Good points, I hope you are right but I was alarmed seeing yesterday's Downing Street TV and the seriousness emphasized by the medical people particularly the WHO rep.I really doubt that symptom severity has changed too much across any of the variants.
Omicron is not a milder variant, the reason that it seems milder is because of our immunity. There is more to immunity than what the jabs bring (antibodies). Antibodies give short term protection but there is also longer term immunity from T-cells which aren't fully understood.
Short term immunity is there to provide immediate protection from an infection and vaccine success is only ever measured by whether an infection is prevented or not. Long term immunity however provides long term protection from severe disease and no-one knows for how long, perhaps forever.
The most likely scenario is we've now got a variant which is no different severity wise but it evades past generated antibodies and so we'll see more infections. However, long term immunity stops us from getting seriously ill and so we get the illusion that the variant is milder.
This is perhaps why every virologist will say that viruses tend to get less virulent and less severe, because our bodies learn to deal with COVID and COVID itself will never mutate to the degree required to evade that or it will become completely dysfunctional as a virus.
Yep, the horse has bolted. Over 65,000 cases in France yesterday so they're almost as big a hot spot as the UKGood for you. The genie is out of the bottle regarding Omicron which is why we scrapped our red list.
It doesn't work though, the pandemic over the last 2 years has proven it. France currently has an open border to every country in Europe and every country in the world seemingly now except the UK.
It is completely inevitable that Omicron cases will explode there and they probably already are. The only reason why we know the extent of our cases and why it looks so bad is because we sequence and test more than anyone else.
See my comment about a possible change in clinical effect: lungs to bronchioles. Pneumonia can kill, bronchitis less soGood points, I hope you are right but I was alarmed seeing yesterday's Downing Street TV and the seriousness emphasized by the medical people particularly the WHO rep.
Presumably we will gradually get a cocktail of defence that can at least put Covid, whatever it's varient potential, into a less dangerous enemy.
My feeling from watching that was Whitty's negativity was more about psychology than anything else.Good points, I hope you are right but I was alarmed seeing yesterday's Downing Street TV and the seriousness emphasized by the medical people particularly the WHO rep.
Presumably we will gradually get a cocktail of defence that can at least put Covid, whatever it's varient potential, into a less dangerous enemy.
It's good that we've scrapped the red list now, but I'm stunned that it's taken some world leaders almost 2 years to work out that by the time a variant has been detected in one country, it's already present in about 50-100 others.Yep, the horse has bolted. Over 65,000 cases in France yesterday so they're almost as big a hot spot as the UK
Macrons arguably the biggest populist out of all the major world leaders.
He said the jab was quasi ineffective.
Solely to take the heat off their initial slow roll out.
And sell people on jabs that need using up.My feeling from watching that was Whitty's negativity was more about psychology than anything else.
Why else did they actually call that press conference? They didn't actually *announce* anything really. It was surely to put the shitters up people and introduce social measures by stealth.
AZ's PR department have had an absolute nightmare this year. Can't say too much because it's all still confidential (even though none of the materials got used in the end), but a good friend of mine was very briefly invited into meetings with AZ's media and marketing team through their line of work. They had to switch up strategies and plans more times than Soft Mick because every day brought up a new problem to deal with.He is.
He did.
Yes.
And then AZ got binned by the EU going forward for causing them a problem over delivery and then got binned by the UK who AZ gave preference to.
And the US, who were wary over AZ, never gave it FDA approval.
The question that you have to ask is why AZ managed to screw it up so badly it compromised an effective and safe vaccine. And Macron isn't the answer.
I saw that yesterday, I'm not medically astute enough to fully understand what effects that'll have but strangely it seems to have been missed by 99% of the media.There was a study that was reported yesterday which fits the clinical effects seen in South Africa, namely that omicron is now an infection of the bronchioles rather than lung tissue.
A big factor here is the 'rival' manufacturers are all making huge amounts of profit, AZ are doing it at cost.He is.
He did.
Yes.
And then AZ got binned by the EU going forward for causing them a problem over delivery and then got binned by the UK who AZ gave preference to.
And the US, who were wary over AZ, never gave it FDA approval.
The question that you have to ask is why AZ managed to screw it up so badly it compromised an effective and safe vaccine. And Macron isn't the answer.
