The Delta variant

Wolf359f

[Deleted User] wrote: »

“The case-fatality rate for Delta (0.3%) at this time appears to be lower than that for Alpha (2%)". Per Cillian De Gascun

I assume that's taking into account vaccines?
If so, you would need to compare the CFR in unvaccinated people with delta and alpha.
Compare apples to apple etc...

MadYaker

Woody79 wrote: »

Delta currently has mortality rate in UK of 0.3%, given significant vaccinated population and infection mostly in younger people.

Alpha mortality rate in UK was 2%, due to unvaccinated population and different strain etc.

“The case-fatality rate for Delta (0.3%) at this time appears to be lower than that for Alpha (2%). Per Cillian De Gascun

You can kinda see the logic of what they are doing in UK as they are a more risk taking country than us, given their size, attitudes and history.

They had the biggest empire in the world just over 100 years ago.

Life is a balancing act of risks and rewards.

Its nature.

You are never going to lock down for 0.1% risk, but you have to when its 2%.

UK have always been more tolerant than us about death.

As are the US.

We are watching some strange social experiment in UK.

Flu mortality is around 0.1%.

They reckon 0.3% is tolerable to them in the short term until they get over this wave and immunity grows.

As Chris Whitty said recently about said approach " cautiosly optimistic".

Once you get to 80-90% of the population vaccinated/prior infections,
I would guesstimate mortality rate in UK and ireland will fall to 0.1%.

It will be flu and we'lll just have to live with it.

Easier said than done (for me included), but its probably what our gp's will say come autumn time.

I think we'd be just as tolerant of people dying but we have far less hospital capacity than they do which why we've always been a bit more cautious. One of NPHET reasons for existing is to keep the health functioning (for everyone, not just covid patients)

Wolf359f

Wolf359f wrote: »

I assume that's taking into account vaccines?
If so, you would need to compare the CFR in unvaccinated people with delta and alpha.
Compare apples to apple etc...

Why, do we do that with the flu?

That's were this is going.

A certain amount of death will be tolerated.

If mortality rate of covid falls to 0.1-0.3% in population due to vaccination and prior infections we will be "living with covid".

I think its great.

Mortality has fallen from 2% to 0.3% due to vaccination/prior infection/less severe strain?

purplefields

Woody79 wrote: »

“The case-fatality rate for Delta (0.3%) at this time appears to be lower than that for Alpha (2%)". Per Cillian De Gascun

I do not know who that person is.
Are they referring to data from the UK? - where there is now a large proportion of vaccinated people Vs Alpha where there wasn't anyone vaccinated?

purplefields

purplefields wrote: »

I do not know who that person is.
Are they referring to data from the UK? - where there is now a large proportion of vaccinated people Vs Alpha where there wasn't anyone vaccinated?

Are you serious?

You are commenting on a thread called delta variant.

He is the head of the National Virus Reference Laboratory in Ireland.

He identified the first case of covid in ireland and all variants thereafter.

The information is from PHE.

Im not sure what your point is.

Fatality rate has fallen due to a mixture of things, but main one is vaccination.

My point is flu is 0.1%.

We are now heading into the territory of "living with covid" with a fatality rate fairly close to the flu.

Wolf359f

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Why, do we do that with the flu?

That's were this is going.

A certain amount of death will be tolerated.

If mortality rate of covid falls to 0.1-0.3% in population due to vaccination and prior infections we will be "living with covid".

I think its great.

Mortality has fallen from 2% to 0.3% due to vaccination/prior infection/less severe strain?

If someone is saying delta is less dangerous/lower mortality then alpha, then it's worth knowing if they mean it's down to a difference in the make-up of the strain or if it's through a highly vaccinated population.
If a 20/40/60/80 year old unvaccinated person contracts delta compared to alpha, is there nearly a ten-fold difference in mortality between the 2 strains?

