I have been going on for weeks about the fact that the Covid crisis is not over yet, and I am well aware that I have upset some here and on Twitter by doing also. I could pretty much guarantee the loss of 100 Twitter followers every time I mentioned it there. So I know how people feel about the issue. This is something they do not want to think about. Unfortunately, it seems that my hunch to back the work of those I think the most critical thinkers in epidemiology was right. We are going to have another wave of Covid. The media is waking up to the fact.
The best thread on this that I have seen is by Deepti Gurdasani:
https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1399451396546695169?s=27
Because I know many here do not look at Twitter this is what she had to say:
I post this because this may be the best reasoning and argument that there is available today on this issue - and to publish it is, I think, a considerable act of courage on the part of Dr Gurdasani. I am aware that she is suffering considerable abuse for posting.
I can't add to what she has to say. She and Prof Christina Pagel stand out in their field now as the leading thinkers on what is going on.
What I can suggest is that there will be massive economic and political consequences of this. This is what I will be doing in blogs over the next few days.
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I’ve come around to your way of thinking on this one, Richard.
I was working under the assumption that the B.1.617.2 variant was more transmissible than B.1.1.7 but not by as much as appears to be the case and it seems much more widely seeded than I expected.
The number of deaths should still be greatly reduced compared to those in previous waves, but that doesn’t really help much if the NHS is brought to collapse by the sheer numbers they need to treat, even if the vast majority of patients will recover with said treatment.
I think we’ll need to see some sort of decisive action this week but don’t expect it to happen. Probably something similar to a November-style lockdown at the very least. Something to hold the numbers down until enough vaccines can be put into arms.
I am hoping you’re right on the deaths
That may be true
But it will not be if the caseload is too great. People have to get to treatment
I worry for younger people this time
One thing which might help is if a single dose of the Pfizer is more effective at preventing serious infections in younger people. The data we have to date shows reduced efficacy of one dose but that will generally be on older people as not too many younger people have been partially vaccinated with Pfizer as yet due to the second dose requirements. You’d theoretically expect this to be the case – younger people tend to have a stronger immune response so it might be that one dose is more than ~30% effective against symptomatic infection that the AZ vaccine appears to be. There was a medical preprint paper released last week which appeared to show that antibodies produced by the Pfizer vaccine have less of a drop in efficacy against the ‘Indian’ variant than those produced by the AZ vaccine. This might help a lot.
Also, the J&J vaccine has now been authorised in the UK. I’m not sure of how many doses of this we have available now, but this appears to be more effective against the South African variant than the AZ vaccine and it is likely that the same will hold true against the Indian variant. As a one-shot vaccine, anybody given this vaccine will be fully immunised so we don’t need to worry about scheduling in second doses. Also, we’re waiting to hear from the JCVI about who is recommended to receive this vaccine. There is a risk of the rare thrombosis events but this appears to be at a considerably lower level than with the AZ vaccine (around a quarter of the rate, I seem to recall) so, with a more transmissible variant spreading quickly, it might well be that those in their 30s and even perhaps later 20s are much better off being given this vaccine than risking infection. All depends on how much of the stuff we have available, I suppose.
Hmmmm……………….Gurdasani is very believable to me just by what I know about the virus – it is supremely adaptable being able to jump between species and is evolving all the time no doubt. It is this key attribute that seems to be lost on Boris and Co. And the public.
That key attribute should have brought in an eradication policy never mind a vaccine policy from day one. How the hell can you have herd immunity from a virus that can change the way Covid can? You are talking about multiple possibly never ending herd immunities? Where the ‘old version’ no longer ‘works’ but the new one takes it’s pace!!! and how many lives will that take?
The most troubling aspect now is Government honesty about the spread – Gurdasani has raised this in the blog and she is right to do so. Everyone I know at work is banking June 21st. And there’s a militancy about it too. We’ve even booked a holiday in Scotland in July. I wonder if we’ll be allowed to go? I was sceptical when it was booked.
I’m prepared to see it called off and not bat an eyelid. But many won’t.
