Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
Tongue is Germanic, shoulda gone with language.
YUR right. I was JUGGLING.
There's a misunderstanding anway, Latin's best claim for universality is not in 200 AD but in 1700-1800 AD. Linnaeus wrote mainly in Latin frinstance and indeed Latinised himself from von Linne
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
And don't forget Newton's "Principia". It was/is universal.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells... This is also modelling data, with lots of assumptions.
It's what we have. Please provide some counter evidence that shows T-cells for Omicron are going to make the difference @turbotubbs
It's a good point. So do we need laws to enforce the same behaviour.
We have reached a situation where *guidance* is probably more appropriate, for all but the most high risk of situations.
So, I would have a vaccine mandate for hospital staff, and have visitors wearing masks. And I would probably require masks on public transport.
And I would suggest that people avoid high risk events, especially if they are going to be mixing with elderly relatives.
Presumably you disagree with the SAGE recommendation for immediate restrictions, then.
I just wonder why people think there's no cause for alarm. With our state of knowledge, probably about half the population is susceptible to a disease which will result in a hospitalisation rate of probably 1% per infection, with a transmission rate that dictates a time-course of three weeks or so.
I just wish people could explain why they're not concerned. Whether they think that a lot fewer than half the population is susceptible, or a lot fewer than 1% will be hospitalised, or the time-course is going to be a lot longer than three weeks.
Unless one of those figures is badly wrong, we're going to have 15,000+ hospitalisations for a period of three weeks, with the peak far bigger.
I wish I could understand which bit of that people disagree with.
"I just wish people could explain why they're not concerned."
Have you been reading a different blog to this one? Maybe you were on actually on Australian Model Railway Magazine's site, and therefore missed the hundreds of commentors on here who have explained their views.
Let me summarise, so you don't actually have to read any other comments:
(1) Many of us, including me, are concerned about Omicron. However, we feel that the imposition of legal restrictions beyond a certain point (like curfews or forbidding indoor socialising with people outside our household), have costs that vastly outweigh their benefits.
(2) In South Africa, Omicron has come - not overburdened health services - and is now well on its way out.
(3) All the data - whether the study on replication rates in the lungs from the University of Hong Kong, or the statistics on the number of Omicron patients on mechanical ventilation - is that it is meaningfully less likely to kill you than Delta.
(4) After booster shots - particularly Moderna, or a mixed AZ-Pfizer regime - the body's immune response to Omicron seems pretty robust. And the UK has managed to get boosters already into almost half of all adults.
The questions I asked were quite specific and quantitative. Vague waffle about "we feel the imposition of restrictions outweigh the benefits" or "it was OK in South Africa" or "it is less likely to kill you" or "the body's immune response seems pretty robust" is really no answer at all. You can see I was asking about percentages. You understand what a percentage is, I hope.
Or is it really a waste of time trying to get people on this betting site to be quantitative now? If so, I advise you to give up betting, and give up posting on a betting site!
The trouble is Chris that you have history of crying wolf an being proved wrong time and time again....
You can say that as often as you like, but it's still not true.
Trying to rewrite history when we all remember you going through all this just a few months ago is going to do you no good at all.
Really, you can make up as many lies as you like. It makes no difference at all.
So you actually have the gall to sit there and deny you were claiming there would be a massive increase in hospitalisations because of covid and attacking people on here (including me) for saying that the vaccines had led to a decoupling between cases and hospitalisations.
If that is the case then it is you who, sadly, are the liar.
The situation is illustrated, perfectly by this data
This pattern is shown in the other regions. I am using London, since it had the biggest rise (so far), and shows the difference most clearly.
Cases in the 45+ group have remained low. Even in the recent Winnie-The-Pooh explosion, there has been an increase, but not proportionally to the number of new cases. This is why admissions and deaths have remained low.
The regional R numbers started moving in a new direction on the 16th. With London falling rapidly down to join the other regions.
The question is what happens next. The data so far does not suggest a massive increase in cases among the vulnerable, older groups. Yet.
My *guess* in that we are at peak now. When reporting resumes tomorrow for England, we will probably know...
Although we have just had the year's biggest day for cross-age socialising. And cross-regional.
So I met up with my parents and my sister and brother in law. That was it for the day. I meet more people per hour at work. I’m not sure that Christmas Day is the super spreader that people make it out to be. (And I know your point was about cross ages)
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
There's a huge amount of wishful thinking going on, and a minuscule amount of attention being paid to the science, sadly.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells... This is also modelling data, with lots of assumptions.
It's what we have. Please provide some counter evidence that shows T-cells for Omicron are going to make the difference @turbotubbs
As far as I can tell that report is only focusing on the vaccine efficacy in terms of neutralising antibodies. Is there any evidence of a waning in protection against severe disease when everything is taken into account (other immune response, previous infection etc.)? You make it sound like that is certain, but I've not seen evidence for it.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covod it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course larger than others untaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
I spend a lot of time in Red America. You know my business is in a State with a Republican Governor and pretty much everyone I interact with there is a Republican political appointee.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
Conservative Republicans may be anti socialised medicine but they have never called us 'Plague Island' like the New York Times is.
For starters because most of them are not that bothered about Covid anyway.
Even in the UK it was of course Labour who introduced stated controlled and funded healthcare with Churchill's Tories opposed at the time, so it is hardly surprising conservative Republicans in the US do not support a policy introduced by the UK Labour Party
Less than three weeks ago, a Republican political appointee and Trump donor, said to me (and I'm paraphrasing slightly) "You were back in England for Thanksgiving? Why did you go to Plague Island?"
If you watch Fox News, you will get the impression that the US (and particularly Red States) have handled the pandemic brilliantly, because they've had good American vaccines, freedom and private healthcare.
There isn't some special "carve out" for the UK, where they get a pass on the criticism meted out to other countries.
'Paraphrasing' so not exactly then.
Half of Trump voters have not even been vaccinated let alone taken any notice of Covid. They certainly have not been calling us 'Plague Island' unlike left liberals in the New York Times as as far as they are concerned Covid is a conspiracy pushed by big state authoritarians to lockdown and take their businesses and force them to have dodgy vaccines.
And no one brief conversation with a millionaire donor is not the average Trump voter or anywhere near it.
Amused that our Epping correspondent has so much better an idea of what is going on in the States than our California(? - can't remember) correspondent.
California is arguably even more left liberal than we are now, even in 2016 over 60% of Californians voted for Hillary and our correspondent lives in a firmly blue part of it.
Culturally I would even say my part of Epping, which was over 60% Leave, has more in common with Red state USA than the part of the US our correspondent now lives in
Having lived in the US and the UK, in Leave and in Remain areas, and in Red and Blue states, I think the cultural differences between Epping and Roberts County, Texas are quite substantial. I think you - @HYUFD - would find the culture of deepest Remainia (say Kew) to be much closer to Epping than Roberts County is.
Agreed. The cultural differences between, say, Washington DC and London - two left-leaning capital cities that I've lived in - are pretty significant. There's a whole lot more to culture than a simple left-right political leaning. The desire of some UK right-wingers to embrace the US is a bit weird (and it's certainly not reciprocated) - and I say this as someone who lived in the US for a number of years and really like the place.
Culturally however big cities across the western world now tend to have more in common with each other than rural parts of their own nation.
It was not a particular desire to embrace the US, as an English Tory I believe we are closer to Canada, Australia and New Zealand and much of the Commonwealth than the US. What it was however was a response to the 'Plague Island' articles in the New York Times which are undoubtedly an urban left liberal shot at Boris and post Brexit Britain
Americans of all political persuasions have a complicated emotional relationship with Britain and there are competing veins of Anglophilia and Anglophobia across American society. They love watching the Crown. They also love casting a posh British actor as the villain in their movies. I think that Brexit and Boris Johnson have brought to the fore some latent feelings of dislike. But some of the strongest Anglophobia I came across while living in the US came from those on the right, while liberals I met most often tended to be fairly Anglophile.
It depends who is in charge here, left liberals in the US tended to like Blair (despite Iraq). Conservatives in the US tend to be admirers of Thatcher and Churchill.
Some Catholic Irish American Conservatives dislike the British but mainly because they want a united Ireland.
Overall however majorities of both Democrats and Republicans see the UK as an ally. However while 52% of Democrats also see France as an ally, only 34% of Republicans see France as an ally
In my experience from living in the UK most Americans were rather ill informed about the details of UK politics, and who was PM was really of little relevance in determining their views on Britain. Anglophobia goes way beyond Irish American republicans, too.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
There's a huge amount of wishful thinking going on, and a minuscule amount of attention being paid to the science, sadly.
