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Coronavirus

Coronavirus - The Poll

  • Total voters
    97
monkeyboy said:
Another strange one, we are been asked to wear makes from next Friday in shops but the staff have no obligation to do the same.
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skyscraper said:
Same with public transport workers.
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Not required in law because there'll be lots of other measures that can be put in place not available to a visitor, primarily that anyone working in a fixed spot such as cashiers and bus drivers can work behind screening where wearing a mask as well would be pointless. I imagine there's an expectation that staff interacting face to face will have to wear a mask by company policy rather than law.
 
Can i just say that i hope Alton have got a plan for RAP and the Exit to Th13teen as i believe they're the same thing. I remember last year on a peak day waiting just outside the exit and that when the people were exiting the ride, there wasn't much space when they had to squeeze past. I'm going on Thursday anyway so it will be interesting to see.
 
Jonathan said:
Some very encouraging news about the Oxford vaccine! The tests are showing that people are making antibodies and white blood cells that fight coronavirus, though it's of course too soon to say whether it'll offer sufficient protection against it.
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Fantastic! If this works, we could have had quite a few people vaccinated by the end of 2020, as the team has said that they want to begin vaccinations in September/October if all goes well!
 
Matt N said:
Fantastic! If this works, we could have had quite a few people vaccinated by the end of 2020, as the team has said that they want to begin vaccinations in September/October if all goes well!
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Unlikely that there will be major vaccination programmes this year. This was a phase 1 trial looking at safety, it didn’t assess its efficacy. You need the stage 3 trials and those won’t likely be done for a few more months. Then you need to ramp up production and get vaccinators trained and housed somewhere.

On top of that the first people to get the vaccine with be medical and health workers, there is a chance we may get it before Christmas but even that is touch and go. I would say best case scenario major population vaccination won’t start until next spring.
 
Dave said:
Unlikely that there will be major vaccination programmes this year. This was a phase 1 trial looking at safety, it didn’t assess its efficacy. You need the stage 3 trials and those won’t likely be done for a few more months. Then you need to ramp up production and get vaccinators trained and housed somewhere.

On top of that the first people to get the vaccine with be medical and health workers, there is a chance we may get it before Christmas but even that is touch and go. I would say best case scenario major population vaccination won’t start until next spring.
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There were reports they were looking into ramping up production in advance of getting final approval so it's ready to go if they get it.
 
Dave said:
Unlikely that there will be major vaccination programmes this year. This was a phase 1 trial looking at safety, it didn’t assess its efficacy. You need the stage 3 trials and those won’t likely be done for a few more months. Then you need to ramp up production and get vaccinators trained and housed somewhere.

On top of that the first people to get the vaccine with be medical and health workers, there is a chance we may get it before Christmas but even that is touch and go. I would say best case scenario major population vaccination won’t start until next spring.
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The phase 3 trials are currently in progress in countries like Brazil, South Africa and the USA, with results coming in August/September. The vaccine is also being manufactured now at risk so that they can quickly vaccinate people once approval is gained. AstraZeneca began manufacturing the vaccine in June, so it should be ready very quickly if phase 3 trials go well in August.
 
Manufacturing is only a very small part of the puzzle though, and even then we're looking at an absolutely mind boggling number of doses that need to be produced. There's still the results of the trials, then approval from each country's regulators to go on top of the manufacturing side of things.

Even after that, vaccinating at-risk groups such as healthcare staff etc is relatively small scale. The sheer logistics involved in getting enough vaccines, equipment and staff at the right place and at the right time is a staggering feat to achieve nationally, yet alone on a global scale.

The news coming out so far is fantastic, and a hell of a lot better than initially thought when vaccine programmes first cropped up. But that doesn't mean we should be complacent that a "fix" is coming soon, we need to be realistic that this won't be anywhere near to bringing quick resolution this year. Remember we need nearly 3/4's of people to be immunised for this to be a realistic resolution to this whole mess, and achieving any sort of dent toward that this year is impossible.
 
Craig said:
Manufacturing is only a very small part of the puzzle though, and even then we're looking at an absolutely mind boggling number of doses that need to be produced. There's still the results of the trials, then approval from each country's regulators to go on top of the manufacturing side of things.

Even after that, vaccinating at-risk groups such as healthcare staff etc is relatively small scale. The sheer logistics involved in getting enough vaccines, equipment and staff at the right place and at the right time is a staggering feat to achieve nationally, yet alone on a global scale.

