Infection drop due to lockdown not vaccines?

[freezingcoldsnow]

This news article is obviously an attempt at a good news story - lower rates, study shows lockdown working etc etc. There's a paragraph though that says:

This uniform decrease in age groups means that there is no evidence that the vaccination programme is behind the fall in infections. If that was the case, the researchers said, they would expect to see a bigger drop in people aged 65 and over.^
^
Is it too soon to see a drop in vaccinated people? I maybe naively thought we would start to see a drop like Israel did....or is it the lack of second dose driving it? Or is it really not affecting transmission?

Anyone with greater knowledge help me out here?!

news.sky.com/story/lockdown-is-working-dramatic-fall-in-england-covid-infection-rate-says-imperial-college-study-12221339

Title should say drop not from - sorry?

My understanding is that it is slightly too early to see a meaningful impact of the vaccination program. Three weeks after the first 15m were vaccinated should hopefully show some positive evidence of vaccine success so around 8th March.

I think there is some early evidence that the death rate in the over 80s is falling faster than in other groups which is potentially a sign.

I've just read a bbc report which mentioned there's no reduction due to vaccines which surprised me. I guess many of those already jabbed may already be shielding but I'd hoped it would show by now.

There is early evidence. However, we only started vaccinating in early January and the vaccine takes 3 weeks to build immunity. In addition, I suspect the over 80s are pretty careful anyway.

The vaccinated also probably started taking more risks.

However, I would expect to see a rapid decline in hospitalisations and deaths from now onwards and, if that does not happen, I would start to become sceptical.

Israel had to toughen their lockdown after first doses started, they had a significant increase in numbers of infections. I think reporting at the time suggested that people became more complacent due to the vaccine program success.

It's only more recently now masses of the population are getting the second dose that daily cases are starting to drop.

The article is "strong decline in covid across England." And is similarly written as a good news story. This bit was at the end though.

They are discussing it on R4 at the moment, they said... this is just the impact of lockdown so far. The vaccination programme isn't impacting yet and they don't yet know the difference it will make in transmission (so cases in vaccinated people could potentially remain as high as ever, but very few would show symptoms or get ill).

If its infections they are measuring could people dtill at this stage be testing positive post having had a vaccine but being spared hospital/death?

I guess those numbers we should see withina fee weeks.

Thanks for thoughts - all very interesting.

Sounds like we need to wait it out a bit longer to start seeing vaccinated effects.

Fascinating that Israel had to tighten up more for a while before the effects kicked in.

On the other hand anecdotally people do seem to be out more since they have had their vaccine...

They appear to be sayi that there are promising signs of the drop in case numbers beginning to appear lower than the drop in the wider population.

They're comparing rates of fall, not looking at whether fall is occurring.

It was lockdown which took us from over 60k new cases a day to under 15k. In looking for impact of vaccination, there is a need for caution in examining the figures to ensure what you see is something distinct and significant

I think we may follow the Israel path, which is why I don't think the 22nd announcement will be anything more then some year groups going back to school and maybe being able to meet a couple more people outside for exercise at a push.

@TheReluctantPhoenix

There is early evidence. However, we only started vaccinating in early January and the vaccine takes 3 weeks to build immunity. In addition, I suspect the over 80s are pretty careful anyway.

The vaccinated also probably started taking more risks.

However, I would expect to see a rapid decline in hospitalisations and deaths from now onwards and, if that does not happen, I would start to become sceptical.

But haven't the NHS and care workers all been vaccinated too? Has hospital acquired infection started to drop at all dp you know?

My local NHS trust said in their weekly update yesterday that deaths/ITU beds have fallen dramatically for over 85's in the past week which they expect to be due to the vaccine and more age groups will follow in the coming weeks.

It's mid February. We've been vaccinating at the current rate for 4 weeks or so, the vaccine takes at least 2 weeks to generate antibodies, and the disease has an incubation period of up to 14 days.
The first million doses or so were necessarily given to protect a population who don't go out much (care home residents) and it's only now rolling out to somewhat younger people who are in supermarkets, out exercising etc etc - but still mostly retired. Once it starts to impact on the workplace outside Nhs/care work (again, a good few weeks after that) is when numbers should plummet.
That's what I think, anyway!

I am starting to think the vaccinations were just a decoy to make us think there was away out of this. In reality I think that will be in lockdown for the rest of this year at least.

@TryingNotToPanicOverCovid

If its infections they are measuring could people dtill at this stage be testing positive post having had a vaccine but being spared hospital/death?

I guess those numbers we should see withina fee weeks.

Yes I think we need to be looking at hospitalizations and deaths rather than cases.

I disagree, Rosie, but only time will tell!

Depends how you're defining 'lockdown' too, of course - if you mean the current level of restrictions then no, I don't think this is for another year. If you mean some form of carefulness around virus spread - yes, likely to be with us for quite a while yet.!

Well the roll out started in mid Dec. How many people have even had their 2nd dose yet? Not that many. It's basically too soon for the vaccine to have an impact.

I don't want to be too rude op you could genuinely not have thought about this simple fact. Or were you trying to create doubt in the effectiveness of the vaccine? Just seems something quite simple to not understand.

Did Israel not do it properly - give a first vaccine then the second one in the correct 3 week timeframe?

Whereas we are waiting 12 weeks.

There is a poster on MN about her DD who contracted covid at work in a nursery. All other staff tested positive apart from one person who has been vaccinated. Maybe coincidence, but maybe good news that vaccine works by stopping a person getting infected. Hoping to get actual evidence on Monday.

Surely it's not that easy to view the effect of a vaccine whilst we are in lockdown. The current reductions across the board are more likely to be due to lockdown than vaccines. Vaccine effect will first show in death rates of the elderly and a pp said this is just starting to show now.

This is great news but I feel sick with the thought the government will fuck it up again and open schools up fully way too early and numbers will climb again. Where I teach there are plenty of large, Asian families living in poverty. I bet they don’t take that into consideration when reopening schools though.

my understanding is that while the vaccine reduces the impact of the infection on the individual it doesn't effect transmission or incidences of infection so don't see why they would be monitoring this seems odd to me. What reduces transmission is no mingling, cleanliness and mask wearing. We need to reduce transmission and reduce severity so lock down and vaccine. I think some of the "heat maps" that have been trialed are very telling in terms of which age groups are infected and after what actions.