Vaccination alone is not the way out of this

[nonono1]

I’m watching a politician on Question Time tonight who has just said that vaccination is not the sole way out of this nightmare pandemic situation. I think she then went on to say something about the importance of the test and trace system being up to scratch in addition to the vaccines. But I wasn’t really listening at that point to be honest, as I was so surprised by what she’d said about the vaccines.

What I don’t understand is, how are vaccines not the sole way out of this? Surely when the vast majority of the population have been double jabbed, it will be over?!

@GoldenOmber:

My theory is that some people adjusted fairly early on to the idea that vaccines weren’t going to come in and save us, they haven’t been able to adapt their view once vaccines did. So any bit of vaccine good news gets acknowledged late and grudgingly and only with a load of “ah well yes but, sadly, I’m afraid, it’s not actually that good” waffle. It’s a weird kind of denial.

“There likely won’t ever be a vaccine. We’ve never made one against a coronavirus.”
“Okay so we have, but not a human coronavirus, so there still probably won’t be.”
“Okay there probably will but it’ll take four years, at MOST, and that’s if we’re LUCKY.”
“Okay fine fine it looks like it’ll be faster than that but you do realise first-generation vaccines won’t be that good? We’ll be lucky to get a 60% efficacy rate.”
“Okay, so it’s actually very high. But! That doesn’t matter because the government will absolutely cock up the rollout and we’ll be waiting for years.”
“Okay the government hasn’t cocked up the rollout, but never mind that, did you know vaccines don’t prevent transmission at all? So it doesn’t matter how many of us get vaccinated because we’ll all still spread it
“Okay fine, maybe they do reduce transmission, but that’s not important, what’s important is that the vaccines don’t work against some of the variants!”

And now we seem to be up to Vaccine Denial Step 23: “Okay so they work very well against all known variants but BUT, what if a variant emerges tomorrow that they don’t work against, then they’re pretty much useless, so we can’t rely on vaccines to get us out of this.”

The vaccines are here, they work, we’re incredibly lucky to be in a country that can offer so many of them to us so fast, they’re the way out of this.

Great summary!

@GoldenOmber

One big reason that flu doesn’t infect as many people as covid is because most people have some resistance to circulating flu strains. Partly from vaccines, mostly from previous infection.

When we get a new flu strain where that level of resistance isn’t in place, it’s pandemic flu and it spreads much more rapidly, either causing horrendous damage (1918) or being less dangerous than we first feared (2009).

So saying ‘but covid isn’t like flu’ isn’t that helpful. Covid in early 2020 behaved like a particularly infectious new pandemic flu would. Covid in a population with a high degree of immunity will behave a lot more like seasonal flu - it’ll be around, it’ll cause some damage, but it won’t cause waves of mass deaths/healthcare system collapse/whole societies shutting down to contain it the way it has previously.

That’s what vaccines let us do. And that’s why it’s really important to roll them out fast as possible, and not undermine vaccine take-up with this “but vaccines won’t give us our lives back, sadly sadly I’m afraid people need to accept sadly” bollocks.

Good post, but I disagree with your last para - I think the point being raised was that vaccines alone aren't enough right now, which you appear to agree with:

Covid in a population with a high degree of immunity
as we haven't yet reached that point!

[quote JesusInTheCabbageVan]@GoldenOmber:

My theory is that some people adjusted fairly early on to the idea that vaccines weren’t going to come in and save us, they haven’t been able to adapt their view once vaccines did. So any bit of vaccine good news gets acknowledged late and grudgingly and only with a load of “ah well yes but, sadly, I’m afraid, it’s not actually that good” waffle. It’s a weird kind of denial.

“There likely won’t ever be a vaccine. We’ve never made one against a coronavirus.”
“Okay so we have, but not a human coronavirus, so there still probably won’t be.”
“Okay there probably will but it’ll take four years, at MOST, and that’s if we’re LUCKY.”
“Okay fine fine it looks like it’ll be faster than that but you do realise first-generation vaccines won’t be that good? We’ll be lucky to get a 60% efficacy rate.”
“Okay, so it’s actually very high. But! That doesn’t matter because the government will absolutely cock up the rollout and we’ll be waiting for years.”
“Okay the government hasn’t cocked up the rollout, but never mind that, did you know vaccines don’t prevent transmission at all? So it doesn’t matter how many of us get vaccinated because we’ll all still spread it
“Okay fine, maybe they do reduce transmission, but that’s not important, what’s important is that the vaccines don’t work against some of the variants!”

