Vaccine Progress, Approval, and Deployment

[MattA7]

Just heard on radio that Hancock thinks a vaccine may be required every 6 months or annually. It didn't give any details as just a quick news update on absolute radio.

If that's the case it could get interesting reaching heard immunity. It will be interesting if more details come out as to why he thinks that.

don’t think there is enough evidence yet to suggest that such requirement is true if it is it could certainly complicate matters regarding the length of time required to vaccinate the population.

 

[birchesgreen]

don’t think there is enough evidence yet to suggest that such requirement is true if it is it could certainly complicate matters regarding the length of time required to vaccinate the population.

Yes 132 million vaccinations (assuming everyone needs to be done) a year means over 2.5 million a week which would be quite a feat.

 

[Simon11]

The PM confirmed almost 1.5 million people in the UK have now received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.
Over 1,000 GP-led sites in England will offer jabs - with an aim to offer vaccination slots to 13 million people, including all over-80s, by 15 February.

I believe we were at 1.3m yesterday so around 150-200k people vaccinated in the last 24 hrs. Thus on track for 1m a week?

 

[HSTEd]

Well the latest NHS England stats imply that they've hit something like 30% of the 80+ population. (They break down the stats by under/over 80)

 

[The Ham]

I note the increasing campaigns calling for all NHS workers and Teachers to be vaccinated asap to protect them, indeed on last night's Question Time there was a call for the Government to guarantee that schools will not reopen and teachers won't be asked to go back to the classroom until they had all been vaccinated.

Unless I am missing something, I can't quite see the logic in this.

Firstly let me say that if an NHS worker or teacher falls in to one of the categories already in line to get the vaccine very soon, due to their age or underlying conditions, then they should certainly get it in line, probably sooner rather than later.

But for everyone else:

a) There is currently no evidence that being vaccinated reduces the rate of transmission and there is no evidence that someone vaccinated cannot still carry the virus and transmit it to somebody else.
b) The current guidance is still that, even if you have been vaccinated, you are required to self isolate if you are a close contact or display symptoms.
c) For the vast majority of the population under the age of 60 then the risks posed by the virus are minute.

With those 3 points in mind, vaccinating all NHS workers and teachers in the younger age brackets who are currently not in line to get the vaccine just yet, will not necessarily reduce the chance of transmission, will not necessarily reduce the chance of those people carrying the virus and infecting others, and will not reduce the number of workers who are absent because they are self isolating. All we know the vaccine does is reduce the chance of someone who gets infected becoming seriously ill and ending up in hospital. But as the chances of someone younger without underlying conditions getting seriously ill and ending up in hospital anyway are very very small, surely it is more sensible to keep vaccinating to the already published priority groups rather than certain professions jumping the queue where the actual benefits of doing so wouldn't necessarily be seen?


On a separate note there has also been much mention, especially on BBC reports where they have visited hospitals, and also mentioned on Question Time last night that the average age of those in hospital and intensive care especially is much younger this time round. Question Time last night said the average age of those in intensive care was between 50 and 60.

If that is the case then will vaccinating the older groups realise the benefits that we expect to be able to reduce restrictions in late February / March? Will we have to wait till the 50 / 60 age groups get their vaccine before the pressure on hospitals reduce? In which case we'll be waiting till a lot later this summer before we can stop "protecting the NHS" with lockdowns.

The cynic in me thinks that be mentioning the age of those in hospital so much they are already buttering us up for an extension of restrictions till later in the year to ensure the NHS isn't overwhelmed by 50 - 60 year olds.

On your three points:

a) the Oxford vaccine trials were testing weekly with no measurable amount being recorded in the majority of cases. Now whilst that doesn't stop it being measurable between those tests the likelihood of that our didn't happen and even if it did it would likely be to a fairly low level and only for a total of a few days. As such the risk of being infected and then passing it on would be reduced, however I do agree it's not removed totally.

b) given few have had any vaccine and because of the above then if you get symptoms then it's very sensible to carry on behaving as if you are are a risk to others.

c) whilst the risk of death may well be tiny for those under 60, you could be amongst those unlucky enough to die. Also it should be remembered that whilst you may not directly interact with anyone who is over 70 you may interact with someone who does and so be the source of the virus for them.

