Coronavirus

[Dave]

Yes very convenient news from Prof Doom and Dr Gloom on TV this evening, I’m sorry but I just don’t believe them anymore.
Pedalling panic to try and get the numbers not listening obeying and keep the fantasy lockdown going as long as possible, it’s almost like they are getting off on this power trip.

A bit like vaccines, yes fantastic numbers but unfortunately I’ve witnessed quite a few cases this week of what can only be described as monstrous queue jumping.
Young fit people being vaccinated ahead of the old and vulnerable on very dubious grounds, at what point do young able NHS car park assistants, recruitment agents “volunteering” in hospitals and private massage business owners class as vulnerable?
It’s damn right discussing that’s what it is, my 70 year old parents haven’t been out of the house for 9 months as neither have certain people on this forum yet these parasites have jumped the queue, the NHS sometimes has a lot to answer for.

People jumping the queues is disgusting, unfortunately this is mostly down to companies who provide health care stretching the definition of patient facing (shock horror unscrupulous private companies providing health services causing issues!)

Unless the government decide to create some enforcement legislation the NHS doesn’t have much it can do (the Government has allowed these companies to self define public facing roles, it’s not an NHS decision). Certainly in the NHS organisation I work for no back office staff are getting the vaccine. I would say however be aware of online rumours though, you mention parking staff, in most Trusts parking is managed by security and security staff go on the wards and have a fair amount of contact with staff and patients. Massage parlours do not however!

I do wonder if Johnson has announced this “increases risk of death” too soon. As I said in the original post the data is very low. That said we all had the same comments on the transmissibility increase when that came out last year...

 

[D4n]

Clearly I'm missing something here, but from what I can see the increasing number of deaths seems to correlate directly to the volume of cases (the highest seen since the start of the pandemic in early January), it doesn't seem that deaths have been pushed significantly above the correlation that you would expect.

Stress on hospitals / staff over winter and with the higher volume of cases might have had some impact in any case. I'd be surprised if this variant ultimately proves to be more deadly and, for once, I hope I'm right.

I'm not well educated regarding these things though so I'd happily be corrected.

 

[Dave]

Clearly I'm missing something here, but from what I can see the increasing number of deaths seems to correlate directly to the volume of cases (the highest seen since the start of the pandemic in early January), it doesn't seem that deaths have been pushed significantly above the correlation that you would expect.

Stress on hospitals / staff over winter and with the higher volume of cases might have had some impact in any case. I'd be surprised if this variant ultimately proves to be more deadly and, for once, I hope I'm right.

I'm not well educated regarding these things though so I'd happily be corrected.

You are not missing anything, the data is low. The more you read about it the more you have to wonder if Johnson has announced this too early. It might be that as more data comes in the rates between the strains realign, or a difference will become more pronounced. Epidemiology studies take time as you are always a month or so behind the data.

 

[BigT]

People jumping the queues is disgusting, unfortunately this is mostly down to companies who provide health care stretching the definition of patient facing (shock horror unscrupulous private companies providing health services causing issues!)

Unless the government decide to create some enforcement legislation the NHS doesn’t have much it can do (the Government has allowed these companies to self define public facing roles, it’s not an NHS decision). Certainly in the NHS organisation I work for no back office staff are getting the vaccine. I would say however be aware of online rumours though, you mention parking staff, in most Trusts parking is managed by security and security staff go on the wards and have a fair amount of contact with staff and patients. Massage parlours do not however!

I do wonder if Johnson has announced this “increases risk of death” too soon. As I said in the original post the data is very low. That said we all had the same comments on the transmissibility increase when that came out last year...

Sorry I wasn’t clearer I don’t mean massage parlours, I mean sports massage.
I know of four people directly so its not rumours or paper talk, I personally find it disgusting behaviour when there are still lots of vulnerable people not vaccinated.

 

[Dave]

Sorry I wasn’t clearer I don’t mean massage parlours, I mean sports massage.
I know of four people directly so its not rumours or paper talk, I personally find it disgusting behaviour when there are still lots of vulnerable people not vaccinated.

