I don’t understand why infections are rising so sharply

[MissChanandlerBong22]

Just looking at the stats for my area. 60% of adults double jabbed. 80% have had one jab. Yet cases aren’t much lower than they were during the height of the pandemic in January.

I appreciate that hospital admissions and deaths are much lower of course. But I’m struggling to understand why cases are still so high. Is the virus spreading wildly among the 20% of unvaccinated adults? Or among the 20% of unvaccinated adults and the 20% of single jabbed adults? Or is it still circulating around everyone, but people who’ve been jabbed generally aren’t developing symptoms?

@MissChanandlerBong22

Were we ever told that if you're vaccinated you won't catch it?

I don’t know, but I do remember a lot of discussion about how when a certain proportion of the population (often estimated at 70-90%) had antibodies, either through vaccination or natural infection, we’d see a drop in transmission. That doesn’t seem to be happening.

That was before delta - it's more than twice as transmissible than the original variant which means you need more population immunity to block infection. If the vaccines or prior infection gave 100% protection against catching it then we would need to vaccinate/naturally infect somewhere in the region of 85% of the population to reach herd immunity. Unfortunately vaccination and previous infection only give about 80% protection from infection so even if you vaccinated/infected absolutely everyone then you would still get spread.

Oh yes of course like people said, we have more access to lateral flow and pcr tests now so it will be higher. Data stats are a funny one to go off as they are black and white where as the situation has had too many variables influencing it over the past 18 months. It helps to understand those variables behind the data before reading it and taking it for what it is.

Saying that, it’s certainly rife in my area more than it has ever been as I know quite a percentage of schools that have shut and many friends who are ill (including my household) because of covid. In the height of last year and even January this year we didn’t personally know anyone with it!

Couldn’t agree more. We can’t keep living like this for much longer. There is still businesses suffering from these restrictions too. Plus I think for how long this has been going on people will end up dying more from mental illness than covid. We can’t just live the rest of our lives in restrictions. If that’s what someone wants to do, that’s their personal choice and I respect what but people should now be able to make their own decisions going forward now. The whole pandemic I’ve done my part but it’s enough now. There is risks with everything in life, going out, many other illnesses and diseases you could get/catch as well that could also leave you seriously ill or kill you. We can’t live like this forever. I understand people are anxious about everything reopening but seriously how much longer does some people want restrictions to go on for ? I understand their are vulnerable people and I’m sorry for that, and I’m sorry if this sounds bad but does that mean everyone else has to suffer too for the rest of our lives having to live with restrictions ?

I'd also like to know why more isn't being done to prevent "overwhelming the NHS" generally, with heart disease being the biggest killer, and almost nothing being done to prevent it (lifestyle choices etc)

@Schrutesbeets there’s quite a lot of work/money that goes into prevention of heart disease with education, promotions and various screenings; what else would you like to see? How far would you think acceptable to make interventions into peoples lifestyle choices, especially when one of the biggest risk factors for heart disease is age?

It's really interesting , isn't it. 60% sounds a lot. If you work it through though - if you had 200,000 adults in the population, that means 120,000 (60%) are double jabbed. If vaccines are around 90% effective 108,000 of those will develop immunity, leaving 10% - 12,000 not protected. 40,000 people have had one jab, so about 50% of them, 20,000 are not protected. And then the remaining unvaccinated 20% or 40,000 adults are also not protected. That adds up to 72,000 adults, that's almost exactly one third of the adult population not protected. Then add your under 18s and, depending on how the population in your area is made up, maybe getting on for half your population has no protection.

Vaccination coverage doesn't need to be that high if prevalence is low, but with high prevalence and higher than expected transmissability, two thirds coverage doesn't seem to be enough to really suppress the spread. IMO it may have created the impression that the vaccines don't stop you getting it. I think they probably do stop most people getting it, but not all, and because a lot of people are getting it now, everyone almost inevitably knows someone who's jabbed who's got covid. That is just MO.

I suppose some double-jabbed people who aren't protected (i.e the 10% ) will be amongst the old and vulnerable, which could mean we could get a rise in deaths as more of them get it. We have been told that vaccination reduces risk of serious illness even if you get covid, but I don't think we know by how much. What % die in vaccinated compared to unvaccinated? Numbers of deaths have been (happily) small since vaccinations rolled out, so do we have enough data to really know this?

Our school has several cases and has now closed. Think vaccined parents forget the kids are not vaccinated etc

Everyone I know at the moment who has it is double jabbed. The vaccine doesn't stop you catching or passing on covid, you just get less ill. The people I know are virtually asymptomatic. We will all get it at some point

Children? It's spreading around schools here.