I do have to say, @Chris does have a point. We seem to have swung towards "no problem, get on with life" when none of the actual studies say that at all. They say we're potentially in a lot of trouble.
Dismissing anyone concerned with "just get on with it", isn't much of a rebuttal.
Whilst I don't agree with @chris, and am not persuaded of the case for a new lockdown, I do think there is an element of truth in this. Some seem to almost be saying if only everyone would make a strenuous effort to ignore it, it will go away. And it hasn't yet because other people just aren't putting in a hard enough shift behaving as if all was normal.
The problem is that I will be accused of having a lockdown fetish. I am not convinced of the case for a lockdown currently either - but I am very concerned about the need for one in one or two months, if we do not prepare now.
We've been buoyed because a bunch of headlines appeared saying everything was fine, we've had a Christmas so thinks must be on the right track. But the studies quoted actually say what I am saying, that waning immunity is a big problem. And no response of "well it won't be that bad" or "the models are wrong" or "T-cells, T-Cells!" do much to convince me of what they say.
There is nothing substantial that says we aren't in trouble if immunity continues to wane. The debate is the wrong one, it's not is Omicron going to cause issues - it can and will - it's how we mitigate. And the science does not say "get on with it, let everyone catch it".
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
There's a huge amount of wishful thinking going on, and a minuscule amount of attention being paid to the science, sadly.
Ok.
Where has omicron overwhelmed health services are resulted in death rates spiking?
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
There's a huge amount of wishful thinking going on, and a minuscule amount of attention being paid to the science, sadly.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
You're totally missing the point. I am not calling for a lockdown, I am not calling for more restrictions.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
This will end up like last time under Cameron (via Francis Maude). They'll cut thousands of CS jobs and then fill the huge gaps that appear with consultants costing five times as much. Then they go on to say CS numbers are down....
For evidence of real-world behavioural change due to Omicron, see Brighton v. Brentford on Sky at the moment. The grounds is, I reckon, less than half full. Given that Brighton home games are invariably sold out (largely season-ticket holders), fans have voted with their feet having already paid for a ticket. There's lots of Covid cases/Omicron in Brighton at the moment.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells... This is also modelling data, with lots of assumptions.
It's what we have. Please provide some counter evidence that shows T-cells for Omicron are going to make the difference @turbotubbs
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells... This is also modelling data, with lots of assumptions.
It's what we have. Please provide some counter evidence that shows T-cells for Omicron are going to make the difference @turbotubbs
I don’t have the time, or the inclination. I know you and @Chris believe you are right. Fine. I don’t believe I am just exhibiting wishful thinking, anymore than when I tangled with @Chris over his now shown to be ludicrous claims about vaccination and hospitalisation rates.
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
Depends. I don't think they'll be too exercised if hundreds of thousands of patronising civil servants a long way off who keep diverting money away from them get the sack.
If however no extra money goes into their services and their infrastructure, they will be aggrieved, because that is what they voted for.
I do hope the entirety of the DfE are in line for dismissal.
There was, frankly, no need to keep on all the fixed-term DWP people. Unemployment is... gradually... falling. But DWP management has been desperate to demonstrate the additional people are still needed.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
You're totally missing the point. I am not calling for a lockdown, I am not calling for more restrictions.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
And my point is that the studies you refer to are about nABs, not the whole protection offered by vaccination. We may need more boosters, or omicron may infect all of us and proved long lasting protection via infection. Your assumption is that ‘waning’ is a huge problem, whereas I suspect it isn’t.
I do hope the entirety of the DfE are in line for dismissal.
There was, frankly, no need to keep on all the fixed-term DWP people. Unemployment is... gradually... falling. But DWP management has been desperate to demonstrate the additional people are still needed.
But if we get rid of the Job Centres etc, who will torment the poor? You can't rely on the aristocrats to hunt them down and flog them etc - we need professionals, these days, to make their lives more miserable.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
You're totally missing the point. I am not calling for a lockdown, I am not calling for more restrictions.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
And my point is that the studies you refer to are about nABs, not the whole protection offered by vaccination. We may need more boosters, or omicron may infect all of us and proved long lasting protection via infection. Your assumption is that ‘waning’ is a huge problem, whereas I suspect it isn’t.
And yet that is what the studies actually say is the concern. Your rebuttal isn't based on any actual research
I do hope the entirety of the DfE are in line for dismissal.
There was, frankly, no need to keep on all the fixed-term DWP people. Unemployment is... gradually... falling. But DWP management has been desperate to demonstrate the additional people are still needed.
In Tom Rolt's autobiography, he noted that at the end of World War II, all his colleagues at the ministry of supply showed a sudden anxiety to stay on as permanent civil servants.
He also commented later in life he had noted as the number of canals and railways shrank the number of people administering them didn't.
Because, of course, they were the people who made decisions on who to let go...
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
You're totally missing the point. I am not calling for a lockdown, I am not calling for more restrictions.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
You're totally missing the point. I am not calling for a lockdown, I am not calling for more restrictions.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
And my point is that the studies you refer to are about nABs, not the whole protection offered by vaccination. We may need more boosters, or omicron may infect all of us and proved long lasting protection via infection. Your assumption is that ‘waning’ is a huge problem, whereas I suspect it isn’t.
And yet that is what the studies actually say is the concern. Your rebuttal isn't based on any actual research
It’s clear we are not going to agree on this. I expect we may see more boosters for the categories 1-9, and probably at some point in the autumn will see new vaccines that have been tweaked. But I’m not convinced omicron is the treat you think it is. It’s not an issue in SA. I don’t see why it will be here.
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
South Africa is not a population with waning immunity...
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
You are right there. Boris is likely the Tories only chance of regaining the redwall if he gets a grip next year.
If not, Sunak would instead aim to rebuild the winning Cameron coalition of 2015 and largely abandon the redwall back to Labour. Hence he would focus on holding the seats Cameron and May won and which stayed Tory in 2019 but some of which are at risk of going to Starmer on current polls and add a few seats Cameron won in 2015 and 2010 like St Albans, Putney, Battersea and Enfield Southgate and Bath which did not go Tory in 2019.
Incidentally he is also copying Valerie Pecresse who has promised to slash civil servants jobs if she wins the French presidential election for Les Republicains next year
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
I didn't say T-Cells weren't a thing, I said the studies that make specific reference to waning immunity don't make any mention of these. There is not sufficient research or evidence to support the idea that they will prevent this becoming an issue. All the rebuttal to the studies in this direction, is wishful thinking at best.
It's a problem when immunity wanes to the degree such that people end up in hospital and the NHS gets overwhelmed. That is what we need to prevent.
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
South Africa is not a population with waning immunity...
Why not? Immunity wanes. That's equally true of naturally-acquired and vaccine-acquired immunity. The difference is that your body has seen the whole virus, and acquires antibodies to the whole thing, not just the spike protein.
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
One thing that is missing is the evidence out of our hospitals. Who is it in icu? Who is dying? Anecdotes suggest 80% in icu are unvaccinated. That, and frail older patients. This shows the value of vaccination.
If we must ‘do something’ then it should be targeted at those who refuse to get vaccinated. I’d exempt any with proof of recovery from infection, but I no longer see why the 90% who have done the right thing should be restricted for the ones who haven’t.
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
No they voted for Boris that isn't.
If the Tories change tack now, they are in for a battering.
Boris Johnson isn't pro-austerity? He spent a whole Parliament supporting it and spent a lot of time cutting things in London
He is the only one stopping, austerity 2 and won an election promising that austerity had run its course.
The current Lab front bench famously abstained on austerity as did 3 of the 4 leadership candidates in 2015 (the main reason Jezza beat Andy IMO) I was voting Andy right up to the moment he joined YC and L4%K in support of austerity lite
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
South Africa is not a population with waning immunity...
Really? How do you know this? Their immunity, nABs, will decline like anybody else’s. Why wouldn’t it?
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
No they voted for Boris that isn't.
If the Tories change tack now, they are in for a battering.
Boris Johnson isn't pro-austerity? He spent a whole Parliament supporting it and spent a lot of time cutting things in London
He is the only one stopping, austerity 2 and won an election promising that austerity had run its course.
The current Lab front bench famously abstained on austerity as did 3 of the 4 leadership candidates in 2015 (the main reason Jezza beat Andy IMO) I was voting Andy right up to the moment he joined YC and L4%K in support of austerity lite
Well I totally agree with regards to Labour. Corbyn would have been irrelevant if Labour hadn't abstained
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
South Africa is not a population with waning immunity...
Really? How do you know this? Their immunity, nABs, will decline like anybody else’s. Why wouldn’t it?
