The UK response - Part II - read OP

devnull

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Will there be a bank holiday delay?

What was it like in May?

Many NHS trusts won't report deaths over the weekend or a bank holiday until the next working day (Tuesday) which will then be reflected in the stats on Wednesday which are normally are artificially higher just like Sunday, Monday and (after a bank holiday weekend) Tuesday stats are artificially lower.

At this stage if it was up to me, I'd be looking at a half way house on 21st June, easing some of the restrictions but keeping masks and distancing going initially for another couple of weeks to see how things progress and try and get as many people double jabbed as possible in that time.

I assume vaccine supply is the limiting factor in being able to speed things up further? I know some GP Surgeries in some smaller towns who tend to get a batch of vaccines, spend 3-4 days doing large amounts and then don't get any for another for almost a week and the pattern repeats, so there is capacity there to speed things up and give the second Pfizer dose in less than 12 weeks after first if there are the vaccines to do it.

josip

brickster69 wrote: »

Third wave starting. Indian variant going crazy. Shut the pubs for god's sake

https://twitter.com/UKCovid19Stats/status/1399381414580297738

There is no evidence of a third wave or the Indian variant "going crazy" here, the UK or anywhere in Europe.

josip

Boggles

brickster69 wrote: »

Good job that those most at risk of death or going to hospital are fully vaccinated now. Got my second dose this morning, appointment at 11.30 got there at 11.15 all done by 11.25 and in the pub for Sunday lunch at midday.

brickster69 wrote: »

Third wave starting. Indian variant going crazy. Shut the pubs for god's sake

bilston

josip wrote: »

There is no evidence of a third wave or the Indian variant "going crazy" here, the UK or anywhere in Europe.

So are cases rises slightly because of the Delta variant, or because restrictions have been eased?

Looking at that graphic, you can see a bump in cases around 24th/25th which was 7 to 8 days after indoor restrictions were significantly relaxed.

Was that not expected?

I still think a pause to the June 21st easements may be sensible. Nightclubs will be reopening. Who goes to nightclubs? Mostly under 30s.

Who hasn't been vaccinated?

Mostly under 30s

Pushing that sort of thing back 4 or 5 weeks seems perfectly sensible IMO.

Lumen

There seems to be an inverse correlation between mathematical/epidemiological expertise and the belief that "there's nothing to see here".

Anyway, good Twitter thread from today.

"I estimate that the new variant has a transmissibility advantage of about 70% and the respective R numbers are around 0.9 and 1.5, though with some regional differences"

The way I read it is that further re-opening is likely to give those R-numbers an upward kick.

https://twitter.com/alexselby1770/status/1400043619738869768

brickster69

50% of all adults have now had second doses

https://metro.co.uk/2021/06/03/covid-vaccine-half-of-uk-adults-have-received-both-doses-14708741/?ito=push-notification&ci=211983&si=22786189&ai=14708741

igCorcaigh

Case numbers shooting up in UK recently, another 5,274 today.
Will be interesting to see the analysis.

brickster69

igCorcaigh wrote: »

Case numbers shooting up in UK recently, another 5,274 today.
Will be interesting to see the analysis.

Thankfully there are twice as many hospitals than people with Covid in hospital today.

bilston

igCorcaigh wrote: »

Case numbers shooting up in UK recently, another 5,274 today.
Will be interesting to see the analysis.

We need to know whether these people have been vaccinated and if so whether they've had one or two doses. Age would be interesting as well.

Also what is happening in hospitals? If these people are unvaccinated but younger then hospitals may not feel the pressure as much. If they are older but have had one or both vaccine doses it may not put pressure on hospitals either.

It is a lot more complicated now than just saying "oh crap, cases are going up, let's lockdown". Obviously rising cases are not ideal, but it is no longer as simple as that.

Del Griffith

bilston wrote: »

We need to know whether these people have been vaccinated and if so whether they've had one or two doses. Age would be interesting as well.

Also what is happening in hospitals? If these people are unvaccinated but younger then hospitals may not feel the pressure as much. If they are older but have had one or both vaccine doses it may not put pressure on hospitals either.

It is a lot more complicated now than just saying "oh crap, cases are going up, let's lockdown". Obviously rising cases are not ideal, but it is no longer as simple as that.