Wolf359f

Wolf359f wrote: »

If someone is saying delta is less dangerous/lower mortality then alpha, then it's worth knowing if they mean it's down to a difference in the make-up of the strain or if it's through a highly vaccinated population.
If a 20/40/60/80 year old unvaccinated person contracts delta compared to alpha, is there nearly a ten-fold difference in mortality between the 2 strains?

Why, and how are they going to work that out?

They dont care on an individual level.

They care about the risk to the overall population.

They will encourage people to take vaccines and boosters possibly.

Thats it then, live with covid.

I would guess overwhelming reason is vaccination.

I do think the strains over time have been getting milder, but also infecting alot more than Wave 1.

A huge wave of 6-7k cases a day in wave 3 killed only a little more (2,300) than cases of 1K cases a day in wave 1 (1,700).

Wolf359f

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Why, and how are they going to work that out?

They dont care on an individual level.

They care about the risk to the overall population.

They will encourage people to take vaccines and boosters possibly.

Thats it then, live with covid.

They work it out by looking at the data.
Original strain, 1000 infected, 100 hospitalised, 10 deaths (none vaccinated)
Alpha variant, 1000 infected, 110 hospitalised, 11 deaths (none vaccinated) - alpha looks more dangerous
Alpha variant, 1000 infected, 55 hospitalised, 3 deaths (all vaccinated) - vaccines reduce your risk of death, but alpha more dangerous for unvaccinated people.

All numbers made up to give you an idea.
It's the exact same data that is collected in the clinical trials for the vaccines. That's how they work it out. The why? Well it's handy to know if a strain comes across that's much more lethal or causes more severe illness.

Danzy

Woody79 wrote: »

Why, and how are they going to work that out?

They dont care on an individual level.

They care about the risk to the overall population.

They will encourage people to take vaccines and boosters possibly.

Thats it then, live with covid.

I would guess overwhelming reason is vaccination.

I do think the strains over time have been getting milder, but also infecting alot more than Wave 1.

A huge wave of 6-7k cases a day in wave 3 killed only a little more (2,300) than cases of 1K cases a day in wave 1 (1,700).

In reality there may have been 5 or 10k cases a day at the peak of wave 1.

There was next to no testing.

Wolf359f

Wolf359f wrote: »

They work it out by looking at the data.
Original strain, 1000 infected, 100 hospitalised, 10 deaths (none vaccinated)
Alpha variant, 1000 infected, 110 hospitalised, 11 deaths (none vaccinated) - alpha looks more dangerous
Alpha variant, 1000 infected, 55 hospitalised, 3 deaths (all vaccinated) - vaccines reduce your risk of death, but alpha more dangerous for unvaccinated people.

All numbers made up to give you an idea.
It's the exact same data that is collected in the clinical trials for the vaccines. That's how they work it out. The why? Well it's [B]handy[/B] to know if a strain comes across that's much more lethal or causes more severe illness.

Most dont care.

The government arent going to publically roar this from the roof top either.

They want young people to get vaccinated mainly to protect older folk and bring that case fatality rate down from 2% to 0.3-0.1%.

You want to know this.

The government couldnt care less about telling you this for reasons above.

Just be happy the risk of covid is reducing in the general population.

Wolf359f

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Most dont cars.

The government arent going to publically roar this from the roof top either.

They want young people to get vaccinated mainly to protect older folk and bring that case fatality rate down from 2% to 0.3-0.1%.

You want to know this.

The government couldnt care less about telling you this for reasons above.

Just be happy the risk of covid is reducing in the general population.

I'm sure everyone would like to know if X strain is going to cause more serious illness in unvaccinated people. Not everyone will be vaccinated for multiple reasons, so it's nice for them to know their risk.

Flip side, imagine if a month from now, it's realised that Delta caused 10x less hospitalisations and deaths in unvaccinated people, it would mean the mitigation measures we have in place are overkill. But sure why would the public or government want to know that crucial piece of information.

