22nd February - Roadmap out of the pandemic, lifting of restrictions.

[Bald Rick]

Why is it necessary once the vaccines have been rolled out? This needs to stop and Covid needs to be removed from the list of notifiable diseases.

Because the vaccine doesn’t (and can’t) protect everyone. Even with the vaccine fully deployed, there will be around 8-10m people still vulnerable to the illness, being those in the vulnerable groups who could not / would not be vaccinated and those that have but for whom it doesn’t work. Stopping the spread of infection to those people will still be an effective way of reducing the risk to the NHS.

I’d say some form of tracing system lasts for a year or more after all restrictions are eased (hopefully only 15 weeks to go). Personally I have no issue with that.

I’ve no doubt countries such as South Korea have far better tracing systems than ours, but they also haven’t tested many people and have dealt with far worse epidemics previously, which may go a long way to explaining how they appear to have sailed through this relatively unaffected.

Well exactly. They’ve learned from previous experience that a good tracing system is essential to deal with an epidemic.

 

[DB]

Because the vaccine doesn’t (and can’t) protect everyone. Even with the vaccine fully deployed, there will be around 8-10m people still vulnerable to the illness, being those in the vulnerable groups who could not / would not be vaccinated and those that have but for whom it doesn’t work. Stopping the spread of infection to those people will still be an effective way of reducing the risk to the NHS.

We don't do this with any other endemic respiratory disease - there is no reason why this one should be different. Many of those 'still vulnerable to the illness' would be equally at risk from flu, and even colds in some cases.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Why is it necessary once the vaccines have been rolled out? This needs to stop and Covid needs to be removed from the list of notifiable diseases.

You don't think Hancock and BoJo are about to give the power over us and there get out of jail free card over the impact from Brexit anytime soon. This will come when there ready for a general election.

 

[DB]

Well exactly. They’ve learned from previous experience that a good tracing system is essential to deal with an epidemic.

But once the epidemic is over and it is endemic at a low level, it is no longer required.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

But once the epidemic is over and it is endemic at a low level, it is no longer required.

Directors of Public Health have the means and the power to do this all the time its a legal requirement for a local authority. In fact what needs to happen is Serco is switched off and they are given additional resources to manage and contain at the lower levels of prevalence with the ability to call on surge testing if they get an outbreak.

 

[Bald Rick]

But once the epidemic is over and it is endemic at a low level, it is no longer required.

I agree. But we’re some way away from that based on the current roadmap.

 

[DustyBin]

Because the vaccine doesn’t (and can’t) protect everyone. Even with the vaccine fully deployed, there will be around 8-10m people still vulnerable to the illness, being those in the vulnerable groups who could not / would not be vaccinated and those that have but for whom it doesn’t work. Stopping the spread of infection to those people will still be an effective way of reducing the risk to the NHS.

I’d say some form of tracing system lasts for a year or more after all restrictions are eased (hopefully only 15 weeks to go). Personally I have no issue with that.




Well exactly. They’ve learned from previous experience that a good tracing system is essential to deal with an epidemic.

I agree with @DavidB here, the key thing is this is set to become an endemic virus. The need for track & trace will be gone as we’ll no longer be dealing with an epidemic or pandemic.

 

[Bald Rick]

In fact what needs to happen is Serco is switched off and they are given additional resources to manage and contain at the lower levels of prevalence with the ability to call on surge testing if they get an outbreak.

100% agree.

We don't do this with any other endemic respiratory disease

I’m no expert here, but do other endemic respiratory diseases have the same rate of infection, and risk of hospitalisation and death?

 

[DustyBin]

I’m no expert here, but do other endemic respiratory diseases have the same rate of infection, and risk of hospitalisation and death?

They did, as recently as 2000 in fact in the case of flu. But then we introduced a vaccine (can you see where I’m going with this?).

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

They did, as recently as 2000 in fact in the case of flu. But then we introduced a vaccine (can you see where I’m going with this?).

DustyBin as I say the power has gone to their heads aided and abetted by the opposition our freedoms are being eroded in front of our eyes but the proletarit don't see it and have been brainwashed by this lot to be grateful for what they have. The fact they aren't prepared to find a few quid for the NHS now, given all their statements about them over the last 12mths, shows how much confidence they now have in what they can get away with.

 

[Bald Rick]

They did, as recently as 2000 in fact in the case of flu.

Really? Flu hospitalised 10% and killed 2-3% of people who caught it? Is there any data that shows that?