Doesn't alter the fact that Macron is a twat though
I'm 34 and wanted the AZ jab just to make a point. It was unfathomable to me that it wasn't an option to my age group.AZ's PR department have had an absolute nightmare this year. Can't say too much because it's all still confidential (even though none of the materials got used in the end), but a good friend of mine was very briefly invited into meetings with AZ's media and marketing team through their line of work. They had to switch up strategies and plans more times than Soft Mick because every day brought up a new problem to deal with.
I think they definitely got the rougher deal in the press because their vaccine was the only one being made on a not-for-profit basis (at least until this week: https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ls-22bn-of-covid-vaccine-in-first-nine-months), and we all know why the pharma industry wouldn't be happy about that, but they made a complete pig's ear of their press releases and poorly communicated a lot of very important information.
The blood clots thing, for instance. It wasn't a big deal in the end. They just needed to make people aware of the side effect, tell them it was extremely rare, and let us know we had the option to say no. There was a massive window to get ahead of that story and downplay any public fears. Instead they just twiddled their thumbs for a couple of days and sat on the data, which resulted in a huge open goal for the news media.
He is.
He did.
Yes.
And then AZ got binned by the EU going forward for causing them a problem over delivery and then got binned by the UK who AZ gave preference to.
And the US, who were wary over AZ, never gave it FDA approval.
The question that you have to ask is why AZ managed to screw it up so badly it compromised an effective and safe vaccine. And Macron isn't the answer.
I really doubt that symptom severity has changed too much across any of the variants.
Omicron is not a milder variant, the reason that it seems milder is because of our immunity. There is more to immunity than what the jabs bring (antibodies). Antibodies give short term protection but there is also longer term immunity from T-cells which aren't fully understood.
Short term immunity is there to provide immediate protection from an infection and vaccine success is only ever measured by whether an infection is prevented or not. Long term immunity however provides long term protection from severe disease and no-one knows for how long, perhaps forever.
The most likely scenario is we've now got a variant which is no different severity wise but it evades past generated antibodies and so we'll see more infections. However, long term immunity stops us from getting seriously ill and so we get the illusion that the variant is milder.
This is perhaps why every virologist will say that viruses tend to get less virulent and less severe, because our bodies learn to deal with COVID and COVID itself will never mutate to the degree required to evade that or it will become completely dysfunctional as a virus.
I'm a bit younger than you but I was in Group 6, so I was a bit further ahead in the queue. I was given the AZ vaccine in March this year, then the blood clots story broke about a month later. I had to go back for my second jab in June for a vaccine that was no longer being given to my age group. Oh how we laughed when I rolled up to the cricket club in Whalley Range and had to explain the situation.I'm 34 and wanted the AZ jab just to make a point. It was unfathomable to me that it wasn't an option to my age group.
One of my neighbours works for them. She must know a lot of what went on behind the scenes but hasn't said much. I imagine there is an NDA preventing her.
Omicron being milder hasn't been confirmed either. The only evidence so far is that infections tend to be milder but this isn't necessarily because the variant itself is milder, it's far more likely that our immunity is making it milder.Where have you seen this confirmed? From what I have been reading the studies are showing that this is looking to be the case due to where the virus develops in the respiratory system.
Yeh I think roubaix mentioned it yesterday, re infections aren't being counted in the official tally I don't think.Interesting point to raise here. And im personally unsure if this means what it says in reality.
when you look at the small print of cases in the UK.
"COVID-19 cases are identified by taking specimens from people and testing them for the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. If the test is positive (except for rapid lateral flow tests which have negative confirmatory lab-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests taken within 72 hours), this is referred to as a case. If a person has more than one positive test, they are only counted as one case for all nations with the exception of Wales."
without specifying a time period on this we could be excluding A LOT of reinfections from our cases data. It makes it sound as though a positive test 12 months ago and you'll never show on the dashboard again.
maybe something @Healdplace has seen on her travels around the data?
Not only cost. The biggest advantage AZ had, and still does have, is it’s storage. No industrial freezers needed, can be transported safely, and is absolutely safe by anyones definition. All the Americans have done is promote their own companies (Pfizer, Moderna and J and J). What we’ve done is exactly what you’d expect.I’d imagine it was because they were producing a vaccine at absolutely herculean speeds on a largely philanthropic (at cost) basis, and certain regulatory bodies dragged their feet over using interim data for emergency approval.
If Pfizer had results like Valneva, AZ would have been in the arms of most European and Americans by now.
Trashing it was then used to point score when it was clear that the vaccine would be needed for most of the world due to cost.