One-*** efficacy questions

[Jonm]

[

I think you may have missed one part of the equation - the probability of getting infected once vaccinated.

Assume after two jabs the vaccine is 80% (+/-) effective. The risk of someone vaccinated passing on the infection is ~60%.

Therefore the overall risk of someone vaccinated being able to transmit the virus is 20% x 60% = 12%. Well below the R rate of even the more virulent strains.

As approx 70% of the UK adult population already have covid antibodies, overall we are now at a point where herd immunity will kick in and limit R to below 1.

I know this is slightly simplistic as it assumes the population is homegenous - in younger largely unvaccinated age groups R could increase beyond 1. Whether this really matters is questionable as they are far less impacted by the virus anyway.

If you look at my linked posts I made that point, considering the situation after one dose.
“So putting that together, one dose of the vaccine reduces catching Covid and showing symptoms, by 62% and reduces passing it on to an unvaccinated household member by a further 43%. So the vaccine reduces onward transmission to an unvaccinated household member by nearly 80% overall (that is my conclusion).”

 

[Selwyn]

Thanks for your explanation but I am afraid I do not follow your logic.

You said that there was selective reporting and have quoted the death rate per 1000 which by all accounts Is increasing.

I have inserted the data on daily deaths below. My understanding which is based on speaking with people I work with in India is that the reported numbers are significantly understated.

View attachment 109692

If you have alternative data I would be very interested if you could share it.

Its now filtering through to the BBC that the Indian Covid cases are slowing. So it is potentially safe for you to now entertain the idea that it might be slowing that the BBC has told you this. I said yesterday it appeared to be the case from the data I was looking at - its also an eminently predictable virus anyway and has been since April 2020, not least because it has so many similarities to other virus and other coronavirus'.

There is an addendum that number of tests may be slowing as well so that will be skewing the results and it is potentially true. Its a bit like in the UK when they do surge testing or mass testing of cities - you are bound to find some increases or decreases accordingly depending on testing levels.

But the pattern is pretty likely to be that the virus has reached its surge phase and will now retreat over the next 6 weeks. Mass media will forget in a couple of weeks and then move elsewhere - I expect it will be the focus on a new potential "deadly" variant again....

But fundamentally all you can do is look after yourself properly. Keep healthy, get outdoors, wash your hands, see your friends and move on with your lives and spend your money in places that gives income for younger people. Don't be expecting the govt to manage a virus.

Almost everyone in the UK has now been vaccinated who is vulnerable.

 

[Selwyn]

In the end

In the end it doesn't matter what rules/guidance/laws they bring in if certain sections of the population don't take any notice. e.g. Students returning last Autumn, Liverpool supporters having street parties when they won the PL! (probably a bit of jealousy there as my team will never win it)

It was a popular narrative that students etc were all being irresponsible but I don't think there was many if any death from last sept-dec for any university students from covid?

The biggest issue for covid spread (constantly deflected) were once you go into hospital you were vulnerable as the R rate was so high - but we cannot pretend any more that this is a disease that kills all sorts indiscrimenately - it doesn't. It overwhelmingly affects the old and vulnerable (apparently this group are impossible to identify!)

 

[Keith Cocker]

Assuming 10 million vulnerable people that's £25k each to help shield them.

That seems money well spent to me.

 

[Rorschach]

That seems money well spent to me.

Except that we didn't do that, we stuffed up the lives of millions in the long term instead and when the old and vulnerable people we "saved" (150k still dead apparently so we didn't do that well) are long gone, those of us left will live harder, shorter and more miserable lives.

 

[sometimewoodworker]

The biggest issue for covid spread (constantly deflected) were once you go into hospital you were vulnerable

The numbers of people catching Covid in hospitals while not zero is a tiny percentage of the people becoming infected.

but we cannot pretend any more that this is a disease that kills all sorts indiscrimenately - it doesn't.

Your information is badly wrong it does kill and injure all sorts. and ignores the significant problems of people who have been infected suffering long term bad effects.

 

[Rorschach]

The numbers of people catching Covid in hospitals while not zero is a tiny percentage of the people becoming infected.

It could be as many as 2/3rds of covid infections were actually caught in hospitals! Of course numbers vary but it is clear it is not a tiny % as you claim.

