Good News 14: Keeping our spirits up, just a bit longer.

[hugoagogo]

Ah man, we've come so far since the "only 3% are fully vaccinated days" haven't we?

🥲🥲🥲

@Cafeaulait27

2/3s of adults are now fully vaccinated! 🙌

And 2/3 of all people in the UK have had at least one dose. It's a nice synergistic thing.

Been having a real wobble these last few weeks. It feels relentless.

@OrangeBananaFish I'm with you at the moment. When this all started I was so relieved my children were only 3 and not starting school until 2021 because 'at least their school start will be normal' - now I'm not sure it will be and it makes me so sad.

Anyway, good news because that's what we're all about right? My dear surgery has started to do a small number of prebookable telephone appointments again rather than always having to call on the day

Dear surgery = dr surgery 🤦🏻‍♀️

I think the press have reached new heights of doom mongering in the last few weeks. Half if it doesn’t even make sense or is contradicted by another article in the same paper. It’s getting a bit desperate. I’m done with the news now until things have calmed down.

Great news… sorry it’s from the S*n

www.thesun.co.uk/news/15605950/astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-lifetime-protection/

I had AZ. Good to know there are teeny tiny anti covid training camps in my cells

I have done a short calculation on hospital admissions compared to the last wave. Its very crude but wondered if it made sense.
12th July there were 717 admissions.
3 weeks before this was the 21 June (I keep seeing 3 weeks as the length between test and admission) cases were 106333. Which means about 6% of people tested positive went on to be admitted.

10 Oct 717 admissions 3 weeks before that is 19 Sept, where there were 4,442 cases which is about 16%. Showing that there has been a drastic fall in the rate.

My maths is probably off though.

Think it might be a good time for another chorus of ‘vaccines work, yo!’

@BIoodyStupidJohnson

Think it might be a good time for another chorus of ‘vaccines work, yo!’

Praise be 😁

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/17/children-will-get-covid-vaccines-vulnerable/

under guidance due to be issued on Monday, jabs will be offered to children between 12 and 15 who are deemed vulnerable to Covid or who live with adults who are immunosuppressed or otherwise vulnerable to the virus. They will also now be offered to all 17-year-olds within three months of their 18th birthday.

This is very good news for us.

@herecomesthsun

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/17/children-will-get-covid-vaccines-vulnerable/

under guidance due to be issued on Monday, jabs will be offered to children between 12 and 15 who are deemed vulnerable to Covid or who live with adults who are immunosuppressed or otherwise vulnerable to the virus. They will also now be offered to all 17-year-olds within three months of their 18th birthday.

This is very good news for us.

This is great news for those families, I can't imagine how terrifying it must be to have a vulnerable child in this.

I stumbled on to a scary thread yesterday, and quickly left, but something has been playing my my mind since.

If with delta even the vaccinated are likely to catch it (albeit hopefully mildly) does this mean the virus is going to have opportunity to mutate in these people to a possibly vaccine resistant variant?

I understand the science that less cases = less chance of mutation, more cases = more chance of mutation but I'm not sure if being vaccinated and the body hopefully fighting the virus more quickly will help prevent mutations or not?

That's a decision that should have been taken a month ago, but yes it's good. It's unclear how they are defining "vulnerable" and "otherwise vulnerable" to avoid a postcode lottery of one with dad's mild asthma or gran living at home allowing the jab, while another has moderate asthma themselves and aren't allowed. I also see uni students in Scotland (or young elsewhere) will have a proportion with no coverage who are just turned 17 up to 17 and 9 months.
It would surely be easier to just say "We recommend it for these people, but for anyone else if you judge it's right for you as a 12-17 yo, then get it and if not don't".

@twinmum86 - most mutations come from a long disease, so rapid recovery and cases in young fit people are less likely to lead to mutations. Just one case anywhere in the world could lead to a mutation, and that mutation might make the virus more or less challenging for human recovery. If it's more transmissible then it'll be successful regardless of severity, if it isn't more transmissible then it'll disappear. Lots of cases increase that probability of a mutation, but it isn't a certainty and could start with one case, or the virus might have no more successful mutations occur after 1m cases.

Thank you @MRex - that's good. I really hate that people who have no idea of how the science work are announcing things as fact. 'Everyone's catching it anyway so it will mutate to a vaccine resistant version soon enough' was something I saw written.

I'm all for having the facts good or bad, but stop making stuff up!!

Here's hoping for a less transmissible strain 🤞🏻🤞🏻

Anyone else feeling thoroughly fed up now and like there’s no end in sight? Even the positive news seems to be dwindling. I really don’t know how to deal with this anymore. I really worry for my children’s education.

Sadly a less transmissible strain will not succeed, as other strains take over. You can plausibly get a strain that is more transmissible and leads to less severe symptoms though, which would be delightful.

In fairness, not everyone is vaccinated, so those people might still have a severe case, as might someone who's just unlucky where the vaccine doesn't help them enough. High cases are obviously not desirable, but issues can arise anywhere in the world and not just in the UK.

@SaveWaterDrinkGin

Anyone else feeling thoroughly fed up now and like there’s no end in sight? Even the positive news seems to be dwindling. I really don’t know how to deal with this anymore. I really worry for my children’s education.

Astrazeneca immunity keeps increasing at days 28 and 56 after vaccination: www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20210628/Oxford-AstraZeneca-COVID-19-vaccine-induces-robust-T-cell-based-immunity.aspx. So, if immunity is increasing then we can expect even fewer double jabbed hospitalisations as time passes. It's going to be ok.

@SaveWaterDrinkGin me. I'm feeling the lowest I have about it in a while. @MRex is doing a good job of making me feel a bit better though!

We've got a UK holiday in about 3 weeks and at the moment it just seems impossible that we'll actually get to go on it without being contacted to isolate. I doubt we'll be allowed to do daily tests instead unlike Boris

God I'm getting sick to death of all the headlines about further lockdown coming.

Why can we not just take the good we have or that is coming why is it always always tainted.

We were told by whitty at the briefing cases would rise and hospitalisation would go up but the nhs would be able to cope. That deaths would inevitably increase....so why are people acting like this is brand new information, unprecedented and a reason to postpone EVERYTHING! I don't get it. I really really really don't.

It's best to think of the headlines as the mix they are:

1. Nudge effect; the government don't want everyone going wild at once, so deliberately put off the cautious,
2. Government opposition; it's important for opposition to criticise everything,
3. Slow news; the football and Wimbledon are over and not much else is going on. Because you know why it's happening, you don't need to fret about it. You might take the nudge effect warnings as a mild warning not to go too mad with the parties though.

mobile.twitter.com/sailorrooscout

Discussion on Sailorrooscout Twitter that breakthrough infections in vaccinated people less likely to generate mutations as the vaccine restricts evolutionary pathways.

Hopefully brings some reassurance.