Exactly. They shouldn't even still be counting cases. Who cares about some mild symptomed brief illness going around?

igCorcaigh

bilston wrote: »

We need to know whether these people have been vaccinated and if so whether they've had one or two doses. Age would be interesting as well.

Also what is happening in hospitals? If these people are unvaccinated but younger then hospitals may not feel the pressure as much. If they are older but have had one or both vaccine doses it may not put pressure on hospitals either.

It is a lot more complicated now than just saying "oh crap, cases are going up, let's lockdown". Obviously rising cases are not ideal, but it is no longer as simple as that.

Totally agree.

I find it interesting in how we are finding new variants of the virus as they arise, and can analyse the epidemiology of them in real time like we never could have done before.

I also think we are really lucky, in a sense, to have been hit with this coronavirus pandemic as opposed to something else.
This pandemic is not the Big One that we feared. But that will come. Avian flu is still something to keep a keen eye on!

We now have rapidly sequenced a novel viral genome and have produced mRNA vaccines at a rapid pace, with remarkable success. Astounding!

We have also seen how our attempts at public health interventions can succeed, or fail, and even how they can work out in a social and political way (that aspect has fascinated and surprised me).

We are now much more prepared to deal with a truly devastating viral respiratory pandemic, should it arise; a very valuable lesson I think.

Jim_Hodge

igCorcaigh wrote: »

Case numbers shooting up in UK recently, another 5,274 today.
Will be interesting to see the analysis.

They don't seem to be reporting hospitalisations though. That would be a better measure.

Lumen

Jim_Hodge wrote: »

They don't seem to be reporting hospitalisations though. That would be a better measure.

Who is "they"? These stats are only a click away.

7 day average daily hospital admissions are up 22% in the last 18 days for England.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-daily-covid-admissions?time=2021-04-07..latest

Jim_Hodge

Lumen wrote: »

Who is "they"? These stats are only a click away.

7 day average daily hospital admissions are up 22% in the last 18 days for England.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-daily-covid-admissions?time=2021-04-07..latest

I meant the UK Media such as BBC and ITN.

Marcusm

Del Griffith wrote: »

Exactly. They shouldn't even still be counting cases. Who cares about some mild symptomed brief illness going around?

anecdotally it is within minority ethnic groups and at older age levels due to lower vaccinations rates as well as more transmissible variant etc. Our uptake is much higher so hopefully it would have less of an impact here.

WoollyRedHat

Word coming out from UK that they are considering delaying the 21st June reopening

robinph

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

Word coming out from UK that they are considering delaying the 21st June reopening

There were similar claims the week before each of the previous relaxations in restrictions. Better off not worrying about it until they actually say anything.

WoollyRedHat

robinph wrote: »

There were similar claims the week before each of the previous relaxations in restrictions. Better off not worrying about it until they actually say anything.

This is the word running around government circles and is reputable, Reuters reporting. They might not cancel it entirely, but plans to fully reopen nightclubs on that date must be very much in doubt.

deeperlearning

There is a lot of concern in the UK at how the AstraZeneca vaccine is holding up against the delta/B.1.167.2 variant.



The over 70s here in Ireland should be safe but the 60-69 age group could be vulnerable.

afatbollix

Here's a mental fact.


More positive cases detected in the past 24 hours in the under 9-year-olds than in the whole population over the age of 60.

Close the pubs they are all getting it there! :pac:

WoollyRedHat

afatbollix wrote: »

Here's a mental fact.


More positive cases detected in the past 24 hours in the under 9-year-olds than in the whole population over the age of 60.

Close the pubs they are all getting it there! :pac:

That is weird, they're suggesting there's a serious problem with spread in schools.

Wolf359f

deeperlearning wrote: »

There is a lot of concern in the UK at how the AstraZeneca vaccine is holding up against the delta/B.1.167.2 variant.



The over 70s here in Ireland should be safe but the 60-69 age group could be vulnerable.

Any chance you can explain the diagram?

Wolf359f

Wolf359f wrote: »

Any chance you can explain the diagram?

It'd be helpful if the poster had linked the study that was from but it appears from that image that the AZ vaccine doesn't elicit a strong enough immune response for the majority of recipients to produce neutralising antibody titres against the South Africa and India variants 10 weeks post vaccination, I'm presuming its 10 weeks after single dose.