And now we seem to be up to Vaccine Denial Step 23: “Okay so they work very well against all known variants but BUT, what if a variant emerges tomorrow that they don’t work against, then they’re pretty much useless, so we can’t rely on vaccines to get us out of this.”

The vaccines are here, they work, we’re incredibly lucky to be in a country that can offer so many of them to us so fast, they’re the way out of this.

Great summary![/quote]
That has to be a record for the greatest number of strawmen in a single post

I didn't manage to make my quoting very clear - hope it doesn't look like I'm nicking Golden's words!

I wish MN would let us quote posts that already have quotes in them. Though I can imagine that could get messy quite fast

That has to be a record for the greatest number of strawmen in a single post

Short memory?

Short memory?

Clearly. I remember every single one.

No one is denying they work to a point, but we need to be cautious about celebrating the vaccines as our saviour when we haven’t seen them at work during a wave from start to finish.

www.businessinsider.com/israel-50-of-delta-variant-cases-vaccinated-severe-2021-6?r=US&IR=T

We can not simply expect to rely on them alone without other precautions in place.

Test and trace/tracking etc won't work until everyone is actually honest and engages with the system. Last Summer, there were loads of people on SM saying they were giving false details when checking in to pubs and restaurants. There were also people refusing to answer their phone if it was an unknown number "just in case" it was telling them to isolate. If people are going to do that, then there really is no hope of it working.

we haven’t seen them at work during a wave from start to finish.

Here’s a new one for the list 😂

Nice one incognito keeping us on our toes.

@TheKeatingFive

Short memory?

Clearly. I remember every single one.

Did you write them all then?

@Thewiseoneincognito

No one is denying they work to a point, but we need to be cautious about celebrating the vaccines as our saviour when we haven’t seen them at work during a wave from start to finish.

www.businessinsider.com/israel-50-of-delta-variant-cases-vaccinated-severe-2021-6?r=US&IR=T

We can not simply expect to rely on them alone without other precautions in place.

But those "other precautions" need to be reasonable and proportionate. Sacrificing entire industries isn't reasonable nor proportionate. We have to carry on pretty much as normal "pre covid", and find ways to identify and protect the vulnerable who may not have adequate protection.

Perhaps the most vulnerable people and their household members need to be removed from "normal" workplaces, schools etc., and given support, such as giving the children remote/online learning, helping adults find alternative "work from home" employment, shopping deliveries, etc etc. We really can't have lockdowns and restrictions affecting 99% of the population just to protect the 1% for whom the vaccines don't give adequate protection.

If people are going to do that, then there really is no hope of it working.

It was always going to be a big challenge in western democracies that can’t rely on high levels of surveillance or commandeering data like banking/phone records.

Plus zero trust in the system now.

It’s a dead duck really.

@Badbadbunny that’s over 2 million people. Thousands of young people essentially being removed from society. Whilst everyone carries on in ignorant bliss?

[quote Thewiseoneincognito]@Badbadbunny that’s over 2 million people. Thousands of young people essentially being removed from society. Whilst everyone carries on in ignorant bliss?[/quote]
But the lockdowns/restrictions have been worse. There are 3 million self employed excluded from the support, who have had to close their businesses, lose their homes/savings, some have lost their lives. How can the rest of us continue to pay higher taxes to pay furlough to millions who aren't working?

Even if social distancing is continued with no other restrictions, that means pubs, restaurants, sporting events, theatres/cinemas, and hosts of other events simply aren't viable meaning millions unemployed and billions of lost tax revenues.

If foreign travel isn't re-opened, that means millions of air/travel industry jobs have gone.

As I say, we need reasonable and proportionate restrictions. It's up to the scientists and politicians to draw the line.

I agree losing a job or career due to restrictions effectively decimating your industry is horrendous but these people would still have he opportunity to go out into the community to rebuild their lives.

The 2 million+ being left behind simply wouldn’t have that option or they would on the basis they’re taking a risk because society has moved on.

If we continue to let Covid spread, fail to contain, other industries suffer. Why is the travel industry more important than the office related economy? Failing to contain, including rushing to have foreign travel whilst cases are rising and majority not fully vaccinated, increases the likelihood of continued work from home.

