Coronavirus (2021) thread

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Healdplace said:
Yes, which is why the focus is on them right now and they are largely responding with big queues reported.

Very encouraging that the ones saying no on here are a noisy minority and most Brits have the common sense I always thought they did. Because they deserve a path back to normality and thankfully most of them fully understand the best and quickest route to getting there is via the jabs not via jabbering nonsense on Twitter.

Also note the clear link between best numbers of vaccinations in Wales and lowest cases and death numbers

And the reverse in Scotland where things have not gone so well.

Exactly what we see in the vaccination data and cases data in Greater Manchester pretty much every day in here - eg Manchester v Stockport and how Bolton once it went into express mode on vaccinations has fallen from worst in the region to better than half the other boroughs.

Hancock said earlier the data is looking positive for reopening and this data taken together is why.

Not to mention the reality that numbers in hospital in the most vulnerable group is staying flat. low and below the younger ones who largely stay in hospital only a few days not weeks creating a much lower total day to day despite rising cases.

Because almost everyone catching it now is young and largely brushes Covid off with moderate illness. Especially if vaccinated twice.

The flat line on the data graphs for that is WAY better news than the flat line on the ECG monitors we had in the last wave because we had yet to get the population vaccinated.

It is a triumph of science and those not seeing this need to take a long hard look at the facts.
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It will be interesting to see if they offer the next groups 12 to 16 age group, if this happens should hopefully open society as whole with school kids being deemed super spreaders
 
There are indeed big decisions coming on vaccinations for the second half of the year.

Who gets a booster (probably over 60s for sure maybe over 50s if it is practicable in the constrained time frame). They might even let places like Boot's sell jabs to anyone else like they do with the flu jabs not given free to the over 60s or probably over 50s and all age vulnerable again this year

Do we give the same as the first two jabs or one of the other vaccines as a booster (trials and study ongoing due to be reported by Augut but we may need to decide before then)?

Can they be given simultaneously with the flu jab in Sep/Oct/Nov as that would vastly reduce the admin problem and time required and flu was so low last winter because we were isolating and doing the stuff required for Covid that worked for flu as well it is clear people will just be less vigilent to a greater or smaller degree once we open up so flu will likely be back with a bif of a bang this winter.

And - yes - how quickly can we etablish it is safe to vaccinate those not old enough to give consent on their own? Something that will always rightly require more time, thought and care.
 
Healdplace said:
There are indeed big decisions coming on vaccinations for the second half of the year.

Who gets a booster (probably over 60s for sure maybe over 50s if it is practicable in the constrained time frame). They might even let places like Boot's sell jans to anyone else like they do with the flu jabs not given free to the over 60s.

Do we give the same as the first two jabs or one of the other vaccines as a booster (study due to be reported by Augut but we may need to decide befre)?

Can they be given simultaneously with the flu jab in Sep/Oct/Nov as that would vastly reduce the admin problem and time required and flu was so low last winter because we were isolating and doing the4 stuff required for Covid tha worked for flu it is clear people will just be less vigilent to a greater or smaller degree once we open up so flu will likely be back with a bif of a bang this winter.

And - yes - how quickly can we etablish it is safe to vaccinate those not old enough to give consent on their own? Something that will always rightly require more time, thought and care.
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COVID seems to be ever morphing. To adequately protect against the latest strain - some sort of regular booster is likely to be required.
 
Healdplace said:
Latest weekly antibody data (to last week) (I have added hospital data for context)

Population with antibodies to Covid (via both catching it and/or vaccinations I assume)

Wales 88.7% of population - up in wk from 82.7% - deaths last week 1, 44 hospital patients, 1 on ventilator

England 86.6% of population - up in wk from 80.3% - deaths last week 51, 1290 hospital patients, 212 on ventiltors

N Ireland 85.4% of population - up in wk from 79.9% - deaths last week 0, 16 hospital patients, 0 on ventilator

Scotland 79.1% of population - up in wk from 72.6% - deaths last week 11, 158 hospital patients, 14 on ventilators


These are probably the numbers that tell you most why cases have been rising for weeks but deaths are staying very low and pretty flat.

But there are still 11 - 21% of the various nations susceptible to Covid.

But as you see that number is falling fast week to week and come mid July will hopefully be negligible.

What happens to that hospital data does as the % grows via new cases AND vaccinations is crucial to full opeing up in mid July but so far it looks very hopeful we are winning the race.
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An approx 6% increase in the number of people with antibodies in the space of only a week is incredible news
 
M18CTID said:
An approx 6% increase in the number of people with antibodies in the space of only a week is incredible news
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It has been rising fast like that for a while. The high case numbers and the jabs both contribute.

So this is why people saying cases do not matter so stop reporting them are missing the point.

Yes they are not the big deal they were in terms of more than % changes up and down. Or positivity.

Hospital data is what determines restrictrions,

But cases and vaccinations BOTH count towards freedom by boosting the push for herd immunity.

No longer an absurd policy or unrealistic because of the death toll it would bring when mooted seriously at the staert 15 months ago - but the actual reality of what we are hastening to achieve right now - this time rightly.
 
