France pulls out the big guns!

[NotPregnantJustChubs]

I live in France and Macron has just made a speech saying that from the end of July, vaccination or a negative test is going to be compulsory for cultural and entertainment venues. From August, it’ll be compulsory for cafes and restaurants too. This applies to all 12+.

PCR tests will become paid as of September, to encourage vaccination.

I’m already vaccinated, thankfully, and I do think it’s necessary to contain the delta variant. But wowza, I’m waiting to hear the backlash in the morning. Macron is up for reelection next year as well, they must be very desperate to contain this…

Sorry no I don't know. It would be interesting if there was a way of finding out. I don't suppose they could tell unless everybody had antibody tests?

@Tealightsandd
So in theory, it could be only people without natural or vaccine immunity who are needing up very sick in hospital and dying.
Am sure a lot of Americans have previous positive PCR tests. It’s only those of us who were sick early 2020 who have ended up having no proof of having COVID except if we tested positive for antibodies after.

It could be. But it could also be that people are catching it more than once because of different strains, like Delta.

@SoOvethis

I am not an expert, but if 56% of the general population are vaccinated and 56% of people testing positive are vaccinated, that might suggest that vaccination makes no difference to the chance of infection? But we already know it reduces it.

If the figures are correct, he doesn't mention other possible reasons for them, like maybe those who are vaccinated take more risks than those who are not, or they are all people who were vaccinated several months ago whose immunity is waning, or the numbers are skewed by a big outbreak in care homes full of elderly and vulnerable people who are less protected.

I think you will find he is very far from confused. He is a very intelligent and articulate person.

He made a mistake when he was saying those stats, that's why I am a bit suspicious. Plus where is he getting these figures from?

@crocidura
One of previous poster mentioned similar statistics so it must be somewhere.

I must have missed him making a mistake? Can you tell me which part of that it was? And how do you know it was a mistake? Did he correct himself?

Also, if your logic is correct, maybe that is the case, it isn’t stopping them actually contracting the disease. I still don’t agree that it equates to that though.

I have to say the minute there is any question about natural immunity vs vaccine immunity it is met with such scrutiny and people seem to just not want to believe there is any other protection possible than just being double jabbed!

@Tealightsandd
I don’t know anyone who has had it twice. That obviously means nobody I know has caught a different strain.
Don’t you think, based on the scaremongering that happens in the media that they would been shouting out loud about all these previous covid positive patients catching it again?

Herd immunity isn’t possible with the delta variant. Double vaccinated people are getting infected at higher rates than with previous strains.

I don't know any vaccine that has 100% protection. Just because delta is more contagious does not mean vaccines don't work.
www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-how-well-covid-19-vaccines-work-against-the-delta-variant

@G5000

Is that his comment?

That makes though no? If vaccines are not stopping people actually getting the disease and transmitting it, clearly it can’t on its own give herd immunity.

The vaccines though are working very well at making people not become as ill as they might possibly have otherwise. And that is a big enough bonus in my opinion. But it’s clearly not stopping the disease transmission!

Meant to write that makes sense no?

They’re two different considerations

No herd immunity doesn’t imply they’ve stopped working against most hospitalisation/ death

I agree with So

SoOveThis I really don't know. The likelihood of reinfection seems uncertain at this stage. There's this article. It suggests it's more of a risk with the Delta and Beta strains. How much, I don't know.

www.washingtonpost.com/business/can-you-get-covid-twice-what-reinfection-cases-really-mean/2021/04/11/1c738674-9b29-11eb-b2f5-7d2f0182750d_story.html

What I do know is that data coming from America looks promising wrt Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Almost 100% of the deaths are in the unvaccinated over there.

[quote G5000]Herd immunity isn’t possible with the delta variant. Double vaccinated people are getting infected at higher rates than with previous strains.

I don't know any vaccine that has 100% protection. Just because delta is more contagious does not mean vaccines don't work.
www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-how-well-covid-19-vaccines-work-against-the-delta-variant[/quote]
I didn’t say they didn’t work. They’re reducing the risk of serious illness and death. But if vaccinated people are still getting infected and can transmit the virus then it will continue to spread so herd immunity through vaccination isn’t possible.

@Tealightsandd

Data from America, where some states have much higher percentage of fully vaccinated than Israel, suggests that the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) do work very well.

It's the less vaccinated states and the unvaccinated Americans who are being hit hard by Covid now.

