The UK may have got it right

[VioletRiemelt]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-57911032

Australians back in lockdown, while our restrictions are gone. Our exit wave could be over by September.

@sashagabadon we are now known as the optimistic ones . I do listen to all the downer comments tho and take them on board ! Not that I am calling anyone a downer. Just the comments!

@RP131 updates the graphs everyday on his Twitter page, I think they are really useful for showing the change in the proportion of cases that progress to hospitalisation and death.

Next two...

Cool @Sunshinegirl82 so first graph shows slightly younger are catching it. And second shows many fewer now in hospital as a proportion and those that are tend to be younger. That looks like vaccines are doing something.

[quote Blessex]@bumbleymummy yep it would. But they need to turn the taps on a bit but not too much I guess.[/quote]
More like they need to ‘reward’ the vaccinated and ‘punish’ the unvaccinated.

@bumbleymummy you think so?

[quote Chessie678]@Doodlebug71
Do you have any evidence of transmission happening within 5 seconds while walking past someone? Neutral question- I’d be surprised but don’t know.

If that’s actually the case I wouldn’t think delta is containable even with very harsh measures.[/quote]
@Chessie678

I posted the report for that previously. Lots of report for that. This is one of them.

www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/06/28/infection-through-fleeting-contact-with-the-delta-variant-leads-to-lockdowns-across-australia/?sh=76812d865d4f

[quote Blessex]@bumbleymummy you think so?[/quote]
Well I don’t really think they care too much about spread.

[quote Blessex]@sashagabadon we are now known as the optimistic ones . I do listen to all the downer comments tho and take them on board ! Not that I am calling anyone a downer. Just the comments![/quote]
So, who are the "downer" comments, if you're not calling anyone a downer? Do you have professional experience in interpreting data, or are you just telling everyone else they're an idiot if they don't agree with you?

@Blessex

I know this sounds maybe premature to say this but I am kind of happy now my teenage DS has caught Covid last week and is now better again. Yes I know the stories about long Covid and etc etc etc and I would have preferred him vaccinated. But he wasn’t. He caught it. He’s better. We move on. Ditto my 17 year old nephew.

This virus is going to spread. It just is. It either spreads now or it spreads in Nov-Dec.

So, according to you, your kid is okay.. fuck everyone else. The CEV kids.. they can roll over and die. Yours is okay, so that's that.

@Blessex

I know this sounds maybe premature to say this but I am kind of happy now my teenage DS has caught Covid last week and is now better again. Yes I know the stories about long Covid and etc etc etc and I would have preferred him vaccinated. But he wasn’t. He caught it. He’s better. We move on. Ditto my 17 year old nephew.

This virus is going to spread. It just is. It either spreads now or it spreads in Nov-Dec.

You do know a person can catch Covid twice?

@TheKeatingFive

Is Australia sitting on piles of AZ it won’t use?

Yes. We have been told it’s dangerous and because of our generally low case numbers people are not in any rush to be vaccinated. It’s much easier to convince people to get vaccinated with any vaccine when they’ve seen illness and death around them, as has been the situation in the UK. Here in Sydney we had a three month lock down in March 2020 and now it’s been one month so far since mid June and in the 12 months in between we have lived very normal lives (except, obviously, for international travel). So people aren’t sufficiently motivated to get vaccinated until Pfizer is available for everyone.

I’m double jabbed as is everyone in my family and social circle, but I’m speaking more broadly.

[quote Blessex]@TheKeatingFive yep. I have a mate in Sydney mid 40s and she says she is unable to get the AZ vaccine even if it is there. She asked what I had. I said AZ as did all my friends here. More chance of being run over by a bus on the way there then getting a blood clot![/quote]
This is most definitely incorrect. AZ is available to over 40s in Sydney (as is Pfizer if you’re over 40).

[quote Sunshinegirl82]@RP131 updates the graphs everyday on his Twitter page, I think they are really useful for showing the change in the proportion of cases that progress to hospitalisation and death.[/quote]
Like I said yesterday comparing May 21 with end of October 20 seems the wrong comparative period. July 21 is more comparable with October 20 with the number of people on ventilators / deaths

If the number of people in ventilator beds grows too high, too fast, we are buggered.

Report today:
Between 21 June and 19 July, 1,788 people were admitted to hospital after testing positive for Delta. Of these, 54% were unvaccinated while 30% had received both shots. In total, 3,692 people have so far been admitted to hospital with the Delta variant, of whom 2,152 (58%) were unvaccinated and 843 (23%) were fully vaccinated.

So nearly 3/5ths in hospital were unvaccinated. Jennie Harries says “As we emerge from restrictions and vaccine coverage continues to rise, it is important to remember that, while the protection provided by vaccination is excellent, it is not total"

If they got it right it was because they stumbled upon it by chance, after several U-turns!