Ahh fair enough. Yeah i agree it is happening, it’s angered a lot of us in the NHS but we can’t police it and the government doesn’t seem to want to either.

 

[Matt N]

With regards to the death figure, that could possibly decrease over time. I remember the CFR of COVID-19 was originally thought to be as high as 4%, but now, it’s only around 1%.

 

[Dave]

With regards to the death figure, that could possibly decrease over time. I remember the CFR of COVID-19 was originally thought to be as high as 4%, but now, it’s only around 1%.

In any scientific experiment the lower the number of data points the more “uncertainty” there is in the conclusion. You can do statistical analysis techniques that try and account for this but basically you are adding “noise” into the data and your certainty decreases (you read scientific papers quoting their significance of a result usually as a p-value).

This is all because you always get outliers in any data (for example the 96 year old who has smoked 50 cigarettes a day since they where 14 and never had lung cancer compared to the 34 year old who has never smoked who get lung cancer). You need a higher volume of data to balance the outliers from the trend.

Unfortunately the only way to get more data is for more people to get the virus and invariably more people to die. This gives you more statistical certainty on the conclusions.

It’s why scientists hate newspapers reporting early data, as they jump on the conclusions and then when later data changes the consensus moan that scientists can’t make up their minds. Trouble is scientists want to publish the early data so other scientists can check that the methodology is good and maybe also join in collecting more data. Science is an iterative process and that’s why over time the originally fatality rate decreased. You are right that this could also happen with the new variant.

 

[GaryH]

Apologies it’s the Mail but apparently scientists at Porton Down are saying the vaccines should work against the variants currently in circulation including the South African one. Having my jab on Tuesday , Pfizer one apparently.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-protecting-against-mutant-strains-Covid.html

 

[Matt N]

Remarkable news; 6.3 million people have now apparently had their first vaccine dose in the UK, with a further 400,000 having had their second dose.

With the vaccination program gaining pace (almost 500,000 are now being vaccinated per day), I think the government’s target of 15 million by mid-February is very much attainable if all goes well!

Cases today were also at their lowest level since 19th December.

 

[RoyJess]

Remarkable news; 6.3 million people have now apparently had their first vaccine dose in the UK, with a further 400,000 having had their second dose.

With the vaccination program gaining pace (almost 500,000 are now being vaccinated per day), I think the government’s target of 15 million by mid-February is very much attainable if all goes well!

Cases today were also at their lowest level since 19th December.

The online calculator (Independent site and not part of the NHS) is now estimating that everyone should have their first jab by mid May. Looks like where ever you are on the list, there won't be a long wait

Let's hope that this government don't mess up the roll out and keep on ramping out the vaccine with minimum disruption

 

[Matt N]

Interestingly, this number is apparently from yesterday (23rd January) according to the GOV.UK site: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations

The stats as of 23rd January are as follows:

• Total first doses: 6,353,321
• Second dose total: 469,660
• First doses given yesterday (23rd January): 491,970
• Second doses given yesterday (23rd January): 1,043

This is remarkable stuff, in my opinion, and even now, the rollout seems to be accelerating; just look at that graph for first doses being given per day!

If things keep accelerating and going as well as they are now, I think we’ll be at 10 million first doses before we know it!

I’ll be intrigued to see what these look like tomorrow; I think we could possibly be edging close to 7 million. Certainly well over 6.5 million if the current pace is maintained.

 

[AstroDan]

There is no denying that the NHS's systems and tied-together approach is helping the UK vaccinate speedily.

The main concern remains the questions over the UK's outlier approach vs. most of the world re: the time delay between dose 1 and dose 2.

I hope our government advisers are right.

 

[Craig]

Yup, there's definitely reasons to be positive on the rollout front, and really hope things continue along the current trajectory. The coming week or so is set to be an interesting one, with growing calls for the 12 week gap to be halved to 6 weeks. Regardless of any changes on that front, second doses start to come into play too, meaning the logistics of ensuring there's capacity to ensure both 1st and 2nd dose patients get their vaccine get more difficult. There's then potential issues on the supply front, but hopefully these manage to hold up.

