The Delta variant

revelman

Red Silurian wrote: »

An interesting update at the HSE briefing today from Paul Reid, Of the 602 hospitalisations in the UK, 8-9% of them are fully vaccinated people, this is being atributed to the delta variant. To me this suggests a vaccine efficacy against hospitalisation to be 91-92% but notably they are not telling us which vaccine these 55ish people have taken

The recent large scale study on the part of Public Health England about the Delta variant showed that 2 doses of AZ was 92% effective against hospitalisation while Pfizer was 96%.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vaccines-highly-effective-against-hospitalisation-from-delta-variant

Red Silurian

revelman wrote: »

The recent large scale study on the part of Public Health England about the Delta variant showed that 2 doses of AZ was 92% effective against hospitalisation while Pfizer was 96%.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vaccines-highly-effective-against-hospitalisation-from-delta-variant

That's about right so isn't it?

revelman

Red Silurian wrote: »

That's about right so isn't it?

I guess. I was responding to the part of your post when you say they are not telling us which vaccine the people in hospital had. I think we can extrapolate the figures from the PHE data.

hmmm

Ballynally wrote: »

That equation is going to be different this time, firstly because more young people are involved who have a better chance of recovery and also because the history of virus development points to less severe and lethal variants but more transmissable ones. And of course there are the vaccines.so, that is an educated guess.

A virus which doesn't kill people for several weeks has little need to lower its severity to spread. So far (thankfully really) it seems to have mostly evolved to increase transmissibility rather than lethality.

I see this as a hiccup, and there's no need for the doom and gloom. We need some more data to see whether it will be safe to reopen indoors, but our vaccines are working very well and this bodes well for the future. Worst case it's a delay.

Interestingly, Delta seems to be better at reinfecting people who got a "natural" infection using the wild type. Even more reason to get vaccinated.

https://twitter.com/GuptaR_lab/status/1407947825514795012

Goldengirl

Ballynally wrote: »

I was speculating. I said i didnt have access to data. But it seems a logical assumption that deaths will follow severe cases. Deaths have been flat (ish)
With weekly nrs .76 (16-23 june), 70 (june 9-16), 55 (june 1-8), possibly fr patients already on ventilators.
Now, one caveat. It IS early days so that picture might change. It is probably the reason the UK delayed easing the last restrictions.
But still, the link infections> hospitalisations> deaths does NOT show that Delta is more severe or lethal atm, something that has been suggested by health officials who know full well that it is likely the opposite.
That equation is going to be different this time, firstly because more young people are involved who have a better chance of recovery and also because the history of virus development points to less severe and lethal variants but more transmissable ones. And of course there are the vaccines.so, that is an educated guess.
I assume people like Paul Reid know that. Still, today he came out and said he did not want to go back to the situation in january. He knows there is almost no chance of that happening. Just a little white lie to keep the fear factor in a healthy state.
Colm Henry warned about an increase in hospitalisations.
Thats kicking in an open door. More people mixing means more infections and (likely) more hospitalisations.
But i no longer see any mention of incremental growth which was waved about some time ago but never materialised. Ah well..

A lot of strange assumptions and speculation here .

First you describe deaths as" flat(ish)" with the dates backwards , they clearly show rising deaths from week to week , so why not say that .


Next line . It is not " probably the reason why UK delayed easing the last restrictions " , it IS the reason given and stated over and over .

Next . Delta has been shown to be more transmissible, and studies in Scotland and UK North are showing increasing hospitalisation. As to lethality it is not known yet except those numbers you quote backwards and deny are actually rising .

You then make a statement that " health officials " are deliberating giving false information, saying they are suggesting that numbers in UK are bad when they according to you are the opposite .
Why would you say this ? Who are you talking about ? If anything the UK have played down their numbers through this and certainly not the other way round .
It is just conspiracy paranoia to believe that public health officials have anything to gain from lying about this .

We can hope that things will be different if young people become infected , however we don't KNOW this as we are dealing with something unknown here and as this group are unvaccinated it is reasonable to expect that a small percentage of those infected will become sick .
Again it is an unknown and we will have to watch the UK closely to see what happens there .