Danzy

Danzy wrote: »

In reality there may have been 5 or 10k cases a day at the peak of wave 1.

There was next to no testing.

Thats not what the serology tests said in June 2020.

Maybe 2-3 times higher than reported.

We missed plenty in January too. Thats what happens in an out of control wave.

If you look at cases and positivity you can kinda work it out.

Wave 1 was tiny compared to wave 3.

I would guess there was 5-6 times higher cases per day in wave 3 than wave 1.

Yet deaths were 1.5 times higher.

purplefields

Woody79 wrote: »

I would guess overwhelming reason is vaccination.

That's a mother of a confounding factor!

A CRF experiment is pretty difficult to achieve because of this, and other confounding factors. Even when they were doing the Vaccine efficacy experiments, there was differences in demographics between vaccine experiments, and then people were directly comparing the efficacies.

Wolf359f

Wolf359f wrote: »

I'm sure everyone would like to know if X strain is going to cause more serious illness in unvaccinated people. Not everyone will be vaccinated for multiple reasons, so it's nice for them to know their risk.

Flip side, imagine if a month from now, it's realised that Delta caused 10x less hospitalisations and deaths in unvaccinated people, it would mean the mitigation measures we have in place are overkill. But sure why would the public or government want to know that crucial piece of information.

Your never going to know your answers until after the event.

Its too fluid.

I agree with no indoors until our vaccination is more complete.


Mortality has fallen due to combination of:

Immunity in population (vaccination/prior infections.

weakest have already passed.

better hospital care due to low number of patients.

weaker strain.

The list goes on and on and on.........

purplefields

purplefields wrote: »

That's a mother of a confounding factor!

A CRF experiment is pretty difficult to achieve because of this, and other confounding factors. Even when they were doing the Vaccine efficacy experiments, there was differences in demographics between vaccine experiments, and then people were directly comparing the efficacies.

Vaccination is doing what its supposed to do.

UK is opening up because it says it can live with 0.3% mortality, but 2% not so much.

Wolf359f

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Your never going to know your answers until after the event.

Its too fluid.

I agree with no indoors until our vaccination is more complete.


Mortality has fallen due to combination of:

Immunity in population (vaccination/prior infections.

weakest have already passed.

better hospital care due to low number of patients.

weaker strain.

The list goes on and on and on.........

What evidence is there that it's a weaker strain?
You can't say it's a weaker strain because mortality has fallen because it's a weaker strain and round and round it goes.

Wolf359f

Wolf359f wrote: »

What evidence is there that it's a weaker strain?
You can't say it's a weaker strain because mortality has fallen because it's a weaker strain and round and round it goes.

Exactly my point.

You' ll never know these things.

You keep looking for exact black and white answers in the middle of a pandemic.

Why did Wuhan strain kill 1700 in ireland with a tiny wave 1, but killed 2300 in wave 3 when there was far more cases.

1 in 30 people were infected in my county at any one time over Christmas.

I knew very few getting it in March 2020.

I think strains are getting more infectous, but all less severe over time.

In a year or two covid will barely be talked about.

Case fatality rate has fallen from 2% to 0.3% in UK due to many reasons. The flu is 0.1%.

Main reason is vaccination.

Vaccination has speeded up what would have happened in nature eventually.

With a lot less death suffering and economic problems.

Covid would have killed 50-100 million, 100 years ago without vaccinations, modern healthcare.

Whereas we have kept it at a few million to date.

TonyMaloney

I'm pretty sure I told a fair few people that viruses generally weaken over time, back in the day.

Turns out it's a load of nonsense we told each other for comfort

TonyMaloney

TonyMaloney wrote: »

I'm pretty sure I told a fair few people that viruses generally weaken over time, back in the day.

Turns out it's a load of nonsense we told each other for comfort

Why did spanish flu end?

Fils

Woody79 wrote: »

Why did spanish flu end?