Its immunity hasn't waned. It is at a similar level of immunity to us.
I think you're missing the point, I'm not talking about now, I am talking about going forward
I do hope the entirety of the DfE are in line for dismissal.
There was, frankly, no need to keep on all the fixed-term DWP people. Unemployment is... gradually... falling. But DWP management has been desperate to demonstrate the additional people are still needed.
In Tom Rolt's autobiography, he noted that at the end of World War II, all his colleagues at the ministry of supply showed a sudden anxiety to stay on as permanent civil servants.
He also commented later in life he had noted as the number of canals and railways shrank the number of people administering them didn't.
Because, of course, they were the people who made decisions on who to let go...
And the comments about how the Foreign (and Colonial) Office got bigger and worse, the less of the world we ran.....
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
You are right there. Boris is likely the Tories only chance of regaining the redwall if he gets a grip next year.
If not, Sunak would instead aim to rebuild the winning Cameron coalition of 2015 and largely abandon the redwall back to Labour. Hence he would focus on holding the seats Cameron and May won and which stayed Tory in 2019 but some of which are at risk of going to Starmer on current polls and add a few seats Cameron won in 2015 and 2010 like St Albans, Putney, Battersea and Enfield Southgate and Bath which did not go Tory in 2019.
Incidentally he is also copying Valerie Pecresse who has promised to slash civil servants jobs if she wins the French presidential election for Les Republicains next year
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
Depends. I don't think they'll be too exercised if hundreds of thousands of patronising civil servants a long way off who keep diverting money away from them get the sack.
If however no extra money goes into their services and their infrastructure, they will be aggrieved, because that is what they voted for.
And that's the problem.
Trying to balance the books on Civil Service cuts is clearly absurd; it's a slice of a slice of what would be needed.
Now many a mickle makes a muckle, for sure. But the big mickles are the ones quietly slipped in whilst talking about trivia. Thatcher's pension reforms were one, University fees and loans were another.
There's not much the government can do without cutting health, social care and pensions. And they can't do that without annoying their main remaining supporters.
And that goes back to the question that BoJo and his predecessors have studiously ducked. Scandi public services (and taxes) or US taxes (and public services).
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
South Africa is not a population with waning immunity...
Really? How do you know this? Their immunity, nABs, will decline like anybody else’s. Why wouldn’t it?
Its immunity hasn't waned. It is at a similar level of immunity to us.
I think you're missing the point, I'm not talking about now, I am talking about going forward
But we are experiencing omicron now? So SA will need to boost too? Is that what you mean?
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
One thing that is missing is the evidence out of our hospitals. Who is it in icu? Who is dying? Anecdotes suggest 80% in icu are unvaccinated. That, and frail older patients. This shows the value of vaccination.
If we must ‘do something’ then it should be targeted at those who refuse to get vaccinated. I’d exempt any with proof of recovery from infection, but I no longer see why the 90% who have done the right thing should be restricted for the ones who haven’t.
Indeed. This is a betting site. Those who have refused to get vaccinated have obviously seen value in that bet. Some will be proved wrong...
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
South Africa is not a population with waning immunity...
Really? How do you know this? Their immunity, nABs, will decline like anybody else’s. Why wouldn’t it?
Remember that since the start of Omicron South Africans are a different breed of human
I do have to say, @Chris does have a point. We seem to have swung towards "no problem, get on with life" when none of the actual studies say that at all. They say we're potentially in a lot of trouble.
Dismissing anyone concerned with "just get on with it", isn't much of a rebuttal.
Chris said on September 3rd
"I can't believe anyone could look at that plot and think it showed the hospitalisation rate per infection now was significantly less than it has been throughout the pandemic."
And yet he was completely wrong. The massive increase in hospitalisations he was predicting singularly failed to materialise. Yet he has at no time admitted he was wrong and has simply continue to make the same claims every time cases go up.
It's worse than that. When people brought forward arguments (with data) for why the hospitalisation rate had changed with the arrival of vaccines, he was abusive.
I am glad someone else remembers this. I was beginning to think that, in spite of the evidence in the threads, I had somehow imagined all of this.
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
No they voted for Boris that isn't.
If the Tories change tack now, they are in for a battering.
More it is that Johnson just promises everybody he meets what they want. He is just a simple bullshitting conman. He will promise the opposite the next day to someone else.
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
No they voted for Boris that isn't.
If the Tories change tack now, they are in for a battering.
Boris Johnson isn't pro-austerity? He spent a whole Parliament supporting it and spent a lot of time cutting things in London
He is the only one stopping, austerity 2 and won an election promising that austerity had run its course.
The current Lab front bench famously abstained on austerity as did 3 of the 4 leadership candidates in 2015 (the main reason Jezza beat Andy IMO) I was voting Andy right up to the moment he joined YC and L4%K in support of austerity lite
Well I totally agree with regards to Labour. Corbyn would have been irrelevant if Labour hadn't abstained
We are having a massive moment here. I am sure we can find something to disagree on tomorrow!
Have a good rest of Christmas I am having an early night ahead of another day of excess tomorrow.
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
Depends. I don't think they'll be too exercised if hundreds of thousands of patronising civil servants a long way off who keep diverting money away from them get the sack.
If however no extra money goes into their services and their infrastructure, they will be aggrieved, because that is what they voted for.
And that's the problem.
Trying to balance the books on Civil Service cuts is clearly absurd; it's a slice of a slice of what would be needed.
Now many a mickle makes a muckle, for sure. But the big mickles are the ones quietly slipped in whilst talking about trivia. Thatcher's pension reforms were one, University fees and loans were another.
There's not much the government can do without cutting health, social care and pensions. And they can't do that without annoying their main remaining supporters.
And that goes back to the question that BoJo and his predecessors have studiously ducked. Scandi public services (and taxes) or US taxes (and public services).
Choose exactly one of these.
We never do choose, we always have been and likely always will be in between the Scandinavian and US models. Albeit a decade or more of Labour government tends to move us a bit more towards the former and a decade or more of Conservative government a bit more towards the latter
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
South Africa is not a population with waning immunity...
Really? How do you know this? Their immunity, nABs, will decline like anybody else’s. Why wouldn’t it?
Remember that since the start of Omicron South Africans are a different breed of human
What's the point in discussing this if you're just going to invent strawmen?
When Omicron reaches an unvaccinated country or one where immunity has waned, we can discuss it then
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
South Africa is not a population with waning immunity...
Why not? Immunity wanes. That's equally true of naturally-acquired and vaccine-acquired immunity. The difference is that your body has seen the whole virus, and acquires antibodies to the whole thing, not just the spike protein.
Because the immunity within SA is still high from recent vaccinations. It is going forward we need to worry about, this is what I keep saying
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
Depends. I don't think they'll be too exercised if hundreds of thousands of patronising civil servants a long way off who keep diverting money away from them get the sack.
If however no extra money goes into their services and their infrastructure, they will be aggrieved, because that is what they voted for.
And that's the problem.
Trying to balance the books on Civil Service cuts is clearly absurd; it's a slice of a slice of what would be needed.
Now many a mickle makes a muckle, for sure. But the big mickles are the ones quietly slipped in whilst talking about trivia. Thatcher's pension reforms were one, University fees and loans were another.
There's not much the government can do without cutting health, social care and pensions. And they can't do that without annoying their main remaining supporters.
And that goes back to the question that BoJo and his predecessors have studiously ducked. Scandi public services (and taxes) or US taxes (and public services).
Choose exactly one of these.
He promised both. That's why his popularity was sky high. It was never a long-term proposition. All tactics no strategy. Been the same for a decade.
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
No they voted for Boris that isn't.
If the Tories change tack now, they are in for a battering.
More it is that Johnson just promises everybody he meets what they want. He is just a simple bullshitting conman. He will promises the opposite the next day to someone else.
Definitely a liar but the anti austerity levelling up promise was a key factor in 2019. 3rd most important behind Brexit and anti Corbyn
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
Depends. I don't think they'll be too exercised if hundreds of thousands of patronising civil servants a long way off who keep diverting money away from them get the sack.
If however no extra money goes into their services and their infrastructure, they will be aggrieved, because that is what they voted for.
And that's the problem.
Trying to balance the books on Civil Service cuts is clearly absurd; it's a slice of a slice of what would be needed.
Now many a mickle makes a muckle, for sure. But the big mickles are the ones quietly slipped in whilst talking about trivia. Thatcher's pension reforms were one, University fees and loans were another.
There's not much the government can do without cutting health, social care and pensions. And they can't do that without annoying their main remaining supporters.
