I have always been pretty uncomfortable with the actual brand of a vaccine becoming 'a thing'. I've had numerous vaccines over the years, yellow fever, flu etc etc and never once have I known nor cared which pharma company made the jab. One of the most distasteful parts of this pandemic has been the commercial interests clouding the vaccine rollout and making it less optimal than it could have been.
I'm right on the cusp of 39/40 and my first two jabs were AZ, which is actually what I wanted despite all the talk and scaremongering around blood clots and to-ing and fro-ing about whether people my age should have had it. No, particular reason, call it gut feeling but I'm still glad I did and would happily choose an AZ booster if it was an option.
Macron has blood on his hands and should be ashamed of himself for using a life-saving jab as a political football.
That and the age distribution of those testing positive. The biggest majority under 15. The rest largely their family as in parents and siblings. The least the over 80s. In Northern Ireland where they give these breakdowns in 5 year age groups daily more children aged 0 - 4 are testing positive than any age group over 65. The numbers over 80 were falling even as weekly cases rose. The boosters seem the obvious reason why that otherwise would happen as the over 80s got these first.
Interesting and much edited piece by someone of whom I know nothing nor does he give any indication of his qualifications to make the assertions he does . He rambles on using stats to justify his point of view but the article didn't say it was a pandemic of the unvaccinated. It said the majority of ICU beds were occupied by the unvaccinated (not just hospital admissions). The video never mentioned that at all. In other words he is the social media version of "the fat bloke down the pub" who has a point of view but tries to convince everyone who will listen that he is the expert.
We test 4x more I believe but we need to remember that a positive COVID case does not mean an ill person. Testing cannot be compared like for like vs different countries.
The UK for example has a lot of cases but we test more asymptomatic people than anyone else. For example we regularly test kids who are very unlikely to be symptomatic but if positive they go down as a positive case. You can see this in the big case drops around half terms as the testing stops.
The greatest concern is if a country doesn't test much, has a high positivity rate and is seeing a large increase in hospitalisations/deaths. Germany currently fits into this bracket as do many countries in Eastern Europe so it's certainly going to be a rough few months for them.
For us I think we're going to see big falls in admissions/deaths as the boosters take effect but cases won't change. The only great worry here is the continued risk to the unvaccinated. For everyone else who is vaccinated and isn't at risk, the pandemic is virtually over and COVID represents a far less severe disease more on par with something like flu.
Hospitals halt chemotherapy treatments and organ transplants amid COVID surge in the Netherlands
Some Dutch hospitals have halted chemotherapy treatments and organ transplants to free up intensive care beds for a surging number of COVID patients.
Although some 85% of the adult Dutch population has been fully vaccinated against COVID, new cases hit a record high of 23,709 in 24 hours on Wednesday and are up almost 40% on a weekly basis.
Experts have warned, that if the virus is not contained, hospitals will reach full capacity in little more than a week.
Hospitals halt chemotherapy treatments and organ transplants amid COVID surge in the Netherlands
Some Dutch hospitals have halted chemotherapy treatments and organ transplants to free up intensive care beds for a surging number of COVID patients.
Although some 85% of the adult Dutch population has been fully vaccinated against COVID, new cases hit a record high of 23,709 in 24 hours on Wednesday and are up almost 40% on a weekly basis.
Experts have warned, that if the virus is not contained, hospitals will reach full capacity in little more than a week.
On the testing numbers... I don't know much about this, but I think (as with many things) you need to be very careful comparing countries.
Here's total tests per capita for a few countries
My understanding - some could well be wide of the mark:
Throughout the pandemic, Denmark has been the poster child for testing as the key pillar. That continues even today.
We started badly but the rollout of LFTs increased a lot and may actually be one of the key reasons we're not seeing growth above our very high ongoing rate.
Germany, again as I understand it, counts tests in a different way - LFTs aren't recorded, so their figures may be misleadingly low.
Test positivity is seen as a key metric. WHO recommends getting below 5% to keep under control. Here's the same countries on that:
Which perhaps tells a different story.
I would guess that a population survey is the best way to compare actual country rates. I've no idea what the other countries equivalent of the ONS survey is - does anyone else? Here's England:
Finally, again, my very limited understanding is that there are some radical differences within countries, especially the former East Germany.
Estimates for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. This survey is being delivered in partnership with University of Oxford, University of Manchester, UK Health Security Agency and Wellcome Trust.
