-
| vax, anti-social-distancing policies are generally
| Republican. Accordingly, with their complete disregard
| for the virus / vaccine and what I view as facts about
| it, I find it to be a small leap to imagine their data
| reporting around COVID would be similarly lackadaisical /
| more motivated by politic than fact.
|
| Hopefully you understand I am not American so some ad
| hominems aren't so effective here.
| merpnderp wrote:
| Okay Mr. Facts, show me the breakdown of vaccine rates by
| different groups. And then tell me about how all those
| groups lean Republican. Because in my state it is groups
| who overwhelmingly vote democrat who make up the vast
| majority of unvaccinated. But I have a feeling that
| bashing Republicans for not getting vaccinated is a lot
| like publicly pronouncing your hatred of pineapple pizza.
| Just something the cool kids do.
|
| And when you say complete disregard for the
| virus/vaccine, show me some facts that back it up. Like
| "complete disregard" means no republicans got vaccinated?
| None of them said vaccines work and to please get
| vaccinated? Like share some of these facts that you base
| this on and show me it isn't your political bias.
| nawgz wrote:
| > show me the breakdown of vaccine rates by different
| groups
|
| Well, here's the first google result of such a search:
| https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/the-red-blue-divide-in-
| covi...
|
| > in my state
|
| Who cares about "your state" which is clearly just
| anecdata? This is a national trend where Republicans shun
| mask mandates and vaccines. That article above provides
| more links for the vaccine related claims
|
| > when you say complete disregard for the virus/vaccine,
| show me some facts that back it up
|
| How's this for size - Florida (you know, a famously
| Republican state with a Republican governor) is
| threatening to withhold EDUCATION FUNDING from school
| districts that have mask mandates: https://www.politico.c
| om/states/florida/story/2021/07/30/des...
|
| I could go on, but you are being very emotionally charged
| and disregarding a lot of very obvious rhetoric to try
| and make a blatantly false point.
| nyokodo wrote:
| > Since when is Texas a pejorative?
|
| Alberta is Canada's biggest oil producing region similar to
| Texas. I do not think it was meant as a pejorative.
| munificent wrote:
| The death rate in Florida is 180/100k [1]. That's pretty
| close to the national average. If the entire US had gone like
| Florida, then instead of 613k deaths, we'd have 590k. So,
| yes, Florida was better than average despite not having a
| severe lockdown. But Florida also has fairly separated
| populations: a lot of old people very likely to get
| vaccinated, and a lot of young people very likely to survive.
|
| For comparison, Oregon had a pretty hard lockdown. Its death
| rate is 68/100k. If the entire US had that same death rate,
| 390,000 Americans would still be alive today.
|
| If you look at the data, it is clear that lockdown is not the
| _only_ thing affecting death rate. But it also seems pretty
| obvious that social distancing did have a significant impact
| on the number of people who died. There are thousands of
| Americans that are dead today because people wanted to go to
| a party, or a restaurant, or a wedding.
|
| [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-
| covi...
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Didn't Florida just set an all-time 1 day record for new
| case counts last week? These numbers might shift
| significantly in the next month or two.
| cvwright wrote:
| I think it's more that they both have cowboys.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calgary_Stampede
| goalieca wrote:
| > Starting 2 weeks from now, you won't even have to self-
| isolate if you test positive for COVID-19.
|
| This is a loaded question, but since covid is and will be
| endemic, when do we get on with our lives and start facing the
| mountains of other public health issues? It seems like our
| vaccination effort was extremely successful and had an amazing
| effect and there isn't likely to be any radical new
| intervention for years to come.
| mint2 wrote:
| Isn't it standard practice to set isolate if one has any
| highly contagious disease? Like the actual flu? Maybe it's
| not a law but it sure is a sensical cultural norm and is just
| the polite thing to do as well.
| dahfizz wrote:
| > Maybe it's not a law but it sure is a sensical cultural
| norm and is just the polite thing to do as well.
|
| OP is clearly talking about Alberta changing the laws about
| self-isolation. At some point, we are going to have to
| transition to using the same 'cultural norm' framework in
| dealing with Covid that we do with the flu.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| Alternatively we could take this as a chance to re-frame
| some of the dysfunctional pre-existing cultural norms
| around respiratory infection. Especially the widespread
| notion that only wimps and slackers use sick days.
| ls612 wrote:
| Not for 10-14 days!! To the extent most people care they
| either stay home until they feel better or they try to
| power through it.