Also the statement about " less severe but more transmissible " virus progression is so far not borne out with Covid 19 unfortunately so we will only know in retrospect whether that will be the case with this one or not .
Bit late to be planning any public health or government response in retrospect , isn't it ?

And given the damage done in India it is reasonable for anyone working in healthcare and public health to be nervous about what could happen if this variant gets out of control here before we are fully vaccinated .
Of course our situation is different as we have many more vulnerable vaccinated but there are still about 35% of our adult population who have not had one dose yet and more to get second doses before anybody can be as confident as you seem to be...

Thankfully the cases that have been sequenced have been isolated so far and we all hope that will continue so that we get further vaccinating before this more transmissible variant
takes over .

So I really don't understand the confidence in your post as it does not rely on logic or any data .

Ballynally

Goldengirl wrote: »

So I really don't understand the confidence in your post as it does not rely on logic or any data .

Well, we can go back and forth with what the data indicates and it would be quite easy to poke holes in your arguments, but you clearly have no understanding about numbers and the relationship between them from a statistical point of view. I dont blame you for your ignorance and ill leave it at that.

Suffice to say that your last line is clearly an indication of your stupidity.
You might not agree w my view, or my logic but please do not insult me by saying it doesnt rely on it or data.
I don't mind disagreements but i won't engage in a discussion w an unworthy opponent.
It is actually not that easy to read data in a proper context and you need special skills for that. Most people read a graph and jump to conclusions. Or even use it to get a point across, disregarding other data that change the equation.
Happens all the time. Most people are unaware of the complexity involved.
Maybe i shouldnt be on this forum. It has been rather unproductive so far..

Gile_na_gile

Ballynally wrote: »

Suffice to say that your last line is clearly an indication of your stupidity.

Churlish, non? You should retract that.


You should at least entertain the 'conspiracy' that perhaps our goverment (and PHE etc.) is not out to get us and is giving it to you straight, like pear cider that is made from 100% pears?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KNGDZhoRyA)

gozunda

Parts of Sydney now in lockdown following spread of Delta there.

Workers and residents in Sydney were ordered to stay home for a week, as authorities locked down several central areas of Australia's largest city to contain an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant of Covid-19.

Sixty-five Covid-19 cases have been reported so far in the flare-up linked to a limousine driver infected about two weeks ago when he transported an international flight crew from Sydney airport to a quarantine hotel.

But authorities have since identified scores of potential infection sites visited by thousands of people across central Sydney, including the city's main business district.

Authorities have been alarmed by instances of people passing on the virus during fleeting encounters in shops and then quickly infecting close family contacts.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0625/1231225-coronavirus-australia/

Edit. For anyone thinking of travelling who is not vaccinated or only received one dose - the highlighted bit indicates just how potentially transmissible this variant is -

agoodpunt

ok if parts of sidney lockdown we should lock down as well or may not continue to open, extent eviction ban and PUP burn money burn

Necro

Ballynally wrote: »

Well, we can go back and forth with what the data indicates and it would be quite easy to poke holes in your arguments, but you clearly have no understanding about numbers and the relationship between them from a statistical point of view. I dont blame you for your ignorance and ill leave it at that.

Suffice to say that your last line is clearly an indication of your stupidity.
You might not agree w my view, or my logic but please do not insult me by saying it doesnt rely on it or data.
I don't mind disagreements but i won't engage in a discussion w an unworthy opponent.
It is actually not that easy to read data in a proper context and you need special skills for that. Most people read a graph and jump to conclusions. Or even use it to get a point across, disregarding other data that change the equation.
Happens all the time. Most people are unaware of the complexity involved.
Maybe i shouldnt be on this forum. It has been rather unproductive so far..

Threadbanned

Cake Man

I’m affected by the Sydney lockdown (or, “stay at home order” as it was put by the state premier earlier today) as I’m currently in one of the local government areas (LGA’s) with those restrictions. This delta variant is proving to be a huge pain in the arse with cases now popping up all over Sydney and I’d be very surprised if all of Sydney wasn’t in some form of lockdown in the next few days. A few hotspot locations that had an infected person on the premises including a supermarket just up the road from me here.