 

[sometimewoodworker]

I wonder what lifespan the vaccine has in offering protection

Current data is 8 months. The only reason that it is 8 months is that that is when the first vaccinations took place. Ask again next month and the answer could be 8 months but is more likely to be 9 months.

in more simple terms the length of protection is going up 1 day every day and shows no signs of reduction in protection.

 

[Selwyn]

The numbers of people catching Covid in hospitals while not zero is a tiny percentage of the people becoming infected.

"infected" doesn't really mean a lot until people are properly ill. Its madness to pretend everyone who had a positive covid test was ill because they weren't

 

[Peterm1000]

It was a popular narrative that students etc were all being irresponsible but I don't think there was many if any death from last sept-dec for any university students from covid?

The biggest issue for covid spread (constantly deflected) were once you go into hospital you were vulnerable as the R rate was so high - but we cannot pretend any more that this is a disease that kills all sorts indiscrimenately - it doesn't. It overwhelmingly affects the old and vulnerable (apparently this group are impossible to identify!)

I think the comment about students misses the point. Most students are 18-20 year olds who spend time at university and also travel home to see their families. Those families will often contain older relatives and parents in their 50s who can be vulnerable. The concern was not that students would get ill themselves, it was that they would be great transportation mechanisms to more vulnerable parts of the community. This is the same for asymptomatic cases. The case of Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary) is an interesting illustration of what happens when an asymptomatic person does not take precautions.

It is true that the worst effects are for the oldest and sickest parts of society (death). However, 1 in 20 people who get covid will still have symptoms 8 weeks later. I don't think this is a disease anyone should want to seek out.

 

[Jonm]

Its now filtering through to the BBC that the Indian Covid cases are slowing. So it is potentially safe for you to now entertain the idea that it might be slowing that the BBC has told you this. I said yesterday it appeared to be the case from the data I was looking at - its also an eminently predictable virus anyway and has been since April 2020, not least because it has so many similarities to other virus and other coronavirus'.

There is an addendum that number of tests may be slowing as well so that will be skewing the results and it is potentially true. Its a bit like in the UK when they do surge testing or mass testing of cities - you are bound to find some increases or decreases accordingly depending on testing levels.

But the pattern is pretty likely to be that the virus has reached its surge phase and will now retreat over the next 6 weeks. Mass media will forget in a couple of weeks and then move elsewhere - I expect it will be the focus on a new potential "deadly" variant again....

But fundamentally all you can do is look after yourself properly. Keep healthy, get outdoors, wash your hands, see your friends and move on with your lives and spend your money in places that gives income for younger people. Don't be expecting the govt to manage a virus.

Almost everyone in the UK has now been vaccinated who is vulnerable.

Do you have a link to the bbc article that demonstrates “Its now filtering through to the BBC that the Indian Covid cases are slowing”

 

[Selwyn]

I think the comment about students misses the point. Most students are 18-20 year olds who spend time at university and also travel home to see their families. Those families will often contain older relatives and parents in their 50s who can be vulnerable. The concern was not that students would get ill themselves, it was that they would be great transportation mechanisms to more vulnerable parts of the community. This is the same for asymptomatic cases. The case of Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary) is an interesting illustration of what happens when an asymptomatic person does not take precautions.

It is true that the worst effects are for the oldest and sickest parts of society (death). However, 1 in 20 people who get covid will still have symptoms 8 weeks later. I don't think this is a disease anyone should want to seek out.

I get what you are saying however the whole message that asymptomatic carrying was a key vector is still wildly overdone. Pandemics are never driven by asymptomatics.

No one is seeking the virus out. Also you can't really avoid it anyway. It was already everywhere and endemic last March. Why do people keep pretending they can avoid these minute particles?

 

[Selwyn]

Do you have a link to the bbc article that demonstrates “Its now filtering through to the BBC that the Indian Covid cases are slowing”

Was on the front page this morning. As I've said before lets see how it evolves in the next 10 days. I'm pretty certain it will level off or decline. Its what virus' do. Media will seek another country then

 

[Jonm]

Liverpool supporters having street parties when they won the PL! (probably a bit of jealousy there as my team will never win it)

How considerate of your team not to put temptation in your way.

 

[Peterm1000]

I get what you are saying however the whole message that asymptomatic carrying was a key vector is still wildly overdone. Pandemics are never driven by asymptomatics.

I don't know your medical research background, but the BMJ disagrees with you.