And that goes back to the question that BoJo and his predecessors have studiously ducked. Scandi public services (and taxes) or US taxes (and public services).
Choose exactly one of these.
He promised both. That's why his popularity was sky high. It was never a long-term proposition. All tactics no strategy. Been the same for a decade.
But this is precisely why I think the Tories are doomed. Because they had one chance to appear "different" and they have comprehensively failed. Why would voters give them another chance?
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
Depends. I don't think they'll be too exercised if hundreds of thousands of patronising civil servants a long way off who keep diverting money away from them get the sack.
If however no extra money goes into their services and their infrastructure, they will be aggrieved, because that is what they voted for.
And that's the problem.
Trying to balance the books on Civil Service cuts is clearly absurd; it's a slice of a slice of what would be needed.
Now many a mickle makes a muckle, for sure. But the big mickles are the ones quietly slipped in whilst talking about trivia. Thatcher's pension reforms were one, University fees and loans were another.
There's not much the government can do without cutting health, social care and pensions. And they can't do that without annoying their main remaining supporters.
And that goes back to the question that BoJo and his predecessors have studiously ducked. Scandi public services (and taxes) or US taxes (and public services).
Choose exactly one of these.
We never do choose, we always have been and likely always will be in between the Scandinavian and US models. Albeit a decade or more of Labour government tends to move us a bit more towards the former and a decade or more of Conservative government a bit more towards the latter
Fair point, but we are also prone to persuading ourselves we can have Scandi services and American tax levels.
Sunak is pro austerity and pro cuts. Is that what the Red Wall voted for?
No they voted for Boris that isn't.
If the Tories change tack now, they are in for a battering.
More it is that Johnson just promises everybody he meets what they want. He is just a simple bullshitting conman. He will promises the opposite the next day to someone else.
Definitely a liar but the anti austerity levelling up promise was a key factor in 2019. 3rd most important behind Brexit and anti Corbyn
Yeah, I agree that pulling the wool over the eyes of Northerners was very much the intention.
Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
Tongue is Germanic, shoulda gone with language.
YUR right. I was JUGGLING.
There's a misunderstanding anway, Latin's best claim for universality is not in 200 AD but in 1700-1800 AD. Linnaeus wrote mainly in Latin frinstance and indeed Latinised himself from von Linne
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
And don't forget Newton's "Principia". It was/is universal.
Hmm. Wasn't the Byzantine empire primarily Greek-speaking, even in the classical era?
I share this story because it is a real life example on changes to human behaviour regarding the virus and there is a lot of discussion on here about that. Back in July I caught the virus after being double vaxed. It was one day of mild flu, two days of a cold and then it was gone, at which point I realised I had lost my sense of taste/smell which lasted for another two weeks. My LFT test on day 1 was positive in 10 seconds after the liquid had been placed in it but it had been negative the previous day when I had a sore throat. I self isolated for ten days, the PCR test confirming what I already knew. Those ten days included the Euro Final which England were playing and I had planned to watch at the local pub. I don't have a TV or TV Licence so listened to it on the radio, the result obviously not making me feel in anyway better about my circumstances.
Now fast forward to early November, I am tripple vaxed and being asked to have the winter flu jab. I have never had one of those before as I usually live abroad during the winter time. (My wife and home is in Malaysia but I've been trapped in this "plaque island" for the past two winters/years) .I dutifully went to the Doctors, got jabbed and three days later came down with a bad cold. I took a LFT test on day 1 but it was negative. I updated my health details on the Zoe app and it came back and said get a PCR test. At that point I remembered how rotten self isolation was back in July so could I still taste/smell anything? Yes I could, so this was obviously no more than a cold .... that went full on for another five days and lingered for five after that, about twice what any cold I have previously had has ever done I did not take another LFT test or self isolate because I was sure that this cold would go by the next day, or the one after that. I didn't go outside with active "runny nose" symptoms because that is not compatible with wearing a face mask but at no time did I think this is that dammed virus again. It wasn't until the end of November I started to read that for some catching this variant may manifest itself as no more than a cold.
Maybe it was only a bad cold but I really didn't want to find out that I had another ten days in solitary to look forward to so I didn't take multiple LFT tests. I assume a few others who only had mild symptoms the first time round may be thinking similarly to me this time.
Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
Tongue is Germanic, shoulda gone with language.
YUR right. I was JUGGLING.
There's a misunderstanding anway, Latin's best claim for universality is not in 200 AD but in 1700-1800 AD. Linnaeus wrote mainly in Latin frinstance and indeed Latinised himself from von Linne
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
And don't forget Newton's "Principia". It was/is universal.
Hmm. Wasn't the Byzantine empire primarily Greek-speaking, even in the classical era?
Er - it was the Roman Empire in the classical era...
@Chris could be right on this, of course. Past performance (rubbish) is not indicative of future results. And there are some worst case scenarios that reflect that, as there should be.
None of us know for sure. What is certain is there is much less appetite for a lockdown/restrictions, either through anti-anti-vaxxer sentiment, the parties last year, or completely OTT scaremongering by SAGE etc.
More interesting is whether Johnson might be rescued by this. Memories are short and if he can pin a lockdown fetish on Starmer/Sturgeon/Drakeford after a benign surge in Omi cases then...
Of course this ignores the fact British people love being told what to do, apparently. And if the NHS truly collapses (not the Toynbee type), then he is in a world of trouble.
This is not a return to austerity. It is an attempt to halt the profligation of policy making bureaucracy that has occurred under BoJo's reign; where the civil service seems to have somehow increased in number by around 50,000. Essentially, the government need to constantly impose these kinds of 'cuts' to just keep everything the same.
Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
Tongue is Germanic, shoulda gone with language.
YUR right. I was JUGGLING.
There's a misunderstanding anway, Latin's best claim for universality is not in 200 AD but in 1700-1800 AD. Linnaeus wrote mainly in Latin frinstance and indeed Latinised himself from von Linne
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
And don't forget Newton's "Principia". It was/is universal.
Hmm. Wasn't the Byzantine empire primarily Greek-speaking, even in the classical era?
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
South Africa is not a population with waning immunity...
Why not? Immunity wanes. That's equally true of naturally-acquired and vaccine-acquired immunity. The difference is that your body has seen the whole virus, and acquires antibodies to the whole thing, not just the spike protein.
Because the immunity within SA is still high from recent vaccinations. It is going forward we need to worry about, this is what I keep saying
South Africa - 26.25% fully vaccinated, another 5.13% partially vaccinated UK - 69.28% fully vaccinated, another 6.44% partially vaccinated
In addition the take-up in the oldest groups in the UK is much higher, I believe. And then we come to boosters....
Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
Tongue is Germanic, shoulda gone with language.
YUR right. I was JUGGLING.
There's a misunderstanding anway, Latin's best claim for universality is not in 200 AD but in 1700-1800 AD. Linnaeus wrote mainly in Latin frinstance and indeed Latinised himself from von Linne
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
And don't forget Newton's "Principia". It was/is universal.
Hmm. Wasn't the Byzantine empire primarily Greek-speaking, even in the classical era?
Er - it was the Roman Empire in the classical era...
The Eastern part of which was equally Greek-speaking.
I share this story because it is a real life example on changes to human behaviour regarding the virus and there is a lot of discussion on here about that. Back in July I caught the virus after being double vaxed. It was one day of mild flu, two days of a cold and then it was gone, at which point I realised I had lost my sense of taste/smell which lasted for another two weeks. My LFT test on day 1 was positive in 10 seconds after the liquid had been placed in it but it had been negative the previous day when I had a sore throat. I self isolated for ten days, the PCR test confirming what I already knew. Those ten days included the Euro Final which England were playing and I had planned to watch at the local pub. I don't have a TV or TV Licence so listened to it on the radio, the result obviously not making me feel in anyway better about my circumstances.
Now fast forward to early November, I am tripple vaxed and being asked to have the winter flu jab. I have never had one of those before as I usually live abroad during the winter time. (My wife and home is in Malaysia but I've been trapped in this "plaque island" for the past two winters/years) .I dutifully went to the Doctors, got jabbed and three days later came down with a bad cold. I took a LFT test on day 1 but it was negative. I updated my health details on the Zoe app and it came back and said get a PCR test. At that point I remembered how rotten self isolation was back in July so could I still taste/smell anything? Yes I could, so this was obviously no more than a cold .... that went full on for another five days and lingered for five after that, about twice what any cold I have previously had has ever done I did not take another LFT test or self isolate because I was sure that this cold would go by the next day, or the one after that. I didn't go outside with active "runny nose" symptoms because that is not compatible with wearing a face mask but at no time did I think this is that dammed virus again. It wasn't until the end of November I started to read that for some catching this variant may manifest itself as no more than a cold.