If the death rate is 0.3% (and it may be a bit higher than that) then assuming that 75% of us got it before it petered out then the number who could die in this country could be 150,000 (about 100 times the current number of deaths each year on the roads).

However for each of those 150,000 there'll be lots of people who will be impacted by those losses. As such although you might not know someone who dies (1 in 333 of the population), chances are nearly everyone would know at least 2 (although probably more) who did who were fairly close to them (such as extended family - up to grandparents and their descendents, or they work directly with them).

That's before you consider that if the NHS were to fail (and private healthcare wouldn't provide you with full protection as the NHS has been buying services from private providers and a lot of private providers buy services from the NHS, likewise what private providers run A&E departments?) it would likely cause all sorts of unintended consequences.

 

[Richard Scott]

Just heard on radio that Hancock thinks a vaccine may be required every 6 months or annually. It didn't give any details as just a quick news update on absolute radio.

If that's the case it could get interesting reaching heard immunity. It will be interesting if more details come out as to why he thinks that.

What's his evidence for that? Appalling scaremongering that we don't need. Coronaviruses are fairly stable so unlikely to be honest. The bloke constantly shows how little he knows and why he shouldn't be in the job

 

[35B]

That's a fair post and I appreciate your acknowledgement of why the New Zealand approach was never a realistic option for us. It looks like our fundamental disagreement is that I think we should have let the virus spread over summer rather than continuing to supress it, as in doing so we stored up problems for winter, whereas you think supression is the best strategy(?).

In regard to the NHS my frustration is that it's needlessly hamstrung. You're right in that it can only work with what it has, but self-harming at a time like this and then saying it needs protecting via a lockdown is wrong. We are where we are but this has to be last time, and front line staff need to be at work not self-isolating uneccessarily.

I'm honestly not sure what the right answer is, and struggle with those who are determined that their way - at either end of the spectrum - is right, and that all others are wrong. I'm personally relatively supportive of restrictions on hospitality, but with deep reservations about closing schools; I know others on here have been very focused on the unreasonableness of closing hospitality but expressed little interest in education, while others have been wholly pro- or anti- restrictions in their outlook.

Where we will need to agree to disagree is over the role of allowing the virus to become endemic. My sense - and I don't have any papers to quote to prove or disprove this - is that the role of non-symptomatic (i.e., combining both pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic) spread has been underestimated. The focus has been on symptomatic cases; the role of schools in spread is easily under-estimated if I'm right as pupils act to spread Covid without falling ill themselves, or leaving particularly direct traceability within the school environment. The result of this has been that a part-complete elimination was allowed to stop over the summer as we opened up, and a reservoir of infection left in place going into the autumn. That has in turn led to significant spread that limited lockdowns could not do more than keep a lid on, and where spread of Covid has then - aided by a more virulent strain(s) - been harder and harder to control. Had spread been tolerated over the summer (and it's a moot point as to how intolerant the UK actually was), I think we'd have hit critical mass thresholds earlier than we did.

My personal conclusion is that, without restrictions, we would have hit fundamental capacity thresholds within any healthcare system, no matter how well resourced. That's not about whether (per @yorksrob) this or that group is particularly prone to infection, but the simple impact of what happens if cases hit critical mass. If (and these numbers are illustrative, as I don't have actual rates to hand), 80% of those infected become ill enough to report symptoms, 10% of those infected become ill enough to need treatment, 5% of those needing treatment need critical care, and 1% of those infected die, it follows that for 1,000,000 infected, you will need critical care capacity for 50,000 people. The question is then not one of percentages, but of the overall supply of healthcare - which is not especially elastic.