| nicoburns wrote:
| If you have actual flu then it wouldn't be uncommon to be
| ill for that long
| ls612 wrote:
| For vaccinated people covid is not at all like the actual
| flu, it is very much a cold at worst. That is the kind of
| disease I and the poster above me were referencing
| bee_rider wrote:
| For unvaccinated people it can be quite a bit worse than
| the flu. The degree of empathy afforded those folks seems
| to be a subject of active debate I guess...
| ls612 wrote:
| The good news for them is that it's easier than ever for
| them to change their status
| bee_rider wrote:
| Other than people with compromised immune systems, or
| people who are trying not to spread the virus to small
| children for whom the vaccine isn't approved yet.
|
| I'm all for being annoyed people who could get the
| vaccine but decided not to, but we shouldn't throw the
| actual babies out with the proverbial bathwater, right?
| moron4hire wrote:
| When this all started, there was a blase attitude towards
| obese people being at higher risk for severe cases from a
| lot of people. There was a lot of argument about whether
| being obese was a "choice", worth ignoring the class of
| people as it being "their own fault".
|
| Now, whatever you think about the obesity issue, I think
| we can definitely agree that there is no way 40% of the
| US adult population have some kind of complications
| preventing then from getting vaccinated. For the vast
| majority of people, not getting vaccinated is definitely
| a choice they made, and one that can easily be corrected.
|
| And let's be real, here. We all know who these people
| are. They're the same people who bitched about wearing
| masks and not being able to go get a haircut at their
| immediate convenience. They voted for Trump and they
| stormed the capital, then tried to call it a tourist
| visit.
|
| So no, I really don't have a lot of empathy for them,
| considering how little was afforded to me and my family.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I agree that there are an awful lot of really
| unsympathetic people who haven't gotten vaccinated, but
| that seems like an unfortunate side-issue. We can ignore
| them all and say: sure, but there are still people who
| have compromised immune systems, etc, so we should try to
| minimize the spread for them (of course, people who have
| really compromised immune systems are also used to
| avoiding situations where they can get sick I guess, so
| this is a team project). Even if the majority of people
| who aren't vaccinated are annoying, the existence of good
| people is a sufficient condition to be careful.
|
| For me, this doesn't necessarily mean totally isolating,
| though -- just things like wearing a mask in stores,
| dining outside when I want to go to a restaurant, etc.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| At least where I've lived, no, the standard practice is to
| "work through" the illness and give it to everyone you come
| in contact with while talking about how it's no big deal
| because your immune system is strong and you aren't a
| pussy.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| The UK has, or had a strong culture of "it's just a cold,
| I'm actually fine, I'm Ok to work today, really".
|
| I am hoping that this bad habit has died unmourned during
| the COVID pandemic. I have no intention of of commuting
| to an office when I have a cold, and every intention of
| telling others who have one to go home already.
| frumper wrote:
| Some kids NEVER miss a day of school. I've known many
| people proud of that. I've seen that attitude in adults as
| well.
| nicoburns wrote:
| My school actually used to give out awards for it, which
| always used to annoy me as I generally had 100%
| attendance excepting 1 or 2 days off for illness each
| year.
| brundolf wrote:
| Is it inconceivable that we could have an "updated" RNA
| vaccine for the new variant in a matter of months? We get a
| new flu shot every year
| anyonecancode wrote:
| I'd imagine not too long after safe and effective vaccines
| are authorized for children under 12. At that point the
| majority of those who actively want protection will be able
| to get it. This is not the same as saying _all_ who want
| protection will get it, since no vaccine is 100% effective,
| and some people who would like to be vaccinated will not be
| able to because of health conditions or other circumstances,
| but I suspect society as a whole will decide "close enough."
|
| I'm not saying I necessarily agree with that -- I think the
| number of "people who want protection but can't get it" will
| be uncomfortably large -- but this is my guess of when
| society as a whole will decide to move on.
|
| Honestly, I think this means the future looks like the
| present, but more so. The places that will be hit the hardest
| will be more working class and in places that under invest in
| health and welfare. That's already the current trend,
| certainly in the US -- look at where medicaid expansion
| following the ACA has and hasn't happened, for instance, and
| who has access to decent health care and who doesn't. In some
| ways I think we're lurching back to previous centuries, where
| diseases like cholera, dysentry, typhus, etc were endemic,
| and could certainly affect the wealthy and professional
| classes, but were primarily scourges of the working class.
| timr wrote:
| > I'd imagine not too long after safe and effective
| vaccines are authorized for children under 12.
|
| Children are at _exceptionally low risk_ from Covid. It 's
| time to stop with fear, uncertainty and doubt, and deal
| with facts.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w
|
| In the US, 340 children under 17 have died from Covid.
| Total. During the same period, 187 have died from the flu,
| and _over 51,000 children have died from all causes:_
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#S
| e...
