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Coronavirus

Coronavirus - The Poll

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jon81uk said:
I hope you don't mind me asking (say stop if we are too personal), but is it because you can go to the surgery more easily, but Jess is more vulnerable and needs a home visit from a nurse?
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Tim said:
It's worth asking why this is the case while you have the vaccine. It could be that there's a mistake in the system and while they have you as a registered carer Jess has somehow been missed off the vulnerable list. I imagine the list of carers is easier to track than the hundreds of disabilitys that are considered vulnerable.

Or as jon81uk said maybe it's just easier to vaccinate people that can travel ahead of those that can't. I know people in care homes are lagging behind for this reason as it's a longer process to vaccinate them.
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If you re-read my last post (the one that @jon81uk quote) I was questioning the fact that they have called me in as a unpaid carer (group 6). I thought that we still have group 4 and then 5 to do first? Saying that, we could be ahead here in Norfolk as it was on the News today that 1/4 of adults in Norfolk have now received the vaccine. The online calculator is estimating the earliest that unpaid carer would be the end of this month for first Jab. Next week would make me two weeks early, so if Norfolk is ahead, it could be possible.

As for Jess not yet receiving the Jab, it could a number of things from being house bound to not quiet meeting the strict criteria for having the jab this moment in time. They do go by age first with each group. Even if you have underlying health problems, again age is also a contributing factor and the older person will always be prioritised above the younger one in each priority group regardless of health problems. We will contact our GP if they haven't called upon Jess by the end of group 6
 
Positive cases coming down nicely, though still too high. I've been on a downer this past month or so and lost an uncle to Covid. Also had a mate that ended up on a ventilator, 47 and was fit and healthy and there he was at deaths door. He's off ventilation now and on the road to recovery.

Hats off to the government/those involved with vaccine procurement and hats off to each and every NHS and healthcare worker in the nation.
 
Austin Towers said:
Positive cases coming down nicely, though still too high. I've been on a downer this past month or so and lost an uncle to Covid. Also had a mate that ended up on a ventilator, 47 and was fit and healthy and there he was at deaths door. He's off ventilation now and on the road to recovery.

Hats off to the government/those involved with vaccine procurement and hats off to each and every NHS and healthcare worker in the nation.
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Sorry to read of your loss @Austin Towers and hopefully your friend's recovery is smooth and swift.

Hopefully with vaccinations and the seemingly flow of better news this week we're on track for some better times ahead. *Crosses Fingers*!
 
I don't like to be the bearer of bad news in this thread, but it is a bit of a blow that the Oxford vaccine does not seem to offer protection against mild or moderate illness caused by the South African strain (source). Unfortunately the trial in South Africa was made up of healthy young adults so it is not know whether or not it protects against severe illness.

The good news is that other vaccines do appear to still work against this variant, and AstraZenaca hope to have a new version of the Oxford vaccine available by the autumn. But seeing as the Oxford vaccine is the one we are going to be relying on quite heavily this year we have just got to hope that we can get on top of the South African strain over the next few weeks and hope that we don't get any other similar mutations. Being in lockdown should help with both of those things.
 
Well, we don't know for sure if it helps to prevent serious illness and death. Hopefully it still offers some protection.

It's an interesting point though. Earlier in the thread I posed a question... would we still need a lockdown if infections were high but hospitalisations and deaths were low?

At the time I was of the viewpoint that you could probably release most of the restrictions if hospitalisations and deaths are low, irrespective of the number of cases. However the South African variant (in fact, any variant) is only possible because there are large numbers of people infected. The more prevalent it is the more opportunites to evolve it has. If the number of cases is low then there's less chance of people becoming infected, and as a result, less chance of dangerous new variants forming. This would suggest that restrictions should remain in force until the infection rate is low to control this risk, and not simply relying on hospital and death rates. It is probably difficult to persuade most people that restrictions are still justified if hospitalisation and death rates are low, though.

Another issue is that it's a worldwide problem. Unless your country is completely isolated and/or has enforced quarantines, the fact that it's out of control globally means it still poses a risk internally. It seems to me that Australia has the right idea at the moment and the UK's approach is inadequate to stop potential new variants entering.
 
I suppose the hope with mutations is that it mutates and becomes a milder disease, and that the milder strain becomes the dominant strain. I do not know enough about exactly how a virus causes and illness and what parts of it need to mutate to know how likely that is though!
 
Alsty said:
Well, we don't know for sure if it helps to prevent serious illness and death. Hopefully it still offers some protection.

It's an interesting point though. Earlier in the thread I posed a question... would we still need a lockdown if infections were high but hospitalisations and deaths were low?

At the time I was of the viewpoint that you could probably release most of the restrictions if hospitalisations and deaths are low, irrespective of the number of cases. However the South African variant (in fact, any variant) is only possible because there are large numbers of people infected. The more prevalent it is the more opportunites to evolve it has. If the number of cases is low then there's less chance of people becoming infected, and as a result, less chance of dangerous new variants forming. This would suggest that restrictions should remain in force until the infection rate is low to control this risk, and not simply relying on hospital and death rates. It is probably difficult to persuade most people that restrictions are still justified if hospitalisation and death rates are low, though.