 

[35B]

We don't do this with any other endemic respiratory disease - there is no reason why this one should be different. Many of those 'still vulnerable to the illness' would be equally at risk from flu, and even colds in some cases.

And many won’t - the idea that Covid is just a respiratory disease is a dangerous misreading of its nature. A colleague (early 40s, reasonably fit & well) who had it would have loved it to have been flu.

 

[DB]

And many won’t - the idea that Covid is just a respiratory disease is a dangerous misreading of its nature. A colleague (early 40s, reasonably fit & well) who had it would have loved it to have been flu.

How can they (or you) know that they wouldn't have been as badly affected by flu?

 

[Yew]

Really? Flu killed 2-3% of people who caught it? Is there any data that shows that?

Fortunately, neither does Covid, the IFR from Ioannidis et al is around 0.23%. [1]


[1] https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf

 

[Bantamzen]

And many won’t - the idea that Covid is just a respiratory disease is a dangerous misreading of its nature. A colleague (early 40s, reasonably fit & well) who had it would have loved it to have been flu.

And many people who have had covid haven't had a bad time of. Flu can be just as deadly, my late sister died at 30 from it. What is dangerous is treating covid for something it isn't, that is to say a unique disease.

Fortunately, neither does Covid, the IFR from Ioannidis et al is around 0.23%. [1]


[1] https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf

So in other words coming into the range of flu. I wonder, should we lockdown for that too?

 

[Yew]

And many people who have had covid haven't had a bad time of. Flu can be just as deadly, my late sister died at 30 from it. What is dangerous is treating covid for something it isn't, that is to say a unique disease.


So in other words coming into the range of flu. I wonder, should we lockdown for that too?

It does get a little higher, as we have a larger than usual population of elderly people, but certainly given the effectiveness of the vaccine, suddenly it's a disease well within the range of influenza for the vaccinated.

 

[35B]

How can they (or you) know that they wouldn't have been as badly affected by flu?

Because they’ve had flu - real flu. It’s my colleagues own comparison.

 

[DB]

Because they’ve had flu - real flu. It’s my colleagues own comparison.

Flu mutates a lot (unlike Covid, which is more stable), so having had one strain of it is no guide to what would happen with a different strain.

 

[Yew]

And many won’t - the idea that Covid is just a respiratory disease is a dangerous misreading of its nature. A colleague (early 40s, reasonably fit & well) who had it would have loved it to have been flu.

That doesn't strike me as a convincing reason to deprive me of basic liberties.

 

[DustyBin]

Really? Flu hospitalised 10% and killed 2-3% of people who caught it? Is there any data that shows that?

I’m not sure about the IFR but here’s the ONS data relating to excess winter deaths (I didn’t realise 2014/15 was so bad):

Highest number of excess winter deaths since 1999/2000 - Office for National Statistics

www.ons.gov.uk

Incidentally, where are you getting your Covid-19 IFR of 2-3% from? Isn’t it more like 1% in the worst affected countries? I’d question the accuracy of the 10% hospitalisation rate as well but admittedly I don’t have the data to hand.

 

[35B]

Fortunately, neither does Covid, the IFR from Ioannidis et al is around 0.23%. [1]


[1] https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf

Reasearch that is seriously questioned, and where scientific consensus seems to be that IFR is in the range of 0.5%-1.5% (CEBM suggest 0.55%).

There’s also a question of basic logic and sense checking. If the IFR rate were 0.23%, on the British death toll of c.120,000, that suggests that there have been about 52 million cases in Britain. An IFR of ~1% feels instinctively much more plausible in terms of what’s happened here.

Flu mutates a lot (unlike Covid, which is more stable), so having had one strain of it is no guide to what would happen with a different strain.

Agreed, but my colleague’s account accords with what doctors are saying of Covid, and especially the action of Covid. Personally, I find the suggestions that Covid is an auto-immune diseases that is transmitted like respiratory diseases far more convincing than the comparison with flu.

 

[DB]

There’s also a question of basic logic and sense checking. If the IFR rate were 0.23%, on the British death toll of c.120,000, that suggests that there have been about 52 million cases in Britain. An IFR of ~1% feels instinctively much more plausible in terms of what’s happened here.

Is this considering IFR on a global scale? Because if so then this country probably will be above the global average due to a lot of very elderly people, many in poor health. Likewise the USA which has a lot of very unhealthy people.

Whereas the demographics of some other countries (e.g. many in Africa) are such that they are far less affected so will be below the average.