|
| The reason the vaccines aren't being approved for children
| is that there is compelling evidence that children are at
| greater risk from the vaccines than the virus. This is why
| (for example) approval for vaccination of children and
| teenagers is split across Europe, and the UK has restricted
| access to only children with known vulnerabilities:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-19/u-k-to-
| gi...
|
| https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/european-
| countries...
|
| > At that point the majority of those who actively want
| protection will be able to get it.
|
| This is less about what the children want, and more about
| _anxious adults_ want, and that is unconscionable. Kids are
| largely at the mercy of their parents, so it 's essential
| that the regulatory bodies tread carefully on this issue.
| We don't need kids to be vaccinated to reduce Covid to a
| manageable seasonal illness on par with the flu.
| colordrops wrote:
| I'm curious why this comment is being downvoted. Anyone
| wish to comment?
| [deleted]
| phatfish wrote:
| The commenter claims to want to removed "FUD" from the
| dialogue.
|
| Then proceeds to dispense with their own "FUD" about
| scared parents desperately trying to vaccinate their
| children.
|
| Apparently no one else can think for themselves.
| basch wrote:
| If I had to guess (and maybe I shouldnt be speaking as I
| didnt downvote), its a combination of "It's time to stop
| with fear, uncertainty and doubt, and deal with facts"
| followed by unsubstantiated "compelling evidence that
| children are at greater risk from the vaccines than the
| virus."
|
| The "time to stop with fear" and to stop catering to
| "anxious adults" can equally apply to this persons
| crusade to not vaccinate children. A mild mannered
| moderate can both not be scared of their children having
| a severe covid reaction AND get their child a jab when
| its available, if risk assessment reveals there to be
| benefit.
| colordrops wrote:
| When you say "unsubstantiated", what do you mean? The
| post contained links with references from fairly
| reputable sources.
| timr wrote:
| > its a combination of "It's time to stop with fear,
| uncertainty and doubt, and deal with facts" followed by
| unsubstantiated "compelling evidence that children are at
| greater risk from the vaccines than the virus."
|
| The links I provided -- particularly the last three --
| document the points I made regarding relative risk. You
| just have to read them.
| jkhdigital wrote:
| > This is less about what the children want, and more
| about _anxious adults_ want, and that is unconscionable.
|
| You could say that about basically the entire
| relationship that society has with children nowadays...
| tragically.
| walshemj wrote:
| You are aware in the past the kids at schools are a large
| vector for colds etc which they then give to their
| parents who infect their co workers
|
| Why would covid 19 be any different.
|
| And that's ignoring any potential long term organ damage.
| munificent wrote:
| From the Nature article you linked to:
|
| _> The studies did not evaluate rates of less-severe
| illness or debilitating 'long COVID' symptoms that can
| linger months after the acute phase of the infection has
| past. "The low rate of severe acute disease is important
| news, but this does not have to mean that COVID does not
| matter to children," says paediatrician Danilo Buonsenso
| at the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome. "Please,
| let's keep attention -- as much as is feasible -- on
| immunization."_
|
| Death is not the only bad outcome to be avoided.
|
| _> The reason the vaccines aren 't being approved for
| children is that there is compelling evidence that
| children are at greater risk from the vaccines than the
| virus._
|
| A Nature article [0] says:
|
| _> Most of those affected have recovered, and the data
| suggest that the risk of these conditions is "extremely
| low", says paediatrician David Pace at the University of
| Malta in Msida -- about 67 cases per million second doses
| in adolescent males aged 12-17, and 9 per million in
| adolescent females in the same age group._
|
| There are ~48 million kids under 12 in the US. Assuming
| they are evenly split between male and female, that would
| mean 1,824 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis if 100%
| of them were vaccinated. Given that nowhere near 100% of
| children have been exposed to COVID and yet 340 have
| died, I don't see clear evidence here that the vaccine is
| more risky than not being vaccinated.
|
| [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01898-9
| timr wrote:
| > Death is not the only bad outcome to be avoided.
|
| And this is yet another illustration of the point I was
| making about fear, uncertainty and doubt: the Nature
| article didn't say that there is proof that children will
| have "long Covid"...it says that these particular studies
| _didn 't address the question_.
|
| By this standard, anyone can make up any speculation of
| something that _might_ happen to children someday, and we
| 'll use that speculation to demand fearful responses,
| indefinitely. There is no end to this logic.
|
| Fortunately, the _well-controlled_ evidence is
| increasingly pointing to the conclusion that "long
| Covid" is not a serious risk to children -- and that,
| more generally, Covid appears to be similar to other
| viral infections in terms of long-term symptoms:
|
| https://twitter.com/apsmunro/status/1421415741706981376
|
| Again, lots of hysterical speculation in this area, not
| much good data. But the better the data gets, the less
| legitimate the early, speculative claims appear.