Almost all Covid tests are not live virus tests. In other words, when you get a PCR or lateral flow test, it is looking for evidence of the virus whether or not you have an active infection. Medics can calculate the percentage of people being tested who have no symptoms. They can estimate the percentage of people who are asymptomatic who are actually carrying the virus (asymptomatic people typically don't get tests so it is just an estimate). The number of PCR type tests carried out in the UK in the last 12 months is around 150 million. To say confidently how many people were actually infected would require far, far more tests. There aren't tests for "infectiousness" and what makes someone more or less likely to infect someone is not well understood.

So what that means is that no one knows the extent to which Covid is carried asymptomatically or the extent to which asymptomatic carriers spread a virus.

 

[TominDales]

Any insight as to why they want it?

My sons aged 16 to 22 are also keen to have the ***. There are a number of factors at play.
1. A number of their friends and school friends have been very ill with Covid. While most have recovered some haven't, one aged 24 still has not regained taste or smell after 5 months. Another was off work for 6 months with chronic stomach ache, he could not play footie etc with his mates, chronic diarrhea, at one point thought he may be permanently disabled, but now back to work but still quite incapacitated - he is the natural lead of the footie side, so its been shocking to see him so ill. Another's father died of it aged 59, they had stayed at this friends house a lot, so he was close to them. Their cousin still has stomach pain nearly 12 months after getting covid. This has made the virus very real in a way that flu hasn't been an issue.
2. They picked up out concerns, as relatively elderly parents - my wife was seriously ill last winter with a covid like bug. Also one shares a house with a diabetic and they have been ultra careful to protect him.
3. They see it as a passport back to normality. At their age friendship groups are important to them.
4. Two are still at school and have to take the lateral flow test twice a week - that makes it quite real.
Of all the reasons, the seeing their friends get ill is probably the dominant one, we live in a small community and this has been bigger than the usual run of tragic happenings (ie about one student a year gets a terminal/ debilitating illness in normal years).

 

[Spectric]

This whole debate on vacines could be rendered pointless if the blundering Borris opens up foreign travel too quick, the cases in India are out of control, twenty million and rising with an unknown death toll and it is only time before this virus mutates so lets leave it outside of the UK and wait because holidays are just not important in the grand scheme of things. These travel corridors do not just stop at the other end, people then travel further afield and take part in a mass mixing process before returning back along the so called travel corridor, so EVERYONE returning to the UK should be forced to quarantine for the ten days in the government hotels and then they could go wherever they like and no threat on return.

Borris is rather over confident, he is not showing the torries as an honest and open party and thinks the voters will accept their corrupt style of governing, spending more on wallpaper than a lot of his voters actually earn, that is not leading by example.

 

[RobinBHM]

Pandemics are never driven by asymptomatics

If people aren't symptomatic until they are very ill, then they are most likely to be only a vector when they are at home in bed or in hospital.

Please could explain further how pandemics are driven by symptomatic people, because it does not seem terribly logical.

 

[Peterm1000]

This whole debate on vacines could be rendered pointless if the blundering Borris opens up foreign travel too quick, the cases in India are out of control, twenty million and rising with an unknown death toll and it is only time before this virus mutates so lets leave it outside of the UK and wait because holidays are just not important in the grand scheme of things. These travel corridors do not just stop at the other end, people then travel further afield and take part in a mass mixing process before returning back along the so called travel corridor, so EVERYONE returning to the UK should be forced to quarantine for the ten days in the government hotels and then they could go wherever they like and no threat on return.

Borris is rather over confident, he is not showing the torries as an honest and open party and thinks the voters will accept their corrupt style of governing, spending more on wallpaper than a lot of his voters actually earn, that is not leading by example.

I sympathise with this viewpoint. It's undoubtedly safer if no one travels - domestic or international. But people are travelling already - 10,000 a day in and out of the UK. It's probably less risky for me (fully vaccinated) to travel to my house in Spain (zero active Covid cases in that region of Spain - home to several million people) than it is for me to travel to see you in Cumbria. I think we have to balance civil liberties against risk.

 

[Rorschach]

If people aren't symptomatic until they are very ill, then they are most likely to be only a vector when they are at home in bed or in hospital.

Please could explain further how pandemics are driven by symptomatic people, because it does not seem terribly logical.

You don't have to be terribly ill to be symptomatic, most people with Covid have very mild symptoms.