Coronavirus (2021) thread

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A couple of things spring to mind.
Being of the old generation I have had the final Pfizer jab some 3 months ago. Hopefully a more up to date vaccine will further improve my resistance to variants as a booster?
How do I chack whether it has worked (95 percent efficient is 5 percent failure).
I see we are approaching complete vaccination but have left the poorist countries to be less vaccine protected, surely they will have more chance to develop really deadly variants our existing vaccine is useless against. If so what should we do?
 
Important China does not go under. 1.4 billion many of whom will get chronic infections.
 
SilverFox2 said:
A couple of things spring to mind.
Being of the old generation I have had the final Pfizer jab some 3 months ago. Hopefully a more up to date vaccine will further improve my resistance to variants as a booster?
How do I chack whether it has worked (95 percent efficient is 5 percent failure).
I see we are approaching complete vaccination but have left the poorist countries to be less vaccine protected, surely they will have more chance to develop really deadly variants our existing vaccine is useless against. If so what should we do?
Click to expand...
The vaccines have been shown to be almost 100% effective in the context of preventing serious illness, hospitalisations and deaths. In the context of infections though the waters become muddy and the figures drop somewhat below 60% so it depends what the outcome is.

On variants, don't forget that COVID was novel and it previously had never been seen before by the immune system. The vaccines do not kill COVID in the way that antibiotics kill bacteria which generates antibiotic resistance. The vaccines just teach your immune system that COVID viral particles are bad so they need to destroy it. Previously this wasn't the case and COVID ran free infecting cells until the immune system realised and started to respond, usually by then though it was too late and sometimes the huge immune response is what killed people (cytokine storm).

The virus cannot mutate to avoid the vaccine because it doesn't know what a vaccine is. The virus can only mutate to become more infectious and change the properties of how it infects us but this would require considerable mutated change where it almost becomes a new virus which is highly unlikely.

I wouldn't be too worried about variants, the prospect of a super deadly variant is extremely small, especially when case numbers begin to tumble globally as a result of the vaccines. It's actually more likely that we'll see new super infectious variants like Delta which are less severe but we may need boosters to protect the vulnerable. This is exactly how flu works, you never hear of a cold or flu season where young/healthy people are suddenly getting really ill and dying.
 
inbetween said:
The vaccines have been shown to be almost 100% effective in the context of preventing serious illness, hospitalisations and deaths. In the context of infections though the waters become muddy and the figures drop somewhat below 60% so it depends what the outcome is.

On variants, don't forget that COVID was novel and it previously had never been seen before by the immune system. The vaccines do not kill COVID in the way that antibiotics kill bacteria which generates antibiotic resistance. The vaccines just teach your immune system that COVID viral particles are bad so they need to destroy it. Previously this wasn't the case and COVID ran free infecting cells until the immune system realised and started to respond, usually by then though it was too late and sometimes the huge immune response is what killed people (cytokine storm).

The virus cannot mutate to avoid the vaccine because it doesn't know what a vaccine is. The virus can only mutate to become more infectious and change the properties of how it infects us but this would require considerable mutated change where it almost becomes a new virus which is highly unlikely.

I wouldn't be too worried about variants, the prospect of a super deadly variant is extremely small, especially when case numbers begin to tumble globally as a result of the vaccines. It's actually more likely that we'll see new super infectious variants like Delta which are less severe but we may need boosters to protect the vulnerable. This is exactly how flu works, you never hear of a cold or flu season where young/healthy people are suddenly getting really ill and dying.
Click to expand...
Mutations are errors in the replication process that can and do lead to escape mutations. The risk at the moment is from escape mutations because we have large partially vaccinated populations in many parts of the world whose immune systems are primed against the original virus, therefore a number can be expected to get chronic infections and that is how the variants have tended to form.
 
Wales data

4 deaths - was 1 last week

824 cases - was 755 last week

5.4% positivity - was 5.7% last week - still falling JUST

144 patients - was 107 last week

19 ventilated - was 25 last week
 
ONS data as usual on Friday on week to week prevalence of Covid.

(Data covers period to wk ending 24 July - so likely mostly measures the days just before last weeks fall in cases let alone this weeks rise again).

KEYNOTE: STILL RISING BUT LESS STEEPLY. RISING FASTEST IN N IRELAND, THEN WALES, LESS SO ENGLAND

FALLING IN SCOTLAND



ENGLAND 1 in 65 - up from 1 in 75

N IRELAND 1 in 65 - up from 1 in 170

SCOTLAND 1 in 110 - DOWN from 1 in 80

WALES 1 in 160 -up from 1 in 210


Note Wales has lowest incidence and has best vaccination % numbers of the 4 home nations

N Ireland has highest incidence and gone up most and has worst vaccination % numbers.
 
