Half vaxxed friends getting Delta

[Porridgeislife]

Has anyone had a notable uptick in friends getting Delta over the last week? I’ve now got 4 friends infected - one very sick (full week off work), two a bit under the weather and one only found out due to a PCR for foreign travel.

We are all mid to late 30s so half vaxxed with Pfizer or Moderna. One has a fully vaxxed mother & husband who haven't been infected whilst her unvaccinated young children have. All working from home and have been for 15 months.

I’ve been quite relaxed about Covid and just taking the usual masks, hands, space precautions suggested by the government (given my age) plus got vaccinated as soon as allowed. However throughout it all, I’ve never had so many friends sick at once - it seems Delta is much, much more contagious?

"Yes I agree that Covid may become endemic and like a flu virus in that we will build some degree of immunity, mainly by children getting infected constantly but it will take decades I think, certainly not be "done in 12 weeks""

It didn't take long for bird flu to move from being a scary epidemic to just one of the flus we get every year.

@MrsSkylerWhite

IndigoC

“Or we could do what our East Asian friends have always done and keep wearing masks on public transit to protect our vulnerable from colds, flus and Covid-19.

It’s such a tiny thing, a small act of empathy, I don’t understand why it bothers Brits so“

Absolutely, that’s all part and parcel of learning to live with it as far as I’m concerned. Our family will continue to do so and socially distance too whenever we reasonably can. Covid aside, none of us, including my CEV husband and youngest asthmatic child have been ill during the past 16 months (aside from condition-related problems) which to me speaks for itself.

We spent a lot of time with work in Hong Kong/Singapore and Tokyo over 25 years ago: even then, masks were commonplace. In Tokyo in particular, taxi drivers, bus and train drivers/conductors and food retail assistants all wore gloves.

I don’t understand the British mask outrage either.

Learning to live with it doesn’t mean throwing caution to the wind and being daft.

They're uncomfortable. They're really hard to deal with if you wear glasses. They hinder communication and muffle voices. If it's hot you're stewing in your own sweat. They give you spots - yes, I know spots are better than Covid!

19 July is too early to stop masking. However, once the pandemic is over, I won't wear one again. I definitely won't be wearing one to stop a cold!

I think it is a concern that so many vaccinated people are getting ill, as surely that will mean more vaccine resistant mutations ?

@SirVixofVixHall

I think it is a concern that so many vaccinated people are getting ill, as surely that will mean more vaccine resistant mutations ?

Not many double vaccinated are getting Covid. It's just they're the ones telling everyone so it distorts the facts. The double vaccinated people who haven't caught Covid are the vast majority. It's not 100% the same as any vaccine.

At work in ED yesterday... again zero Covid admissions. 2 patients with Covid, neither vaccinated, neither needed admission. This is out of about 400 patients. With the numbers here in London that would be impossible pre vaccine. The vaccines are working!

My nephew, 28 who was double vaxxed got Covid at the end of June. confirmed with a positive lateral and then PRC test.

He was really unwell for the first week. Like really bad flu, with high temp, no coughing but no sense of smell. Too unwell to work for the first week although he is WFH. He could barely get out of bed.

He gradually got better on the second week and is now OK. His family all had to self isolate and luckily were all vaxxed so they didn't catch it from him.

But I dread to think what would have happened if any of them had not had the vax and how much worse it would have been his parents would definitely have caught it off him and they are over 65 however careful to socially distance indoors.

@user1473450164

PHE data reported 27 June:

117 total deaths
44 unvaccinated
23 single dose
50 fully vaccinated

Working in an ED, you will no doubt be aware of the difficulty of vaccinating for respiratory infections.

[quote TatianaBis]@user1473450164

PHE data reported 27 June:

117 total deaths
44 unvaccinated
23 single dose
50 fully vaccinated

Working in an ED, you will no doubt be aware of the difficulty of vaccinating for respiratory infections.[/quote]
Yes I am well aware. However I am also aware that people receive sound bites if data without seeing the big picture. The big picture is that vaccines were never going to be 100% fully effective so some people, mostly very high risk people and the very elderly their immune response will not be good enough from the vaccine. So there will still be deaths, just like there is from the flu after people have received the vaccine.