Whichever answer(s) would have been right in a counter-factual universe, the reality here and now is that we are reliant on rapid roll-out of working vaccines, and that we need to hope that those vaccines are effective for longer than currently assumed - I've seen comments today that support both a "they're short lived" and a "they'll last donkey's years"; the reality is that we just don't (and can't) know.

We keep on getting useless statistics from these people. Just saying that the "majority of people in intensive care are between age 50 and 60" is valueless in itself. They need to try and find out why this is. Options could be:

• The new strain is medically more likely to affect 50 - 60 year olds. I think this is unlikely, however if it were the case, they would become the priority for vaccination.
• 50 - 60 year olds are more likely to be in harms way due to not being retired, in which case we need to make it easier for them to stay out of harms way until they are vaccinated.

None of this will happen of course - it will just be an excuse for more lockdown, as indeed every permutation of everything that could happen is.

We know that the risk of Covid directly increases with age, so it's entirely plausible that greater transmission of Covid is leading to more cases further down the age range. However, the anecdotal accounts from hospitals are that case numbers are so high now that the reality is that ICUs are dealing with severely ill of all age groups, and pushing staff to the limits of what they can cope with. I'm not sure how keeping those at greater risk particularly helps beyond a certain point of prevalence - one that, sadly, it seems like we've reached.

 

[yorksrob]

I'm honestly not sure what the right answer is, and struggle with those who are determined that their way - at either end of the spectrum - is right, and that all others are wrong. I'm personally relatively supportive of restrictions on hospitality, but with deep reservations about closing schools; I know others on here have been very focused on the unreasonableness of closing hospitality but expressed little interest in education, while others have been wholly pro- or anti- restrictions in their outlook.

Where we will need to agree to disagree is over the role of allowing the virus to become endemic. My sense - and I don't have any papers to quote to prove or disprove this - is that the role of non-symptomatic (i.e., combining both pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic) spread has been underestimated. The focus has been on symptomatic cases; the role of schools in spread is easily under-estimated if I'm right as pupils act to spread Covid without falling ill themselves, or leaving particularly direct traceability within the school environment. The result of this has been that a part-complete elimination was allowed to stop over the summer as we opened up, and a reservoir of infection left in place going into the autumn. That has in turn led to significant spread that limited lockdowns could not do more than keep a lid on, and where spread of Covid has then - aided by a more virulent strain(s) - been harder and harder to control. Had spread been tolerated over the summer (and it's a moot point as to how intolerant the UK actually was), I think we'd have hit critical mass thresholds earlier than we did.

My personal conclusion is that, without restrictions, we would have hit fundamental capacity thresholds within any healthcare system, no matter how well resourced. That's not about whether (per @yorksrob) this or that group is particularly prone to infection, but the simple impact of what happens if cases hit critical mass. If (and these numbers are illustrative, as I don't have actual rates to hand), 80% of those infected become ill enough to report symptoms, 10% of those infected become ill enough to need treatment, 5% of those needing treatment need critical care, and 1% of those infected die, it follows that for 1,000,000 infected, you will need critical care capacity for 50,000 people. The question is then not one of percentages, but of the overall supply of healthcare - which is not especially elastic.

Whichever answer(s) would have been right in a counter-factual universe, the reality here and now is that we are reliant on rapid roll-out of working vaccines, and that we need to hope that those vaccines are effective for longer than currently assumed - I've seen comments today that support both a "they're short lived" and a "they'll last donkey's years"; the reality is that we just don't (and can't) know.

We know that the risk of Covid directly increases with age, so it's entirely plausible that greater transmission of Covid is leading to more cases further down the age range. However, the anecdotal accounts from hospitals are that case numbers are so high now that the reality is that ICUs are dealing with severely ill of all age groups, and pushing staff to the limits of what they can cope with. I'm not sure how keeping those at greater risk particularly helps beyond a certain point of prevalence - one that, sadly, it seems like we've reached.

I'm just going by the post quoted.