BlueMoonAcrossThePond said:
COVID seems to be ever morphing. To adequately protect against the latest strain - some sort of regular booster is likely to be required.
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Until the world is fully vaccinated we will be living with new variants and all at risk. So yes we likely will need more jabs in 2022.

Covid may well never vanish. And vaccinations for the vulnerable may become annual indefinitely.

But once the world is vaccinated outbreaks can be contained and localised in a way we failed to do back in 2019 when this started.

That is the hope.

And we will learm to consider Covid on a par with flu and no less likely to create a pandemic spreading variant as flu always has been. Which we tend to forget by demonising Covid above all diseases.

We were all slow out of the blocks as the entire world more or less assumed the next pandemic would be a flu mutation. And set national plans around that.

The excellent BBC TV documentary Contagion that created a simulated pandemic about a year before Covid hit as part of the 100 years after the Spanish Flu pandemic took that path for the same reason. Though it was chillingly perceptive.

So did the movie of that name in 2011 (on Netflix now if you have not seen it) and equally perceptive and almost more realistic as a documentary than the documentary was. Though it was fiction you would not think so looking at the doctors preenting their graphs and R rate numbers to politicians 10 years ago!

Both will now be well on the planning stratwgy of many more nations for years to come as our globalisation of travel has made these mucy much eaier to happen than the once every 100 years they used to be.

You can sadly guarantee there will not be that long before Covid - the sequel.

Let us hope it is not like the movies and will be handled much better than the first time around.
 
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Healdplace said:
Until the world is fully vaccinated we will be living with new variants and all at risk. So yes we likely will need more jabs in 2022.

Covid may well never vanish. And jans for the vulnerable may become annual.

But once the world is vaccinated outbreaks can be contained and localised in a way we failed to do back in 2019 when this started.

That is the hope.
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+1 - and even with full worldwide vaccination - new variants may immerge - COVID is possibly very like the flu - only much worse currently. Each year a new vaccination may be required.
 
Healdplace said:
Until the world is fully vaccinated we will be living with new variants and all at risk. So yes we likely will need more jabs in 2022.

Covid may well never vanish. And vaccinations for the vulnerable may become annual indefinitely.

But once the world is vaccinated outbreaks can be contained and localised in a way we failed to do back in 2019 when this started.

That is the hope.
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Covid won't vanish just as Spanish Flu didn't vanish - it became another of the endemic strains that circulates around the world and continues to this day. What we all hope is that, just like Spanish Flu, sufficient global resistance can be built up such that it can be dealt with via the same sorts of measures that we use for other flu/respiratory diseases like annual autumn vaccinations.
 
Contagion was written by Scott Burns - a fantastic writer, I love his films.

He wrote a political thriller about the CIA a couple of years ago that's well worth a watch 'The <blank> Report'. I think I saw it on Amazon Prime, but could've been Netflix...
 
Scotland data:

Scotland have much bigger problems than stopping people from Manchester going there. But this explains their concerns.

4 Deaths - was 2 last week

2167 Cases - was 974 last week Only 15 were from the data flow issue reported yesterday sadly.

9.1% positivity - was 5,0% last week. Terrifying rise.

171 patients - up 13 on rhe day and 34 on last week - This is still low but starting to escalate.


18 ventilated - was 14 yesterday and 17 last week

Their low vaccination and antibody rate reported earlier are tragically biting.

And the let everyone open up and go party in London to not watch the match last week probably had way more effect on these cases than visitors from Manchester ever did.
 
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BLUEMATT23 said:
To ask an obvious question why does anyone need booster jabs?
We have had months and months of politicans saying you must get 2 jabs.
Now their changing the goalposts yet again, coincidentally just as July 19 approaches.
So is the next change going to be well you've got to have 3 now before you can be let out.
Sorry its utter bullshit.
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They are doing nothing of the sort. It was always presumed at least an annual booster jab would be required for the most vulnerable to deal with mutations exactly as it has been for flu for decades.

The 2021 version is based on flu in the southern hemisphere in their summer and vice versa for the jabs in the southern hemisphere as flu like Covid constantly has new variants. It is how these things work.

I have been having a flu jab for the past 20 years for the exact same reasons as this. Even though I was not entitled to one free from my own age or vulnerability for the first half of that I was a full time carer and did so to protect someone who was vulnerable as was recommended to me and I had no hesitation in doing this. Why would anyone? As it obviously made sense.

A concept some people sadly seem not to consider as most people happily do.

It IS just good sense and also being a decent human thinking of others and not somehow part of a devious plot.

Nor is anyone suggesting you will need 3 jabs before opening up as far as I know.
 
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Marvin said:
This K417N Delta plus variant seems to be a bit of hype. Unless I am misunderstanding the data there has been 58 detections of this mutation over the 'last 28 days but it does not seem to me to be getting more frequent?

I think the red flag would be those mutations that occur day after day and increase in number rapidly because the mutation is conferring some advantage.

I read this data as suggesting isolated mutations.