|
| > There are ~48 million kids under 12 in the US. Assuming
| they are evenly split between male and female, that would
| mean 1,824 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis if 100%
| of them were vaccinated.
|
| The myocarditis issue disproportionately affects young
| boys. Your calculation is incorrect.
|
| > Given that nowhere near 100% of children have been
| exposed to COVID and yet 340 have died, I don't see clear
| evidence here that the vaccine is more risky than not
| being vaccinated.
|
| Be that as it may, the UK and about half of the EU
| countries disagree with your assessment, including a
| number of experts here in the US, as well:
|
| https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-
| opinions/93340
| munificent wrote:
| _> By this standard, anyone can make up any speculation
| of something that might happen to children someday, and
| we 'll use that speculation to demand fearful responses,
| indefinitely._
|
| You are _also_ speculating, but simply about different
| things. You 're speculating about harm from the vaccine,
| or about infection that _don 't_ happen. One way to avoid
| going down that speculation rabbithole is to defer to
| experts whose job it is to weigh the pros and cons and
| crunch the numbers.
|
| https://services.aap.org/en/news-room/news-
| releases/aap/2021...
|
| "The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends
| vaccinating all children ages 12 and older who are
| eligible for the federally authorized COVID-19 vaccine."
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recomm
| end...
|
| "CDC recommends everyone 12 years and older should get a
| COVID-19 vaccination to help protect against COVID-19."
|
| https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-
| diseas...
|
| "Yes. Experts, including those at Johns Hopkins, believe
| that the benefits of being vaccinated for COVID-19
| outweigh the risks. Although COVID-19 in children is
| usually milder than in adults, some kids can get very
| sick and have complications or long-lasting symptoms that
| affect their health and well-being. The virus can cause
| death in children although this is rarer than for
| adults."
|
| _> The myocarditis issue disproportionately affects
| young boys. Your calculation is incorrect._
|
| I took that into account when calculating.
|
| _> including a number of experts here in the US_
|
| At national scale, you can find experts that will tell
| you anything. The consensus opinion of the major US
| health authorities is that the vaccine is a net benefit
| for children.
| timr wrote:
| > You are also speculating, but simply about different
| things. You're speculating about harm from the vaccine,
|
| No, I've provided evidence of that. It's not speculation:
| _young boys are seeing disproportionate levels of
| vaccine-induced myocarditis_
|
| > One way to avoid going down that speculation rabbithole
| is to defer to experts whose job it is to weigh the pros
| and cons and crunch the numbers
|
| Indeed, that's all I've done here.
|
| > "The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends
| vaccinating all children ages 12 and older who are
| eligible for the federally authorized COVID-19 vaccine."
|
| We're talking about kids under 12.
|
| > "CDC recommends everyone 12 years and older should get
| a COVID-19 vaccination to help protect against COVID-19."
|
| We're talking about kids under 12.
|
| > Experts, including those at Johns Hopkins, believe that
| the benefits of being vaccinated for COVID-19 outweigh
| the risks.
|
| And other experts disagree with those experts (the ones I
| linked to, above). Now what?
|
| That's the problem with blind appeals to authority...you
| can always find another authority. I'm getting pretty
| tired of seeing news reporters credulously using the
| phrase "experts say", and applying no critical thought to
| what they're actually saying.
|
| In this case, you can find legitimate "experts" on both
| sides of the debate, and both deserve to be heard.
| manwe150 wrote:
| I agree there is a lot of hysterical speculation, around
| everything from the initial high death rates to the
| supposed benefits of HCQ. And slowly we have need to
| attempt to re-evaluate the data, when it is possible. I
| really wonder how we could get that data more accurately
| in the future, without all of the inherent privacy
| implications and dangers from collecting it.
|
| The article also mentions that most of those myocarditis
| have already recovered while none of those dead came back
| to life (I am assuming so anyways). Since I see you post
| to COVID questions often, what would you consider to be
| "more risky?" It is clear teens are on the low end of
| personal risk from COVID, but they also put others at
| increased risk of complications, such as their parents,
| in addition to their own mild risks.
| dude187 wrote:
| The problem is that none of the risk analysis takes into
| account freedom and happiness. Not every injury is worth
| avoiding at all costs.
| anyonecancode wrote:
| > Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid.
|
| Let's hope the die keep rolling up to that result with
| each succeeding variant!