The news coming out so far is fantastic, and a hell of a lot better than initially thought when vaccine programmes first cropped up. But that doesn't mean we should be complacent that a "fix" is coming soon, we need to be realistic that this won't be anywhere near to bringing quick resolution this year. Remember we need nearly 3/4's of people to be immunised for this to be a realistic resolution to this whole mess, and achieving any sort of dent toward that this year is impossible.
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They could start a mass vaccination programme once a vaccine is available (that could be September like Oxford have promised, or it could be at a later date). The head of the Oxford team said that the entire British population could be vaccinated by the end of 2020.

Boris Johnson’s target for complete normality is apparently April 2021, with “near-normality” hoped for by Christmas. So I think that by the middle of next year, potentially sooner, we could be living pre-COVID lives again.
 
Committing so very heavily to an unproven medicine can also drive a concerning desire to prove what you want to find rather than finding the truth in testing...
 
Matt N said:
They could start a mass vaccination programme once a vaccine is available (that could be September like Oxford have promised, or it could be at a later date). The head of the Oxford team said that the entire British population could be vaccinated by the end of 2020.

Boris Johnson’s target for complete normality is apparently April 2021, with “near-normality” hoped for by Christmas. So I think that by the middle of next year, potentially sooner, we could be living pre-COVID lives again.
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These are out of date quotes, Oxfords timelines are about a month later for a working vaccine. You might get 50% vaccinated by April potentially.
 
Dave said:
These are out of date quotes, Oxfords timelines are about a month later for a working vaccine. You might get 50% vaccinated by April potentially.
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So you reckon that they could have a working vaccine identified by October as opposed to September?

You never really know at the moment; it usually takes years to even get to phase 1 human trials, yet they managed it within 3 months of the virus being sighted in China and it passed phase 1 trials 6 months after the virus was first identified. With the amount riding on this vaccine, it wouldn’t surprise me if they have plans to vaccinate people more quickly. Under normal circumstances, it might take 6 months to vaccinate 50% of the population. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the government has a plan; Matt Hancock is apparently devising a large-scale COVID vaccination programme for this winter if a vaccine is approved, in order to go alongside the largest ever flu vaccination programme.
 
There's more than one way to skin a cat and that's where the global vaccine effort will come into play. If more than one vaccine is able to produce effective enough results that will easily reduce the load on the Oxford trial.

A vaccine alone will probably be enough to get this under control in the next 2 years. We need medicine effective enough to control symptoms/reduce mortality rates and we need effective track and trace measures in place to limit the spread.

If we don't find effective medicine or vaccine, we're in for one rough winter.
 
Matt N said:
So you reckon that they could have a working vaccine identified by October as opposed to September?
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They could, but then they might not - it's still a period of real uncertainty with all this. We're still really early on into the timeline of vaccine development. There's lots of incredibly positive news coming out about both this vaccine and a few others, but everyone really needs to keep their feet on the ground about it. Phase 3 trials could flag up issues, that's why we have them afterall. Then the logistical side of things has to happen - MHRA approval in the UK/global approval elsewhere, production, distribution and then arranging the administration of the vaccine with the appropriate staff and equipment to boot.

Be positive about the developments, but above all else we have to remain realistic, it's not a silver bullet that will make things go away within a couple of months This is a mass scale global vaccination programme, the likes of which the world will have never been seen before. It will take time - many, many months once the vaccine becomes commercially available for the goal to be achieved.
 
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You don't actually need to vaccinate everybody to get good results. For starters, herd immunity comes in at about 60%, but even then you can get good "bang for your buck" by just vaccinating certain groups of people. For example, people who provide vectors for the virus such as doctors, nurses, care workers, shop workers etc. Anybody who comes into contact with lots of people everyday would be the best place to start. I guess you'd also want to vaccinate those at risk (shielded groups).
 
Alsty said:
You don't actually need to vaccinate everybody to get good results. For starters, herd immunity comes in at about 60%, but even then you can get good "bang for your buck" by just vaccinating certain groups of people. For example, people who provide vectors for the virus such as doctors, nurses, care workers, shop workers etc. Anybody who comes into contact with lots of people everyday would be the best place to start. I guess you'd also want to vaccinate those at risk (shielded groups).
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That's a major thing to take from this. IF with this and the protein therapy we can target those who are likely to be hospitalised this winter, then that will take a massive strain off the NHS.
 
I don’t think elimination of the disease is necessarily essential to getting life back to normal. If we can get circulation down to levels that the NHS can cope with, then surely that’s all we need?

Personally, I’m not sure if the virus will ever be fully eliminated. I could see it becoming like the common cold and just becoming endemic in society, spreading at levels which the NHS can cope with, but also low enough that social distancing and masks can be scrapped.
 
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