To be fair we’ve gone so long without many/any cases that they want to try get on top of this before it overwhelms us. Think the main thing that has the health Dept spooked is a case the other day with a person casually just walking past a person who unknowingly had the virus and contracted it that way. The premier also mentioned earlier how the alpha strain was liable to infect one or two others in a household if one person was infected but with this delta variant there’s nearly a 100% chance everyone in a household would be infected by the one individual.
Another case where a person contracted it from a person and 2 days later that person was then also infected and contagious (compared to the alpha variant that usually took 6-8 days on average). I hope we can stamp this out but I feel this is going to drag on for a good bit longer than a week. Think it’s our turn to feel a bit of pain that ye went through at home the last few months unfortunately!

gozunda

agoodpunt wrote: »

ok if parts of sidney lockdown we should lock down as well or may not continue to open, extent eviction ban and PUP burn money burn

Lol. Ah I see were playing the game " Things that were not said"...

Can we all play too?

robinph

The noise from Australia about fleeting encounters resulting in infections being passed on does sound scary in relation to the Delta variant. But whilst cases of Delta are rising in the likes of the UK it's not spreading to the same extent as those kinds of fleeting contacts would suggest.

Would guess that the more transmitable Delta in combination with zero immunity to any variant of covid in Australia is what is now causing their problems. The rest of us being protect from such breif encounters due to very high levels of vaccination and previous infections. Now Delta has broken into Australia, and they have had 18 months advance notice to get track and trace systems in place we'll get to discover if it was ever actually possible to stop the spread of such a pandemic even if the likes of Europe / US had been a bit quicker off the mark and been more prepared.

Australia is very prepared for this, other than vaccinations, but was it inevitable that covid was going to spread worldwide last year and was relatively futile to have had any expectation of avoiding it. Australia and New Zealand just got a year to avoid the first few waves due to geography.

Bit cynical

Goldengirl wrote: »

First you describe deaths as" flat(ish)" with the dates backwards , they clearly show rising deaths from week to week , so why not say that .

I think, however, it is important to see this rise in the context of deaths in neighbouring European countries over the last few months.



Daily deaths per capita averaged over seven days is shown above. The blue line at the very bottom is the UK. It is hard to see any major change over the last several months when compared with these other countries.

TefalBrain

Cake Man wrote: »

I’m affected by the Sydney lockdown (or, “stay at home order” as it was put by the state premier earlier today) as I’m currently in one of the local government areas (LGA’s) with those restrictions. This delta variant is proving to be a huge pain in the arse with cases now popping up all over Sydney and I’d be very surprised if all of Sydney wasn’t in some form of lockdown in the next few days. A few hotspot locations that had an infected person on the premises including a supermarket just up the road from me here.

To be fair we’ve gone so long without many/any cases that they want to try get on top of this before it overwhelms us. Think the main thing that has the health Dept spooked is a case the other day with a person casually just walking past a person who unknowingly had the virus and contracted it that way. The premier also mentioned earlier how the alpha strain was liable to infect one or two others in a household if one person was infected but with this delta variant there’s nearly a 100% chance everyone in a household would be infected by the one individual.
Another case where a person contracted it from a person and 2 days later that person was then also infected and contagious (compared to the alpha variant that usually took 6-8 days on average). I hope we can stamp this out but I feel this is going to drag on for a good bit longer than a week. Think it’s our turn to feel a bit of pain that ye went through at home the last few months unfortunately!

It's winter over there now isn't it?

If your vaccination programme is running alright there is zero chance you will go through the same roller-coaster we have since January. It's in no way comparable.

gozunda

Cake Man wrote: »

I’m affected by the Sydney lockdown (or, “stay at home order” as it was put by the state premier earlier today) as I’m currently in one of the local government areas (LGA’s) with those restrictions. This delta variant is proving to be a huge pain in the arse with cases now popping up all over Sydney and I’d be very surprised if all of Sydney wasn’t in some form of lockdown in the next few days. A few hotspot locations that had an infected person on the premises including a supermarket just up the road from me here.