I’m going to guess that’s at least part of it. Our schools have been off a fortnight and case numbers are declining here. SNP have always kept quiet over how many cases are school related so it’s difficult to say for sure but it’s a hell of a coincidence.

Think vaccined parents forget the kids are not vaccinated etc

We don’t forget, there’s just not a hell of a lot we can do about it.

The heatmap for my LA shows the biggest numbers in between ages 10 to early 30s, with the very largest group late teens and early 20s. And these are mainly the groups who are either stuck together in huge bubbles at secondary school, or out socialising in large numbers at the weekend.

@gillysSong

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Myself and DH both double jabbed and so are 2 close family members. All had covid last week. Flu like, headaches, cough, sore throats.

Several reasons
Not all vaccinated esp those who mix the most ie school kids and sociable younger bods
Vaccines reduce transmission not stop it
Delta variant
Lowest level of restrictions we've had since March 20 and lower compliance levels

@BoredZelda

Think vaccined parents forget the kids are not vaccinated etc

We don’t forget, there’s just not a hell of a lot we can do about it.

Of course, sorry, I didnt mean it in that way

Bananasareyellow. Something came out from Imperial College yesterday.

Both vaccines are 95% effective against dying.

I know more people now that currently have covid than in the last year.
They have all had 2 doses. They all have symptoms hence how they know to do a test.
Lots of people think they are invincible once they have had them.

@BoredZelda

Think vaccined parents forget the kids are not vaccinated etc

We don’t forget, there’s just not a hell of a lot we can do about it.

This exactly.

Yet cases aren’t much lower than they were during the height of the pandemic in January.

You presumably mean new cases per day? Actual absolute numbers are not as high as Jan.

About 35M people are double jabbed, that's half the UK population. Only about 700,000 people actually have the disease at them moment. There are a lot more people to infect.

It's currently taking about 2 weeks to double- that's still slower than it did in winter when restrictions were loosened.

It's quite possible that next winter's peak might be 10x where we are now. I suspect the numbers killed by annual covid will still dwarf those from flu for the next few years- just not nearly as many as it would have been without the vaccine.

It's really interesting , isn't it. 60% sounds a lot. If you work it through though - if you had 200,000 adults in the population, that means 120,000 (60%) are double jabbed. If vaccines are around 90% effective 108,000 of those will develop immunity, leaving 10% - 12,000 not protected. 40,000 people have had one jab, so about 50% of them, 20,000 are not protected. And then the remaining unvaccinated 20% or 40,000 adults are also not protected. That adds up to 72,000 adults, that's almost exactly one third of the adult population not protected. Then add your under 18s and, depending on how the population in your area is made up, maybe getting on for half your population has no protection.

Yes! That was what surprised me so much, because 60% sounds so high - and a further 20% having one jab sounds even higher.

But as you say, when you work it through - add the under-18s in, take account of the unvaccinated adults, take account of the fact that no vaccine is 100% effective - then you realise actually 60% of the adult population isn’t such a huge number after all.

The vaccine doesn't stop spread or experiencing symptoms, it just reduces the liklihood of death or hospital admissions

The latest variant is far more contagious, but less deadly (esp. as people have had their jabs.)

It’s not less deadly. I thought it was the same or more deadly as the old one. It’s vaccines making it less deadly.

I'm in Scotland and the overwhelming majority of cases are in the 25-44 age group with a large representation from the younger age groups too. So basically everyone who hasn't been doubled jabbed (our vaccine is 3-4 weeks behind England in most areas from what I can tell from friends of a similar age).
Interestingly though, our schools now into their 3rd week of school holidays and case numbers locally peaked on 30th June and have been going down since so hopefully that means the outbreaks that were rampaging through schools at the end of term are burning themselves out. However, the number of people in hospital has quadrupled in the last month!
It's going to get worse before it gets better!

Obviously increased mixing has made cases rise, which was expected. Also it will always spread around schools in term time.

Last time we had rates in the 30,000s was early December, but we had 3 times as many people in hospital. I was looking at a graph yesterday and currently was have 500 or so, and back in December it was almost 2000 hospitalisations. So the jabs are having an effect for sure.

I do wonder how high the rates will keep getting though? It must level off at some point surely.

@IndiaMay

Everyone I know at the moment who has it is double jabbed. The vaccine doesn't stop you catching or passing on covid, you just get less ill. The people I know are virtually asymptomatic. We will all get it at some point

Ah but you see, that could be backwards logic. You know (say) 10 people who have covid even though they are double-jabbed, so you think wow double jabbing offers no protection. But if you also know 100 people who are double jabbed but don't have it, you might not think about them but that would be perfectly consistent with the findings of the trials. Like I said before. Just a theory :)