Why so many new cases?

[MagicSummer]

I am probably being stupid and slow on the uptake, but could someone please explain to me why our case numbers are rising so quickly again, bearing in mind the huge proportion of people who have now had 2 or even just 1 vaccination? I am feeling very down in the dumps about it all again - it seems like a never-ending nightmare now and I can't see us getting our proper lives back for a very long time yet. So sad.

What's going to stop it?

Nothing. Stop fighting against it and start processing that thought.

Unless they’re showing symptoms, vaccinated people are being allowed to wander freely among the general population, despite the fact that they can still contract and submit the virus. It doesn’t matter that they ‘are less likely to’, they still can.

The whole ‘less likely’ logic doesn’t seem to apply when we talk about younger people being less likely to be seriously ill/die. We still get all the ‘healthy marathon runner stories’.

@TheKeatingFive

What's going to stop it?

Nothing. Stop fighting against it and start processing that thought.

This!

@SquashMinusIsShit

Spreading through people who haven't been vaccinated, cases from the football & schools.

And pubs, restaurants, gyms, fairgrounds, theme parks, non food shops, socialising in eachother's homes, etc. It's been rising ever since the restrictions were relaxed 2/3 months ago. It's classic exponential growth, starts slowly, but then the rate gets faster and faster. We'd still have been seeing pretty similar numbers without the football, wimbledon, etc. It's going to start spreading, whenever and wherever, people are mixing.

What stopped the Spanish Flu? Immunity? Running out of hosts?

If we did nothing at all to stop covid, no vaccines, no restrictions just "let it rip" as MN loves to say, it would result in catastrophic loss of life worldwide, but it would end, eventually. There are only so many people in the world to infect.

Obviously the catastrophic loss of life that approach results in means that is absolutely not a viable option but one way or another covid will stop being the primary focus of the world.

It will become endemic, population immunity will increase and increase and increase through a combination of vaccines, boosters, natural infection and re-exposure to the virus in the community.

Unless NZ can persuade every country in the world to lockdown simultaneously to eradicate covid worldwide it will always be out there and they will have to deal with this too. That's not a criticism of their approach, just an inevitability in my view.

@TheKeatingFive

What's going to stop it?

Nothing. Stop fighting against it and start processing that thought.

Nothing will stop it.

Proper harsh lockdowns/closed borders etc will control it, but as soon as restrictions are relaxed, it WILL come back.

With the current wave, we either live with it and accept the consequences OR we go back into a proper harsh lockdown, no foreign travel, no pubs/restaurants, no non essential shops, no non essential travel/entertainment etc.

It's one or the other. Modest, half cocked, restrictions won't get numbers down.

The whole ‘less likely’ logic doesn’t seem to apply when we talk about younger people being less likely to be seriously ill/die.

Well that's why we've had no social distancing or masks, or money for ventilation in schools, isn't it? And why it's now being argued that kids shouldn't be vaccinated?

@Anonaymoose

and some vaccinated people are testing positive, but thankfully very few.

I think you'll find it's more than a few, and they're not just testing positive, many are getting sick. My local icu is full of double vaccinated on ventilators.

Sure it is.

Ticks "Let's Just Go Back To Normal And Everything Will Be Fine!" off my covid denial bingo card

@bumbleymummy,

It is easy for someone with no vulnerable people they care about to say this and also way too pessimistic.

We will reach herd immunity via a combination of vaccination and infections, and the vaccine tweaking will beat the mutations (or should do).

Summer 21 is better than 20 in terms of deaths and serious disease, and summer 22 will be better than 21.

Short of odd localised hotspots popping up, on a couple of years COVID will (probably) be written up as a triumph of modern science over an age-old adversary.

Football, travel, more "freedoms", returning home from uni. The younger age groups, especially men under 25, have a lower proportion presenting for first vaccination, few have had second yet, and they have been led to believe they won't get that ill anyway.

With the current wave, we either live with it and accept the consequences OR we go back into a proper harsh lockdown, no foreign travel, no pubs/restaurants, no non essential shops, no non essential travel/entertainment etc.

