Erm....Boris WTF are you talking about?!

[PopcornandPretzels]

Hi,

I'm watching the Coronavirus briefing and I can't believe what I'm hearing!

Boris was saying that we saw what happened with other countries, we haven't been far behind in terms of a second wave, we've seen this before etc, as though we all know where this is heading, I.e, a 3rd wave!

He's talking as though this is inevitable! Have I missed something? Have vaccines been announced as useless?

These countries that he's talking about, the ones which we have always "followed in the past", don't have a vaccination programme like ours, so why is he speaking like this?

I feel really angry. He will have scared a lot of people talking like this.

@Madhairday

I don't know why people are calling out *@PrincessNutNuts* on data. The dashboard shows clearly we're at 140k deaths of covid ie mentioned as cause on death certificate - that is, not mentioned just because that person is positive, but only if it was a main cause. So yes, we will get to 150k by that measure - by far the most accurate - within a couple of weeks or so.

Why people still bang on about the with/of covid thing beats me, when the death toll is higher from the death certificates and excess deaths back that up.

Excess deaths are widely accepted as the gold standard.

GP's can only put covid down if there's evidence for it being a contributory factor. That means a +ve test result and in the first wave, most people weren't being tested. You don't get that discrepancy now as everyone is tested, but it means there are about 11.5k deaths from the first wave to add to that figure.

In short, we're already past 150k deaths

@Xenia

The other issue is how long the vaccine works for. I think it may be 4 - 6 months so we would need to do it like flu - vaccination ready for the winter season each year is likely particularly of the old and vulnerable as we do with flu each year (and not bother about the summer as hospitals are less crowded then).

No - natural immunity is typically 6 months. They expect the vaccines to last 12 months in the older crowd and maybe multiple years in the young. As yet unproven, but that's what the experts believe based upon the data they do have.

Also no evidence of covid being seasonal (so far) - more evident from an analysis of the epidemic in the states. It peaks and troughs depending on restrictions not seasons, although that could change as we move forward.

SAGE, all the top virologists have made it very clear since early Feb that his school plan would end up with a third wave of upwards 30,000 deaths. I don’t understand why he couldn’t resist the tory backbench pressure and suppress it until after Easter.

Well this link is about excess deaths and doesn’t come close to 150k in the UK. In fact it excess deaths were less than the covid deaths tally.

www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker

@notrub 6-8+ months and expected to be longer - that was the limit of the time period in a recent study. It was also just looking at antibodies and didn’t take t-cells into account.

I think notrub you are the only scientist I’ve heard say that coronavirus is not seasonal. Pretty unique amongst such respiratory viruses. Amazing.

Glad to see PrincessNuts showing up on this thread to share their wisdom too. Can’t wait for DustyBin to also join the party.

That’s for natural immunity. We don’t know the length of vaccine immunity yet.

Pootle40
@PrincessNutNuts but 60,000 people haven't died OF Covid since we started vaccinations. Sorry every time I see this I have to correct it. 60,000 people in the UK have died since we started vaccinated who had a positive Covid test in the last 28 days.

We don't even know how many that contributed (to any degree) to their death.

That's why data interrogation is important. That picture has been painted for a reason. Effectively what's happening is by leaving out a few key facts they can influence any which way they want.

About 60,000 people have died, and a doctor put covid on their death certificate.

Yes and we know that's accurate don't we.....................

The top 4 groups were 89% of the deaths and the vast majority were offered a vaccine by mid Feb. That’s 3 weeks to establish protection from the last bunch. I’m unclear as to why suddenly people think thousands are going to end up in hospital or dying given this. Yes, it may change but for now, the vaccine absolutely does reduce transmission and serious illness. Sadly, some people will still become very unwell but it should be in numbers that are manageable for the health care system.

nordica

Pootle40
Do we care if there is another wave so long as severely ill is much lower and subsequently deaths? I am confused.

Yes because that's the recipe for the virus to mutate to a more vaccine resistant variant, especially in a partially vaccinated population.“

Exactly this. The worry is that we have “opened up” too soon, before the majority are vaccinated - which really wouldn’t have taken very much longer and would have gone a long way towards taking care of concerns about variants.

@PopcornandPretzels

Hi,

I'm watching the Coronavirus briefing and I can't believe what I'm hearing!