Ongoing work from home will mean many many lost jobs and livelihoods, and the loss of revenue from the office economy will cost us many billions. (It's also shitter customer service but that's another matter).

@Tealightsandd

I see what you're saying Olly And it's definitely an airborne disease.

I just think too many people (not you) don't understand it's a vascular disease.

Almost every country in Africa has a better organise, more efficient and cheaper test test and trace system for infectious diseases. This is because they keep it local and low tech and because they have to use it reasonably often.

Countries like Taiwan have high tech solutions but those were laid over a system that was already in place and effective . Technology is never a substitute for an effective process, it is an aid to one.

The app in this country is worse than useless, even the track and trace call centre is useless. Effective public health disease control is ALWAYS best done locally, but in the UK we dismantled out local public network a few years ago as we though we wouldn't ever need it again . So instead we threw a lot of money and hasty technology at the problem in a panic at the last minute and wonder why it is so ineffective .

For all those blindly following scientific consensus (especially where politically useful) - it might be useful to take a step back and consider the philosophy of science. Science is aways done by people in particular contexts. Some treatments are given emergency licence, some trials are funded by drug companies, some trials are carried out by physicians who can't get funding.

For example, are you aware of the hugely influential theories of Thomas Kuhn? Forgive the wiki synopsis but assuming this is unknown.

"Kuhn made several claims concerning the progress of scientific knowledge: that scientific fields undergo periodic "paradigm shifts" rather than solely progressing in a linear and continuous way, and that these paradigm shifts open up new approaches to understanding what scientists would never have considered valid before; and that the notion of scientific truth, at any given moment, cannot be established solely by objective criteria but is defined by a consensus of a scientific community. Competing paradigms are frequently incommensurable; that is, they are competing and irreconcilable accounts of reality. Thus, our comprehension of science can never rely wholly upon "objectivity" alone. Science must account for subjective perspectives as well, since all objective conclusions are ultimately founded upon the subjective conditioning/worldview of its researchers and participants."

Ivermectin may be a case in point. You don't have to imagine a conspiracy. It is a normal part of scientific progress (even in normal times) for unexpected efficacy to be ignored until there is a build up of overwhelming evidence in the face of the previously dominant paradigm. Hence the terms of 'scientific revolution' and 'paradigm shift'.

The reason why some believe this to be criminal is because these aren't normal times and the rule book has been thrown out of the window to protect the economy (and has been hugely successful in terms of making the already rich richer and increasingly inequality both at home and abroad).

So experimental vaccine treatment with no safety record was given emergency licence. But ivermectin, with a huge safety record, was banned. Surely if there was no known risk ivermectin should have been granted emergency licence so that doctors could use it in the face of no alternative? It's supposed efficacy was known about before vaccines were even available to the elderly and vulnerable. Reams of data regarding the efficacy of ivermectin is dismissed in favour of suck it and see data still being collected in the real world by people that never consented to be part of a trial.

Even now we are waiting to see because no other country in the world has faced high number of vaccinations prior to a to a new wave with dominance of a new variant. There is no precedent.

As data emerges the 'yeah but' arguments are falling by the wayside. We now have exponential increase of positive tests, hospitalisation and death. We can't easily compare this as the way the data is collected and presented has changed - we now have under and over 50 plus lots of detail about vaccination status. But the unvaccinated are lumped together - we don't know if they were eligible due to age or condition or whether they refused etc.

Know one knows for sure based on scientific evidence or precedent. So open debate. Caution. Don't do anything that could make things worse by making fool hardy assumptions.

So experimental vaccine treatment with no safety record was given emergency licence. But ivermectin, with a huge safety record, was banned. Surely if there was no known risk ivermectin should have been granted emergency licence so that doctors could use it in the face of no alternative? It's supposed efficacy was known about before vaccines were even available to the elderly and vulnerable. Reams of data regarding the efficacy of ivermectin is dismissed in favour of suck it and see data still being collected in the real world by people that never consented to be part of a trial.

@KOKOagainandagain

The vaccines were tested, as per the protocol for existing vaccines, which proved safety and efficacy. They were then rolled out to the general population.

