WHO urges Britain to pause covid jabs after treating the vulnerable

[Jay2020]

Link

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/30/who-urges-britain-to-pause-covid-jabs-after-treating-vulnerable

I am beyond broken if this means we can't get to any kind of normality.

@DenisetheMenace I agree. Also note the hypocrisy and the authoritarian streak...if it is a case of giving up their own jabs for others, quietly, without even making a point of it, fine. But they want everyone else to do so 'for the greater good', and to claim the moral high ground and accuse others of being 'selfish' not to agree with them.

@DenisetheMenace

MaxNormal

People in their 20s and 30s were critically ill with no other health conditions

Any evidence for this assertion“

Fergus Walsh report, BBC News last week, amongst other mainstream media.

Demographic does seem quite different in this spike.

It is. They are far far younger this time. It’s devastating.

The whole world needs it
All the rich countries need to help the poor

But it isn’t the poor countries for the most part who are having such a big problem with this virus. It is the rich countries who have some of the highest death rates from this virus. If you live in a poor country the chances are you don’t have enough to eat and are thinner than the average Brit or American so reducing your risk of complications arising from this disease.
Added to that the average age of people in the richer countries is a lot higher and it isn’t the poorer countries who are in immediate need of the vaccines
Of course we will be helping to vaccinate everyone and as a tiny country we have already put an enormous sum in to helping this along compared to other rich western countries. We are sending people and vaccines out to help others
But in the meantime we have to help ourselves first before we have the capacity to turn all of our help towards other countries.
Yes Brazil is up there in needing help but a lot of really poor countries aren’t seeing such a huge problem,

Link to January’s figures?

@bythemillpond I agree. UK are already helping....to some of those performative sanctimonious justice warriors...there is no reasoning, it will never be enough.

Bythemillpond

But it isn’t the poor countries for the most part who are having such a big problem with this virus. It is the rich countries who have some of the highest death rates from this virus.”

Absolutely right. Many African, in particular, nations remain relatively unscathed, thank goodness. The median age in many is under 20. They are generally not overweight and because of the appalling conditions they grew up in - and survived - the populations have robust immune systems. If you’ve survived and even thrived growing up in slums next to an open sewer, Covid is not so great a threat.

The majority of hospital admissions and deaths involving younger people have been during January. Posting a couple of charts which don't include January at all is pointless

They did include January

@DenisetheMenace

MaxNormal

People in their 20s and 30s were critically ill with no other health conditions

Any evidence for this assertion“

Fergus Walsh report, BBC News last week, amongst other mainstream media.

Demographic does seem quite different in this spike.

Mainstream media reporting does not equal evidence.

Where are the actual statistics? I’ve posted some myself.... from a BBC article that cites its data as coming from PHE. Hospitals are NOT ‘full’ of people in their 20s and 30s

There is a spike in the 45 - 64 age group - but the data is not broken down further and that is very wide age category. I’d wager the majority are closer to the 64 than the 45.

Wherediditgo

There is a spike in the 45 - 64 age group - but the data is not broken down further and that is very wide age category. I’d wager the majority are closer to the 64 than the 45.”

Tbh, at 56 (myself) and 61 (CEV husband), that doesn’t make me feel an whole lot better 🥴

@DenisetheMenace

Wherediditgo

There is a spike in the 45 - 64 age group - but the data is not broken down further and that is very wide age category. I’d wager the majority are closer to the 64 than the 45.”

Tbh, at 56 (myself) and 61 (CEV husband), that doesn’t make me feel an whole lot better 🥴

Ah I am sorry. It’s still massively unlikely you’d end up in hospital! And that’s if you even caught it!

Just wanted to refute the claims that hospitals are full of young people.

Where wouldn’t we have all ages in ICU and easy to work out median?

Actually ignore that. It’s in ICNARC report if anyone is interested. Bit late and I can’t remember what’s in it

The WHO have not covered themselves in glory in recent times. I hope they are are going to ask the same of other countries too. I think we should vaccinate everyone who needs it, close Borders to travel, and then offer help to those in need.

There is a spike in the 45 - 64 age group - but the data is not broken down further and that is very wide age category. I’d wager the majority are closer to the 64 than the 45

The 3 people I know who have died of Covid were all much more close to 45 than 64

All under 49

I think we need long term to look at the genetics of those that have been hospitalised or have died from Covid as there appears to be a pattern emerging. 2 of the people I knew were related. I see in the news families who have multiple deaths and hospitalisations of those infected with Covid. Whilst other families even with very elderly and very vulnerable family members all getting infected and all brushing it off as a slight illness. This isn’t just down to age and weight

@MarshaBradyo

Where wouldn’t we have all ages in ICU and easy to work out median?