Boris was saying that we saw what happened with other countries, we haven't been far behind in terms of a second wave, we've seen this before etc, as though we all know where this is heading, I.e, a 3rd wave!

He's talking as though this is inevitable! Have I missed something? Have vaccines been announced as useless?

These countries that he's talking about, the ones which we have always "followed in the past", don't have a vaccination programme like ours, so why is he speaking like this?

I feel really angry. He will have scared a lot of people talking like this.

Firstly a 3rd wave is likely. If R goes over 1 and we don't tighten restrictions again, then it is inevitable. Vaccinations help reduce R, but reducing lockdown measures raises it - who will win that race??

Secondly, lots of people think it doesn't matter if R goes over 1 because "the vulnerable are protected". This is horse shit. If that was true, we may as well end lockdown tomorrow because everyone over 60 who wants a vaccine has had one. What would the consequences be though?

Well the % vaccinated is much too low to prevent the virus infecting everyone and it would do so within a matter of 2-3 months. Obv not EVERYONE would catch it, but data from elsewhere suggests you could get around 75% infected within that period.

Let's assume vaccination gives 90% protection. There's 5.6 million aged 70-80 in the UK and 3.2 million >80. If 75% of them get the virus that's 6.6 million cases.
The death rate (unvaccinated) is 2.2 to 3.6% for >70's and 5.3 to 8.9% for the over 80's - I'll take the median of those figures. Works out as 389,600 deaths. Add in the impact of the vaccines, i.e. reduce by 90% and you have nearly 40k deaths which is about 4x as many as die from flu in a typical year.

That's just among the >70's, assumes they're ALL vaccinated (they're not) and assumes the vaccine efficacy remains at 90% as mutations arise (it won't).

Then let's consider the 10-20 yr age group who are going to be largely unvaccinated until 2022. Covid barely effects them right? Sort of - IFR is about 0.02%. If 75% get infected it translates into 1110 deaths.

So far we've only let a fraction of the population catch covid - it's been controlled through lockdown and social distancing measures. If we abandon those before the virus has been stamped out, the benefits of the vaccine are far outweighed by the sheer numbers of infections involved.

And I haven't even mentioned long covid - we don't know if vaccines prevent this or not yet - seems likely but even assuming we have 60% vaccine coverage and a 90% protection level we could be looking at well over a million cases of it in the event of a 3rd wave we don't bother trying to control.

Vaccines give us the ability to keep R below 1 and build up herd-immunity. If we let it get out of control again, the future is quite grim, particularly for the >70's, and anyone with asthma, diabetes or on immune suppressant medication.

@UmbilicusProfundus

I think notrub you are the only scientist I’ve heard say that coronavirus is not seasonal. Pretty unique amongst such respiratory viruses. Amazing.

Glad to see PrincessNuts showing up on this thread to share their wisdom too. Can’t wait for DustyBin to also join the party.

Covid is EXPECTED to be seasonal, but until we stop controlling it with lockdowns, we won't know. At the moment, THAT is far more important than the weather.

I really think the messaging has been so poor from government, I don't understand why.

I'm a bit obsessed with covid and have been reading a lot, but I'm not a scientist.

My understanding is that as we open up infections will rise, the worry with this is that although the vaccines so far will keep deaths low there are lots of younger people in ICU, I really don't understand why this isn't being more widely reported. We have increased our ICU capacity but its still limited, about 50% of people in ICU are under 60 and about 25% are under 50, so a dramatic increase in infection rate will result in more ICU admissions, there is a limit to capacity and some people who enter ICU, while they survive, are poorly for a very long time.

It's been better reported about mutations, and obviously the risk of a more vaccine resistant mutation is increased while we have a small percentage of the population vaccinated. It's not likely a mutation will make the current vaccines completely ineffective, but it will be much better if we keep infections lower and we definitely shouldn't speed up the exit strategy.

I feel Boris has stumbled over quite a good plan, but he could still screw it up if he gives into these backbenchers who want to open up now.

@UmbilicusProfundus

I think notrub you are the only scientist I’ve heard say that coronavirus is not seasonal. Pretty unique amongst such respiratory viruses. Amazing.

Glad to see PrincessNuts showing up on this thread to share their wisdom too. Can’t wait for DustyBin to also join the party.