However the vaccines are highly effective for the overwhelming majority of patients. It's a hard comparative for those who contract Covid after 2 jabs to appreciate that they are experiencing mild Covid, as they likely do not know how ill they may have been with the infection without the vaccine.

Working in an ED we see things before they are reported and responded to. Last December about 40/50% of our patients were Covid patients, a lot very sick, some critical. Most admitted. This was 3 weeks before lockdown. Not dissimilar numbers of Covid cases in the community. The comparison is stark. What I see clinically in vaccines are working bloody well!

@DuckbilledSplatterPuff

My nephew, 28 who was double vaxxed got Covid at the end of June. confirmed with a positive lateral and then PRC test.

He was really unwell for the first week. Like really bad flu, with high temp, no coughing but no sense of smell. Too unwell to work for the first week although he is WFH. He could barely get out of bed.

He gradually got better on the second week and is now OK. His family all had to self isolate and luckily were all vaxxed so they didn't catch it from him.

But I dread to think what would have happened if any of them had not had the vax and how much worse it would have been his parents would definitely have caught it off him and they are over 65 however careful to socially distance indoors.

Exactly this. No one who gets Covid post vaccine really knows how much worse it could have been without the vaccine.

Our whole house (except DD 20 - one Pfizer jab) has covid. Started with eldest son (18) group 4 so double vaxxed ages ago with AZ - he's tested positive and had classic symptoms. Then DS 17 got it (2 days after first son got symptoms) - classic symptoms, then the rest of the children ages 14, 11, 9, 7, 4 and 7 months. All classic symptoms except 9yr old who only has a sore throat. The other all have temperature, cough, runny nose, very sore throat and not feeling well. DH and I are nearly 3 weeks double vaxxed with AZ and we have gastric symptoms but no respiratory symptoms - I also had a headache but that's gone. We are 9 days into things now and original 2 sons are still pretty unwell. Also note that we kept first person confined to his bedroom once he developed symptoms and he has his own bathroom. Second son was confined to his room and if using the toilet wore a mask. I'm assuming we all have the delta variant - it is VERY contagious!! Ds caught it from work, from a colleague - he wears a mask!

I know four people that have caught covid despite being double vaxxed and two of them have also had covid before.

@user1473450164

One could argue that PHE data is the big picture rather than a snapshot of one ED.

There are two factors at play: one, lockdown and two the vaccine rollout.

We locked down in December precisely because there are a large number of cases and they were rising fast.

With or without a vaccine, lockdown on its own would have reduced cases, we have the proof of last year’s lockdown for that.

So both are doing their job, but we can’t actually quantify how much is attributable to each as there’s no data.

We do know that flu vaccines are 40%-60% effective. Whether you would describe that as ‘highly effective for the overwhelming majority of patients’ is a matter of perspective.

[quote TatianaBis]@user1473450164

One could argue that PHE data is the big picture rather than a snapshot of one ED.

There are two factors at play: one, lockdown and two the vaccine rollout.

We locked down in December precisely because there are a large number of cases and they were rising fast.

With or without a vaccine, lockdown on its own would have reduced cases, we have the proof of last year’s lockdown for that.

So both are doing their job, but we can’t actually quantify how much is attributable to each as there’s no data.

We do know that flu vaccines are 40%-60% effective. Whether you would describe that as ‘highly effective for the overwhelming majority of patients’ is a matter of perspective.[/quote]
Yes PHE data is the big picture, however people's interpretation of the data may not be. People are bombarded with all kinds of data, mostly stats, it's very easy to loose perspective without it been presented with perspective.

We did not lockdown in December, it was early January when lockdown occurred, so my reference to December was what I was seeing before it was been reported or dealt with. But yes lockdown does reduces cases, as do vaccines but what lockdowns don't do is reduced the severity of illness from Covid. Vaccines are absolutely doing that and there is an abundance of data to support that. How many Covid patients are now in ITU? Not many. As we have been emerging from lockdown since April the data is evolving that the link between infection and critical illness and death is been weakened. To me that is the most crucial part of the vaccines success.

Loose?

London and much of Southern England locked down in December, Christmas was cancelled etc.

There would be many fewer patients in ITU anyway after 5-6 months of lockdown.

The test of the effectiveness of the vaccines will really come in the winter.

@TatianaBis

Loose?

