What if the vaccines hasn’t broken the link

[DisposableNamechange]

Between infection and death.

What if it’s just slowed it down? (Ie more time elapses between becoming infected and dying.)

I’d been wondering this anyway but deaths have increased by a bigger percentage than infections, according to Sky.

‘COVID cases in the past week have risen by just over 27% compared with the previous week while deaths have risen by two thirds.’

@DisposableNamechange

Between infection and death.

What if it’s just slowed it down? (Ie more time elapses between becoming infected and dying.)

I’d been wondering this anyway but deaths have increased by a bigger percentage than infections, according to Sky.

‘COVID cases in the past week have risen by just over 27% compared with the previous week while deaths have risen by two thirds.’

In the autumn winter of 2020 when covid cases rose so did covid hospital admissions, and so did covid deaths. (After a lag)

In Summer 2021, when covid cases rise so do covid hospital admissions, and so do covid deaths. (After a lag.)

If we had no covid cases we would have no covid hospital admissions and no covid deaths.

Therefore, covid cases and covid hospital admissions and covid deaths are still inextricably linked.

@NannyAndJohn

Anyone with half a brain, *@OliveTree75*.

Whereas people with a whole brain can.look at the nu.bers snd see the beneficial impact of vaccination

Where did I say that vaccines weren't working?

@NannyAndJohn

Where did I say that vaccines weren't working?

In your first post where you agreed with the “what if the vaccines hasn’t broken the link” by stating that is what “we have been saying for months”.

Certain posters have been wanging on about 'lag' for months. Confidently predicting that in two/four/six weeks' time we would be seeing deaths in their hundreds every day. They're still parping on about 'lag' even now.

@MRex what an utterly disgusting thing to say

Really @Nerdygirl? They've run about ignoring rules and putting others at risk because they deny covid is serious. They've been offered a vaccine, but declined it. Then they're sick and offered treatment, but cause hassle for the doctors and nurses. Why should anyone care what happens to people who don't give a shit about anyone else in society?

Wow , I hope you are not in any position of power or education with those awful unempathetic and divisive views . There are many reasons that people may have and any human being with any decency would never wish anyone dead even if they disagreed with their choices.

Perhaps you want double vaxxed people who have gone to Wembley or similar to be treated the same as after all they have put themselves at unnecessary risk

I dont think someone in hospital for something they are still denying exists even whilst they are being treated for its remotely comparable to double vaxxed people getting ill.

Don't think MRex wished them dead either, thats just something you made up.

@TheVampiresWife

Certain posters have been wanging on about 'lag' for months. Confidently predicting that in two/four/six weeks' time we would be seeing deaths in their hundreds every day. They're still parping on about 'lag' even now.

If they are putting it as vaguely as that, then they are speaking off the cuff.

Hospitalisation start about a week after symptoms begin. Deaths begin about a week after that. Yes it can be longer or shorter (longer when there are more treatments to try).

When there is also a publishing lag (hospital admission are 4 days older than the positive cases stats - they sometimes do got out of step but not usually that big a gap, and not usually for so many days in a row) then of course it can get misleading. Which is unfortunate around the times when decisions are being made.

But there's no doubt that the link is weakened.

Or that even with a weak link, if the number of cases goes very high (which it appears to be doing) then the number of admissions will also become large. A smaller percentage of a bigger number can still be large. That is what they appear to be set on testing out this summer.

What a vile viewpoint @MRex. You talk about people not giving a shit about others in society, yet that's precisely what you're doing.

This pandemic has truly brought out the worst in some people.

Then we're all doomed then, aren't we?!

Lockdown forever?

Perhaps accept we're not immortal, accept we're statistically more likely to die from falling down the stairs at home and just get on with life?

Dying in an accident in your own home has no impact on other people.

It's more like reckless driving - where you may or may not die but you are very likely to injure or kill other people. That's why we have speed limits and the Highway Code, not just seat belts and airbags.

The snag being that when it's a brand new type of infectious disease then close contact (that is usually part of everyday life) becomes the equivalent of reckless driving. So we have SD and quarantine, not just immunisation.

And the need lasts for as long as the disease can still produce large numbers of patients ill enough to require hospital admission or disrupt life in other ways (large numbers off sick simultaneously, people refusing to do roles with high infection/death rates - like driving buses)

The need does not go away because it's summer and people start complaining that they're sick of it, or adopt the rhetoric of 'if not now then when' as if there would never be a better time, or there could not possibly be other approaches than cliff edge during time of rising cases.

I think there are a few people - indeed posters on here - who are desperate for vaccines to be shown to be ineffective. The trouble is that if their wish is granted and they aren’t the magic bullet or even a pretty good bullet then their desire for harsh lockdowns and endless restrictions totally backfires, because vaccination is really our only way forward. And if they don’t work, then we’ll just have to get on with it. Lockdowns were to buy time, not to be an end in themselves.

