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?

@poorbuthappy

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

It was obviously implied. They definitely hoped the virus would do that rather than just reduce hospitalisations and deaths.

With Long Covid, some patients have only started experiencing difficulties weeks or even months after an initial mild infection. Some didn't even realise that they'd had Covid.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Covid has a 98% survival rate. We need to live, we can't continue living boring restricted lifestyles, it's ridiculous

As long as you’re not in the 2%. Which is actually quite high.

Yeah, 2% for me means two from my year at school. Not sure which ones I'd sacrifice. I also think restrictions don't have to be all or nothing. Preventing people from seeing friends and family is awful, but not having mass events and wearing masks in certain specific cases is not a big deal.

It was obviously implied. They definitely hoped the virus would do that rather than just reduce hospitalisations and deaths.

Oh for God’s sake it wasn’t. It was constantly reinforced that the clinical trials were only looking at serious illness and death, to the point where you still get MN threads with people confidently claiming that the vaccines do nothing to prevent infection.

It was reinforced by the government constantly telling people that even if they’d been vaccinated they still needed to follow restrictions as there was still a chance they could get it and infect others.

It was said repeatedly at the start of the vaccination programme that there was no data on infection on transmission. Some (including the CSA) said that if it behaved like other vaccine/viruses he expected that there would be some immunity but that there was no evidence to support it.

It was further reinforced when, well into the vaccine programme, we started to get data that vaccines did in fact have a significant preventive effect.

@Gwenhwyfar

"A couple of weeks ago one of my daughter’s housemates went to A&E following a nasty fall. He fractured his ankle and tested positive for Covid (no symptoms) and so will have been included in the stats. He’s now back home and feeling fine - apart from having his leg in plaster"

That was outpatient though presumably, not a 'hospitalisation'.

Yes you're right. The hospitalisation figures are for inpatients.

To balance out your anecdote, up to a third of apparently recovered and discharged from hospital Covid patients die within the next 3-6 months. Often no longer testing positive for Covid, their deaths will have been recorded as heart attacks, strokes, pneumonia, sepsis, blood clots etc.

I’m double jabbed and currently have covid. I’m also careful, still wear a mask and don’t go out much. People are too complacent.

Lung and kidney damage in young people with covid:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/younger-covid-patients-suffering-damage-24524324.amp

Ah but Covid death and disability happens only to Other People.

@Tealightsandd

Absolutely.

In America, where the majority of vaccines given are the mRNA ones (Pfizer and Moderna) 99.5% of the deaths are in the unvaccinated

Pfizer and AZ both have a 95% protection against death. Imperial College published the figures yesterday.

Interesting how there's no figures in there, and a lot he is posting theoretically.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

In America, where the majority of vaccines given are the mRNA ones (Pfizer and Moderna) 99.5% of the deaths are in the unvaccinated

Pfizer and AZ both have a 95% protection against death. Imperial College published the figures yesterday.

That's very good news.

I wonder why though in America almost all the deaths are in the unvaccinated. I thought it might be better protection from mRNA vaccines but perhaps it's something else. Maybe the Israeli suspicion is right. Efficacy wears off after a certain amount of time?

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

In America, where the majority of vaccines given are the mRNA ones (Pfizer and Moderna) 99.5% of the deaths are in the unvaccinated

Pfizer and AZ both have a 95% protection against death. Imperial College published the figures yesterday.

That's fantastic statistics.

Thanks for posting I'd missed that announcement.

I can’t find the link, but here’s a photo of it, although it’s a bit blurry.

@ZZTopGuitarSolo

The way it's being commented on abroad is 'Wow, England is reopening completely despite the fact that 50% are not fully vaccinated, and cases are dramatically rising."

Whereas when I see it talked about on places like MN everyone's focused on the fact that 80% of over-18s have had at least one vaccination, as if that's all it takes to keep rates down and you don't need to worry about the fact that schools are full of non-vaccinated students who are mixing without any social distancing or much masking.

Yep. With our record on deaths in the past people must wonder what hell our politicians are smoking. It's not looking great is it?

We could have kept some sensible restrictions...as listed by PP upthread.

@turtletaub Who is making the decisions about shutting or not shutting the schools when there are x amount of cases (18 in yours)? And why have they taken different decisions this time around? There is a heck of a lot in schools - more than I have heard of previously (small town = everyone knows everyone). Bursting bubbles here there and everywhere. Some nurseries have shut (may be either staff off ill or rates amongst the children - not clear).

@FixTheBone

Funny how nobody said the same about polio or mumps. Fine if you survive, just a little bit of lifelong disability / infertility that you'll have to live with...

Exactly so. I think disability will be much more of a problem than is being recognised. People don't want to think about it. It is going to be a reality for quite a lot of people.

That Mirror story about acute Covid injury was a tad scary too. Organ damage. There is just so much we don't know about this virus - and some of its unpredictable effects.

@ArcheryAnnie very sorry to hear you're still not in a good way a year down the line.

Fingers crossed for you that things will improve given time.

@Getawaywithit agree with all of that.

And I would also include continue with masks - especially for any health setting (including dentist, optician, doctor, hospital); public transport; retail; hairdressers; secondary schools and colleges. And for staff in hospitality.

There's more that could be done (eg a HEPA filter for every classroom like they are doing in New York) but it seems like the government have given up.

If the government hadn't given up, they would at least continue with masks in settings where it doesn't make any difference to the economy. If they're serious that we need to learn to live with covid, that will mean taking reasonable precautions such as masks and regular testing for a little while longer. But they have decided to just let it rip. I worry what this will mean for our kids in September.

Clearly not, don't be hysterical.

Weird - I literally repeated your words, and now I'm hysterical?

@KisstheTeapot14 I've no idea who is making the decisions as to keep schools open in this case, BUT I do know the school were pretty vocal before about it NOT being their decision. They were almost hinting to parents that if they felt the decision was best to keep their children at home, then they understood and that's what should be done. I don't get the impression the teachers are the ones fighting to keep the kids in school. And 18 kids would be nothing in some schools - but this is a small school - and it's not contained to class 'bubbles'

@Schrutesbeets Viruses gon' virus you cracked me up!

Thank you, KissTheTeapot14

@MissChanandlerBong22

Thanks for your responses everyone. Yes I appreciate there are differences between January and now in terms of risk and hospitalisations and deaths and so on. I was just so surprised at the high number of infections in the middle of summer when 80% of the adult population have had at least one jab!

But as posters have said, the vaccine doesn’t stop you from catching and spreading it, the delta variant is highly transmissible, and 20% of the adult population and all the under-18s is actually not a small group of people at all. But it must be absolutely rife in those groups for infections to be only slightly less than they were across the whole population in January!

The two things you have missed out in this list of reasons is that we have almost no restrictions or mitigations. I dread to think what would have happened in the last two waves with no restrictions at all. Also the Delta is twice as contagious

So

• minimal/no restrictions
• twice the infectiousness of last wave
• 20% of the population not vaccinated at all
• Less than 50% of the population fully vaccinated
• vaccine protection is not 100% even for Alpha variant and less effective for delta

All these things add up to a massive rise in the number of infections

If you check the symptoms for long covid they are synonymous with the symptoms any child would have after extensive lockdown and maskwearing

Utter nonsense - it's thanks to people like you who are totally misinformed about masks that we're in this mess after we weren't allowed to have kids wear them in school anymore.

Cases now, with lots of people ditching masks, schools fully open, pubs and restaurants open, people allowed inside others homes, are as high as Christmas when everything was much tighter and people were more vigilant. That's actually not bad considering. Average deaths were over 400 not under 30