| colordrops wrote:
| Could say the same about the flu, no? How do you think
| the flu got so deadly in 1918? Far more deadly than Covid
| by the way.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| It was actually the perverse effects on viral selection
| created by World War I. The relatively mild first wave
| turned into a deadly second wave because soldiers who
| became mildly ill stayed put in the trenches, while those
| who had severe cases were put on trains and sent to
| crowded field hospitals, where they spread the more
| lethal variants.
|
| If they simply suppress symptoms without reducing
| transmission, the current vaccines being administered may
| have a similar perverse evolutionary effect (although at
| least they're not _actively_ selecting for worse
| strains).
| [deleted]
| timr wrote:
| This is a perfect illustration of the point. In the face
| of ample documented evidence of the actual risk, your
| response is to speculate wildly about future events that
| are _completely inconsistent_ with what we know.
| anyonecancode wrote:
| First, I'll note that my initial comment was in the
| context of "when do we get on with our lives", which I
| took as a different question from "when _should_ we get
| on with our lives." What I think we _should_ do is not
| the same as what I think we _will_ do. Plenty of debate
| to be had around the "should" question of course, but it
| is a different question.
|
| That noted, and since I did engage in your comment on the
| risk to children, I am curious about your statement that
| my response is inconsistent with what we know. As I
| understand it, we don't actually know why children have
| been less susceptible to illness so far, do we? I've seen
| plenty of theorizing, but I haven't seen any reporting
| indicating these are more than theories so far. If
| there's some reliable reporting on this topic I missed,
| I'd definitely be happy to see it!
| dude187 wrote:
| The response to controlling people and taking away their
| freedom in the name of COVID has been ran deliberately
| and openly run through fear mongering. It's no wonder
| people keep defaulting to that, but we must actively
| reject and counter fear mongering.
| ericb wrote:
| > run through fear mongering
|
| More than 4 million people have died so far. If you're
| going to say it was "fear mongering" then buzz off.
| majormajor wrote:
| The "give up and let it be endemic forever" defeatism
| attitude appears very statistically foolish.
|
| It's likely, yes, but why on earth would we want to just
| accept that?
|
| The flu, for instance, bounces around in severity and
| kills tens of thousands per year in the US. Few of those
| are kids, so what? If we're happy to let the virus
| continue to transmit in _any_ populations, it 'll change
| in various ways. One year a variant may pop up that'll be
| more harmful to those kids. At some other point a variant
| may pop up that'll be more elusive against adult
| immunity, etc. Over years, how many lives does that add
| up to? Why wouldn't we aggressively try to vaccinate as
| many people as possible before those things happen?
|
| Success wouldn't be guaranteed _even if people weren 't
| opposed to it for various spurious reasons_ but it would
| be nice if we believed we could accomplish hard things...
| lordloki wrote:
| Is it defeatism or just accepting reality? What are the
| chances that Covid19 is ever globally eradicated?
| timr wrote:
| > The "give up and let it be endemic forever" defeatism
| attitude appears very statistically foolish.
|
| Well first, that has nothing to do with what I wrote. I
| made a very specific argument about how fear -- hysteria,
| really -- is driving our reaction to what is right to do
| for children.
|
| But second, it _isn 't_ "statistically foolish"...it's
| just a basic understanding of biology and our rather poor
| history of eradicating viral diseases. Statistics don't
| come into play here either way.
|
| Reasonable people can disagree on whether or not Covid
| _can_ be eradicated, but you have to be delusional to
| think that this will be accomplished on any sort of
| timeline that is relevant to our lifetimes.
| nradov wrote:
| Since there are animal reservoirs for SARS-CoV-2, the
| virus will always be endemic regardless of what we do.
| That's not defeatism, just scientific reality.
| ericb wrote:
| From delta, we clearly have evidence that on a short
| timeframe a version with _wildly_ enhanced
| transmissibility has evolved. So speculating that changes
| will continue is reasonable. Additionally, we know that
| leaky vaccines and continued spread may cause greater
| pathogenicity.
|
| > https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.137
| 1/jou...
|
| So that's not wild speculation, it's a well-educated
| concern.
| timr wrote:
| > we clearly have evidence that on a short timeframe a
| version with _wildly_ enhanced transmissibility has
| evolved. So speculating that changes will continue is
| reasonable.
|
| So let's be clear: the claim is that the virus _can_
| mutate, therefore, any particular _outcome_ is equally
| likely?
|
| If I speculate that the virus will mutate into a
| hemorrhagic fever, like marburg or ebola, is that
| reasonable?
|
| If I speculate that the virus will lose its
| pathogenicity, is that reasonable?
|
| (hint: all of our best data suggests that the IFR of the
| Delta strain is considerably lower than previous strains:
| https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploa
| ds/...)