To be fair we’ve gone so long without many/any cases that they want to try get on top of this before it overwhelms us. Think the main thing that has the health Dept spooked is a case the other day with a person casually just walking past a person who unknowingly had the virus and contracted it that way. The premier also mentioned earlier how the alpha strain was liable to infect one or two others in a household if one person was infected but with this delta variant there’s nearly a 100% chance everyone in a household would be infected by the one individual.
Another case where a person contracted it from a person and 2 days later that person was then also infected and contagious (compared to the alpha variant that usually took 6-8 days on average). I hope we can stamp this out but I feel this is going to drag on for a good bit longer than a week. Think it’s our turn to feel a bit of pain that ye went through at home the last few months unfortunately!

What struck me with regard to the tracing in that case was that the driver was found to have had extremely brief encounters with some of those found to be subsequently infected. Was mask wearing in shops, cafes mandated in Sydney at that point?

bob mcbob

Goldengirl wrote: »

A lot of strange assumptions and speculation here .

First you describe deaths as" flat(ish)" with the dates backwards , they clearly show rising deaths from week to week , so why not say that .


Next line . It is not " probably the reason why UK delayed easing the last restrictions " , it IS the reason given and stated over and over .

Next . Delta has been shown to be more transmissible, and studies in Scotland and UK North are showing increasing hospitalisation. As to lethality it is not known yet except those numbers you quote backwards and deny are actually rising .

You then make a statement that " health officials " are deliberating giving false information, saying they are suggesting that numbers in UK are bad when they according to you are the opposite .
Why would you say this ? Who are you talking about ? If anything the UK have played down their numbers through this and certainly not the other way round .
It is just conspiracy paranoia to believe that public health officials have anything to gain from lying about this .

We can hope that things will be different if young people become infected , however we don't KNOW this as we are dealing with something unknown here and as this group are unvaccinated it is reasonable to expect that a small percentage of those infected will become sick .
Again it is an unknown and we will have to watch the UK closely to see what happens there .

Also the statement about " less severe but more transmissible " virus progression is so far not borne out with Covid 19 unfortunately so we will only know in retrospect whether that will be the case with this one or not .
Bit late to be planning any public health or government response in retrospect , isn't it ?

And given the damage done in India it is reasonable for anyone working in healthcare and public health to be nervous about what could happen if this variant gets out of control here before we are fully vaccinated .
Of course our situation is different as we have many more vulnerable vaccinated but there are still about 35% of our adult population who have not had one dose yet and more to get second doses before anybody can be as confident as you seem to be...

Thankfully the cases that have been sequenced have been isolated so far and we all hope that will continue so that we get further vaccinating before this more transmissible variant
takes over .

So I really don't understand the confidence in your post as it does not rely on logic or any data .

This article provides details on the status of Delta in Scotland where although cases rates are soaring but they are mainly among the unvaccinated young (under 30's). The hospitalisation rates are still relatively low and Scotland is still planning on re-opening in the coming months. It seems that the WHO have revised their guidelines -

The Scottish government's new strategy reflects the latest guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) on public health and social measures to tackle Covid.
In this document, the WHO says the focus can shift from case numbers to hospital admissions and intensive care rates in countries where the most vulnerable are fully vaccinated - a position Scotland will be in by next week, according to the first minister.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57581952

Bit cynical

hmmm wrote: »

A virus which doesn't kill people for several weeks has little need to lower its severity to spread. So far (thankfully really) it seems to have mostly evolved to increase transmissibility rather than lethality.

Though it has to be said, of course, that the virus does not kill the vast majority of people it infects.

Cake Man

TefalBrain wrote: »

It's winter over there now isn't it?

If your vaccination programme is running alright there is zero chance you will go through the same roller-coaster we have since January. It's in no way comparable.

Yeah winter here now.
Vaccination programme is moving at snails pace, only 2-3% of the population fully vaccinated and less than 15% with a first dose. The prime minister said a few months ago there was no rush and it “wasn’t a race” to get everyone vaccinated, that looks very foolish now!

Ah yeah we probably won’t go through it as long as ye did at home, I meant more that we’ll just have to feel a bit of pain with restrictions now having gone so long basically covid free.

hmmm

bob mcbob wrote: »

This article provides details on the status of Delta in Scotland where although cases rates are soaring but they are mainly among the unvaccinated young (under 30's). The hospitalisation rates are still relatively low and Scotland is still planning on re-opening in the coming months.