If it's true that the average age of people in hospital with it (Not saying it is, just running with this statistic) is lower, then it suggests that either the virus now discriminates towards younger people more than previously (unlikely) or that older people are doing something that's making them proportionally less likely to be in hospital with it than previously (otherwise the average age wouldn't have changed). If this is the case, then the 50-60 age group doing more of what older people are doing will reduce their hospitalisation rates.

Generally, the older age group are likely retired/keeping out of the way of others, so this is likely what we should be facilitating the 50-60 age group to do.

 

[Domh245]

If it's true that the average age of people in hospital with it (Not saying it is, just running with this statistic) is lower, then it suggests that either the virus now discriminates towards younger people more than previously (unlikely) or that older people are doing something that's making them proportionally less likely to be in hospital with it than previously (otherwise the average age wouldn't have changed). If this is the case, then the 50=60 age group doing more of what older people are doing will reduce their hospitalisation rates.

I've seen it suggested as well that with older patients, ICU poses such a risk by itself that in many cases if it's severe enough they'll just make them comfortable rather than risking it in ICU. That may go some way to explaining the average younger age in ICUs at least

 

[yorksrob]

I've seen it suggested as well that with older patients, ICU poses such a risk by itself that in many cases if it's severe enough they'll just make them comfortable rather than risking it in ICU. That may go some way to explaining the average younger age in ICUs at least

Ah yes, that could be plausible. Most medical proceedures become more risky with age.

 

[Bald Rick]

I'm just going by the post quoted.

If it's true that the average age of people in hospital with it (Not saying it is, just running with this statistic) is lower, then it suggests that either the virus now discriminates towards younger people more than previously (unlikely) or that older people are doing something that's making them proportionally less likely to be in hospital with it than previously (otherwise the average age wouldn't have changed). If this is the case, then the 50-60 age group doing more of what older people are doing will reduce their hospitalisation rates.

Generally, the older age group are likely retired/keeping out of the way of others, so this is likely what we should be facilitating the 50-60 age group to do.

I've seen it suggested as well that with older patients, ICU poses such a risk by itself that in many cases if it's severe enough they'll just make them comfortable rather than risking it in ICU. That may go some way to explaining the average younger age in ICUs at least

It might also be because with the virus running loose in care homes earlier in the year, and the high death rate to the virus for the over 80s (over 1% of all over 80s have died from Covid in terms of excess deaths), that there’s fewer of them in vulnerable situations to catch it now.

 

[yorksrob]

It might also be because with the virus running loose in care homes earlier in the year, and the high death rate to the virus for the over 80s (over 1% of all over 80s have died from Covid in terms of excess deaths), that there’s fewer of them in vulnerable situations to catch it now.

That may be true, but I'd still be surprised for that to result in 50-60 to be the average age in hospital. I'm inclined to think it's got something to do with a greater proportion of those "not as old" people being in vulnerable positions.

 

[Bald Rick]

That may be true, but I'd still be surprised for that to result in 50-60 to be the average age in hospital. I'm inclined to think it's got something to do with a greater proportion of those "not as old" people being in vulnerable positions.

But if there’s fewer 70/80+ in hospital (for whatever reason), the average age must fall?

 

[yorksrob]

But if there’s fewer 70/80+ in hospital (for whatever reason), the average age must fall?

You'd expect it to fall a bit. But not much - there are still 99% of over 80's who didn't pass away with covid, and would therefore still in most cases be vulnerable to it.

 

[DustyBin]

I'm honestly not sure what the right answer is, and struggle with those who are determined that their way - at either end of the spectrum - is right, and that all others are wrong. I'm personally relatively supportive of restrictions on hospitality, but with deep reservations about closing schools; I know others on here have been very focused on the unreasonableness of closing hospitality but expressed little interest in education, while others have been wholly pro- or anti- restrictions in their outlook.