London and much of Southern England locked down in December, Christmas was cancelled etc.

There would be many fewer patients in ITU anyway after 5-6 months of lockdown.

The test of the effectiveness of the vaccines will really come in the winter.

No we entered lockdown number 3 at the start of January, December we were not in a lockdown.

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/timeline-lockdown-web.pdf

I am not sure what your argument is? Is it for extended lockdowns or you don't Believe the abundance of data available about the effectiveness of vaccines?

I live in London, we basically locked down 21 December.

January is when England entered lockdown.

London has never locked down. London less busy than usual is still very busy. Huge numbers of Londoners don't work from home, and the extremely high cost of housing means many of its key workers including doctors and nurses have long commutes to work on public transport.

It's also impossible to describe hundreds of thousands of international arrivals heading straight from Heathrow onto busy public transport as 'lockdown'.

Wrt data on deaths. Remember a significant proportion of Covid patients die after 28 days.

Including many who are apparently recovered and discharged from hospital, who go on to die from Covid caused issues. As it happens months after discharge and with the patient now testing negative, the deaths will be recorded as heart attacks or strokes or sepsis or pneumonia etc. Despite Covid actually being the original cause.

Not that far off 20,000 Londoners are known to be dead from Covid.

Covid (a possibly lab modified disease) is NOT comparable to the flu. As explained many times by the scientific and medical experts.

Covid is much more contagious and has a far higher mortality rate.

There's also sizeable numbers of Long Covid disabilities. The risk of developing Long Covid is significantly higher than of developing any other post viral illness.

@SirVixofVixHall

I think it is a concern that so many vaccinated people are getting ill, as surely that will mean more vaccine resistant mutations ?

Wrt vaccine efficacy. I suspect we might need to give mRNA boosters to people who've had Astrazeneca. Particularly the vulnerable. Obviously that's only when we have enough. Supplies are tight right now.

AZ at about 60% might've been enough - but only if we'd maintained containment measures until getting the majority of the population double jabbed. If and when majority fully vaccinated, virus has then very limited chance to spread - and mutate. Letting in Delta and then allowing it to spread was a major fail.

Biden is right. The best and quickest way out of this, to get the world vaccinated, is a temporary vaccine patent waiver.

Nonetheless country has been in ‘lockdown’ since January.

The U.K. did not lockdown the second time round as hard as it did first.

If you want to argue the toss about people doing their jobs during lockdown, which has always been the case, that’s up to you.

Bear in mind people who were admitted to hospital with a terminal illness who caught Covid in hospital, who were then recorded as a Covid death when actually they died of cancer or dementia. Many elderly dying of ‘Covid’ already had serious underlying conditions they were already dying of.

Astrazeneca potential to give strong protection. But it takes time (and patience). It takes longer to build up. Hence the need for mitigation measures. Particularly simple, cheap, and easy ones. Like masks.

Covid (a possibly lab modified disease) is NOT comparable to the flu

If this is in relation to comments about the flu vaccine, then you’ve missed the point completely.

@TatianaBis

I thought people had given up on that rubbish. The othering narrative of its 'only the elderly' - and apparently only those on their way out. The excess deaths figures tell the real story.

Tens of thousands of people of working age have died in the UK. And no, they weren't all about to die anyway. Even if they were one of The Vulnerable, (millions in the UK), many many people have well managed underlying conditions and participate in society as normal.

And again. It's not just deaths. Potential Long Covid disability means everyone is at risk.

If you want to argue the toss about people doing their jobs during lockdown, which has always been the case, that’s up to you.

Thanks. I'll pass for now.
I'll say it again. London has never been in lockdown. Throughout the pandemic lots of non essential international travellers have arrived at London Heathrow, with most heading straight from the airport onto the busy poorly ventilated public transport.

@TatianaBis

Covid (a possibly lab modified disease) is NOT comparable to the flu

If this is in relation to comments about the flu vaccine, then you’ve missed the point completely.

No. You're missing the point.

@TatianaBis

I live in London, we basically locked down 21 December.

January is when England entered lockdown.

I live in London too and I certainly wasn't in lockdown until January. We went into tier 4 which was not really lockdown at all. My neighbours went to Christmas at Kew on Xmas eve, so hardly lockdown!