Covid 19 Part XXIX-85,394 ROI(2,200 deaths) 62,723 NI (1,240 deaths) (26/12) Read OP

Thepoet85

MadYaker wrote:

I guess that answers my question about the numbers coming out of donegal so

I may be simplifying things a little, but people certainly aren't taking it as seriously as they should up here. I've heard of some local bars being filled to the brim all night with people back for Christmas. We've no chance when that sort of thing is happening.

BryanMartin21

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

What sort of critical mass is he expecting in 2 months time? 160k people vaccinated isn't any sort of reasonable level of immunity. It can certainly provide some sort of insulation from deaths as nursing homes and over 80s will be vaccinated.

It might help reduce deaths and combined with level 5 lockdown reducing case numbers allow level 5 to end but covid won't be falling away at that stage.

After this 'critical mass' is vaccinated we will be stepping out of level 5 and into some form of level 3 restrictions.

The critical mass to rule out lockdowns, but presumably some restrictions will still apply until the OAPs are done and then completely done away with a few weeks after they offer it to the under 65s and get enough of an uptake. That is what I see Varadker as saying; end of Feb to get rid of lockdown and begin the end of this whole thing in order to return to normal soon after.

Goldengirl

2 cases of South African variant which apparently affects younger people more than older, have been picked up in tests in London.
Reported on BBC and SkyNews tonight.
Said increased symptoms and transmission amongst under 15 year olds.

GooglePlus

MadYaker wrote: »

Critical mass meaning about 60 - 70% of the entire population vaccinated so the virus doesn't have as many suitable hosts to infect. It can't really spread when most of the people who pick it up are immune. A vaccinated person is a dead end for the virus. We need a lot of dead ends.

That's not critical mass necessarily, that's herd immunity. Critical mass is open to interpretation, depending on what you're deeming critical.

Leo V talked about reaching critical mass in April but he certainly wasn't talking about herd immunity. His critical mass was enough to start opening up again, which would be the vulnerable vaccinated.

WoollyRedHat

BryanMartin21 wrote: »

Critical mass meaning what? Where hospital numbers could be managed? Vaccinations are only one tool but people who have already had covid aren't a worry and out of those left, only those actually at risk (not the under 45s) need to be vaccinated. And even at that, under the age of 75 we're only looking at around 600 deaths in a year with covid and that is without a vaccine!

Critical mass meaning 70% of population vaccinated. If you fail to reach that, virus can mutate. You're working off the assumption that dominant strains from March to November aren't a threat to those subgroups, but if you have a bad enough mutation occur that becomes the new dominant version, the tables are turned. Viruses don't behave in a static fashion, they can adapt and if enough people aren't vaccinated, it can adapt and potentially become more potent, if given time... Why take the risk?

lukas8888

Thepoet85 wrote: »

Inishowen resident here, can confirm. People seem to be a law on their own here. I've had to be tested today due to being a close contact, but still people here including some of my family laugh at this being real. Incredible really.

Donegal has always acted differently to the rest of our fair isle, from referendums , car fatality statistics,to a casual observance of law and order to name just a few.

BryanMartin21

MadYaker wrote: »

Critical mass meaning about 60 - 70% of the entire population vaccinated so the virus doesn't have as many suitable hosts to infect. It can't really spread when most of the people who pick it up are immune. A vaccinated person is a dead end for the virus. We need a lot of dead ends.

70%? That is BS. Only 13% of the population is over 65. There is a reason Varadker has said "critical mass of population vaccinated" by end of February into early March as that is when those in the vulnerable category (which, it shows in the data, is based on age as the biggest risk factor).

WoollyRedHat

niallo27 wrote: »

What person is saying no restrictions. Nobody mentioned it in here. We are talking about relaxing restrictions the more the vulnerable get vaccinated and that we should not be fixated with cases numbers if a large number of the vulnerable are vaccinated. I actually believe some people don't want this to end.

No arguments there, restrictions will be relaxed in that scenario yes. Most people are sick of these rolling level 3 and 5 lockdowns.

WoollyRedHat

BryanMartin21 wrote: »

70%? That is BS. Only 13% of the population is over 65. There is a reason Varadker has said "critical mass of population vaccinated" by end of February into early March as that is when those in the vulnerable category (which, it shows in the data, is based on age as the biggest risk factor).

70% vaccination is the end game to properly get out of this. Vaccination of f population that need to be vaccinated as a priority gives us the flexibility to slowly start loosening restrictions but not completely.

GooglePlus

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

Critical mass meaning 70% of population vaccinated. If you fail to reach that, virus can mutate. You're working off the assumption that dominant strains from March to November aren't a threat to those subgroups, but if you have a bad enough mutation occur that becomes the new dominant version, the tables are turned. Viruses don't behave in a static fashion, they can adapt and if enough people aren't vaccinated, it can adapt and potentially become more potent, if given time... Why take the risk?