Where we will need to agree to disagree is over the role of allowing the virus to become endemic. My sense - and I don't have any papers to quote to prove or disprove this - is that the role of non-symptomatic (i.e., combining both pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic) spread has been underestimated. The focus has been on symptomatic cases; the role of schools in spread is easily under-estimated if I'm right as pupils act to spread Covid without falling ill themselves, or leaving particularly direct traceability within the school environment. The result of this has been that a part-complete elimination was allowed to stop over the summer as we opened up, and a reservoir of infection left in place going into the autumn. That has in turn led to significant spread that limited lockdowns could not do more than keep a lid on, and where spread of Covid has then - aided by a more virulent strain(s) - been harder and harder to control. Had spread been tolerated over the summer (and it's a moot point as to how intolerant the UK actually was), I think we'd have hit critical mass thresholds earlier than we did.

My personal conclusion is that, without restrictions, we would have hit fundamental capacity thresholds within any healthcare system, no matter how well resourced. That's not about whether (per @yorksrob) this or that group is particularly prone to infection, but the simple impact of what happens if cases hit critical mass. If (and these numbers are illustrative, as I don't have actual rates to hand), 80% of those infected become ill enough to report symptoms, 10% of those infected become ill enough to need treatment, 5% of those needing treatment need critical care, and 1% of those infected die, it follows that for 1,000,000 infected, you will need critical care capacity for 50,000 people. The question is then not one of percentages, but of the overall supply of healthcare - which is not especially elastic.

Whichever answer(s) would have been right in a counter-factual universe, the reality here and now is that we are reliant on rapid roll-out of working vaccines, and that we need to hope that those vaccines are effective for longer than currently assumed - I've seen comments today that support both a "they're short lived" and a "they'll last donkey's years"; the reality is that we just don't (and can't) know.

We know that the risk of Covid directly increases with age, so it's entirely plausible that greater transmission of Covid is leading to more cases further down the age range. However, the anecdotal accounts from hospitals are that case numbers are so high now that the reality is that ICUs are dealing with severely ill of all age groups, and pushing staff to the limits of what they can cope with. I'm not sure how keeping those at greater risk particularly helps beyond a certain point of prevalence - one that, sadly, it seems like we've reached.

I'm not sure either, we can only look at the information available and interpret it to the best of our abilities. It's inevitable that people will reach different conclusions, even the 'experts' can't agree. As you say though, not everybody has to be at the extreme end of the spectrum, either way.

It's interesting you mention hospitality and schools. I work in hospitality and know how much effort went into creating 'covid secure' environments as per the government guidance. To then be closed down was a real kick in the teeth, especially as there is no evidence to support it (we do keep asking to see it). The government support isn't enough to survive on and I'm not at all comfortable with adding to the already horrendous debt the country now finds itself in, even if more support was being offered. Conversely, we don't have any children so schools closing has no direct effect on us. That said, I do worry about the impact this is having on children and I don't think schools should be closed, but being brutally honest I'd rather close them than hospitality as restrictions on the latter are an exponential threat to our future. I suppose some people may say that's selfish but there's a bit of self preservation in all of us I think....

You're right, we'll have to agree to disagree when it comes to allowing the virus to become endemic, as that's ulitmately where I believe we'll end up even with the vaccines. I just think we've made the journey a longer and more painful one than it needed to be.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

Sky News has the following text from one of it's reporters on the live feed.

It seems a plausible explanation but is also suggesting that vaccination therefore won't save the NHS from crisis. The end result, therefore, would be lockdown carrying on for longer until younger age groups are vaccinated "in order to protect the NHS".

The vaccination programme will ultimately have an impact – 88% of all deaths are in the four priority groups for the jab.

But pressure on hospitals will still be immense, even as deaths fall. That’s because slightly younger patients, who aren’t in the four top priority groups for vaccination, spend longer in hospital than the frail and old.

Ultimately their fight for survival is more likely to be successful, but that takes a long time. So vaccination isn’t going to save the NHS from its current crisis.

No, it’s lockdown – and whether the measures are enough to slow the virus - that’ll determine if hospitals are overwhelmed.

 

[The Ham]

Sky News has the following text from one of it's reporters on the live feed.

