I love the extreme gaslighting that occurs these days with moronic ideas.
Abolish the Police!*
*actually don't abolish them at all, just re-train, re-allocate, and trim budgets.
Zero Covid!*
*not actually, zero covid, but minimal covid.
Abolish means abolish. Zero means zero.
Chris Whitty: "I'm a scientist. Zero means zero. If you don't mean zero don't call it zero." Guernsey CMO "Zero Covid is epidemiologically illiterate"
It means targeting zero. You don't need to be massively obtuse. When people say they have "zero tolerance" for bullying it doesn't mean they have wished bullying into non-existence. They are literally tolerating bullying because at the point when they make that comment the bullying has happened.
I don't know if Zero (targeted) Covid is a good strategy or not at this point. Vaccination has changed the equation massively. On the one hand, it makes it easier to have a Zero-Covid strategy. On the other hand it may make it less necessary.
I do know that if our governments had properly pursued a Zero-Covid strategy, or even a Less-Covid strategy, many of those 125 000 would still be with us today,
One controversial thing that David doesn’t take into account is immunity through past infection. Lockdown was instituted by a team led by Neil Ferguson. Last month the Indie reported him saying -
“As much as one-third of the UK population may already have gained some level of immunity by contracting and recovering from Covid-19, said Prof Ferguson. And this pool of protection is being quickly expanded by vaccination to take the population towards herd immunity status.”
Of that 30% (let’s call it 25% conservatively) it is not unreasonable to suppose a great proportion are those of working age, who have had to be out and about, and thus exposed to the virus. There will be an overlap of course but the sheer transmissibility of the Kent variant will have meant more and more people will have got the virus. So it’s quite possible 50% of the population have some degree of immunity already.
Now, variants do offer some escape from immune reaction, but Rupert Beale, who is the Group Leader of the Cambridge Cell Biology of Infection Lab says -
“Vaccinated or previously infected people may get infected again, but because they have some measure of immunity their infections will be mild, much as with the four seasonal coronaviruses we have lived with for decades.”
Quite rightly, herd immunity through prior infection is something no government should aim for, and that our government was clinging to it last March for as long as it was gives it no credit, but we are where we are. In that context the pace of unlocking does seem to be about right.
Finally below is an Tweet from Shane Crotty, an immunologist at La Jolla Institute of Immunology, who estimates the level of protection given by prior infection to a few of the current variants -
I find it quite interesting how Trump has managed to rehabilitate the reputation of Dubya
Dubya's retrospective approval rating recovered strongly soon after leaving the White House (i.e. under Obama rather than Trump), although it may well have improved further in the past four years.
That's a very common pattern for US Presidents, Nixon and LBJ being partial exceptions (they recovered a little from their nadirs but Nixon's retrospective rating remains prettty terrible and Johnson's is mixed).
There's a slightly misty eyed view of the past, and it also suddenly becomes much easier after office to avoid sticky issues and associate yourself with positive things.
One has to wonder how far that will operate with Trump given his continued interest in playing a very active role, and the fact he was embroiled in an attempted coup at the end of it all.
Completely disagree with this, David. You've bought into the "zero COVID" arguments without realising it.
Firstly - one dose of AZ (the backbone of our programme) provides incredible immunity against severe symptoms and hospitalisation, better than the FDA approved J&J vaccine.
Secondly - case R has decoupled from the hospitalisation rate, does it matter if 20k people get it asymptomatically or only get mild symptoms?
Thirdly - your fully immunised figure is way out of date. The first proper unlockdown step is all the way on 19th May, counting two weeks before that takes us to 5th May. That takes us to 17m fully immunised people with both doses that are at the end of their two week waiting period. This is groups 1-5.
Fourth - in April we're expecting a huge uptick in vaccine deliveries from Moderna, Novavax and J&J. There's some talk that the government may dump the 12 week waiting policy for under 50s and bring it down to 6 weeks for Novavax and Moderna. Given the supply situation there's a very, very good chance that every single adult will have received their first dose by the 19th May and will get their second in advance of 21st June.
The critical part of this is giving the majority of under 50s the new vaccines which don't require a 12 week waiting time like AZ. From April we will have two new ones available that give >95% protection against symptoms and 100% protection against severe symptoms, that's a game changer.
You've got Stockholm syndrome wrt lockdown, it's time to let it go.
I hate to say it, but I think David isn’t pleased with how well things are going.
Steady on. I very much tend to Max's side of the argument but David Herdson is very far from an authoritarian on this. His tweets on Covid have been balanced and measured throughout the pandemic and he's often spoken of his frustration at the more pedantic restrictions.