Vaccination will drive mutation quicker than anything. The virus will infect the vaccinated and mutate to work around the immunity. It mutates to survive and spread, so the vaccine stopping that will drive mutation. Thats why we'll be getting a new version of this vaccine annually going forward, like the flu. If you think Polio was hard to eradicate.. which they didn't really. Covid is a different ball game.

WoollyRedHat

GooglePlus wrote: »

That's not critical mass necessarily, that's herd immunity. Critical mass is open to interpretation, depending on what you're deeming critical.

Leo V talked about reaching critical mass in April but he certainly wasn't talking about herd immunity. His critical mass was enough to start opening up again, which would be the vulnerable vaccinated.

Fair enough, for the purpose of semantics we will eventually need to hit herd immunity by way of vaccinating 70% of population to completely get out of this, I would hope everyone can agree on this.

growleaves

GooglePlus wrote: »

Well when you vaccinate the vulnerable, you bring down ICU and hospitalisations and are left with a virus that leaves the rest of us at home for a week or two. If this virus didn't kill off the elderly the way it did, these threads wouldn't even exist. The vaccination of this small group will have a massive impact on our ability to open up and normalise society. We'll never be back to normal though, whatever that is.

If we can't ever lead a normal life again whose fault is that?

Guess.

Answer: You.

Meaning all of you who act as if this is the New Black Death, which it isn't - and come to think of it people went back to normal life after the Black Death. Er but we're more science-y so we need to live in a prison-like existence forever. Science.

GooglePlus

growleaves wrote: »

If we can't ever lead a normal life again whose fault is that?

Guess.

Answer: You.

Meaning all of you who act as if this is the New Black Death, which it isn't - and come to think of it people went back to normal life after the Black Death. Er but we're more science-y so we need to live in a prison-like existence forever. Science.

My point was that nobody goes back to the same life lived after an event like this. Society changes forever, for good usually. You'll never see the life you lived before this again but you'll get pretty close and probably better.

Edit: actually, definitely better. We've overcome worse than this.

WoollyRedHat

GooglePlus wrote: »

Vaccination will drive mutation quicker than anything. The virus will infect the vaccinated and mutate to work around the immunity. It mutates to survive and spread, so the vaccine stopping that will drive mutation. Thats why we'll be getting a new version of this vaccine annually going forward, like the flu. If you think Polio was hard to eradicate.. which they didn't really. Covid is a different ball game.

Which is why you have to have an effective vaccination programme to counter this possibility. It takes tiime for viruses to mutate enough to escape effective treatment of vaccination, I read on twitter that this usually 1-2 years, that's presuming you haven't vaccinated a high enough percentage of populations in that timeframe

FinglasFollain

Any indication what way the government will go with retail? Any article seems to say they’ll consider it on the 28th.

Close relative devastated that her job could be gone yet again for 6 weeks, the pup doesn’t put much of a dent into Dublin rents, not a nice way to spend Christmas Eve and day worrying.

Happydays2020

If you look at cases to deaths, the strain we had in March was far far more dangerous than the strain now.

WoollyRedHat

Happydays2020 wrote: »

If you look at cases to deaths, the strain we had in March was far far more dangerous than the strain now.

Cases were much higher than the official statistics on record.

GooglePlus

Happydays2020 wrote: »

If you look at cases to deaths, the strain we had in March was far far more dangerous than the strain now.

Not true. You can't compare cases v deaths then and now. Do you really think we only had 1000-1500 cases back then or were we just not testing enough? We had way more cases than that, hence the higher death rate.

MadYaker

growleaves wrote: »

If we can't ever lead a normal life again whose fault is that?

Guess.

Answer: You.

Meaning all of you who act as if this is the New Black Death, which it isn't - and come to think of it people went back to normal life after the Black Death. Er but we're more science-y so we need to live in a prison-like existence forever. Science.

??? Life will largely return to normal by the end of next year.

undertaker fan 88

Father temp went very high again and collapsed. Taken away in a ambulance there. He came around and walked out to it himself after gawking his heart and soul up. Fingers crossed he's home tomorrow none of us allowed go so gunna be in the dark on it

lulublue22

undertaker fan 88 wrote: »

Father temp went very high again and collapsed. Taken away in a ambulance there. He came around and walked out to it himself after gawking his heart and soul up. Fingers crossed he's home tomorrow none of us allowed go so gunna be in the dark on it

Fingers crossed he’s home tomorrow - wishing ye all a speedy recovery.

caveat emptor

So if it's 50% more transmissible that means with the current level of restrictions 50% more people contract it, hospitalised with it and ultimately die from it . That means we are going to need a bigger boat i.e more restrictions to keep it manageable. Study linked in the tweet below.