|
| There's obviously a limit to how much you can speculate
| about "continued change". At some point, it just becomes
| a scary story.
| ericb wrote:
| > the claim is that the virus can mutate, therefore, any
| particular outcome is equally likely?
|
| No.
|
| Did you actually read the study I linked?
|
| Outcomes that enhance transmissibility are always being
| selected for. Things like higher viral load in the
| vaccinated.
|
| That which spreads, spreads.
|
| All things being equal, pathogenicity is neutral and gets
| down-selected when the pathogenicity conflicts with the
| ability to spread. But with two different populations,
| the feedback loop that of down-selective pressure against
| spread limitations due to pathogenicity may be broken. If
| it spreads in one population which requires
| characteristics that make it lethal in the other
| population.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The reason to not want children to get COVID is that they
| will spread it to their parents and grandparents, who are
| more vulnerable. It's not about whether the children will
| die, which everyone agrees is very low probability.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| It's an interesting point, and I'm relatively neutral on
| all the underlying empirical claims. _But_ taking the
| assumptions as a given, doesn't this violate the
| Hippocratic Oath?
|
| Physicians are ethically forbidden from recommending a
| medical treatment that's a harm to the patient, even if
| it's in the interest of society.
| nradov wrote:
| The parents and grandparents who want to be vaccinated
| already have been.
| realreality wrote:
| The current vaccines will not prevent kids from spreading
| the virus to their grandparents.
| ryandrake wrote:
| It's not about preventing. It's about reducing
| probabilities. The vaccines do not prevent kids from
| getting it. They do not prevent adults from getting it.
| They do not prevent people from spreading it. They do not
| prevent people from getting hospitalized or dying from
| it. They decrease the chances of all of the above
| happening.
| microtherion wrote:
| > Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid.
|
| Low risk of death, yes. But still a substantial risk of
| long lasting severe effects: https://assets.publishing.se
| rvice.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
|
| A complete loss of sense of taste, or chronic fatigue are
| both entirely possible outcomes with children, and at
| this time, it's not clear at all how long these effects
| last.
|
| Conversely, the effects of myocarditis, while unpleasant,
| are fairly well understood (and at least one physician
| I've spoken to was of the opinion that the vaccine
| related risk was overstated, as the base rate in that age
| group was bound to be higher than reported, due to the
| mild nature of most cases, so some of the elevated rates
| appear to be due to closer post-vaccination scrutiny).
| saddlerustle wrote:
| The highest quality study on this to date [1] found no
| difference in the prevalence of long term symptoms
| between kids that had covid and kids that didn't.
|
| [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.16.21
| 257255v...
| smileypete wrote:
| See how this guy misrepresents the study on TWiV episode
| 783.
|
| https://youtu.be/73KWHPsw-ag?t=525
|
| He states that '4% seropositive having symptoms after 12
| weeks', but omits to mention that 2% of seronegative have
| symptoms after 12 weeks too...
|
| Also he doesn't mention the 9%/10% rate split at 4 weeks,
| or the symptoms:
|
| Tiredness, Headache, Congested or runny nose, Stomachach,
| Sleep disturbances, Cough
|
| So he's making the case for child vaccination on the
| basis of 2 extra seropositive children having one or more
| of the above symptoms.
|
| And, BTW, the study authors themselves note the
| limitations as follows:
|
| 'Limitations include the relatively small number of
| seropositive children, possible misclassification of some
| false seropositive children, potential recall bias,
| parental report of child's symptoms, and lack of
| information on symptom severity.'
|
| The study authors concluded that:
|
| 'Seropositive children, all with a history of pauci-
| symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, did not report long
| COVID more frequently than seronegative children. This
| study suggests a very low prevalence of long COVID in a
| randomly selected population-based cohort of children
| followed over 6 months after serological testing.'
| nradov wrote:
| A recent Johns Hopkins study found a COVID-19 mortality
| rate of 0 for children without serious co-morbid
| conditions.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/cdc-covid-19-coronavirus-
| vaccin...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| andi999 wrote:
| What about pregnant females? Country I am in doesn't allow
| them to be vaccinated. Is this allowed in the US?
| dragontamer wrote:
| USA allows pregnant females to get the vaccine.
|
| Our biggest remaining group is the 12-and-under
| population (which needed a new set of tests to figure out
| the new dosage. Young children weigh much less than an
| adult and therefore need much lower doses...). The
| current estimates are maybe October before this children
| are authorized.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > when do we get on with our lives and start facing the
| mountains of other public health issues?
|
| We (or at least, public health authorities; indiviudal
| citizens whose attention doesn't drop below the top story in
| the news are a different story)... haven't stopped facing the
| mountains of other public health issues.