It seems a plausible explanation but is also suggesting that vaccination therefore won't save the NHS from crisis. The end result, therefore, would be lockdown carrying on for longer until younger age groups are vaccinated "in order to protect the NHS".

However there's also been progress on finding treatments with two new drugs proving to reduce the risk of death and shorten the recovery times:

Two more life-saving Covid drugs discovered

The drugs, which save an extra life for every 12 intensive care patients treated, can be used immediately, say experts.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[birchesgreen]

Sky News has the following text from one of it's reporters on the live feed.

It seems a plausible explanation but is also suggesting that vaccination therefore won't save the NHS from crisis. The end result, therefore, would be lockdown carrying on for longer until younger age groups are vaccinated "in order to protect the NHS".

Lockdown until 2022 then? I doubt it.

 

[35B]

I'm not sure either, we can only look at the information available and interpret it to the best of our abilities. It's inevitable that people will reach different conclusions, even the 'experts' can't agree. As you say though, not everybody has to be at the extreme end of the spectrum, either way.

It's interesting you mention hospitality and schools. I work in hospitality and know how much effort went into creating 'covid secure' environments as per the government guidance. To then be closed down was a real kick in the teeth, especially as there is no evidence to support it (we do keep asking to see it). The government support isn't enough to survive on and I'm not at all comfortable with adding to the already horrendous debt the country now finds itself in, even if more support was being offered. Conversely, we don't have any children so schools closing has no direct effect on us. That said, I do worry about the impact this is having on children and I don't think schools should be closed, but being brutally honest I'd rather close them than hospitality as restrictions on the latter are an exponential threat to our future. I suppose some people may say that's selfish but there's a bit of self preservation in all of us I think....

You're right, we'll have to agree to disagree when it comes to allowing the virus to become endemic, as that's ulitmately where I believe we'll end up even with the vaccines. I just think we've made the journey a longer and more painful one than it needed to be.

Shake hands?

 

[Dent]

The PM confirmed almost 1.5 million people in the UK have now received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.
Over 1,000 GP-led sites in England will offer jabs - with an aim to offer vaccination slots to 13 million people, including all over-80s, by 15 February.

I believe we were at 1.3m yesterday so around 150-200k people vaccinated in the last 24 hrs. Thus on track for 1m a week?

The latest official figure is 1.3m as at 3rd January (so before the rollout of the Oxford vaccine). I don't know where the "almost 1.5 million" came from, or what cut-off date it refers to, but it does not match any published figure I can find.

 

[6Gman]

I'm just going by the post quoted.

If it's true that the average age of people in hospital with it (Not saying it is, just running with this statistic) is lower, then it suggests that either the virus now discriminates towards younger people more than previously (unlikely) or that older people are doing something that's making them proportionally less likely to be in hospital with it than previously (otherwise the average age wouldn't have changed). If this is the case, then the 50-60 age group doing more of what older people are doing will reduce their hospitalisation rates.

Generally, the older age group are likely retired/keeping out of the way of others, so this is likely what we should be facilitating the 50-60 age group to do.

Sadly, I think part of it may be that a significant proportion of the susceptible elderly died in the first wave.

 

[Simon11]

The latest official figure is 1.3m as at 3rd January (so before the rollout of the Oxford vaccine). I don't know where the "almost 1.5 million" came from, or what cut-off date it refers to, but it does not match any published figure I can find.

Covid-19: Boris Johnson makes daily jab pledge as Army helps rollout:

Covid-19: Boris Johnson makes daily jab pledge as Army helps rollout

Boris Johnson says the armed forces will use "battle preparation techniques" to help vaccinate millions.

www.bbc.co.uk

The PM confirmed almost 1.5 million people in the UK have now received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.
More than 1,000 GP-led sites in England will be able to offer a total of "hundreds of thousands" of jabs each day by 15 January, he said.
The Army will use "battle preparation techniques" to help achieve that goal.
It came as a further 1,162 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported on Thursday - the second consecutive day of more than 1,000 recorded fatalities - and 52,618 new cases.