On the cases front, it's been another positive day too, as they appear to be trending down in the vast majority of places now (down 22.3% UK wide in the past 7 days). Even those areas of concern like the North West and Midlands are starting to show a steeper decline now. Hospital admissions are slowly trending down nationally (down 6.3% UK wide in the last 7 days), but we've still got another week or two at least until we see a proper effect on the deaths front. Long way to go, but getting there!

 

[Dave]

There is no denying that the NHS's systems and tied-together approach is helping the UK vaccinate speedily.

The main concern remains the questions over the UK's outlier approach vs. most of the world re: the time delay between dose 1 and dose 2.

I hope our government advisers are right.

For the AZ vaccine the longer gap logic is pretty sound. Some other vaccines used have 6-12 month gaps between doses (HPV and some of the Hep vaccines). I think what’s making doctors and scientists nervous about the Pfizer vaccine is that it is such a novel technology and although logic suggests the immune system should respond in a similar way we just don’t know.

 

[Islander]

For the AZ vaccine the longer gap logic is pretty sound. Some other vaccines used have 6-12 month gaps between doses (HPV and some of the Hep vaccines). I think what’s making doctors and scientists nervous about the Pfizer vaccine is that it is such a novel technology and although logic suggests the immune system should respond in a similar way we just don’t know.

Would the logistics of splitting the two (ie keeping a long gap for those given the AZ vaccine, but shortening the gap for those receiving the Pfizer vaccine) be too complex? What's the ratio of use between the two anyway - I was under the impression that a far higher proportion would receive the AZ vaccine over the Pfizer

 

[Matt N]

Britain has considerably more doses of AstraZeneca/Oxford’s vaccine than Pfizer’s (I think it’s 100 million compared with 20 million, correct me if I’m wrong?), so I’d be surprised if AstraZeneca’s vaccine didn’t make up a considerably higher proportion of the doses.

With regards to the spacing, AstraZeneca’s vaccine was interestingly proven more effective when the doses were spaced out more, apparently.

 

[Craig]

Britain has considerably more doses of AstraZeneca/Oxford’s vaccine than Pfizer’s (I think it’s 100 million compared with 20 million, correct me if I’m wrong?), so I’d be surprised if AstraZeneca’s vaccine didn’t make up a considerably higher proportion of the doses.

With regards to the spacing, AstraZeneca’s vaccine was interestingly proven more effective when the doses were spaced out more, apparently.

We've ordered 100 million of AZ, 40 million for Pifzer. However, they've not all been delivered. It's difficult to find any exact figures of what's been delivered in terms of either vaccine. Obviously Pfizer had a head start to the AZ one, but I think it's safe to say things are tipping toward more of the AZ vaccine being given out either now or in the very near future.

 

[delta79]

The roll out of vaccination is going to grow again. However, production seems to be a limiting factor at the moment.
There are more mass vaccination centres being set up and signed off at the moment, with volunteer vaccinators, care and support ready to staff them.

Sent from my SM-A217F using Tapatalk

 

[Dave]

Would the logistics of splitting the two (ie keeping a long gap for those given the AZ vaccine, but shortening the gap for those receiving the Pfizer vaccine) be too complex? What's the ratio of use between the two anyway - I was under the impression that a far higher proportion would receive the AZ vaccine over the Pfizer

Most vaccine centres are using one of the vaccines only. In the majority of cases hospital based centres are using Pfizer and the hubs in sports stadiums etc are using AZ (GP’s have a mix depending on their storage abilities).

Im not sure how the record and booking system works and whether it can have different schedules for different vaccines (the shifts I have done we complete the paperwork and there are admin teams doing the computer input elsewhere so I have zero knowledge of how that side of things works). It would seem a no brainier that it should do as when it was being developed they had no idea if the different vaccines would have the same interval. But if there is one area I will happily criticise healthcare (and the NHS) is its IT infrastructure so anything is possible.

 

[jon81uk]

Although the definition of "NHS staff" might be being applied a little too broadly, I think that people working in hospital and healthcare environments are definitely more at risk of catching covid as they are at work. Whereas an elderly person is more likely to be following lockdown rules and unless they are working in a high risk environment, they are more likely to be at home anyway.