Almost 100% of the deaths in the US are in the unvaccinated.

Strange considering the majority of our deaths are still in the elderly (who have a high rate of vaccine uptake)

Does anyone have any info on long covid in vaccinated people (ie people who are vaccinated and then catching covid)?

They’re reducing the risk of serious illness and death. But if vaccinated people are still getting infected and can transmit the virus then it will continue to spread so herd immunity through vaccination isn’t possible.

Early figures from the real-world studies in the UK in May found that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine were 88 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic infection with the Delta variant. A month later, that number was revised down to 79 per cent by Scottish researchers. Canadian scientists on Saturday, using a combination of methods, estimated that the Pfizer jab was 87 per cent effective at preventing infection with the Delta variant.

He says "on the other hand, only 1% of daily cases are of people who previously tested positive for COVID, despite those who previously tested positive for Covid making up 9% of the population. Only 1% of them are the daily cases."

He is saying two different things by mistake, just because his language is not precise enough:

1. 1% of daily cases are in people who have previously tested positive
2. 1% of people who have previously tested positive are now among the daily cases

Then he mentions hospitalisation out of nowhere, which he hasn't given any data at all for. It's all a bit shonky. He doesn't correct himself, no.

Also, if your logic is correct, maybe that is the case, it isn’t stopping them actually contracting the disease.

Vaccination was never supposed to stop infection, it was supposed to reduce the effects of Covid. That's why we still have to wear masks after vaccination, because we can still catch it and transmit it. But happily it turned out that it does reduce the chance of infection too. That's why I'm a bit suspicious of vaccinated people being represented in the daily cases in the same proportions as they are in the population.

@crocidura
I am not sure how you don’t see that those are the same things…
1% of people testing positive are 1% when you would expect it to be 9% if following similar pattern to those double jabbed getting it.
So 1% of daily cases previously tested positive means the same when he says 9% of population have previously tested positive and 1% of them are the daily cases.
Makes sense to me.
I will agree thought that I wasn’t sure what he was referring to in terms of hospitalisation as I thought he was talking about positive cases, not the number of people going into hospital with Covid.

He said two things that are completely different.

1% of the daily cases are people who have previously tested positive.

1% of the people who have previously tested positive are now among the daily cases.

The numbers are rough but imagine you have a population of 10 million people. 10%, or 1 million of them have previously tested positive for Covid. At the moment you are seeing 800 new cases per day.

The first thing he says is that 1% of the daily cases are people who have previously tested positive. So out of 800 daily cases, 8 are people who have previously tested positive. Sounds vaguely plausible.

This is not the same as what he says next: 1% of the people who have previously tested positive are now among the daily cases. This would mean that of the 1 million people who have previously tested positive, 1%, or 10,000 people, are now among the daily cases. It obviously doesn't make sense. I think he meant the first version and came a bit unstuck with the second, but it's why it's better to get this information from people who know how to deliver it accurately, ie scientists or science journalists.

Strange considering the majority of our deaths are still in the elderly (who have a high rate of vaccine uptake)

Firstly, do you know that for sure? The ages of the current deaths?

Secondly, lots of our elderly had Astrazeneca. In America the majority of people are getting the mRNA vaccines.

And finally, vaccine coverage varies by area. In London around 47% of over 80s haven't been vaccinated.

AstraZeneca has never been approved in the US
Talking to my GO (in France) he thinks the AstraZeneca vaccine will disappear completely soon as there are so many health risks associated with it for the under 55

@LaChatte

Does anyone have any info on long covid in vaccinated people (ie people who are vaccinated and then catching covid)?

That would be good to know. I'm not sure if there's any data yet?

I think astrazeneca is good (and all vaccines, and any drug) have rare side effects. But it's not as effective as the mRNA vaccines against Delta, and even less for the Beta strain.

AZ are working on tweaked boosters though so perhaps that will change things. Hopefully that will be the case.

If vaccines are not stopping people actually getting the disease and transmitting it, clearly it can’t on its own give herd immunity.

Sorry I don't quite get what you're saying - vaccines are 80-90% effective in preventing infection. Not just severe disease or death, infection.

@crocidura
Obviously we are interpreting it totally different as I still don’t see that he said what you are saying.
1% of daily cases is the same as saying it’s 1% but you would expect it to be 9% if following similar path to percentage of those double jabbed getting COVID.