Vaccinations are the main tool we have to combat this virus. And at that, yes UK was good, and got it right, thanks goodness.
But I think they need to reconsider vaccinations for children, and observe what is happening on the countries where children are being vaccinated.
Australia will come out of it with less loss of life, I think. They had the time to vaccinate with an almost zero incidence. I do hope that they have vaccinated a good % of their population.

In Australia, 915 people lost their lives from COVID. In the UK, over 129,000 have died from COVID.

In the UK, the annual average GDP fell by 9.9% in 2020, with output falling by 9.1%, the largest annual decline on record. In Australia, GDP fell by about 2.5% on the previous year.

But there will always be fools who think the UK got it right.

@RumblyMumbly

I disagree. To see the impact of vaccination on hospitalisations and deaths you need to compare current case numbers with previous waves. That will show the proportion of cases that translate to more serious outcomes.

If you're looking at cases, then it's important to know what fraction of those cases will end up in an ICU needing a ventilator.

If you're looking at how the absolute number of patients on ventilators is growing, then it isn't really reassuring that it may have taken ten times more cases to produce that number of ventilated patients than you would have needed in the first wave. The only thing that matters is how fast that number's going up, not how many people have milder covid at the same time.

@MrsIsobelCrawley

In Australia, 915 people lost their lives from COVID. In the UK, over 129,000 have died from COVID.

In the UK, the annual average GDP fell by 9.9% in 2020, with output falling by 9.1%, the largest annual decline on record. In Australia, GDP fell by about 2.5% on the previous year.

But there will always be fools who think the UK got it right.

I think emotionally many are struggling with the horror of how badly wrong their government got it.

We all moan about the government but when the shit hits the fan we want them to do what needs to be done.

Johnson just... didn't. He didn't give enough of a shit about human lives, is at the bottom of it. We elected an uncaring joker, and it came back to bite us.

Everyone thought Drakeford was a deeply full politician. Dull seems good right now!!

You do know a person can catch Covid twice?

Echt, the emerging view is that we're all going to catch COVID multiple times. It's becoming an endemic virus. It will be with us till the end of time, basically.

The good news is that since severe cases are mainly things that develop in immunologically naive adults, "endemic COVID" will be very different from the pandemic beast and will probably be similar to the many other endemic respiratory viruses that we have to contend with at the moment.

People who have been vaxed will probably get COVID too... but they will get mild cases. Same story for those who have had a case of COVID once already. Kids very rarely seem to get severely ill, so kids growing up with COVID will have enough immunity to prevent severe disease by the time they reach adulthood. This is essentially how endemic respiratory viruses work, once they have bedded in and passed through the pandemic phase.

People who refuse the vaccine, however, will continue to run the risk that they might get very ill. People who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons face a certain amount of long term risk and I can't see any easy solutions to this-that said, this is something they already face from other endemic viruses that we live with already. People in developing countries who can't access vaccines quickly enough will (sadly) probably have to get through the pandemic phase the hard way-lots of deaths rather than lots of vaccines. Though I hope we can ramp up production quickly and save as many people as possible.

People who have been vaxed will probably get COVID too... but they will get mild cases

not necessarily - vaccines help a lot but vaccinated people still die

Total cases matter as the evidence above from Jenny Harries shows that nearly a quarter of patients hospitalised for Covid from 21 June, 23%, had been double vaccinated, (Obviously that's not a quarter of vaccinated people ending up in hospital) So get 100,000 cases PER DAY as predicted by August and that is going to translate into a lot of hospital beds (not fogetting Long Covid issues)

@Sunshinegirl82 start comparing the waves from July 21 with Oct20 as that's when the wave really acce;erated for both. The scientists have said we are yet to see the effects of removing all further restrictions in stage 4

Absolute numbers of people on ventilators has more than doubled in 3 weeks from 300 on 01/07/21 to 699 on 22/07/21 compare that to Oct21 & you will see a very similar pattern. It doesn't take long to run out of ventilator beds (2months first wave, 2 months Autumn wave20)

I think we have to accept that at some point we have to release restrictions and there will be a surge in cases.

If we accept that a surge in cases is unavoidable I can see the logic in saying that it makes sense for that surge to occur now when hospitals and ICU's do not also have the pressure of flu and other winter viruses.

Even if we all agreed now that a zero covid approach was 100% the way to go (and people don't agree) it's too late now. We are where we are.

I can see an argument for going back into lockdown and trying to drive down case numbers until more are vaccinated (although if we accept there is no plan to vaccinate children we already have high levels of vaccination in the part of the population eligible for vaccination) and I can see an argument for lifting restrictions now. The bit I struggle with is keeping a few restrictions in place that have little to no impact on the growth of cases but have a negative economic impact.

People who have been vaxed will probably get COVID too... but they will get mild cases

Well, fingers crossed those won't be among the mild cases who develop brain inflammation and, with it, join those with greater incidence of Parkinson's disease and dementia...

IMO it's more to do with the fact it is winter in Australia right now and summer in the UK.

But i guess the only way to prove this is whether there is another wave this autumn / winter in the UK.