This is good data, and I'm sure out government will be looking at the UK.

The only caveat I'd have is that the exponential point of the case curve is fairly recent, and it will take a week or so to see how that translates into hospitalisations.

We should know in a week to ten days what the hospitalisation risk is from Delta, but that doesn't really leave enough time for businesses to prepare.

Cake Man

gozunda wrote: »

What struck me with regard to the tracing in that case was that the driver was found to have had extremely brief encounters with some of those found to be subsequently infected. Was mask wearing in shops, cafes mandated in Sydney at that point?

Driver wasn’t wearing a mask and no, if memory serves me correct we didn’t have to wear masks two weeks ago. Think they were only recommended while using public transport at the time.

robinph

hmmm wrote: »

This is good data, and I'm sure out government will be looking at the UK.

The only caveat I'd have is that the exponential point of the case curve is fairly recent, and it will take a week or so to see how that translates into hospitalisations.

We should know in a week to ten days what the hospitalisation risk is from Delta, but that doesn't really leave enough time for businesses to prepare.

Someone has put together a comparison between November and now for how cases against hospitalisations and deaths compare.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusUK/comments/o7iduk/comparing_cases_hospital_inpatients_and_deaths/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

gozunda

hmmm wrote: »

This is good data, and I'm sure out government will be looking at the UK.

The only caveat I'd have is that the exponential point of the case curve is fairly recent, and it will take a week or so to see how that translates into hospitalisations.

We should know in a week to ten days what the hospitalisation risk is from Delta, but that doesn't really leave enough time for businesses to prepare.

Preliminary data on Hospitalisations from here

https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1513

Are covid-19 hospital admissions increasing?

Yes. The number of new cases of covid-19 has been rising in the UK for the past few weeks, and admissions of patients to hospital are following suit. As of 9 June the number of people in hospital each day with covid-19 exceeded 1000, after having fallen to the hundreds in the middle of May after the previous wave.

From other data - it would appear that resulting hospitalisations are of a shorter duration than previous waves of infection.

robinph

This is a slightly sensationalist quote:

Are covid-19 hospital admissions increasing?

Yes. The number of new cases of covid-19 has been rising in the UK for the past few weeks, and admissions of patients to hospital are following suit. As of 9 June the number of people in hospital each day with covid-19 exceeded 1000, after having fallen to the hundreds in the middle of May after the previous wave.

Yes it was in the hundreds several weeks ago, but was hovering around the 700-800 level, over the last month the number has very, very gradually risen to 1200. There is an increase, but the wording makes it seem a far more significant and drastic change than what has actually occurred.

Hospitalisation has certainly not been "following suit" of the rise in cases.

Red Silurian

gozunda wrote: »

Preliminary data on Hospitalisations from here

https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1513



From other data - it would appear that resulting hospitalisations are of a shorter duration than previous waves of infection.

Correct, because younger people are the ones getting infected with Delta and they don't need as much time in hospital to recover

Bit cynical

Red Silurian wrote: »

Correct, because younger people are the ones getting infected with Delta and they don't need as much time in hospital to recover

And, of course, fewer of them per confirmed case require hospitalisation in the first place.

gozunda

Bit cynical wrote: »

And, of course, fewer of them per confirmed case require hospitalisation in the first place.

Have you a link to the stats on that?

Tyrone212

UK


Attendance to an emergency care department from a total of 92,029 Delta cases

53,822 were unvaccinated
7,235 had received two vaccine doses
190 were admitted to hospital from two doses, with 163 aged 50+
831 were admitted to hospital unvaccinated, 695 were aged under 50

Deeper Blue

Tyrone212 wrote: »

UK


Attendance to an emergency care department from a total of 92,029 Delta cases

53,822 were unvaccinated
7,235 had received two vaccine doses
190 were admitted to hospital from two doses, with 163 aged 50+
831 were admitted to hospital unvaccinated, 695 were aged under 50

Do you know what the story is with "Attendance to an emergency care department"? Does that mean they tested positive while in hospital?

Red Silurian

Deeper Blue wrote: »

Do you know what the story is with "Attendance to an emergency care department"? Does that mean they tested positive while in hospital?

Fairly sure it's the same as what we would call a "testing centre"