He might simply be trying to put an interesting counter-argument to us, to fill a debating space that he doesn't currently see being contested. It's very hard to write good thread headers, still less to do them regularly on a Saturday morning every single week.
I'm grateful for the debates he initiates through them. He's always interesting, and he makes you think.
I have a lot of time for David and always look forward to his Saturday piece.
But if someone is going to quote stats on vaccine efficacy, I’d like to see a source. I have not seen it reported that the vaccines (David doesn’t differentiate) cut deaths by only 75% after one shot.
I was under the impression that we just don’t know, but early indications are that they are both excellent. Of course, we don’t know if the protection will ware off before the second doses so there is a reason to be cautious.
I’m not desperate to accelerate the unlocking, but I think the reality is that once the weather picks up, that will be that. The pressure on the NHS will never be what it was thanks to the vaccine, so we’re on a one way journey.
My understanding is that both Pfizer and AZN seem to be 70-80%+ effective at stopping symptomatic COVID infection after one shot.
Thanks, as always, for your Saturday piece, @david_herdson.
I presume the basis behind the roadmap is the three weeks to allow the first dose to take full effect. The problem may be if the messaging is getting through that once you've had one vaccination you are invincible and can go back to a full pre-Covid life immediately.
As we know it can take up to 21 days to achieve a highly respectable level of immunity, there's a sound basis for maintaining the current lockdown to prevent the newly vaccinated rushing off to get a haircut or go down the pub or whatever. It's frustrating and I understand this but even though I had my first vaccination yesterday, I'm not going to do anything different this side of Easter.
The limited re-openings of the end of the month notwithstanding, I'm not convinced a pub garden at a cold Easter is where I want to be,
By April 12th, a much larger number will be 21 days or more after their first vaccination - I'm going to be one of them. A greater number of more protected people should ensure the phased re-opening of society and the economy occurs and as more people get their first and eventually second dose the better.
I'm rarely a supporter of the Government but on this occasion the roadmap looks sensible. I don't quite share David's caution but the political key to this is we cannot go back - this roadmap is more of a one-way street. True, if a vaccine-resistant variant emerges at a future date, appropriate measures will need to be taken but a growing number of immunised individuals should ensure a safe return from mid June.
I don't see Johnson wanting or needing to sacrifice what looks a sensible and coherent schedule on the altar of economic expediency or the febrile desire of some to get back to "normal".
"Wales would consider introducing curfews for men to help women feel safer in the event of a ‘crisis’, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said.
The politician said the action would not be ‘top of the list’ and would only ever be temporary – but refused to rule it out if ‘dramatic action’ was called for. It comes after Green Party peer Baroness Jones of Moulescoomb suggested a 6pm curfew for men after women were told to change their behaviour following Sarah Everard’s disappearance.
Mr Drakeford was asked by the BBC about the idea of introducing curfews on men in areas where there were concerns of women being assaulted."
Mark Drakeford was making a spur-of-the-moment response to a question. Whether this is an idiocy that he already regrets or reveals a worrying streak of extreme authoritarianism is unclear. Given that the remark came from a Labour leftist you could advance either argument.
Jenny Jones, on the other hand, wasn't being entirely serious with her original remark but was seeking to make a point. Feminists have been proposing male curfews in response to horrors like the Sarah Everard murder for decades. The point, of course, is not to achieve a male curfew but to highlight that a de facto female curfew exists and is profoundly wrong.
Yep her comment was in direct response to claims - including by the Met Police briefing women door to door whilst investigating the murder - that the best way for women to stay safe was for them to stay off the streets. It is such a profoundly wrong message to send that Jenny Jones' response, particularly since she has emphasized it is not meant to be taken seriously as a proposal, seems to me seems entirely proportionate.
Before radical feminists got demonised as “TERFS” making the same point was commonplace. You would see similar sentiments on banners during “Reclaim the Night” marches that were organised as a reaction to exactly the same “women stay off the street” message. I have no doubt that Jenny Jones went on such marches when younger. In fact I remember first reading such RadFem literature in her leader, Sian Berry’s, living room at Trinity in the Nineties, while smoking spliffs and playing Sonic the Hedgehog on her Sega Megadrive.