Not necessarily. If you look at the age groups that are currently most infected with covid, it's the unvaccinated/partly vaccinated ones. I.e. young people.

Schools are closing, so that will reduce infection rates in the majority of that group. Pausing things like opening nightclubs and keeping restrictions on indoor mixing (like mask wearing, numbers) and really ramping up efforts to get the vaccination of over-18s complete by the time schools reopen could have a big impact on projected infection rates.

*>Ticks "Let's Just Go Back To Normal And Everything Will Be Fine!" off my covid denial bingo card

Because the vaccine doesn't stop you getting it,
Because the focus is on the original symptoms, not the new ones (runny nose, tummy ache, sore throat, high temp, sickness, diarrhoea),
Because people aren't getting tested with PCR when they have symptoms,
Because people aren't doing regular LFT,
Because the government stopped children wearing masks in school

@TheKeatingFive

The health secretary in ROI went on record the other day to say that of all the icu admissions in Ireland since March, only 0.5% of them (only one person in fact) was double jabbed.

So let’s call out scaremongering horseshit for what it is.

We're stuck in a never ending cycle.

No election until 2024 means we're stuck with this shitshow of a government until then, and they'll get voted back in because Sir Starmer is a piss poor opposition leader.

@PrincessNutNuts

>Ticks "Let's Just Go Back To Normal And Everything Will Be Fine!" off my covid denial bingo card <

@PrincessNutNuts

I'm not sure if that was a reply to me or not, if so I'm not sure how "doing nothing would result in a catastrophic loss of life" equates to "everything will be fine"?

Anyway, we still have the whole "what do we do about the rest of the world if we aim for zero covid" issue. How would you anticipate we should address that?

@Sunshinegirl82

What stopped the Spanish Flu? Immunity? Running out of hosts?

If we did nothing at all to stop covid, no vaccines, no restrictions just "let it rip" as MN loves to say, it would result in catastrophic loss of life worldwide, but it would end, eventually. There are only so many people in the world to infect.

Obviously the catastrophic loss of life that approach results in means that is absolutely not a viable option but one way or another covid will stop being the primary focus of the world.

It will become endemic, population immunity will increase and increase and increase through a combination of vaccines, boosters, natural infection and re-exposure to the virus in the community.

Unless NZ can persuade every country in the world to lockdown simultaneously to eradicate covid worldwide it will always be out there and they will have to deal with this too. That's not a criticism of their approach, just an inevitability in my view.

Low endemicity isn't very far away from zero covid.

High endemicity looks a lot more like the next couple of months are going to look. You can't live like that.

If we have high endemicity and other countries don't, then international travel would become difficult for U.K. citizens and the U.K. tourist industry would be dead in the water.

Covid isn't currently endemic, so how many years from now are we talking about?

In my scenario we wake the fuck up somewhere during year 3 or year 4 of covid, after the 5th or 6th long lockdown.

How long does it take to "become endemic" in your scenario? And what does that mean?

Breakthrough infections do not mean vaccines don’t work. Remember, they are preventives, NOT cures. One can still contract COVID once vaccinated. As long as that vaccine is preventing you from facing severe disease and worse, it IS working and doing what it was designed to do.

This from Chise, a vaccine developer who posts some very easily understood explanations on Twitter.
twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1415659940077842435

[quote TheKeatingFive]*>Ticks "Let's Just Go Back To Normal And Everything Will Be Fine!" off my covid denial bingo card

@Sunshinegirl82

It wasn't a reply to you.

Covid is endemic

@TheKeatingFive

Covid is endemic

Reputable source please?

Because, you know, it isn't.

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00396-2

@PrincessNutNuts

High levels of transmission won't perpetuate indefinitely unless this virus is so different to anything we've ever encountered before that our immune systems completely forget about it in between infections. Background immunity will ramp up and up as people are vaccinated and boostered and then re-exposed in the community.

I'd hope everything would be much calmer by next Easter, bumpy until then with ups and downs of infection levels.