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Marvin said:
Mutations are errors in the replication process that can and do lead to escape mutations. The risk at the moment is from escape mutations because we have large partially vaccinated populations in many parts of the world whose immune systems are primed against the original virus, therefore a number can be expected to get chronic infections and that is how the variants have tended to form.
Click to expand...
A dominant escape variant would be unusual because the goalposts are constantly moved as people get infected. The vaccines prime against the virus spike protein and to my knowledge this hasn't seen a whole lot of change and the mutation rate is quite low. If this wasn't the case then the vaccines would be practically useless against Delta however this isn't true at all. There are tens of thousands of variants out there and none really have exhibited such traits.

In any event, when it comes to mutations there's a distinct difference between a change in infectivity/severity and the bodies ability to deal with it. We've seen some escape variants appear already but none of them have become dominant so they aren't dangerous. The SA variant is meant to be more dangerous in terms of immune escape but it isn't infectious enough to outstrip Delta. This is perhaps the whole point of herd immunity where we are keeping Delta dominant to protect the population.

It's far more likely then that the virus may mutate again to become more infectious (as with Delta) and become dominant which is fine. The chances of a mutation occurring to escape the immune system and become dominant are quite low and if this happened then we must basically have a completely new virus.
 
ZOE DATA (TODAY)


PREDICTED DAILY CASES

DOWN by 1094 to 58, 205.

ZOE HAS FALLEN BIT BY BIT FOR 6 DAYS NOW FROM OVER 63K

ONGOING SYMPTOMATIC CASES ON ZOE

Up from 804, 707 TO 806, 741- a rise of 2034 TODAY V rises of 4018 yesterday and 5187 day before V 11, 828 V16, 056 on the days before that. Increasing downward track.

The numbers of daily new cases and growth of ongoing cases very clearly falling on Zoe now.



Highest watch zones.


1st LONDON FALL from 1131 / 1363 TO 1096 / 1326

2nd NORTHERN IRELAND FALL from 608 / 1914 TO 597 / 1904

3rd NE & YORKS FALL from 994 / 1376 TO 978 / 1359


BUT NORTH WEST THE ONLY RISER TODAY THOUGH SMALL AND STILL OUT OF THE TOP WATCH ZONE

UP From 838 / 1099 TO 842 / 1108



The lowest 2 in UK BOTH DOWN also:-


Wales FALL from 323 / 605 TO 295 / 570

AND Lowest in UK Scotland FALL from 300 / 517 TO 280 / 491


(FOR COMPARISON THESE ARE SIMILAR TO WEEKLY POP SCORES THOUGH NOT ACTUALLY IDENTICAL - BUT AS A GUIDE -GREATER MANCHESTER WOULD SHOW HERE AS FALLING FROM 290 / 448 TO 262 / 415)


GM boroughs are a very mixed bag on Zoe. With ups and downs


GM BOROUGHS: ESTIMATED ACTIVE CASES PER MILLION POPULATION YESTERDAY V TODAY


BOLTON DOWN 22 150 to 21 678

BURY UP 17 763 to 18 535

MANCHESTER DOWN 22 150 to 17 446

OLDHAM DOWN 8969 to 7759 - from second worst a week ago to second best

ROCHDALE UP 13 472 to 13 769

SALFORD DOWN 13 605 to 12 495

STOCKPORT UP 8289 to 9027 - First rise here in over a week.

TAMESIDE DOWN 7003 to 6695 - Best in GM - if you trust Zoe!

TRAFFORD UP 12 078 to 13, 494

WIGAN UP 10 245 to 10 689


CHESHIRE EAST (For Andy) Last few days: - 12 001 - 10 765 - 14 311 - 11 382 - 13 883

TODAY:- UP to 15 750



WYRE (Fleetwood etc) IS THE WORST IN THE NORTH WEST but down to 22 859 from 27 429. Higher than Manchester.

LIVERPOOL has been rising in past week and up from 16 662 to 19 320 - ahead of all bar Bolton in GM.

Though in real numbers Bolton is the best in GM with its lowest POP score in weeks and cases sub 100.

Nothing like Zoe is showing it right now.

They CAN see coming trends. Let us hope not here. As they are struggling a bit with getting Zoe working in the new normal.




Zoe works best to suggest paths of very general trends. Not actual numbers.
 
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