Maybe it was only a bad cold but I really didn't want to find out that I had another ten days in solitary to look forward to so I didn't take multiple LFT tests. I assume a few others who only had mild symptoms the first time round may be thinking similarly to me this time.
A variation on this: an unspoken rule that my friends have developed is to LFT before meeting up, but never afterwards.
We don't want to give each other Covid, but if we do catch/have it in the days afterwards, don't force everyone else to PCR and isolate.
Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
Tongue is Germanic, shoulda gone with language.
YUR right. I was JUGGLING.
There's a misunderstanding anway, Latin's best claim for universality is not in 200 AD but in 1700-1800 AD. Linnaeus wrote mainly in Latin frinstance and indeed Latinised himself from von Linne
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
And don't forget Newton's "Principia". It was/is universal.
Hmm. Wasn't the Byzantine empire primarily Greek-speaking, even in the classical era?
Er - it was the Roman Empire in the classical era...
And accusing someone of "knowing no Greek" was considered a killer insult in Roman times. Basically an accusation of being Gammon.
I share this story because it is a real life example on changes to human behaviour regarding the virus and there is a lot of discussion on here about that. Back in July I caught the virus after being double vaxed. It was one day of mild flu, two days of a cold and then it was gone, at which point I realised I had lost my sense of taste/smell which lasted for another two weeks. My LFT test on day 1 was positive in 10 seconds after the liquid had been placed in it but it had been negative the previous day when I had a sore throat. I self isolated for ten days, the PCR test confirming what I already knew. Those ten days included the Euro Final which England were playing and I had planned to watch at the local pub. I don't have a TV or TV Licence so listened to it on the radio, the result obviously not making me feel in anyway better about my circumstances.
Now fast forward to early November, I am tripple vaxed and being asked to have the winter flu jab. I have never had one of those before as I usually live abroad during the winter time. (My wife and home is in Malaysia but I've been trapped in this "plaque island" for the past two winters/years) .I dutifully went to the Doctors, got jabbed and three days later came down with a bad cold. I took a LFT test on day 1 but it was negative. I updated my health details on the Zoe app and it came back and said get a PCR test. At that point I remembered how rotten self isolation was back in July so could I still taste/smell anything? Yes I could, so this was obviously no more than a cold .... that went full on for another five days and lingered for five after that, about twice what any cold I have previously had has ever done I did not take another LFT test or self isolate because I was sure that this cold would go by the next day, or the one after that. I didn't go outside with active "runny nose" symptoms because that is not compatible with wearing a face mask but at no time did I think this is that dammed virus again. It wasn't until the end of November I started to read that for some catching this variant may manifest itself as no more than a cold.
Maybe it was only a bad cold but I really didn't want to find out that I had another ten days in solitary to look forward to so I didn't take multiple LFT tests. I assume a few others who only had mild symptoms the first time round may be thinking similarly to me this time.
At the vary highest peaks, in this country, we haven't got close to a majority of tests (since mass testing came in) being positive...
The vast majority of the time, it is just the flu/bad cold.
Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
Tongue is Germanic, shoulda gone with language.
YUR right. I was JUGGLING.
There's a misunderstanding anway, Latin's best claim for universality is not in 200 AD but in 1700-1800 AD. Linnaeus wrote mainly in Latin frinstance and indeed Latinised himself from von Linne
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
And don't forget Newton's "Principia". It was/is universal.
Hmm. Wasn't the Byzantine empire primarily Greek-speaking, even in the classical era?
Er - it was the Roman Empire in the classical era...
Sorry; should have been clearer; the eastern part of the classical Roman Empire which later became the Byzantine Empire. But it's primarily Greek that you would have heard as a common language. Hence the koine of the Gospels, AIUI.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
You're totally missing the point. I am not calling for a lockdown, I am not calling for more restrictions.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
And my point is that the studies you refer to are about nABs, not the whole protection offered by vaccination. We may need more boosters, or omicron may infect all of us and proved long lasting protection via infection. Your assumption is that ‘waning’ is a huge problem, whereas I suspect it isn’t.
And yet that is what the studies actually say is the concern. Your rebuttal isn't based on any actual research
What's the big deal CHB?
If immunity wanes (and it probably will) then we do another booster campaign.
We managed to do this booster campaign, with a new variant, in middle of winter, when the NHS is most stretched.
The next booster campaign will be most probably in the Spring or Autumn so not much need for any of us to worry about it yet. The people who's job it is should be planning it, ordering the doses etc but as that's already happened for the three campaigns to date I don't see any reason it won't be for the fourth or fifth.
The timing for lifting current restrictions upto and including isolation is far more important presently than how future boosters will be dealt with.
This is not a return to austerity. It is an attempt to halt the profligation of policy making bureaucracy that has occurred under BoJo's reign; where the civil service seems to have somehow increased in number by around 50,000. Essentially, the government need to constantly impose these kinds of 'cuts' to just keep everything the same.
Isn't the main reason for all the new Civil Servants that we have had to repatriate a lot of the work formerly done by the Euro CS?
The vast majority of Civil Servants have no involvement with policy development.
Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
Tongue is Germanic, shoulda gone with language.
YUR right. I was JUGGLING.
There's a misunderstanding anway, Latin's best claim for universality is not in 200 AD but in 1700-1800 AD. Linnaeus wrote mainly in Latin frinstance and indeed Latinised himself from von Linne
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
And don't forget Newton's "Principia". It was/is universal.
Hmm. Wasn't the Byzantine empire primarily Greek-speaking, even in the classical era?
Er - it was the Roman Empire in the classical era...
Sorry; should have been clearer; the eastern part of the classical Roman Empire which later became the Byzantine Empire. But it's primarily Greek that you would have heard as a common language. Hence the koine of the Gospels, AIUI.
It was the Roman Empire right up to 1453. “Byzantine” is a modern historiographic term. Even after the conquest the Orthodox Christian population was administered by the Ottoman government through the “Rum millet”.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
You're totally missing the point. I am not calling for a lockdown, I am not calling for more restrictions.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
And my point is that the studies you refer to are about nABs, not the whole protection offered by vaccination. We may need more boosters, or omicron may infect all of us and proved long lasting protection via infection. Your assumption is that ‘waning’ is a huge problem, whereas I suspect it isn’t.
And yet that is what the studies actually say is the concern. Your rebuttal isn't based on any actual research
The studies are referring to part of the story not the whole. You are drawing the wrong conclusion - the immune system is a complex multi-factorial process.
I share this story because it is a real life example on changes to human behaviour regarding the virus and there is a lot of discussion on here about that. Back in July I caught the virus after being double vaxed. It was one day of mild flu, two days of a cold and then it was gone, at which point I realised I had lost my sense of taste/smell which lasted for another two weeks. My LFT test on day 1 was positive in 10 seconds after the liquid had been placed in it but it had been negative the previous day when I had a sore throat. I self isolated for ten days, the PCR test confirming what I already knew. Those ten days included the Euro Final which England were playing and I had planned to watch at the local pub. I don't have a TV or TV Licence so listened to it on the radio, the result obviously not making me feel in anyway better about my circumstances.
Now fast forward to early November, I am tripple vaxed and being asked to have the winter flu jab. I have never had one of those before as I usually live abroad during the winter time. (My wife and home is in Malaysia but I've been trapped in this "plaque island" for the past two winters/years) .I dutifully went to the Doctors, got jabbed and three days later came down with a bad cold. I took a LFT test on day 1 but it was negative. I updated my health details on the Zoe app and it came back and said get a PCR test. At that point I remembered how rotten self isolation was back in July so could I still taste/smell anything? Yes I could, so this was obviously no more than a cold .... that went full on for another five days and lingered for five after that, about twice what any cold I have previously had has ever done I did not take another LFT test or self isolate because I was sure that this cold would go by the next day, or the one after that. I didn't go outside with active "runny nose" symptoms because that is not compatible with wearing a face mask but at no time did I think this is that dammed virus again. It wasn't until the end of November I started to read that for some catching this variant may manifest itself as no more than a cold.
Maybe it was only a bad cold but I really didn't want to find out that I had another ten days in solitary to look forward to so I didn't take multiple LFT tests. I assume a few others who only had mild symptoms the first time round may be thinking similarly to me this time.
A variation on this: an unspoken rule that my friends have developed is to LFT before meeting up, but never afterwards.
We don't want to give each other Covid, but if we do catch/have it in the days afterwards, don't force everyone else to PCR and isolate.