I want it called off
Not because I am a spoil sport but because I think it vital
Scotland’s numbers are going up as well, it’s not looking great quite frankly. I too fear for the younger people right now, especially the more vulnerable, those with underlying health probs and those like my sons with Aspergers and learning disabilities etc, as if life for them isn’t already restricted with few prospects as it is. In Scotland 18-29 year olds can ‘register’ for the vaccine, but imo people with learning disabilities should be have been much higher up on the list though.
I suspect the English (uk) government will welcome a thrid wave, more cash in their pockets, and more opportunity to blame the Brexit catastrophe on Covid.
It’s really not a good situation, Brexit and Covid, utterly terrifying in fact.
Scotland being effectively sanctioned, unable to trade without the tories’ say so, (banned from trading in effect) Scotland’s vast renewables literally being priced out of the market and out of business, farming, fishing, etc, all being shoved under the Brexit bus, and the Scottish government being told by the English (UK lol) government that they should not be talking to other countries’ governments. You could hardly make it up could you.
Good luck with your son
I w0orry about mine and they do not have learning difficulties (apart from cussedness when they don’t like the subject!)
You’re no spoil sport – I was resigned to this happening anyway – it was a long shot.
The big worry now for me is if the media are now simply bored with it.
Herd immunity is feasible once pretty much everyone has been vaccinated (or has been infected). It is unlikely (though not absolutely impossible) that a variant which can wholly evade the effects of the vaccines or immunity from prior infection will evolve overnight or even in a year and leave us back at square one. What is actually more likely in my view is that we’ll see further waves of infection, each causing less harm than the last as everyone develops an immune response by hook or by crook. Once everyone is vaccinated in Western countries I’d expect the ‘booster’ shots targetted at the latest variants will be given each year for a couple of years or so and then perhaps just for those most at risk as with the flu vaccines thereafter. There are still likely to be some rare occasions where the virus causes serious health issues or even death to an otherwise healthy individual, but then that is something we’ve seen with many other common infections for many years.
Of course, we need to get to the initial herd immunity stage of very few serious infections first of all and this isn’t likely to occur until much later in the year.
If I was to be cynical, I would wonder if the government wouldn’t actually be too upset if a lot of children were to catch the current variants of the virus as the vast, vast majority of them won’t suffer any serious harm. I can’t really see many other reasons why the government should be actively suppressing the publication about the spread of the Indian variant within schools as it has apparently been doing. Such a policy might be seen as a short-cut to the initial herd immunity which will save more lives and and a great deal of disruption in the longer term. Whether the numbers for that could add up is a different matter.
(N.B. I am not an immunologist or virologist!)
Children can get long Covid
Precautionary principle – if you don’t know the state of the road ahead, stop. The only effective control mechanism in this UK shambles is lockdown as nothing else effective is in place. So, here we go again.
Boris has just announced he sees nothing to suggest delay to easing. That’s the problem with Boris, he sees nothing.
This is Brighton beach yesterday.
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/19340372.thousands-flock-brighton-amid-hottest-day-year/#gallery2
Agreed
Remember that there are two different ways that a more dangerous variant can arise. The obvious way is through mutation. The vast majority of mutations make the virus less effective, but a tiny fraction make it more dangerous and the more dangerous variants will gradually take over.
However, the second mechanism is recombination, where an individual is simultaneously infected with two different variants and a hybrid with the most dangerous features of both variants may be formed. It is very likely that this is how the original COVID arose. I don’t know whether this is also true for the UK or other variants
If virus levels are low, the chance of recombination is extremely small, but the chance will increase with the square of virus levels.
Vaccination will be most successful if virus levels are low, because the chance of mutation to vaccine resistance will be small.
However the UK is a country with shambolic test, trace and isolate, that always reacts too late, is a hub of international travel, and is more concerned with keeping out Europeans than COVID variants. Close to a perfect recipe for disaster.
UK Covid stats as of 31st May.
https://www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/
Thanks for the reminder of that website, Helena. Some interesting visualisations, including a breakdown of the 164 deaths in the week to 24 May that mentioned COVID on the death certificate (but only 39 died within 28 days of a positive test).