Wolf359f

Johnny0Toole wrote: »

It'd be helpful if the poster had linked the study that was from but it appears from that image that the AZ vaccine doesn't elicit a strong enough immune response for the majority of recipients to produce neutralising antibody titres against the South Africa and India variants 10 weeks post vaccination, I'm presuming its 10 weeks after single dose.

Be fooked if I know. Is Pfizer week W16, 16 weeks after vaccination? if so, 1 or 2 doses, 16 weeks after 1st or 2nd dose?
I tried google the pic and got nothing in the way of reports, just half a dozen people tweeting the exact same image with zero data, just AZ is bad, Pfizer is good etc...

I could empty a pack of ticktacs on the table and take a pic and say the orange ones are Pfizer and the green AZ and let the internet loons develop the narrative!

Lumen

Wolf359f wrote: »

Be fooked if I know. Is Pfizer week W16, 16 weeks after vaccination? if so, 1 or 2 doses, 16 weeks after 1st or 2nd dose?
I tried google the pic and got nothing in the way of reports, just half a dozen people tweeting the exact same image with zero data, just AZ is bad, Pfizer is good etc...

I could empty a pack of ticktacs on the table and take a pic and say the orange ones are Pfizer and the green AZ and let the internet loons develop the narrative!

https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1398337948416946178?s=19

robinph

Lumen wrote: »

https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1398337948416946178?s=19

Still can't make sense of that graphic. It also seems to be showing that a second dose of Pfizer reduces the effect of the vaccine rather than increasing it. Makes no sense however you try to read it.

Can we have some Tic Tacs instead please?

Lumen

robinph wrote: »

Still can't make sense of that graphic. It also seems to be showing that a second dose of Pfizer reduces the effect of the vaccine rather than increasing it. Makes no sense however you try to read it.

Why do you think this? Can you put it in words?

robinph

Lumen wrote: »

Why do you think this? Can you put it in words?

What do the blue bars represent? Those are smaller for Astra Zeneca so is presumably something to do with the claim that Astra Zeneca is less effective against those variants, but those blue bars are also lower for W16 of Pfizer compared to W8 of Pfizer.

Either Pfizer is less effective after the second dose, or the chart is just a bunch of random lines and coloured dots that makes no sense without some detailed explanation.

I'm going for the random lines and dots answer for now. Can you explain what it is trying to show?

Lumen

robinph wrote: »

What do the blue bars represent? Those are smaller for Astra Zeneca so is presumably something to do with the claim that Astra Zeneca is less effective against those variants, but those blue bars are also lower for W16 of Pfizer compared to W8 of Pfizer.

Either Pfizer is less effective after the second dose, or the chart is just a bunch of random lines and coloured dots that makes no sense without some detailed explanation.

I'm going for the random lines and dots answer for now. Can you explain what it is trying to show?

Here's my superficial interpretation.

The reduction in efficacy in Pfizer between W8 and W16 is variant-specific:

D614G: 100->100 (no drop)
B.1.1.7: 94 -> 92 (no significant drop)
B.1.351: 81 -> 46 (almost halving)
B.1.167.2: 94 -> 85 (mild drop)

B.1.351 is the SA variant.
B.1.167.2 is an Indian variant.

Since the dosing interval for Pfizer is less than 8 weeks, both sets of data apply to people who are fully vaccinated.

10 weeks after one dose of AZ, efficacy is:

D614G: 83
B.1.1.7: 75
B.1.351: 8
B.1.167.2: 8

So there is little vaccine efficacy 10 weeks after one dose of AZ against SA and Indian variants.

...which is why the UK are pushing people to be careful until their second dose of AZ. The original extended dosing schedule was based on data from a period where the Indian variant wasn't around.

I haven't seen much mention of the SA variant recently, maybe it's been swamped by the Indian/delta variant but I haven't checked the stats.

All of these stats presumably relate to infections rather than severe disease, but that would be worth checking.

Chris_5339762

It seems to be (not an expert) that the transmissibility advantage of B117 (Kent) and B11672 (India) is out-competing the immune evasion of B1351 (South Africa), so the latter is not establishing.

I wonder too, when they say "more transmissible" what do they ACTUALLY mean. Do they mean that the virus has mutated in such a way that virus particles spread from person to person more effectively or latch onto ACE2 receptors more easily, or do they mean that more virus particles of the same spreading-power are coughed out by a person, making it more likely that enough of them will end up in a new person to cause an infection.