I don't think it works like that.

Having had the misfortune to be a guest myself.

I'm told that the people who get put in the (limited and costly) facilities are those who have around a 50-50 chance of coming out alive.

If you have a hundred cases, and only room for ten of them, you will put your resources into those you are most likely to save.

Not those who are sadly beyond hope; nor those who are fit and cheery, chatting to the nurses and phoning Downing Street and are in no danger, but will recover anyway

So the young, and the very old, are likely to be under-represented.

@Bythemillpond - I agree that genetic factors need to be considered. Some conditions can also have a genetic component such as heart disease and diabetes, so I'm not sure how or whether conditions like that should be excluded.

I swear the "ages in ICU" get a decade less every time someone posts about it. First it was 50s, then 40s and 30s and now it's down to 20s - at this rate we'll soon be hearing about foetuses

Well now you mention it, 1 in 9 women aged under 50 being treated in intensive care for Covid are pregnant or have recently given birth. My heart goes out to them, it must be absolutely terrifying.

Piglet ah I think my message was hastily written but thanks yes I get those more likely to benefit use it.

It was more the banding that pp mentioned. And that it wouldn’t be broken down further that I wondered about.

I wondered if we knew exact age instead and used that for median. But then I thought if they all clustered in middle so I’ll just link this which breaks down age in ICU instead.

Median etc for male / female split and age. Males are higher

www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/24e44f7c-7662-eb11-912e-00505601089b

As the UK is by far the biggest contributor to the global vaccine program, I'd say the WHO can fuck off. Hope they are asking the UAE, Israel etc to stop their vaccination programs too, but I doubt it.

We're not the biggest - we're about the same as Australia in terms of size of donation relating to size of economy. But if every country gave the proportion that we two countries have given, then it would be fully funded.

We've ordered far more vaccines than we need (unless we think we'll need to vaccinate every adult about seven times in the next couple of years) so there comes a point where we should be relinquishing.

We didn't know when we placed the orders that so many if the vaccines we backed would make it to a safe and effective product, so of course it was right to make large orders across many candidates. Now we know how many are working, we can adjust out order and ensure that what we relinquish goes to COVAX

So our best long term hope is a proper global vaccination programme. Vaccinating vulnerable people is helpful because it protects people most at risk but it should also suppress infection rates massively. The top 9 groups in the UK is over 50% of the adult population. So it’s not just a moral stance (that it’s better to prioritise the most vulnerable worldwide rather than healthy adults in richer nations) but it’s in our interest to cut transmission overall

Surely if we want to actually suppress the virus and avoid mutations to variants that evade the vaccine the population you want to target are the greatest spreaders which would be workers (particularly those that travel a lot and work without social distancing etc) and possibly also schools.

I'm glad my parents are getting it, but they're retired, and basically haven't left the house much since March. They can afford to do that. There is no way they're spreading it. They're at greatest risk if they catch it but not of spreading it.

It seems to me you want to target the spreadiest populations in the countries with the highest infection rates to get things under control. And also, make sure that those not vaccinated are not stuffed together indoors for long periods of time in the meantime to provide an ideal petri dish for new variants to develop and take over (yes, schools).

I'm not saying we should do that - because there is the question of humanity and preventing most deaths. But deaths and infections are not the same thing.

You could eliminate all the deaths in the 70s and 80s and still have rampant covid among 0-69 with loads of new variants springing up.

All the data recently shows it's not the 70+ that are spreading it. They're not the source of the infections. if you want to suppress it globally you need to hit the virus among those populations that are spreading it - via vaccinations or controls.

Tbh hospital and care staff already being vaccinated will be helpful if, as it seems to be, that the vaccines (AZ so far) can
cut transmission substantially.

Yes, hospital and care staff already being vaccinated is a good start and will cut transmission, but I don't think it will be enough. This part of the workforce only makes up a small proportion of the highest levels of infection. Either there needs to be more done to reduce transmission in workplaces, supermarkets and schools, or those people who spend a lot of time in those places with a lot of mixing need vaccinating asap.

Personally, given we have the vaccine now, I can't understand why they're not being much stricter about non-compliance in workplaces and making schools safer, as well as paying people a reasonable amount to isolate, and having hotel quarantine on entry to the country. It would make sense to do everything possible to give the vaccines a chance to actually get on top of the pandemic.

We're not the biggest - we're about the same as Australia in terms of size of donation relating to size of economy. But if every country gave the proportion that we two countries have given, then it would be fully funded

what good is money if the west has bought up almost all available vaccine for 2021?
Spare vaccine should go to countries that have the means to administer it and for those that don't, we have to help them with that too.
No point giving Pfizer vaccine to a country with no deep freezes.