As I have said many times, I don't think the testing system can last. People will eventually give up on it or they will just pretend to follow it, in the same way that they pretend to use the track and trace app. Other motivations than protecting public health quickly come in to play.
Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
Tongue is Germanic, shoulda gone with language.
YUR right. I was JUGGLING.
There's a misunderstanding anway, Latin's best claim for universality is not in 200 AD but in 1700-1800 AD. Linnaeus wrote mainly in Latin frinstance and indeed Latinised himself from von Linne
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
And don't forget Newton's "Principia". It was/is universal.
Hmm. Wasn't the Byzantine empire primarily Greek-speaking, even in the classical era?
Er - it was the Roman Empire in the classical era...
Sorry; should have been clearer; the eastern part of the classical Roman Empire which later became the Byzantine Empire. But it's primarily Greek that you would have heard as a common language. Hence the koine of the Gospels, AIUI.
It was the Roman Empire right up to 1453. “Byzantine” is a modern historiographic term. Even after the conquest the Orthodox Christian population was administered by the Ottoman government through the “Rum millet”.
All true, including that Greek was (ironically?) the lingua franca of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire - and the whole hog after the Western half succumbed to the barbarian hordes.
Which until the end retained its historic claims and ties to Rome, including familiarity with Latin language, literature, law, history and traditions. But all translated in some measure - generally large - into Greek.
Perhaps worth mentioning, that Latin was used in modern times for legal and political matters in both Poland and Hungary, nations with ties to the Roman tradition via Catholicism, with languages difficult & exotic to non-native speakers AND disinclined for political reasons to adopt German for these purposes.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
You're totally missing the point. I am not calling for a lockdown, I am not calling for more restrictions.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
And my point is that the studies you refer to are about nABs, not the whole protection offered by vaccination. We may need more boosters, or omicron may infect all of us and proved long lasting protection via infection. Your assumption is that ‘waning’ is a huge problem, whereas I suspect it isn’t.
And yet that is what the studies actually say is the concern. Your rebuttal isn't based on any actual research
The studies are referring to part of the story not the whole. You are drawing the wrong conclusion - the immune system is a complex multi-factorial process.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
You're totally missing the point. I am not calling for a lockdown, I am not calling for more restrictions.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
And my point is that the studies you refer to are about nABs, not the whole protection offered by vaccination. We may need more boosters, or omicron may infect all of us and proved long lasting protection via infection. Your assumption is that ‘waning’ is a huge problem, whereas I suspect it isn’t.
And yet that is what the studies actually say is the concern. Your rebuttal isn't based on any actual research
The studies are referring to part of the story not the whole. You are drawing the wrong conclusion - the immune system is a complex multi-factorial process.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
You're totally missing the point. I am not calling for a lockdown, I am not calling for more restrictions.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
And my point is that the studies you refer to are about nABs, not the whole protection offered by vaccination. We may need more boosters, or omicron may infect all of us and proved long lasting protection via infection. Your assumption is that ‘waning’ is a huge problem, whereas I suspect it isn’t.
And yet that is what the studies actually say is the concern. Your rebuttal isn't based on any actual research
What's the big deal CHB?
If immunity wanes (and it probably will) then we do another booster campaign.
We managed to do this booster campaign, with a new variant, in middle of winter, when the NHS is most stretched.
The next booster campaign will be most probably in the Spring or Autumn so not much need for any of us to worry about it yet. The people who's job it is should be planning it, ordering the doses etc but as that's already happened for the three campaigns to date I don't see any reason it won't be for the fourth or fifth.
The timing for lifting current restrictions upto and including isolation is far more important presently than how future boosters will be dealt with.
The big deal is that if we go with you attitude of "just catch it, life is normal" we're going to be in a whole heap of trouble as immunity begins to wane. We need to get the programme for the boosters going soon, not sit on our hands as we did with round three.
We will be in big trouble in a month or two and needing a lockdown, if we do not make preparations now.
I see we are back to Wishcasting versus Doomcasting.
It shouldn't be a competition.
It's not but every time somebody brings up the actual studies the response is "T-Cells" or "just get on with it". That's not a debate
No, T-Cells is a thing. And at some point we have to accept we now live in a slightly higher-risk world and get on with it. Having had my 3rd jab and COVID in the last 2 months I am now engaging in (entirely rational) slightly risky behaviour because I might as well get Omicron now, while my immune system is as primed as it will ever be. At some point we need to stop hiding from it.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
South Africa is not a population with waning immunity...
Why not? Immunity wanes. That's equally true of naturally-acquired and vaccine-acquired immunity. The difference is that your body has seen the whole virus, and acquires antibodies to the whole thing, not just the spike protein.
Because the immunity within SA is still high from recent vaccinations. It is going forward we need to worry about, this is what I keep saying
South Africa - 26.25% fully vaccinated, another 5.13% partially vaccinated UK - 69.28% fully vaccinated, another 6.44% partially vaccinated
In addition the take-up in the oldest groups in the UK is much higher, I believe. And then we come to boosters....
Hitting a vaccinated population and one with high levels of immunity from a previous wave. It is going forward we need to worry, as immunity begins to wane
This is not a return to austerity. It is an attempt to halt the profligation of policy making bureaucracy that has occurred under BoJo's reign; where the civil service seems to have somehow increased in number by around 50,000. Essentially, the government need to constantly impose these kinds of 'cuts' to just keep everything the same.
The turning point between a falling number of civil servants and a rising number occurred in June 2016. Anyone remember anything that happened around then?
Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
Tongue is Germanic, shoulda gone with language.
YUR right. I was JUGGLING.
There's a misunderstanding anway, Latin's best claim for universality is not in 200 AD but in 1700-1800 AD. Linnaeus wrote mainly in Latin frinstance and indeed Latinised himself from von Linne
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
And don't forget Newton's "Principia". It was/is universal.
Hmm. Wasn't the Byzantine empire primarily Greek-speaking, even in the classical era?
Er - it was the Roman Empire in the classical era...
Sorry; should have been clearer; the eastern part of the classical Roman Empire which later became the Byzantine Empire. But it's primarily Greek that you would have heard as a common language. Hence the koine of the Gospels, AIUI.
It was the Roman Empire right up to 1453. “Byzantine” is a modern historiographic term. Even after the conquest the Orthodox Christian population was administered by the Ottoman government through the “Rum millet”.
Indeed; in mediaeval times Greece or at least the Peloponnese was called Rum, or so I recall from Alfred Duggan's novels.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
You're totally missing the point. I am not calling for a lockdown, I am not calling for more restrictions.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
And my point is that the studies you refer to are about nABs, not the whole protection offered by vaccination. We may need more boosters, or omicron may infect all of us and proved long lasting protection via infection. Your assumption is that ‘waning’ is a huge problem, whereas I suspect it isn’t.
And yet that is what the studies actually say is the concern. Your rebuttal isn't based on any actual research
The studies are referring to part of the story not the whole. You are drawing the wrong conclusion - the immune system is a complex multi-factorial process.
I'm reading what the studies say. Just because you don't happen to agree, it doesn't make me wrong.
We don't know, that's exactly the point - and is what I agree with @turbotubbs on
I’m not disagreeing with the studies.
The immune system includes both the innate and adaptive systems (plus a third line I always forget), T cells, memory B cells and the immediate response.
The immediate immune response wanes. It always does. But the memory B cells react rapidly to a new infection with a similar virus triggering massive production of T cells.
You are looking at the immediate levels of antibodies falling and declaring it’s a disaster. It’s not.
Whilst the extent of waning against severe disease (i.e. that requiring hospitalisation) is less than that against mild disease, even small reductions in protection can result in significant rises in hospitalisations and deaths, particularly in high-risk groups.
The researchers also find that this reduction in neutralising antibodies could impact vaccine efficacy against severe disease. In a worst-case scenario where the decay rate after a booster dose is the same as that observed after the first 2 doses, the study predicts that vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) may drop from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (76.3%–83.02) against Omicron by 60 days after the primary vaccine course followed by a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if antibodies decay at the same rate following the booster as observed following the primary vaccine course. If this rate of decay is half that rate, the drop is estimated to be from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron. However, this could be further moderated by the increased longevity of T cell-mediated immunity.
The researchers say that whilst these numbers are currently associated with a high degree of uncertainty, they indicate that Omicron-variant specific vaccines and/or further boosters are likely to be needed to restore protection.
Any reduction in effectiveness of the vaccines is going to put a lot of people in hospital - and that is what the data indicates. It's possible T-cell immunity will make a difference but there is no evidence at this stage that is the case - and to do health on the basis of a hunch seems like a very bad idea.