Only six aged under 44, but 36 aged 45-64, 32 aged 65-74, 41 aged 75-84 and 49 aged 85+. Which underlines that many people in the oldest age cohorts are still vulnerable, notwithstanding vaccinations.
Overall, only 17 thousand or so deaths of those aged 64 or less, out of about 151,000 (about 11%) in total, with very strong age dependence (in the same three groups – 65-74, 75-84, 84+ – it is over 23, 47 and 62 thousand) but at present the four oldest cohorts have roughly equal numbers of deaths, but still few below 44.
zero covid deaths today
Not true
PHE said there were none within 28 days of a Covid test today
First, PHE is not objective
Second, the test understates deaths
Just saying……
Not even today. Deaths (within 28 days of a positive test) reported today reflect those that were actually recorded the previous day. Otherwise how could they give a number at 4pm each day: does no one die in the evening?
But yesterday was a bank holiday. So the low number reported today follows the usual weekly pattern, where the numbers of deaths recorded are always down on a Saturday and a Sunday, so the numbers reported on a Sunday or Monday are too low, and then they jump up for Monday reported on Tuesday. Yesterday was a bank holiday, so a third day of under-recording and under-reporting in a row. Last week it was 6, 5, 3 deaths on Saturday 22, Sunday 23 and Monday 24 May, but 15 on Tuesday 25.
The numbers by “date of death” are not so variable, but also consistently under-count compared to death certificates. As the gov.uk dashboard recognises “Data from the four nations are not directly comparable as methodologies and inclusion criteria vary” but they aggregate and publish them anyway. The “28 days” numbers really are very flawed, but what else can we do.
Let us see what tomorrow brings.
Oh look, 12 deaths “reported” on 2 June. And the (as yet not finalised) “date of death” numbers say in fact two people died on 1 June, and three the day before, and four the day before that. Plus another day with over 4,000 positive tests.
Within a few weeks we could transition from a regime of under 10 deaths per day (11 August to 4 September) to over 100 a day (10 October to 12 March).
We are if one mind in this it seems
I hate to say it, but it looks horribly like the PHE manipulated this
To paraphrase : We’re still likely to face a wave exceeding Jan even if we move forward as we are and don’t open up further
I find this claim rather re-assuring.
I also find it reassuring when people who predict doom like this say that they hope that they are wrong and then present no evidence or views as to why they might be. It rather makes that hope look insincere. People who live in hope do seek out reasons for optimism even if they then reject them. People who don’t live in hope only present the pessimistic picture.
Nonsense
Bozo & his BS Crewe and latest First Baby Mama do their big strut before heading off to their retirement.. throwing the British millions into the unnecessary cruicible – why?
The DS knows it can’t risk marching down the Euros crazed populace from gatherings to shout and drink in the 6 week orgy of football – there would be genuine riots and a complete turn upon the Government of that happened.
Sturgeon is also doing the same to Glasgow and Scotland
They are culpable to further mass murder to retain their power.
BUT HERE IS THE GOOD NEWS THE WORLD HAS BEEN AWAITING.
The WHO approval today signals the beginning of the end to the ravages to the RoW’s billions.
The Sinovac vaccine contains an inactivated form of coronavirus that cannot cause the disease. It also has a substance that helps strengthen the immune response to the vaccine
“Vaccine efficacy results showed that the vaccine prevented symptomatic disease in 51 percent of those vaccinated and prevented severe Covid-19 and hospitalisation in 100 percent of the studied population.”
The reason for this announcement now is probably more to do with China achieving 60% vaccination and ramping up production to 10 million doses per day as they clearly signalled months ago.
As far as I know it is the only inactivated virus vaccine n production.
Once the human adenovirus based Russian, Sputnik gets approval too that will be a further boost.
With expanded production facilities across the world licensing to produce these for future variations the world WILL be able to cope better.
Now do I really have to wait to get them on Alibaba? Not wanting to put any more tax dodging money in Bezos and Bozos bloody tax dodging hands?