What Dotty said

There are also plenty of posters on here who knock back every note if caution about things we’re not sure of yet by claiming posters are desperate for vaccines to be shown to be ineffective or for lockdown to continue. Presumably because they don’t have any actual argument to make.

Covid has made for some very all or nothing thinking though where we either have to have one thing or another. If something is true something else cant be,

It is true that there will always be a lag between cases rising and hospitalisations rising and then deaths rising. It is also true that as cases rise so too will the others.

But it is also true that vaccines have had a huge impact on this and have brought down the hospitalisations from I think a rate of between 35 admissions per 100 000 to 1.9 admissions per 100 000 people . To a much more manageable number.

But as cases rises so too will the numbers - just not at a rate hopefully that will overwhelm the NHS.

The problem is that we can neither realistically lockdown again nor do vaccines work 100%. We have to move from the idea of its all or nothing to a more middle ground

I’ve got an argument thank you very much! I think caution is fine, I think mask wearing indoors should continue, I think international travel should be policed.

But I am not salivating over the prospect of things getting worse or hopeful that all our efforts are null and void.

OP I don't think I understand how the mechanism for what you're describing would work.

So: lets say before there are vaccines, x% of people who are exposed to covid will become infected, y% will need hospitalisation and z% will die.

With vaccine, X-50% who are double jabbed will become infected, y-50% will need hospitalisation and z-50% will die. That isn't breaking the connection, its reducing the effect. Also, the 'delay' mechanism would mean you don't believe there's any effect to the x% who are infected, or the y% who are hospitalised or the z% who die, just that the time between x being infected and z dying is somehow longer? I don't really understand how that would work?

The '-50%' figure is just a placeholder, but vaccines work by giving you antibodies. In some people, with some infections, this will mean you won't be infected in the first place. With some others, you'll still be infected but the amount of infection in your system will be reduced, possibly to a level that won't allow you to transmit it to others. We're not 100% sure on how these vaccines work but it seems like its a mix of all three depending on the vaccine given and the recipient.

The issue with the figures at the moment are: 1) the people who are vaccinated are disproportionate across the population: the y% hospitalised and z% who die were never random figures, they were affected by age and health, which also affects who is fully vaccinated at the moment. So you'd expect, in a massive upsurge of cases, that even if the vaccine worked as I suggested it wouldn't have any effect on younger people who were already going to have a lower % of people hospitalised and dead in their cohort.

2. We don't know exactly how variants play in.

3. The relaxation of restrictions mean we're not comparing 'population pre-vaccine under lockdown' to 'population post-vaccine under lockdown' so obviously there will be a change in the figures as more people will be exposed.

4. Some people's bodies do not react to the vaccine, either because they're immune-compromised or for other reasons.

I am really keen to understand the answer to: how many fully vaccinated people will be sick but not seriously effected, if the reduction in this applies evenly across risk groups or not, how foetuses are affected if mothers are vaccinated and the mother still gets ill but only mildly, and how boosters will effect variants. I don't think we have data to be sure about these things. But I feel pretty confident the data is there to suggest the vaccines aren't just producing a time lag in people who go onto contract the virus having been vaccinated.

Also, obviously, I'm v keen to understand what the actual figure is, not the '- 50%' placeholder. We have figures for each vaccine but not really a breakdown of what they do in terms of reducing infection or transmission, just hospitalisation or death, and I'd like to know more about this.

@Nerdygirl - this is who we're talking about: amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/27/hospital-incursions-by-covid-deniers-putting-lives-at-risk-say-leaders.
Then they get sick and want to still berate doctors and nurses when they get into hospital, which puts those medical professionals at greater risk while they shout and delays care for other sick people. I really don't have to sympathise with these dickheads, no.

The number of deaths is so small that it doesn't take much variation to have a notable change in percentage so up 70% from last week doesn't mean much. What is clear that the number of deaths is vastly reduced compared to what it was when we had very high numbers of cases previously.

many of the positive cases each day are in an age group that has not been vaccianted yet, or only had one dose (under 25s).
If the JCVI would only agree to vaccinated under 18s officially then many of the positive cases would not exist and much of the transmission stopped.
Plus even though the JCVI rely on evidence that a longer gap is more effective, there is just as much evidence saying that getting as many people double-vaccinated as soon as possible would actually be more effective.
This is what the US is doing and what we need to do here if we are to rely on vaccination to reopen.
At the moment we are reopening but the vaccination programme is missing a huge section of the population and only partially vaccinating another huge section.

It is a vaccination programme by a government that only partially believes in vaccination.