 

[takno]

I’m no expert here, but do other endemic respiratory diseases have the same rate of infection, and risk of hospitalisation and death?

The risk of hospitalisation and death already isn't greatly different from flu. The difference with Covid is the rate of infection, which is much more aggressive.

The vaccine doesnt "work" in the sense it giving sterilising immunity on around 40% of recipients. However, even for those people the risk of hospitalisation and death is lowered dramatically, perhaps to levels closer to common colds than the flu. Effectively nobody who has had the vaccine merits ongoing concern beyond what we give to flu.

The much smaller list of people who can't or won't take automatically benefits from a reduced level of spread, because 60% of the people who've taken the vaccine, plus some proportion of the people who've already had the disease, have enough immunity to not be capable of passing it on. They also benefit from a less busy NHS which is capable of giving them all the level of treatment they would to other diseases, which improves outcomes.

Once you combine that with the fact that the unvaccinated are a mixed bunch of people who aren't automatically particularly vulnerable to Covid, the long term ongoing impact of the virus on the population is probably quite a lot less than flu.

There are a lot of people who've grown to quite like their clipboards and sense of authority, but by the summer we will be at the point where we need to quite firmly give them their medals, thank them for their service, and make them understand that the war is over.

 

[35B]

That doesn't strike me as a convincing reason to deprive me of basic liberties.

I doubt anyone or anything would. My point is solely that the argument from flu is not robust, and that deriving risk analysis from it is an unreliable perspective to take.

 

[Yew]

There’s also a question of basic logic and sense checking. If the IFR rate were 0.23%, on the British death toll of c.120,000, that suggests that there have been about 52 million cases in Britain. An IFR of ~1% feels instinctively much more plausible in terms of what’s happened here.

So you believe you've got a better 'feeling' than the CEBM's analysis?

IIRC the Ioannidis paper was a global average, so we would perhaps expect to be slightly higher due to our population age profile. Either way, this is significantly lower than the original posters suggestion of 2-3%.

 

[35B]

Is this considering IFR on a global scale? Because if so then this country probably will be above the global average due to a lot of very elderly people, many in poor health. Likewise the USA which has a lot of very unhealthy people.

Whereas the demographics of some other countries (e.g. many in Africa) are such that they are far less affected so will be below the average.

My guesstimate is in the middle of what appears to be a consensus range, Ioannidis’ paper is half even the bottom of that range.

I agree that there will be differences between countries based on demography and health, as well as quality of health care and reliability of records.

 

[Richard Scott]

Reasearch that is seriously questioned, and where scientific consensus seems to be that IFR is in the range of 0.5%-1.5% (CEBM suggest 0.55%).

There’s also a question of basic logic and sense checking. If the IFR rate were 0.23%, on the British death toll of c.120,000, that suggests that there have been about 52 million cases in Britain.

No, not so as that's assuming all 120,000 cases were solely due to Covid, which, despite what may be on death certificate, we know not to be true.

 

[35B]

So you believe you've got a better 'feeling' than the CEBM's analysis?

IIRC the Ioannidis paper was a global average, so we would perhaps expect to be slightly higher due to our population age profile. Either way, this is significantly lower than the original posters suggestion of 2-3%.

I’m applying a quick sense check to the numbers on an order of magnitude basis. ~13m cases feels more plausible than ~52m, the CEBM analysis (and bear in mind that after Danmask, I have lost trust in their neutrality) of 0.55 suggests ~30m cases which also subjectively feels high.

I was not supporting the 2-3% estimate.

No, not so as that's assuming all 120,000 cases were solely due to Covid, which, despite what may be on death certificate, we know not to be true.

And where the evidence shows that the balance of errors does not support the mythology that Covid is consistently being added to death certificates in a way that increases the number of deaths associated to Covid.

 

[Yew]

~30m cases which also subjectively feels high.

The university of Manchester suggested that as high as 25% of the population may have been infected back in June.

 

[Watershed]

And where the evidence shows that the balance of errors does not support the mythology that Covid is consistently being added to death certificates in a way that increases the number of deaths associated to Covid.

I don't think people are suggesting there is an organised scheme to inflate Covid deaths, but rather that there appears to be little distinguishing a death with Covid and a death from Covid.

Of course, without investigating each and every death in detail we will never know the true figure, but I struggle to believe that 120,000 people have died of causes solely or predominantly attributable to Covid. The range of IFRs indicated by research and the percentage of the population estimated to have had the disease simply don't support that.