"Between April 23 and Dec 6, 2020, 24 422 participants were recruited and vaccinated across the four studies, of whom 17 178 were included in the primary analysis (8597 receiving ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and 8581 receiving control vaccine). The data cutoff for these analyses was Dec 7, 2020. 332 NAAT-positive infections met the primary endpoint of symptomatic infection more than 14 days after the second dose. Overall vaccine efficacy more than 14 days after the second dose was 66·7% (95% CI 57·4–74·0), with 84 (1·0%) cases in the 8597 participants in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group and 248 (2·9%) in the 8581 participants in the control group. There were no hospital admissions for COVID-19 in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group after the initial 21-day exclusion period, and 15 in the control group. 108 (0·9%) of 12 282 participants in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group and 127 (1·1%) of 11 962 participants in the control group had serious adverse events. There were seven deaths considered unrelated to vaccination (two in the ChAdOx1 nCov-19 group and five in the control group), including one COVID-19-related death in one participant in the control group. Exploratory analyses showed that vaccine efficacy after a single standard dose of vaccine from day 22 to day 90 after vaccination was 76·0% (59·3–85·9). Our modelling analysis indicated that protection did not wane during this initial 3-month period. Similarly, antibody levels were maintained during this period with minimal waning by day 90 (geometric mean ratio [GMR] 0·66 [95% CI 0·59–0·74]). In the participants who received two standard doses, after the second dose, efficacy was higher in those with a longer prime-boost interval (vaccine efficacy 81·3% [95% CI 60·3–91·2] at ≥12 weeks) than in those with a short interval (vaccine efficacy 55·1% [33·0–69·9] at <6 weeks). These observations are supported by immunogenicity data that showed binding antibody responses more than two-fold higher after an interval of 12 or more weeks compared with an interval of less than 6 weeks in those who were aged 18–55 years (GMR 2·32 [2·01–2·68])."
EDIT - My bold above. It is my understanding that "efficacy" in this context is in preventing COVID19 infection, not death.
EDIT 2 - removed a trailing bracket in the quote of the Lancet URL</p>
Really good, fair analysis by David. The pressure to be optimistic is not coming from most of the population, who in poll after poll lean on the cautious side, but from some backbenchers. Johnson is easily strong enough to ignore them if he can repress his own bias to cheery optimism. The population has been very tolerant so far but if he relaxes too early and then needs a new lockdown in early summer, I can see a real backlash.
My workplace (100 staff) is shut till September, and most of us think it'll be spring 2022 before it partially reopens. I don't know anyone who's had a haircut this year, apart from some home efforts. People round here are still being very careful - many wearing masks on walks, steering long circles around each other (with friendly nods of appreciation), hurrying through supermarkets if they go at all.
The number of people who err on the optimistic side increases with every vaccination that happens. Again anecdotally every single person I have met who has been vaccinated is now less cautious - dangerously so given many only had it done within the last week.
Funnily enough I've been more cautious and risk adverse since having the vaccine as I'd kick myself if I caught it now whilst my immunity is building...
Which is fine for us given all of our vaccines are approved by the EMA.
You are assuming we have EU vaccine passports...
Isn't it safe assumption that entry requirements will be based on the same list of vaccines?
Given the EC current swivelled eye response to UK over vaccinations, they will probably add in similar extra unnecessary red tape e.g. within EC, any document issued to say you have been jabbed, UK 2 different doctors, antibody test, plus filling in pre-travel ESTA style form with all this info to be submitted 7 days before travel.
Which is fine for us given all of our vaccines are approved by the EMA.
You are assuming we have EU vaccine passports.
Although I am inclined to think that distinctions like that may undermine the scheme.
We don't have EU vaccine passports because we aren't in the EU. Not sure if you somehow missed that news.
And I don't really understand your surprise that the EU only recognises EMA approved vaccinations. Why would you recognise as effective a vaccine that your regulatory authorities hadn't assessed as effective? You might add one or two at a later date (where they'd not filed in your jurisdiction due to focusing on others but where there is compelling evidence of effectiveness). But you're not just going to wave people through on the basis that the Chinese government has shoved something in someone's arm that they claim works.
58.7% of the vote as it stands. If it weren't for Trump this cleaving towards incumbency would be blindingly obvious to all. Explains, for me, the consistent Tory leads.
Really good, fair analysis by David. The pressure to be optimistic is not coming from most of the population, who in poll after poll lean on the cautious side, but from some backbenchers. Johnson is easily strong enough to ignore them if he can repress his own bias to cheery optimism. The population has been very tolerant so far but if he relaxes too early and then needs a new lockdown in early summer, I can see a real backlash.