We estimate that VOC 202012/01 is 56% more transmissible (95% credible interval across three regions 50-74%) than preexisting variants of SARS-CoV-2. We were unable to find clear evidence that VOC 202012/01 results in greater or lesser severity of disease than preexisting variants. Nevertheless, the increase in transmissibility is likely to lead to a large increase in incidence, with COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths projected to reach higher levels in 2021 than were observed in 2020, even if regional tiered restrictions implemented before 19 December are maintained. Our estimates suggest that control measures of a similar stringency to the national lockdown implemented in England in November 2020 are unlikely to reduce the effective reproduction number Rt to less than 1, unless primary schools, secondary schools, and universities are also closed.

https://twitter.com/PeterHorby/status/1341851684713209858?s=20

WoollyRedHat

undertaker fan 88 wrote: »

Father temp went very high again and collapsed. Taken away in a ambulance there. He came around and walked out to it himself after gawking his heart and soul up. Fingers crossed he's home tomorrow none of us allowed go so gunna be in the dark on it

Sorry to hear that,. hope he makes s speedy recovery.

Happydays2020

GooglePlus wrote: »

Not true. You can't compare cases v deaths then and now. Do you really think we only had 1000-1500 cases back then or were we just not testing enough? We had way more cases than that, hence the higher death rate.

Exactly. We are basing the new hysteria on a lack of evidence. We do not know enough about this new strain. Yet people are making massive decisions on the basis of incomplete data. News outlets were reporting this as 7 times more infectious when estimates were perhaps 50-70% more infectious. Regrettably hospital and ICU numbers will have increased in 2-3 weeks. Hopefully it will be flu season numbers but if not then we should be seeing the HSE mobilising in respect to excess capacity.

Loafing Oaf

FinglasFollain wrote: »

Any indication what way the government will go with retail? Any article seems to say they’ll consider it on the 28th.

If cases continue at current levels or higher I don't think there's much doubt

GooglePlus

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

Which is why you have to have an effective vaccination programme to counter this possibility. It takes tiime for viruses to mutate enough to escape effective treatment of vaccination, I read on twitter that this usually 1-2 years, that's presuming you haven't vaccinated a high enough percentage of populations in that timeframe

There's no countering that possibility. A vaccinated person still contracts the virus, so mutation around the vaccine is always a risk. Nature always finds a way.

WoollyRedHat

caveat emptor wrote: »

So if it's 50% more transmissible that means with the current level of restrictions 50% more people contract it, hospitalised with it and ultimately die from it . That means we are going to need a bigger boat i.e more restrictions to keep it manageable. Study linked in the tweet below.



https://twitter.com/PeterHorby/status/1341851684713209858?s=20

Is this based just on data modelling based on epidemiology surveillance, or have they got lab experiments data to re-enforce this?

WoollyRedHat

GooglePlus wrote: »

There's no countering that possibility. A vaccinated person still contracts the virus, so mutation around the vaccine is always a risk. Nature always finds a way.

Yes possibility becomes a numbers game. They adapt flu vaccine to innoculate people and there's always a possibility that doesn't work and person still succumbs to illness due to a different strain that they hadn't predicted and potential illness and death follows, but it still minimises risk and mortality.

GooglePlus

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

Is this based just on data modelling based on epidemiology surveillance, or have they got lab experiments data to re-enforce this?

I'm pretty sure surveillance is the only way to determine transmissibility. I don't think they can tell if it's more infectious in a lab experiment but I could be wrong. They can identify the new strains in a lab but its the public data that provides the picture of transmission. Now at Christmas, how do you tell if a strain is causing this increase in transmission or Uncle Marty visiting every family member with his homemade puddings.

Leftwaffe

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Cases lead hospitalisations and unfortunately deaths.

There's a rather well understood relationship between cases and hospitalisations but usually the hospitalisations happen after the case is diagnosed.

10 days ago we were around 300 cases a day. Its those cases driving today's hospitalisations. Today's cases will drive hospitalisations in 10 days time.

The formulas will change but the modellers will be able to read case numbers and accurately predict hospitalisations in a week or twos time.

We will still be making decisions based on cases. Hopefully we will be anle to tolerate a much higher number of cases at that point but it will still be decisions based on cases.

Hospitalisations and deaths lag too far behind cases and are therefore too out of date to make decisions based on them.

I understand the correlation between cases, hospitalisations and deaths but in the near future cases will detach from the other two.

So if, in say 6 months, there’s nobody in hospital and nobody dying but we have 5 or 600 cases a day, what kind of decisions do you think they’ll make?

Genuine question.

My point is, there will come a point where the obsession with cases will be irrelevant. They can model all they like but a key objective was to protect the healthcare system from being overwhelmed, once it’s no longer at risk then NPHET will have an extremely hard time justifying continued restrictions.