We need to ensure immunity remains high, get the unvaccinated vaccinated ASAP and urgently work out how we maintain immunity. Otherwise the hospitals are going to become overwhelmed over the next few months similarly to Delta.
Action and plans are needed now.
Your quote even mentions T-cells...
I even said that in the post, please read.
It's possible T-cells will make the difference but there is not sufficient evidence to say so. So to claim this is a reason not to ensure immunity remains high otherwise is to ignore the actual evidence that exists.
If and when T-cell evidence comes along, we can discuss it then.
My position is that we need to wait on the real world evidence of hospitalisation etc before we impose restrictions on society. Those restrictions are not cost free. You might be right, @Chris might be right. But I think it is prudent to wait just a bit longer to what is really happening. I get that that seems risky, but in reality we have a bit of a test site running. London. It’s ahead of the curve. If it goes to shit, then we can act.
You're totally missing the point. I am not calling for a lockdown, I am not calling for more restrictions.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
And my point is that the studies you refer to are about nABs, not the whole protection offered by vaccination. We may need more boosters, or omicron may infect all of us and proved long lasting protection via infection. Your assumption is that ‘waning’ is a huge problem, whereas I suspect it isn’t.
And yet that is what the studies actually say is the concern. Your rebuttal isn't based on any actual research
The studies are referring to part of the story not the whole. You are drawing the wrong conclusion - the immune system is a complex multi-factorial process.
I'm reading what the studies say. Just because you don't happen to agree, it doesn't make me wrong.
We don't know, that's exactly the point - and is what I agree with @turbotubbs on
I’m not disagreeing with the studies.
The immune system includes both the innate and adaptive systems (plus a third line I always forget), T cells, memory B cells and the immediate response.
The immediate immune response wanes. It always does. But the memory B cells react rapidly to a new infection with a similar virus triggering massive production of T cells.
You are looking at the immediate levels of antibodies falling and declaring it’s a disaster. It’s not.
The studies themselves say, if immunity wanes we are in trouble. I never used the word disaster.
You disagree with the studies, that's up to you. But it doesn't make me wrong.
Why don't we go back to using Latin as the universal international language? "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
“Universal”? Huh?
Latin wasn’t very big in Han China, the Kushan empire, Caledonia, Hibernia, Scandinavia, Magna Germania or most of the planet for that matter.
You forgot Arabia, Byzantium and Russia, although you were wrong to include Hibernia where it was a key language in scholarship from about the turn of the 7th century onwards.
Well, perhaps we can SATISFY my SUGGESTION by DISSEMINATING LATIN to the GLOBE VIA our (PERFIDIOUS ALBION) NATIVE TONGUE.
Tongue is Germanic, shoulda gone with language.
YUR right. I was JUGGLING.
There's a misunderstanding anway, Latin's best claim for universality is not in 200 AD but in 1700-1800 AD. Linnaeus wrote mainly in Latin frinstance and indeed Latinised himself from von Linne
I would bet, without knowing anjything about it, that the Byzantine empire was stuffed with readers/writers of Latin at all stages of its existence.
And don't forget Newton's "Principia". It was/is universal.
Hmm. Wasn't the Byzantine empire primarily Greek-speaking, even in the classical era?
Er - it was the Roman Empire in the classical era...
Sorry; should have been clearer; the eastern part of the classical Roman Empire which later became the Byzantine Empire. But it's primarily Greek that you would have heard as a common language. Hence the koine of the Gospels, AIUI.
It was the Roman Empire right up to 1453. “Byzantine” is a modern historiographic term. Even after the conquest the Orthodox Christian population was administered by the Ottoman government through the “Rum millet”.
Indeed; in mediaeval times Greece or at least the Peloponnese was called Rum, or so I recall from Alfred Duggan's novels.
Yes. IIRC prior to the expulsions in 1922 the rural Greek-speaking people of Ionia (today the west coast of Turkey) called themselves “Rhomaioi”. Interestingly the modern Turkish word for Greece “Yunistan”, comes from “Ionians”. That comes from the Persians/Iranians, and goes back to at least the sixth century BC.
A sad but entirely predictable result of Brexit - a collapse in European school visits to the UK, with our young people increasingly cast adrift from their continent. A loss of a source of British soft power too.
In this area, as with many others, it is difficult to disentangle the impact of Brexit from the impact of the pandemic.
From the article:
"Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Operators say that while Britain’s day two Covid test requirement is a factor, by far the most significant is the UK’s decision not to accept EU group passports or identity cards from 1 October, instead requiring full passports – plus expensive individual visas for non-EU pupils."
How do you think the UK has been portrayed viz a viz Covid in the European press?
I'd be staggered if it was portrayed as negatively in Europe as it is in the US.
People use the phrase "plague island" about the UK entirely unironically.
Only in Democratic left liberal publications like the New York Times.
Trumpland is relatively positive about Brexit and largely not bothered about Covid either and firmly anti lockdown and in some cases even antivax
That simply not true. (About covid anyway. The brexit bit may be true, but I'm not sure most Trump voters in West Virginia care much about it.)
Wrong, it absolutely is true, the phrase 'Plague Island' emerged first in the New York Times. The New York Times of course hates Boris and hates post Brexit Britain too.
On Covod it absolutely is true, the vast majority of Trump voting states now have zero restrictions and of course larger than others untaxed too. Plus you will find hardly anyone in those states reads the New York Times which is a publication read in the mainly Democrat voting North East and West Coast US
I spend a lot of time in Red America. You know my business is in a State with a Republican Governor and pretty much everyone I interact with there is a Republican political appointee.
They think Britain is Plague Island because we have Socialised Medicine.
Liberals in America think Britain is Plague Island because they think Boris is a clown.
Conservative Republicans may be anti socialised medicine but they have never called us 'Plague Island' like the New York Times is.
For starters because most of them are not that bothered about Covid anyway.
Even in the UK it was of course Labour who introduced stated controlled and funded healthcare with Churchill's Tories opposed at the time, so it is hardly surprising conservative Republicans in the US do not support a policy introduced by the UK Labour Party
Less than three weeks ago, a Republican political appointee and Trump donor, said to me (and I'm paraphrasing slightly) "You were back in England for Thanksgiving? Why did you go to Plague Island?"
If you watch Fox News, you will get the impression that the US (and particularly Red States) have handled the pandemic brilliantly, because they've had good American vaccines, freedom and private healthcare.
There isn't some special "carve out" for the UK, where they get a pass on the criticism meted out to other countries.
'Paraphrasing' so not exactly then.
Half of Trump voters have not even been vaccinated let alone taken any notice of Covid. They certainly have not been calling us 'Plague Island' unlike left liberals in the New York Times as as far as they are concerned Covid is a conspiracy pushed by big state authoritarians to lockdown and take their businesses and force them to have dodgy vaccines.
And no one brief conversation with a millionaire donor is not the average Trump voter or anywhere near it.
Amused that our Epping correspondent has so much better an idea of what is going on in the States than our California(? - can't remember) correspondent.
California is arguably even more left liberal than we are now, even in 2016 over 60% of Californians voted for Hillary and our correspondent lives in a firmly blue part of it.
Culturally I would even say my part of Epping, which was over 60% Leave, has more in common with Red state USA than the part of the US our correspondent now lives in
Having lived in the US and the UK, in Leave and in Remain areas, and in Red and Blue states, I think the cultural differences between Epping and Roberts County, Texas are quite substantial. I think you - @HYUFD - would find the culture of deepest Remainia (say Kew) to be much closer to Epping than Roberts County is.
Agreed. The cultural differences between, say, Washington DC and London - two left-leaning capital cities that I've lived in - are pretty significant. There's a whole lot more to culture than a simple left-right political leaning. The desire of some UK right-wingers to embrace the US is a bit weird (and it's certainly not reciprocated) - and I say this as someone who lived in the US for a number of years and really like the place.
Culturally however big cities across the western world now tend to have more in common with each other than rural parts of their own nation.
It was not a particular desire to embrace the US, as an English Tory I believe we are closer to Canada, Australia and New Zealand and much of the Commonwealth than the US. What it was however was a response to the 'Plague Island' articles in the New York Times which are undoubtedly an urban left liberal shot at Boris and post Brexit Britain
Americans of all political persuasions have a complicated emotional relationship with Britain and there are competing veins of Anglophilia and Anglophobia across American society. They love watching the Crown. They also love casting a posh British actor as the villain in their movies. I think that Brexit and Boris Johnson have brought to the fore some latent feelings of dislike. But some of the strongest Anglophobia I came across while living in the US came from those on the right, while liberals I met most often tended to be fairly Anglophile.
It depends who is in charge here, left liberals in the US tended to like Blair (despite Iraq). Conservatives in the US tend to be admirers of Thatcher and Churchill.