You can see some mutations are being picked up repeatedly but do they confer any advantage?

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Great data but for me I'm always sceptical of any high throughput sequencing because it's just so damn hard to do.
I spent a few years validating sequencing of proteins (mainly mAbs) and never achieved higher than 95% sequence coverage - by LCMS/MS. My understanding of viral sequencing techniques are that they are in the region of 95%+ accurate but that could still pose significant issues.
 
Unhappily today's hospital deaths in England are well up,

25 with 10 from the NW. Last wk was 16 with 4 and wk before 12 with 4.

Deaths are now clearly starting to rise as I guess was inevitable.

And the NW again understandably is a big factor.

Though if this the worst of it from the region it may not be terrible news.

But definitely not good news.
 
Healdplace said:
Unhappily today's hospital deaths in England are well up,

25 with 10 from the NW. Last wk was 16 with 4 and wk before 12 with 4.

Deaths are now clearly starting to rise as I guess was inevitable.

And the NW again understandably is a big factor.

Though if this the worst of it from the region it may not be terrible news.

But definitely not good news.
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Not good at all..I really hope this is not a trend..
 
BLUEMATT23 said:
I've had it twice.
No problem , I just want my life back as promised.
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I wrote about 3 paragraphs to try to help you understand but I think you're beyond helping so I've deleted it. You clearly want to peddle doom and gloom and angrily shake your fist in the Government's direction.

If you're naïve enough to think that this isn't an ever changing, once-in-a-lifetime event which is best guided by the science available, which is also ever changing and developing then so be it.

No-one can promise you your life back. People can only try to make estimates based on the progress we're making in the areas we know are successful.
 
splinter said:
Not good at all..I really hope this is not a trend..
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It has been hinting at this over the past week as I noted in my reports.

Tuesday is always a big catch up day. So that mitigates things a little.

But Bolton had the most deaths today. Which tells you this is a lag from several weeks ago when cases were high there but less so elsewhere.

IF we see similar rises from other parts of England (as we are seeing with the NW which came first - far and away the biggest region for deaths now quite regulary) then numbers will escalate.

But that was always inevitable. More cases WILL equal more deaths - just hopefully at a lower percentage level of cases.

The NW ventilator numbers that I have been flagging up daily for over a week now in my hospital repirts made clear what was happening as it was always tragically true that this would lead to rising deaths too.

The ventilator numbers seem to have started to stabilise in the NW - and fell over the past 4 days - though still well up on where they were and the worst number in the UK - about a third of every person on a ventilator in the UK is in the NW.

If they start to fall then we will see it translate into fewer deaths in the region.

That is very possible.

Hopefully that will be what we see in coming days in the evening hospital data I report.

Plus we now need carefully to watch other England regions that are inching up in cases but as yet none are even at half the level the NW is right now and NW is no longer rising but not as yet seriously falling either.

London is closest in cases and ventilators to the NW and they had 7 deaths today.

So the deaths mostly came from these two regions and were also in recent days btw. No cases from weeks ago boosting the number here.

9 deaths were on Sunday - when technically the 0 from yesterday was allocated to due to no Sunday registrations - and this was the highest number alloted to one day in England since mid April.

But 9 is 9 - IF it gets to 99 before we see cases plateau and fall we might be in a bit of trouble.

But we are some way from that as yet.
 
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Healdplace said:
It has been hinting at this over the past week as I noted in my reports.

Tuesday is always a big catch up day. So that mitigates things a little.

But Bolton had the most deaths today. Which tells you this is a lag from several weeks ago when cases were high there but less so elsewhere.

IF we see similar rises from other parts of England (as we are seeing with the NW which came first - far and away the biggest region for deaths now quite regulary) then numbers will escalate.

But that was always inevitable. More cases WILL equal more deaths - just hopefully at a lower percentage level of cases.

The NW ventilator numbers that I have been flagging up daily for over a week now in my hospital repirts made clear what was happening as it was always tragically true that this would lead to rising deaths too.

The ventilator numbers seem to have started to stabilise in the NW - and fell over the past 4 days - though still well up on where they were and the worst number in the UK - about a third of every person on a ventilator in the UK is in the NW.

If they start to fall then we will see it translate into fewer deaths in the region.

That is very possible.

Hopefully that will be what we see in coming days in the evening hospital data I report.

Plus we now need carefully to watch other England regions that are inching up in cases but as yet none are even at half the level the NW is right now and NW is no longer rising but not as yet seriously falling either.

London is closest in cases and ventilators to the NW and they had 7 deaths today.

So the deaths mostly came from these two regions and were also in recent days btw. No cases from weeks ago boosting the number here.

9 deaths were on Sunday - when technically the 0 from yesterday was allocated to due to no Sunday registrations - and this was the highest number alloted to one day in England since mid April.

But 9 is 9 - IF it gets to 90 before we see cases plateau and fall we might be in a bit of trouble.

But we are some way from that as yet.
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I was really hoping Bolton had dodged a bullet..it just shows you have to wait for the lag..concerning for the coming weeks
 
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