Relaxation of Restrictions, Part XII *Read OP For Mod Warnings*

Studies already show that vaccinated people carry the same viral load, and that they are just as likely to infect others in a household setting. The only studies I can find on clearing viral load quicker, are ones re delta which state that after 3 months the chance of infecting others is same as unvaccinated, and nasal viral load declines at same rate after 3 months. So unless we do constant boosters, this effect will be moot in most people.

I am not confusing physical or mutation stability - the spike protein is not 'stable' in either sense. Nearly all the variants of interest/concern involve spike mutations which are plentiful.

Vaccine/immune escape is not an all or nothing - its a scale.

Certain variants have already emerged with partial vaccine immune escape features, Beta last year and A.30 this year both show significant immune escape (particularly so in the latter). To date immune escape variants have been outcompeted by more infectious delta as I said, but they already exist and more will exist in future and could take hold - the flu vaccine/smallpox comparison you made just shows you dont understand immune escape at all. Its not all or nothing and it is not a totally separate virus, just has the necessary amino acid substitutions to make some or all of existing antibodies no longer able to bind to the virus.

NPHET are saying it will peak at the end of the month.

So we've been averaging around 2000 cases a day over the last month. It will probably be around an average of 4000 a day until the peak of November and the slowdown of about 2000 a day for December.

Probably about 250k cases by the end of December. That's your "pandemic of the unvaccinated" over and done with 😆

No this does not happen. People arent in hospital unless there's an acute medical need for them to be in hospital.

I tested positive and my wife is immunosuppressed and with a young child I cant self isolate but that hasnt impacted on how my wife is treated for contact tracing or medical management point of view.

I thought it was due to peak in the middle of November,now they are saying the end of November?

I'd say it's more likely to peak at about 5,000 daily cases, 600 in hospital and maybe 130 in ICU, we're already seeing a leveling off of hospital and ICU cases, last week there was 20-30 being added on average every day, recently it's been about 10-15...

The vaccine booster program will probably help as well, over 60s and healthcare workers are starting this week so by the last week of November a change should be seen

The poster was speculating on a sub group of a sub group of the population. Those immunosuppressed that cannot avail of the vaccines, as the problem. I don`t know who this "astrocruel" poster is, but I was not speculating. We know that 8% of the population is unvaccinated and from the data available we know that 8% is disproportionally represented in hospitalisations and ICU. So unless you are saying that this is mainly because of the small numbers of those immunosuppressed unable to avail of a vaccine, then I do not see what point you are attempting to make.

At the start of September one said mid September, another said end of September and MM said " it could last till mid October "

They are bound to get it right at some point if they keep guessing enough.

Maybe they just don't know or maybe it's just too difficult to model accurately... If you've run your own models I'm sure many on here would love to hear the results

Go and read those studies again so, they were purely looking at what the peak viral loads were, the vaccinated were both less likely to be infected in the first place and cleared the viral load faster. The infection rate across unvaccinated is much higher than the vaccinated, the hospital admissions of the unvaccinated is 12x that of vaccinated.

Physical and mutation stability are 2 completely different things so not sure why you'd mention physical stability at all but OK if you don't want to admit you misunderstood. The alpha vaccines remain highly effective against delta an all variants of concern, again, the reason the spike was chosen was because of it's stability and it being integral to how SARS-COV2 attacks cells. Luckily, with mRNA vaccines, the turnaround to creating a new vaccine if a spike mutation occurs that allows escape is very low, so even in the unlikely event that a variant completely evades the existing vaccines, an updated vaccine would be available soon. And again, it's not expected that we'll see variant escape due to how integral the spike protein is for SARS-COV2. The main issue we have is the dropping of antibodies against coronavirus (which is a function of the human immune system not vaccines), luckily T-Cell/B-Cell response remains robust, but adds latency to the immune response (much faster than the unvaccinated though).

Was going to ask something similar

So NPHET could recommend a kickdown at any time

Stuff been cancelled in Waterford

Dungarvan Panto cancelled because of the current covid situation

You'd swear Tony is now emailing places individually to express his concern and to cancel things (obviously not true but would it surprise ya)

I hope the 0.3% unvaccinated lunatics are happy.

Only true lunatics would believe that. But that isn't to say that those in NPHET weren't well aware that cases would rise coming into the winter.

Essentially you had them out of nowhere saying "our work here is nearly done...we will just give it a couple of months" meanwhile those couple of months landed squarely at the start of flu season.

Be under no illusion that people are drawn to positions that given them social influence and our medical professionals are not immune to this. Its a tale as old as time.

Look at how many people will act like gobshites just to be on TV talent shows. No imagine the entire country is hanging on your every word.

Not saying they are even doing this consciously but their timing is impeccable for gaining the publics trust in there continued presence.

As well as MM who wouldn't cross the road without looking at NPHET for reassurance.