Some Catholic Irish American Conservatives dislike the British but mainly because they want a united Ireland.
Overall however majorities of both Democrats and Republicans see the UK as an ally. However while 52% of Democrats also see France as an ally, only 34% of Republicans see France as an ally
This is not a return to austerity. It is an attempt to halt the profligation of policy making bureaucracy that has occurred under BoJo's reign; where the civil service seems to have somehow increased in number by around 50,000. Essentially, the government need to constantly impose these kinds of 'cuts' to just keep everything the same.
The turning point between a falling number of civil servants and a rising number occurred in June 2016. Anyone remember anything that happened around then?
Quite obviously we now need more in Customs and Excise for example, but other departments too. I believe it is called "Taking Back Control".
Comments
I’m not sure that Christmas Day is the super spreader that people make it out to be. (And I know your point was about cross ages)
Tens of thousands of civil servants set to lose their jobs in what looks like a return to austerity from Sunak
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1475197883087572997?s=20
It shouldn't be a competition.
We've been buoyed because a bunch of headlines appeared saying everything was fine, we've had a Christmas so thinks must be on the right track. But the studies quoted actually say what I am saying, that waning immunity is a big problem. And no response of "well it won't be that bad" or "the models are wrong" or "T-cells, T-Cells!" do much to convince me of what they say.
There is nothing substantial that says we aren't in trouble if immunity continues to wane. The debate is the wrong one, it's not is Omicron going to cause issues - it can and will - it's how we mitigate. And the science does not say "get on with it, let everyone catch it".
{Checks the bearings on the trebuchet}
Where has omicron overwhelmed health services are resulted in death rates spiking?
Just one place is sufficient. Take your time.
I am specifically referring to the risk of these things if immunity continues to wane, which is what all the studies say is the concern. We need to plan for that now, otherwise a lot of people are going to end up in hospital and we really will need a lockdown.
If however no extra money goes into their services and their infrastructure, they will be aggrieved, because that is what they voted for.
He also commented later in life he had noted as the number of canals and railways shrank the number of people administering them didn't.
Because, of course, they were the people who made decisions on who to let go...
If the Tories change tack now, they are in for a battering.
The much greater threat of communicable diseases didn't stop our ancestors going about their business. Pandemics are business as usual for the human race, we just haven't had one for a while.
Die Hard Pitch Meeting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHh2kvjcC6U
If not, Sunak would instead aim to rebuild the winning Cameron coalition of 2015 and largely abandon the redwall back to Labour. Hence he would focus on holding the seats Cameron and May won and which stayed Tory in 2019 but some of which are at risk of going to Starmer on current polls and add a few seats Cameron won in 2015 and 2010 like St Albans, Putney, Battersea and Enfield Southgate and Bath which did not go Tory in 2019.
Incidentally he is also copying Valerie Pecresse who has promised to slash civil servants jobs if she wins the French presidential election for Les Republicains next year
It's a problem when immunity wanes to the degree such that people end up in hospital and the NHS gets overwhelmed. That is what we need to prevent.
If we must ‘do something’ then it should be targeted at those who refuse to get vaccinated. I’d exempt any with proof of recovery from infection, but I no longer see why the 90% who have done the right thing should be restricted for the ones who haven’t.
The current Lab front bench famously abstained on austerity as did 3 of the 4 leadership candidates in 2015 (the main reason Jezza beat Andy IMO) I was voting Andy right up to the moment he joined YC and L4%K in support of austerity lite
I think you're missing the point, I'm not talking about now, I am talking about going forward
Trying to balance the books on Civil Service cuts is clearly absurd; it's a slice of a slice of what would be needed.
Now many a mickle makes a muckle, for sure. But the big mickles are the ones quietly slipped in whilst talking about trivia. Thatcher's pension reforms were one, University fees and loans were another.
There's not much the government can do without cutting health, social care and pensions. And they can't do that without annoying their main remaining supporters.
And that goes back to the question that BoJo and his predecessors have studiously ducked. Scandi public services (and taxes) or US taxes (and public services).
Choose exactly one of these.
> 50% of UK voters think 2022 will be Boris Johnson's Annus Horribilis
> other 50% think that Boris Johnson IS an Anus Horriblis
In Seattle, with 9 min left in Q1, score is Chicago Bears 0, Seattle Seahawks 7 after Hawks score touchdown + field goal.
Snow falling, swirling, blowing and piling up on the field. Looks like freaking Lambeau Field!
Have a good rest of Christmas I am having an early night ahead of another day of excess tomorrow.
When Omicron reaches an unvaccinated country or one where immunity has waned, we can discuss it then
That's why his popularity was sky high.
It was never a long-term proposition.
All tactics no strategy. Been the same for a decade.
Cake and eat it, as someone might say.
Now fast forward to early November, I am tripple vaxed and being asked to have the winter flu jab. I have never had one of those before as I usually live abroad during the winter time. (My wife and home is in Malaysia but I've been trapped in this "plaque island" for the past two winters/years) .I dutifully went to the Doctors, got jabbed and three days later came down with a bad cold. I took a LFT test on day 1 but it was negative. I updated my health details on the Zoe app and it came back and said get a PCR test. At that point I remembered how rotten self isolation was back in July so could I still taste/smell anything? Yes I could, so this was obviously no more than a cold .... that went full on for another five days and lingered for five after that, about twice what any cold I have previously had has ever done I did not take another LFT test or self isolate because I was sure that this cold would go by the next day, or the one after that. I didn't go outside with active "runny nose" symptoms because that is not compatible with wearing a face mask but at no time did I think this is that dammed virus again. It wasn't until the end of November I started to read that for some catching this variant may manifest itself as no more than a cold.
Maybe it was only a bad cold but I really didn't want to find out that I had another ten days in solitary to look forward to so I didn't take multiple LFT tests. I assume a few others who only had mild symptoms the first time round may be thinking similarly to me this time.
None of us know for sure. What is certain is there is much less appetite for a lockdown/restrictions, either through anti-anti-vaxxer sentiment, the parties last year, or completely OTT scaremongering by SAGE etc.
More interesting is whether Johnson might be rescued by this. Memories are short and if he can pin a lockdown fetish on Starmer/Sturgeon/Drakeford after a benign surge in Omi cases then...
Of course this ignores the fact British people love being told what to do, apparently. And if the NHS truly collapses (not the Toynbee type), then he is in a world of trouble.
UK - 69.28% fully vaccinated, another 6.44% partially vaccinated
In addition the take-up in the oldest groups in the UK is much higher, I believe. And then we come to boosters....
And we were the ones who insisted that we all needed to take LFTs before meeting up.
Never mind, we had our roast dinner today, and very nice it was too.
We don't want to give each other Covid, but if we do catch/have it in the days afterwards, don't force everyone else to PCR and isolate.
Q2 about 10 min remaining, Chicago Bears 7, Seattle Seahawks 7
The vast majority of the time, it is just the flu/bad cold.
If immunity wanes (and it probably will) then we do another booster campaign.
We managed to do this booster campaign, with a new variant, in middle of winter, when the NHS is most stretched.
The next booster campaign will be most probably in the Spring or Autumn so not much need for any of us to worry about it yet. The people who's job it is should be planning it, ordering the doses etc but as that's already happened for the three campaigns to date I don't see any reason it won't be for the fourth or fifth.
The timing for lifting current restrictions upto and including isolation is far more important presently than how future boosters will be dealt with.
The vast majority of Civil Servants have no involvement with policy development.
And @turbotubbs is an immunologist…
Which until the end retained its historic claims and ties to Rome, including familiarity with Latin language, literature, law, history and traditions. But all translated in some measure - generally large - into Greek.
Perhaps worth mentioning, that Latin was used in modern times for legal and political matters in both Poland and Hungary, nations with ties to the Roman tradition via Catholicism, with languages difficult & exotic to non-native speakers AND disinclined for political reasons to adopt German for these purposes.
We don't know, that's exactly the point - and is what I agree with @turbotubbs on
We will be in big trouble in a month or two and needing a lockdown, if we do not make preparations now.
This is exactly what I mean. Be careful, not pretend COVID doesn't exist
The immune system includes both the innate and adaptive systems (plus a third line I always forget), T cells, memory B cells and the immediate response.
The immediate immune response wanes. It always does. But the memory B cells react rapidly to a new infection with a similar virus triggering massive production of T cells.
You are looking at the immediate levels of antibodies falling and declaring it’s a disaster. It’s not.
You disagree with the studies, that's up to you. But it doesn't make me wrong.
Arguing with you is totally pointless.