Case numbers dropping due to lockdown

[womanity]

Not vaccine.

Why has Boris said this? I don’t understand.

I get he wants people to still follow rules, but he also wants them to get vaccinated, right?

@TheOneWithTheBigNose This is Boris Johnson we are talking about, Boris and being honest are not compatible. Although with all the vaccine negativity I can understand why he cannot risk any further problems as confidence in vaccines is key.

They need to staple a mask on him & stop him saying anything that's not scripted & approved by JVT/whitty etc. The mans a bloody liability.

As far as I understand, the vaccine doesn't stop you catching Covid, it means you are much less likely to be hospitalised or die from it though. So lockdown has brought the cases down and vaccination has helped bring hospitalisation and death rates down. Ideally, even if cases begin to rise the hope would be that death rates won't rise proportionately. I think...

Tbh I agree with him (I now need a shower) and I got shouted down on another thread a couple of weeks ago for saying so.

Lockdown to get control of the cases and vaccines to keep control as we lift restrictions. That’s the plan at least isn’t it? People have got carried away, we’ve done really well, but the percentage of fully vaccinated (as in two injections) is still tiny.

The vaccines will give different people different responses to the virus. It's not a blanket thing.

@bookworm1632

So many highly opinionated people about without a shred of scientific knowledge between them.

The native R rate for the virus is now estimated to be around 4. There's an estimate that vaccination is about 50-60% effective at preventing transmission and we've vaccinated about half the adults - that would be enough by itself to bring R down to about 3.

It's currently under 1.

For once in his life, Boris is actually perfectly correct. The bulk of the reduction in cases is down to the restrictions.

What’s a native R rate?

The rate it spreads if no-one does a thing?

@tiredteacher100

As far as I understand, the vaccine doesn't stop you catching Covid, it means you are much less likely to be hospitalised or die from it though. So lockdown has brought the cases down and vaccination has helped bring hospitalisation and death rates down. Ideally, even if cases begin to rise the hope would be that death rates won't rise proportionately. I think...

That’s the aim I believe but vaccinations haven’t been stress tested in an environment without restrictions. It would be foolhardy to ignore that.

We have two countries to look at; specifically Israel - doing fabulously with Pfizer although I believe they’re keeping a close eye on the SA variant at the moment and Chile who got a bit carried away too early with Sinovac (predominantly) and released restrictions including travel with a high percentage of first doses but not second for it then to transpire Sinovac doesn’t offer any significant protection until after the second jab (and it’s on the low side even then at 50%ish) and are now reintroducing restrictions.

In a way he is right . Nicola sturgeon described it as a race between the vaccine and the virus. You have to slow the virus down in order to let the vaccine get ahead of it so it can mitigate the damage the virus can do

So yes lockdown slowed the virus, bringing the cases down allowing the vaccine to start working effectively on people before the virus reached them

Here is a good thread explaining what was meant.

twitter.com/cjsnowdon/status/1381990226483089408?s=21

Lockdown got the numbers down - vaccines will keep them down.

@ZZTopGuitarSolo

In my US state we have more than a 1/3 of the population vaccinated, and our Covid cases are currently rising.

We have been out of lockdown since last June, but it's only in the last month or two that things like youth sports have restarted. They seem to be a big driver of infections.

The more people mix the more it'll spread.

The PM is right.

Partly because most people aren't vaccinated yet (please see attached chart)

And because cases tend to spread first in the younger age groups who then pass them on to the older age groups so it can spread fit quite a while before coming up against a vaccinated person.

Lockdown stops the spread of these new variants as well as it did the old ones.

Opening up allows the variants to spread again - which is risky at this point with so few people fully vaccinated.

It risks hospitalisations, deaths and the creation of new variants.

Nobody likes these facts - but they are the facts.

I don’t see why people are surprised. They have said all along you can catch and spread covid even if you have the vaccine . But the chances of being seriously ill are greatly reduced.

So of course if you open up cases will rise . But hopefully most people will not be seriously ill or suffer long covid . But the risk is there .

@AmelieTaylor

No they don’t as he is correct .

@tiredteacher100

As far as I understand, the vaccine doesn't stop you catching Covid, it means you are much less likely to be hospitalised or die from it though. So lockdown has brought the cases down and vaccination has helped bring hospitalisation and death rates down. Ideally, even if cases begin to rise the hope would be that death rates won't rise proportionately. I think...

Hospitalisations and deaths will still rise proportionally.

We just don't know what the new proportions are yet.

Allowing a lot of infections will inevitably lead to a lot of hospitalisations though, that much is a given.

This chart from the Warwick modelling is quite instructive:

I think it’s quite important that high rates of testing keeps going . Young people are going to be more at risk from the new variants and quite rightly because they think they are low risk they are going to largely ignore the guidelines.

Only time will tell .

@Unsure33

I don’t see why people are surprised. They have said all along you can catch and spread covid even if you have the vaccine . But the chances of being seriously ill are greatly reduced.

So of course if you open up cases will rise . But hopefully most people will not be seriously ill or suffer long covid . But the risk is there .

Exactly.

I keep seeing people say that case numbers don’t matter anymore but they do! At least until vaccine efficacy is proven in a real world scenario. It may be that the threshold for a concerning number of cases changes dramatically as long as deaths and hospitalisation are low but we still need a good idea of the numbers circulating to prove that even if we think the threat to the NHS has passed.

@TheOneWithTheBigNose

He’s certainly giving the anti vaxxers ammunition. If he wants them to get vaccinated, telling them that it has had no effect on the numbers of cases/hospitalisation/deaths is probably the wrong way to go about it.

With only 11.5% of the population full vaccinated as of yesterday how much effect could vaccination realistically have had?

The Israeli Effect kicks in hard with a substantial number of second doses.

Hardly anyone in the U.K. has had one yet.

but we still need a good idea of the numbers circulating to prove that even if we think the threat to the NHS has passed.

The virus is also quite seasonal. The NHS aren't going to be swamped over summer (especially with the vaccines) but the risk is winter.

I was just reading about the 70+ cluster of the SA variant. Lets hope they contain it with the surge testing. Maybe Boris is just reminding us that there may still be a need for local lockdowns in the future if other measures don't work re variants.

@User135644

but we still need a good idea of the numbers circulating to prove that even if we think the threat to the NHS has passed.

The virus is also quite seasonal. The NHS aren't going to be swamped over summer (especially with the vaccines) but the risk is winter.

I agree, and that’s why surveillance/testing can’t be stopped yet isn’t it. All going well and no nasty surprises I think we’re looking at 2022 for true normality without a focus on testing and isolation of contacts. This shouldn’t be as bad as it sounds though, as long as vaccines keep transmission low we’re much less likely to encounter it than we were in say, December 20.

@User135644

but we still need a good idea of the numbers circulating to prove that even if we think the threat to the NHS has passed.

The virus is also quite seasonal. The NHS aren't going to be swamped over summer (especially with the vaccines) but the risk is winter.

Here's a chart from the Warwick modelling that suggests the seasonality might not be all its cracked up to be:

Didn't lockdown end on August 1st last year? And six weeks later Whitty and Vallance were on tv with their Graph of Doom.

Does anyone have the direct quote of what Boris said?

@Flaxmeadow

Does anyone have the direct quote of what Boris said?

There's video somewhere...

@Flaxmeadow

Does anyone have the direct quote of what Boris said?

twitter.com/bbcpolitics/status/1381919420101066752?s=21. The video

Thanks PrincessNutNuts.
I'll have a look for it