No internet back then.

TonyMaloney

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Why did spanish flu end?

I don't know, woody

Tell us

Fils

Fils wrote: »

No internet back then.

Only task of virus is to reproduce and find new host.

To find new hosts the fittest and strongest virus wins out in terms of transmissability.

The better at transmission the less lethal, as the host is able to walk around and infect more people.

Other coronaviruses in the near past had case fatality rates of 10% but died out as they were literally too lethal.

Wuhan R rate 2-3, Alpha 4-5, Delta 7-8.

Without vaccinations we would be going around like this for another few years or let the bodies pile high (1918 - 50 million dead with a quarter of current world population).

Vaccination has sped up this evolutionary process.

Fatality rate in Israel is at or below flu rates.

Fatality rate in UK getting close to flu rates (0.3%).

niallo27

TonyMaloney wrote: »

I'm pretty sure I told a fair few people that viruses generally weaken over time, back in the day.

Turns out it's a load of nonsense we told each other for comfort

Don't worry I don't think anyone took anything you said seriously in fairness.

niallo27

hmmm wrote: »

We don't quite appreciate what a (and I'm not a religious person) miracle the vaccines are.

Delta at an R of 8 at the start would have flashed around the world, even with lockdowns, killing I would guess around 2 or 3% of the population in a pretty gruesome manner (those figures would be possible if the ICUs were overwhelmed). Spanish Flu was around 2% and we're still talking about that.

Worse almost, Delta seems to be quite good at reinfecting people who previously had Covid - thankfully the vaccines provide much stronger protection.

We have our vaccines, and while they're a bit of a mixed bag they are mostly all showing good results against Delta - we just have to manufacture enough.

Hang on, mixed bag and mostly showing good results. They are all over 90% effective against hospitalisation. What are you on about.

niallo27

niallo27 wrote: »

Hang on, mixed bag and mostly showing good results. They are all over 90% effective against hospitalisation. What are you on about.

I agree no mixed bag, over 90% hospital prevention is excellent.

TonyMaloney

niallo27 wrote: »

Don't worry I don't think anyone took anything you said seriously in fairness.

Ah nice to hear from you again, Niall

Fils

Woody79 wrote: »

Only task of virus is to reproduce and find new host.

To find new hosts the fittest and strongest virus wins out in terms of transmissability.

The better at transmission the less lethal, as the host is able to walk around and infect more people.

Other coronaviruses in the near past had case fatality rates of 10% but died out as they were literally too lethal.

Wuhan R rate 2-3, Alpha 4-5, Delta 7-8.

Without vaccinations we would be going around like this for another few years or let the bodies pile high (1918 - 50 million dead with a quarter of current world population).

Vaccination has sped up this evolutionary process.

Fatality rate in Israel is at or below flu rates.

Fatality rate in UK getting close to flu rates (0.3%).

When will Paul Reid’s salary get reduced?

TonyMaloney

niallo27 wrote: »

Hang on, mixed bag and mostly showing good results. They are all over 90% effective against hospitalisation. What are you on about.

Sinovac looks dodgy

Were you only talking about vaccines available in Ireland when you got all aggregatived there, Niall?

FileNotFound

TonyMaloney wrote: »

I don't know, woody

Tell us

More virulent strain emerged that did little real damage.

Delta in UK comes to mind as things stand. Assuming things stay on course as they are.

Given vaccine rollout in pharmacies and the new stocks (Romania was it who sold us 1 million doses). We should hit current UK figures in the next few weeks.

That combined with a few more weeks positive data from the UK trial (assumption but looking good) means all this can be put behind us.

Just need the cowards in Gov to make a call and do what we pay them to do.

niallo27

TonyMaloney wrote: »

Sinovac looks dodgy

Were you only talking about vaccines available in Ireland when you got all aggregatived there, Niall?

Ya fair point. Was only talking about Irish ones. Apologies.