Another issue is that it's a worldwide problem. Unless your country is completely isolated and/or has enforced quarantines, the fact that it's out of control globally means it still poses a risk internally. It seems to me that Australia has the right idea at the moment and the UK's approach is inadequate to stop potential new variants entering.
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I agree broadly speaking, but I'm not particularly comfortable endorsing the Australian model when stuff like this is happening:
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...val-caps-makes-returning-home-near-impossible
 
I wouldn’t read much into the small studies yet, until they are published and peer reviewed it’s hard to know what standard each study uses to define their success. Plus you have to factor in the confounders from each study as well and that won’t be done until someone does a meta analysis and that will take ages.

I think it’s well established that the SA variant is showing vaccine escape, but it’s not a complete effect. If the SA variant does escape the AZ vaccine completely it will likely take a while for it to outcompete the other strains and gain dominance in the UK and Europe, also the weather will play in our favour again which should give us time for the vaccines to be adapted and re-administer to at risk groups.

I think we just have to acknowledge the game now isn’t to stop this virus, it’s to make it endemic. Partial immunity allows for that to happen.
 
Thameslink Rail said:
The Daily Mail has a reputation for poor fact checking and occasional outright fabrication, are any other more reputable sources reporting this?
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This is true, but they also sometimes do report things that turn out to be correct! Another source here, reporting yes it does work but is less effective. I guess the problem is establishing how much "less effective" and if this is linked to age. Anyway, bottom line is it seems to be better than the Oxford one:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/health/coronavirus-moderna-vaccine-variant.html
 
It’s worth noting that some scientists think that it might be possible to just give a third dose of the existing vaccine as opposed to having to completely reinvent the vaccine, as that would boost the amount of antibodies that the body has against the disease.

It’s also worth noting that the antibodies alone will not be the only thing protecting against COVID. T cell immunity also plays a vital role, so even though the E484K mutation seems to evade antibodies, the T cell immunity could still play a role in helping to reduce disease severity, which is equally important to healthcare services.

They also think that efficacy is only moderately reduced with the Pfizer vaccine, so that one is still very effective against the South Africa variant. It’s worth remembering that even though our main vaccine is AstraZeneca, there are still a significant amount of people in Britain being vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine; we have ordered 40 million doses of it. So that should be 20 million people with reasonably strong protection against the South Africa variant (once we’ve used all of our vaccine doses).
 
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Whatever the situation with the vaccines the lock down can’t continue for months and months. If it’s not lifted by the end of March I’ll be doing my own thing. I have obeyed the rules totally since last year but I’m rapidly starting to lose patience (and sanity) with being stuck in the same 4 walls day in day out.
 
GaryH said:
Whatever the situation with the vaccines the lock down can’t continue for months and months. If it’s not lifted by the end of March I’ll be doing my own thing. I have obeyed the rules totally since last year but I’m rapidly starting to lose patience (and sanity) with being stuck in the same 4 walls day in day out.
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I won't be criticising people for this. The goalposts are constantly shifting. It was top four priority groups, now there's talk of it being everyone over 50.

JVT communicated well today regarding the South African variant, he seems to be the only one who speaks clearly. On the SA variant and AZ vaccine, if the current AZ vaccine still prevents against more moderate and severe illness, what's the issue? Is the objective not to reduce hospitalisations and deaths?
 
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Thing is you will never ever stop all these different variants. After the South African one will be the Brazilian one. After that what next. We have to adapt and try to live with the virus else we will end up with a lost generation of children, millions more unemployed, a bankrupt country and a mental health crisis like this country has never seen before.
 
To be fair, I think Boris doesn’t want to end up with people criticising him for lifting lockdown too early and risking a new wave of cases. Last time, many scientists criticised him for unlocking too early, rightly or wrongly. With an infectious new variant about and vaccines not quite covering everyone that needs them just yet, I think Boris is understandably trying to be careful.

I wouldn’t want to make too many concrete predictions, but I personally think that we may see light unlocking begin after the review on 15th February. For example, I could see schools at least partially reopening on 8th March (probably fully, as Boris is said to be against a phased reopening), and I could see exercise rules being eased slightly. I think the government’s intent is that rules will be practically fully eased (or at least, pretty substantially eased) once the over-50s are all vaccinated in May, as this group accounts for 99% of all COVID deaths.

If we ease more slowly now, we will reap the benefits later. This will most probably end up being our final lockdown if all goes well.
 
There is no chance majority of the public will put up with this any longer than mid March me included, 99% of people I speak with are done with this lockdown rubbish.
We need our lives and sanity back, it’s been one year by mid March, the government, NHS and schools have had long enough to sort themselves out by now, life must be allowed to go on once all the top 4 categories are done as promised at the beginning of January.
Goal posts must not be allowed to be moved.
 
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