 

[hwl]

Sky News has the following text from one of it's reporters on the live feed.

It seems a plausible explanation but is also suggesting that vaccination therefore won't save the NHS from crisis. The end result, therefore, would be lockdown carrying on for longer until younger age groups are vaccinated "in order to protect the NHS".

I've been saying similar since November but it too negative a thought for most people! Rather some restrictions would have to remain and gradually be removed as the younger age groups were vaccinated.

As we now have a more transmissibility virus the issue is worse as we open up and the unvaccinated age groups become more active.

The reality is that we will need 20-25% vaccination in the 18-50 age groups as a starting point to remove some of the tier 1/2 type restrictions and probably targeted vaccination for those with high contact levels first.

 

[Jozhua]

Sky News has the following text from one of it's reporters on the live feed.

It seems a plausible explanation but is also suggesting that vaccination therefore won't save the NHS from crisis. The end result, therefore, would be lockdown carrying on for longer until younger age groups are vaccinated "in order to protect the NHS".

Younger people are less likely to end up in hospital in the first place though.

That said, I am aware of one younger person who is a friend of an aquaintence was hospitalised because of covid. This is on a backdrop of seven people I know directly who have had it.

Having healthcare staff and older people vaccinated will help to reduce general infection rates a bit, I'm sure 15 million vaccinations will make a decent impact. But, vaccine delivery must grow considerably. We should have 1m per week by the 15th, but aim to speed up the delivery process further afterwards. Especially if we need 2nd jabs and repeaters.

Sadly, I think part of it may be that a significant proportion of the susceptible elderly died in the first wave.

I think that places like care homes are also doing a better job of shielding the elderly. No longer discharging them from hospital without tests. I know my grandad was quarantined upon arrival to his home.

It's a bit of a mess really, it's clear that without a "flattened" curve, things will overwhelm the healthcare system. But having a lockdown that pushed the wave deeper into winter, then releasing it straight into the busy Christmas season was always going to be a recpie for disaster. The biggest mistake of this whole disaster was thinking we were ever truly in control of this thing. When you are sustaining such high infection rates as a baseline, non-pharmecutical interventions are going to be less effective. Longer lockdowns to bring rates down and just a small increase in R-rate will result in a very large increase in infections.

 

[DustyBin]

Shake hands?

Certainly!

 

[Bald Rick]

Don’t forget in all this that those who have had it will have some degree of immunity, even from variants.

Officially nearly three million in the country have had it, and I’d have a bet that the real number is twice that. That’s 10% of the population on top of those immunised.

 

[hwl]

Don’t forget in all this that those who have had it will have some degree of immunity, even from variants.

Officially nearly three million in the country have had it, and I’d have a bet that the real number is twice that. That’s 10% of the population on top of those immunised.

The early work on the new strain suggested a reasonable reinfection rate for those who had previously had it 90+days before, hence reinfection may be more common for all strains than expected. (Previously there were question over whether the original infection had just come back but the new strain presented some interesting scientific opportunities.

The antibody sampling testing in London was just short of 20% last time but that doesn't seem to be helping too much at the moment!

 

[Yew]

Don’t forget in all this that those who have had it will have some degree of immunity, even from variants.

Officially nearly three million in the country have had it, and I’d have a bet that the real number is twice that. That’s 10% of the population on top of those immunised.

Weren't they estimating 20% in the summer?

 

[hwl]

Weren't they estimating 20% in the summer?

Antibody levels kept declining so estimates dropped down quite a bit.
Only 4.3% of the population has tested +ve so far.

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

Don’t forget in all this that those who have had it will have some degree of immunity, even from variants.

Officially nearly three million in the country have had it, and I’d have a bet that the real number is twice that. That’s 10% of the population on top of those immunised.

Weren't they estimating 20% in the summer?

Indeed, and anyone with t-cell immunity too (which is difficult to test for).