Incidentally Winter is The FLU Season, NOT "The Respiratory Viruses Season. Rhinoviruses are much more likely in Spring/Autumn than Summer/Winter.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12581541/

@notrub why are you assuming that 75% of a predominantly vaccinated population (over 70s) are going to contract COVID? I think you’ve done your calculations back to front.

@Delatron

What *@wanderings* said

He knows full well there is lockdown fatigue now. We can sit on a bench with another person woo hoo.

Once all the over 50s and vulnerable have been vaccinated (and one dose does give a high protection) where is his argument for keeping us locked in until June? Ah a third wave and mutant variants. Despite last summer being fine and low cases without half the population vaccinated!

I guess the hospitalisations and deaths will be the ones to watch.

This Does anyone remember anything being mentioned about ‘new variants’ last summer?? Of course we didn’t. It’s all spin and bollocks to keep us scared and compliant. 6 - 12 months ago the phrases on everyone’s lips were ‘key worker’ and ‘unprecedented’ now, I shudder every time I hear someone refer to ‘mutant variants’ because you just know they’re parroting the shite they’ve read in the media!

@Haenow

The top 4 groups were 89% of the deaths and the vast majority were offered a vaccine by mid Feb. That’s 3 weeks to establish protection from the last bunch. I’m unclear as to why suddenly people think thousands are going to end up in hospital or dying given this. Yes, it may change but for now, the vaccine absolutely does reduce transmission and serious illness. Sadly, some people will still become very unwell but it should be in numbers that are manageable for the health care system.

This. What do people want us to do? Vaccinate the whole population but stay locked down anyway because ‘variants’ It’s mental.

The reason I mentioned it being likely each autumn the old and sick would be offered a CV19 jab is because the main aim of the UK policies has been to stop hospitals being full to bursting with people turned away even from Nightingales. That will happen in the winter not the summer so it makes sense going forward that the CV vaccine each winter is picked based on most likely new strains and we offer it like the flu jab to the old, sick and NHS workers as we do with flu to stop the UK hospitals being full. I did not mean to imply you cannot catch it in the summer.

On the natural immunity 6 months and with the vaccination and perhaps 12 months in older people. I wish we had more data as that is really what will decide for me if I have the jab (which I have just been offered and cannot decide on and I am not helped by 100% of everyone I know who has had it being quite ill for at least 2 days which I am about 98% certain would happen to me and I haven't really been ill for years).

[quote bumbleymummy]@notrub why are you assuming that 75% of a predominantly vaccinated population (over 70s) are going to contract COVID? I think you’ve done your calculations back to front.[/quote]
Because the vaccine doesn't stop you catching covid in the first place.

How do you think the vaccine works - it doesn't build a force field around you.

The vaccine works by priming your immune system to effectively deal with the virus when you get infected. Vaccinated people get infected, but mildly and fight it off quicker.

www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/how-they-work.html

What do people want us to do? Vaccinate the whole population but stay locked down anyway because ‘variants’

I do not want this but I do want more caution in this short phase (4-5 months) as we move towards having a large majority vaccinated population. We are again deploying a high risk approach in the UK.

Instead of starting a thread to worry people, it would have been far more useful to listen to the briefing again.

That's NOT what he said. You have taken one small piece out of context

Antibodies have been found up to 12 months after having a natural infection (so pretty much since this pandemic started). My DP had Covid last July and has antibodies to it now, so that's 9 months later.

@Haenow

The top 4 groups were 89% of the deaths and the vast majority were offered a vaccine by mid Feb. That’s 3 weeks to establish protection from the last bunch. I’m unclear as to why suddenly people think thousands are going to end up in hospital or dying given this. Yes, it may change but for now, the vaccine absolutely does reduce transmission and serious illness. Sadly, some people will still become very unwell but it should be in numbers that are manageable for the health care system.

Maths mostly.

But take it up with the Prime Minister because someone has clearly explained it to him.

Often the answer is 'maths' but people do not like those answers!

Wherediditgo

Does anyone remember anything being mentioned about ‘new variants’ last summer??
Of course we didn’t.
It’s all spin and bollocks to keep us scared and compliant. 6 - 12 months ago the phrases on everyone’s lips were ‘key worker’ and ‘unprecedented’ now, I shudder every time I hear someone refer to ‘mutant variants’ because you just know they’re parroting the shite they’ve read in the media!”

Viruses always mutate.