There is no good evidence for the efficacy of ivermectin in treating COVID. The previous work hasn't been dismissed -it's been carefully reviewed and the consensus opinion is that the methodological issues in studies which did show a positive effect mean that it cannot be used to prove efficacy.

It is unethical to give a drug treatment to patients based on personal belief, when there is no good basis and when it causes side effects. The fact that it is safe and effective for parasitic disease does not automatically make it safe and effective for coronavirus. It's really that simple.

It hasn't been banned - it's being tested as of this moment in clinical trials as per EMA guidance. If evidence is found that it is both effective and safe, it will be used.

@ollyollyoxenfree 🏆for patience.

But you do realise that the vaccines weren't tested per usual protocol - which takes a long time - but were granted emergency/temporary licence for the treatment of Covid?

Because of the pandemic and lack of other approved treatments?

There is no need to pretend otherwise.

So vaccine technology that predated Covid was granted temporary licence pending further data because it might help. Fair enough.

Treatments developed pre-Covid that have been used by millions for years can be granted temporary licence if they might help, pending further data. Especially when most of the population of the world is unvaccinated.

What is the perceived harm if it is safe but does not work but is cheaply and easily available when vaccine isn't? But what if it is accidentally anti-viral? Drugs are repurposed all the time when it turns out they have beneficial effect beyond the narrow effect they were designed for.

But you do realise that the vaccines weren't tested per usual protocol - which takes a long time - but were granted emergency/temporary licence for the treatment of Covid? Because of the pandemic and lack of other approved treatments? There is no need to pretend otherwise.

@KOKOagainandagain this has been discussed to death on threads - the vaccines were subjected to the same testing existing vaccines were. This was sped up massively by all funding and other barriers being removed (which itself can take years), and running some phases in parallel. No one is "pretending". If you're not convinced about safety you don't need to be vaccinated, but there's no need to spread misinformation.

Treatments developed pre-Covid that have been used by millions for years can be granted temporary licence if they might help, pending further data. Especially when most of the population of the world is unvaccinated. What is the perceived harm if it is safe but does not work but is cheaply and easily available when vaccine isn't? But what if it is accidentally anti-viral? Drugs are repurposed all the time when it turns out they have beneficial effect beyond the narrow effect they were designed for.

Yes exactly - this has been the point of RCTs which have been set up to quickly evaluate whether existing drugs can be repurposed to treat COVID. Corticosteroids including dexamethasone were identified in this manner, and are now given to certain groups of patients. Note that they weren't given out until safety and efficacy had been proven, just because they have been shown to be "safe" in the treatment of other conditions.

There is currently no evidence ivermectin is effective in treating COVID, and as I have said, RCTs are now evaluating efficacy, and if it is found to be both safe and improves outcomes, it will be routinely used. The biological rationale for ivermectin is not as strong as for other existing medications, which is why it was not prioritised in RCTs at the very beginning of the pandemic. The harm in using ivermectin off-license when you have no idea if it works is that it can cause side effects, right now clinicians don't know the optimum dose, and outcomes can't be robustly tracked. The RCTs will allow us to identify if it does have a causal effect, and if it should be rolled out as a viable treatment.

[quote JesusInTheCabbageVan]@ollyollyoxenfree 🏆for patience.[/quote]
for all

I have honestly no idea why there are so many new posters suddenly touting ivermectin as the nectar of the gods, it's really strange!

I have honestly no idea why there are so many new posters suddenly touting ivermectin as the nectar of the gods, it's really strange!

I'm doing a BBQ tomorrow. If this stuff only costs 1p per gallon, maybe I can buy a load and use it as salad dressing. Cheap, kills tapeworm, kills COVID. What's not to love?

@cantkeepawayforever

Well we’ve already vaccinated over 80% with a first dose, but obviously there’s a way to go with the second. But hopefully the end is in sight?

Over 80% or PEOPLE or over 80% of ADULTS?

To achieve herd immunity, you need 80-90% of every group within society, so the chances are that an infected individual will niot meet an unvaccinated one to pass the virus on 9or does so so rarely that pockets of infection don't spread).

Wuith vaccination only in adults, the nearly 100% of children who are unvaccinated (and are in non-Covid safe environments for many hours a day) can very cheerfully keep the pandemic going by continuing to pass the infection around amongst themselves....

You’re forgetting that people can also be immune after contracting the virus. I would say that quite a few young people are already immune.