| Causality1 wrote:
| I wonder how well the models account for the "oh shit" factor of
| people being exposed to enough news about a development like
| Delta that they change their behavior. All around me people are
| quietly going back to their early-pandemic habits of distancing
| and mask wearing despite shedding those habits well before the
| CDC said they should.
| Havoc wrote:
| >all the more conspicuous for happening just two days after the
| country's pandemic restrictions were [...] lifted
|
| Lateral flow tests just happened to run out on the day
| restrictions were lifted. [0] And tada numbers plummet right when
| gov is taking massive heat for dropping restrictions in the
| middle of a surge.
|
| Yes really - that is how the current UK gov rolls.
|
| The fact that the author is trying to extrapolate other countries
| future trajectory based on that is rather amusing.
|
| [0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lateral-
| flow...
| BellLabradors wrote:
| If this were true, then the proportion of tests which are
| positive should remain the same or go up but it isn't, it's
| going down:
|
| https://twitter.com/ThatRyanChap/status/1420407991937949699
| idlemind wrote:
| There are plenty of tests available since then, we picked some
| up recently. This was a temporary blip, if anything. You can
| see the testing rate on the gov dashboard [0] and it hasn't
| really changed enough to account for the fall in cases.
|
| [0] https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing
| hr4lkjerh wrote:
| All maskers must die!
|
| All vaxxers must die!
|
| FUCKING KILL YOURSELVES!
| hr4lkjerh wrote:
| You can't even test for the fucking "delta" "variant".
|
| Fuck these assholes.
| coding123 wrote:
| The future is N95 masks. Even if you decide not to, for the rest
| of your life you will see people wearing them at everyday places.
| vernie wrote:
| It's incredibly rare to see anybody wearing a real N95 mask
| even today.
| mellosouls wrote:
| Full Title:
|
| _The U.K.'s Delta Surge Is Collapsing. Will Ours?_
| fm34t wrote:
| Maskers should be shot dead.
| fm34t wrote:
| This entire "pandemic" is fake as fuck.
|
| I hope all of you wearing a mask and getting a vax chooke on your
| own vomit you commies - that is if we don't throw you out of a
| helicopter over the pacific first.
| jkhdigital wrote:
| > thanks to widespread vaccination of the elderly, however fast
| this disease spreads it will ultimately inflict a much, much
| smaller death toll than earlier waves, because vaccination has
| probably eliminated 90 percent or more of the country's total
| COVID-19 mortality risk.
|
| This claim does not appear to be grounded in any factual basis: A
| double-blind randomized trial for an mRNA vaccine with 44k
| participants showed nearly identical all-cause mortality in
| vaccinated vs. placebo groups after six months [1]. The delta
| wave will almost certainly be less fatal, but there is no
| evidence to indicate that widespread vaccination is the primary
| causal factor, or even a contributing factor, for the reduced
| mortality.
|
| [1]
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261159v...
| glorppe wrote:
| While this is a literal interpretation of all-cause mortality
| from the paper, I'm not sure this is the right take away.
|
| There was such a dramatic reduction in overall cases in the
| vaccination group that deaths are probably more statistical
| noise in both groups than being tied to covid one way or
| another.
|
| Currently deaths and cases have diverged dramatically in the
| population and this might be more indicative of the real world
| vaccine performance as it pertains to reducing death.
| jkhdigital wrote:
| In this study the vaccine reduced Covid-19 infection rates by
| like 90%, and essentially eliminated severe cases. This is
| great!
|
| But the same number of people died in each group. So vaccines
| do not reduce Covid-19 mortality, period. Does this mean
| vaccines are a waste of time? No, of course not! It just
| means we should be precise and correct in the claims we make
| based on statistics, and not fudge them to say things that
| sound good but are not true.
|
| EDIT: Fair enough, I'm making the same sloppy mistakes...
| this study doesn't say anything, positive or negative, about
| vaccine effects on mortality. But it certainly doesn't
| _support_ the journalist 's claim. It _does_ support the
| claim that vaccines dramatically reduce infection rates and
| severity, which is great and reason enough to get vaccinated.
| glorppe wrote:
| I don't follow the logical leap. It's clear the paper
| doesn't demonstrate a difference, you're right.
|
| I do think it's disingenuous to say that the vaccine
| categorically doesn't prevent deaths, if it can prevent
| infections that would lead to deaths, that's a good
| outcome. Additionally, the real world performance in the
| general population is showing a massive divergence in
| deaths and cases in elderly populations after the coverage
| of vaccines. That may be from some other variable and not
| vaccines, but I'm not sure that I would be able to suggest
| an alternative cause.
