Coronavirus (2021) thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
BlueHammer85 said:
is the virus just fizzing out ? very few countries have even started vaccinating.
Click to expand...

Lots of people said this after the first wave. They were spectacularly wrong.

Most of the world's population is in the Northern Hemisphere, and most of the Northern Hemisphere is under significant restrictions as a reaction to the second wave peaks.

However, given vaccinations and Northern Hemisphere summer coming, I'm personally very hopeful we have reached Peak Covid.
 
BlueHammer85 said:
is the virus just fizzing out ? very few countries have even started vaccinating.
Click to expand...
There is something happening wouldn’t like to try any explanation myself, except as you say vaccination doesn’t explain it. Seems to be driven in the main by falls across europe, ,USA, India, but South Africa too steep falls.
7 day average fallen from 750,000. 11 January to 385,000 yesterday.

1613380941195.png
 
roubaixtuesday said:
It's looking increasingly unlikely that herd immunity is a realistic aim.

Ro is the R number with normal behaviour and no immunity. The formula for the fraction needed to be immune to reach herd immunity is (Ro-1)/Ro

The original variant had an Ro of ~3 but the new variants are said to be ~50% more transmissible.

If R ~5 then the fraction needed to be immune is ~80%

The vaccine is unlikely to give "sterilising immunity" ie complete protection against transmission, is not 100% effective against disease either, and reduced effectiveness against variants has been reported for some variants. Given that we're also not going to be immunising children, then reaching a complete suppression of the virus through herd immunity doesn't seem likely.

However, it's still vital as many people as possible are vaccinated, not just to protect themselves, but also because even if we haven't reached formal herd immunity, outbreaks will be much easier to contain the closer we are to that limit. There seems to be a body of opinion that current immunity levels reached through prior infection and vaccinating have helped speed the reduction in cases in the current lockdown, and that level was probably something like 20% at the start rising to maybe 30% now and over 50% in the next couple of months.

It may be that we end up similar to the flu; there's an annual booster jab but still outbreaks through the winter, dying down in the summer but never completely going away.
Click to expand...
Quite sure I read that there’s now a study in England that is to test the AZ/Ox and Pfizer vaccines on children aged 6-16.
 
One for the vitamin D afficionados

Short version: Study claims are not backed up by the paper, but no harm in taking it regardless.

 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.