| jkhdigital wrote:
| Did I categorically say that the vaccine doesn't prevent
| deaths? I simply cited a study which shows no effect, and
| scolded the journalist for making a claim that doesn't
| seem to have solid scientific support. I'm not making a
| statement about vaccines, I'm making a statement about
| journalists playing fast and loose with science.
|
| > That may be from some other variable and not vaccines,
| but I'm not sure that I would be able to suggest an
| alternative cause.
|
| This is why we do science. Your lack of imagination about
| causal relationships is not evidence for or against any
| particular causal relationship.
| glorppe wrote:
| You did categorically state it: "So vaccines do not
| reduce Covid-19 mortality, period."
|
| You also missed my nuance, but that's not surprising at
| this point.
| dtech wrote:
| 2 people in the placebo group died with a covid infection
| and 1 in the vaccinated group. That is way to little data
| to even remotely make such a bold claim.
|
| Or, if I follow your flawed logic, Covid vaccines reduce
| mortality by 50%!
| jkhdigital wrote:
| The bold claim is the journalist in this article who said
| that vaccines are the reason we should see a 90%
| reduction in mortality. That is an optimistic projection,
| not a fact-based statement. That's all. Christ, people
| think I'm anti-vaccine just for being pedantic about
| science reporting...
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| So, now that we have seen a 90% reduction in mortality
| ... ?
| doomrobo wrote:
| Pasting the rebuttal to that point from the comments of the
| linked paper:
|
| Those are all-cause death. The number of covid-related deaths
| were 2 in the placebo and 1 in the vaccine arms. There simply
| weren't many covid deaths during this part of the trial
| (probably because most of the participants were <55 years old).
| jkhdigital wrote:
| Median age was 51, so seems like there would have been at
| least a decently sized cohort over 55 (although I don't have
| to actual data to confirm).
|
| But anyways, my original point was that the journalist is
| being dishonest by claiming that vaccination among the
| elderly is the reason mortality should drop by 90% compared
| to prior waves. This RCT certainly doesn't provide any
| evidence to _support_ that statement, and it is the largest
| study of its kind so the only conclusion I can make is that
| the journalist is just projecting without facts.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > vaccination among the elderly is the reason mortality
| should drop by 90% compared to prior waves.
|
| What exactly do you mean "should" ? It has. It did.
| raphlinus wrote:
| That is a dramatic misrepresentation of that preprint. The
| number of deaths is small enough that it is hard to draw
| inferences from it, and that was not the endpoint of the study.
| Rather, the key finding is a vaccine effectiveness of 97%
| against severe disease.
|
| A preprint that _did_ address deaths[1] found a vaccine
| effectiveness of 98.7% against death. This is not consistent
| with your claim of "no evidence."
|
| [1]:
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.21.21255873v...
| jkhdigital wrote:
| That preprint is not an RCT. The study I cited is an RCT. And
| the RCT shows no effect on deaths.
|
| And yes, it does show a dramatic effect on infections and
| serious illness. This is great, and we should shout it from
| the rooftops! But a journalist writing that vaccines are the
| reason Covid _mortality_ will drop 90% is projecting, not
| reporting facts.
| dtech wrote:
| This does not seem like a useful source to draw this
| conclusion. 14/15 persons of both group died, but I do not see
| whether it was related to Covid. _edit_ : 2 unvaccinated people
| with covid died 1 vaccinated. Point stands.
|
| 45.000 people is simply too small a number to draw such a
| conclusion. However, we are currently collecting a large amount
| of worldwide data, and that shows very strong reduced mortality
| and hospitalization on the vaccinated population. This is much
| higher quality data to draw conclusions on.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > A double-blind randomized trial for an mRNA vaccine
|
| Sorry, what is the relevance of this trial to the parent story
| about the UK?
|
| The vast majority of the UK's elderly and at-risk people got
| the first vaccines available there - the AstraZeneca jab, which
| is _not_ a mRNA vaccine.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > This claim does not appear to be grounded in any factual
| basis
|
| No factual basis _in that paper_ but you seem to be saying "no
| factual basis at all" which is flat-out wrong, indeed basing
| such a claim on one paper is disingenuous: Absence of evidence
| in 1 chosen paper is not evidence of absence in general.
|
| You only have to compare the linkage between cases and deaths
| in UK waves 1 and 2, with the much lower level of deaths for
| comparable numbers of cases in wave 3, to see the "much, much
| smaller death toll" staring you in the face.
|
| Your chosen paper is also largely irrelevant before we even get
| there; it's about mRNA vaccines, whereas the UK's program has
| leaned heavily on AZ, which is not.
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