My workplace (100 staff) is shut till September, and most of us think it'll be spring 2022 before it partially reopens. I don't know anyone who's had a haircut this year, apart from some home efforts. People round here are still being very careful - many wearing masks on walks, steering long circles around each other (with friendly nods of appreciation), hurrying through supermarkets if they go at all.
The number of people who err on the optimistic side increases with every vaccination that happens. Again anecdotally every single person I have met who has been vaccinated is now less cautious - dangerously so given many only had it done within the last week.
Funnily enough I've been more cautious and risk adverse since having the vaccine as I'd kick myself if I caught it now whilst my immunity is building...
You know more than the average punter about how the vaccine works though.
Which is fine for us given all of our vaccines are approved by the EMA.
You are assuming we have EU vaccine passports...
Isn't it safe assumption that entry requirements will be based on the same list of vaccines?
Given the EC current swivelled eye response to UK over vaccinations, they will probably add in similar extra unnecessary red tape e.g. within EC, any document issued to say you have been jabbed, UK 2 different doctors, antibody test, plus filling in pre-travel ESTA style form with all this info to be submitted 7 days before travel.
I find it quite interesting how Trump has managed to rehabilitate the reputation of Dubya
Dubya's retrospective approval rating recovered strongly soon after leaving the White House (i.e. under Obama rather than Trump), although it may well have improved further in the past four years.
That's a very common pattern for US Presidents, Nixon and LBJ being partial exceptions (they recovered a little from their nadirs but Nixon's retrospective rating remains prettty terrible and Johnson's is mixed).
There's a slightly misty eyed view of the past, and it also suddenly becomes much easier after office to avoid sticky issues and associate yourself with positive things.
One has to wonder how far that will operate with Trump given his continued interest in playing a very active role, and the fact he was embroiled in an attempted coup at the end of it all.
Get worried when after months of Biden, voters get misty-eyed for Trump....
Completely disagree with this, David. You've bought into the "zero COVID" arguments without realising it.
Firstly - one dose of AZ (the backbone of our programme) provides incredible immunity against severe symptoms and hospitalisation, better than the FDA approved J&J vaccine.
Secondly - case R has decoupled from the hospitalisation rate, does it matter if 20k people get it asymptomatically or only get mild symptoms?
Thirdly - your fully immunised figure is way out of date. The first proper unlockdown step is all the way on 19th May, counting two weeks before that takes us to 5th May. That takes us to 17m fully immunised people with both doses that are at the end of their two week waiting period. This is groups 1-5.
Fourth - in April we're expecting a huge uptick in vaccine deliveries from Moderna, Novavax and J&J. There's some talk that the government may dump the 12 week waiting policy for under 50s and bring it down to 6 weeks for Novavax and Moderna. Given the supply situation there's a very, very good chance that every single adult will have received their first dose by the 19th May and will get their second in advance of 21st June.
The critical part of this is giving the majority of under 50s the new vaccines which don't require a 12 week waiting time like AZ. From April we will have two new ones available that give >95% protection against symptoms and 100% protection against severe symptoms, that's a game changer.
You've got Stockholm syndrome wrt lockdown, it's time to let it go.
I hate to say it, but I think David isn’t pleased with how well things are going.
Steady on. I very much tend to Max's side of the argument but David Herdson is very far from an authoritarian on this. His tweets on Covid have been balanced and measured throughout the pandemic and he's often spoken of his frustration at the more pedantic restrictions.
He might simply be trying to put an interesting counter-argument to us, to fill a debating space that he doesn't currently see being contested. It's very hard to write good thread headers, still less to do them regularly on a Saturday morning every single week.
I'm grateful for the debates he initiates through them. He's always interesting, and he makes you think.
I have a lot of time for David and always look forward to his Saturday piece.
But if someone is going to quote stats on vaccine efficacy, I’d like to see a source. I have not seen it reported that the vaccines (David doesn’t differentiate) cut deaths by only 75% after one shot.
I was under the impression that we just don’t know, but early indications are that they are both excellent. Of course, we don’t know if the protection will ware off before the second doses so there is a reason to be cautious.
I’m not desperate to accelerate the unlocking, but I think the reality is that once the weather picks up, that will be that. The pressure on the NHS will never be what it was thanks to the vaccine, so we’re on a one way journey.
My understanding is that both Pfizer and AZN seem to be 70-80%+ effective at stopping symptomatic COVID infection after one shot.
That’s what I thought, thanks for clearing this up.
That's my understanding - waiting for the real medical types to tear that to shreds....
The extremely high protection against hospitalisation and death is what made the vaccines such a break through.
Herdson is right. 1 shot of AZN provides 76% protection. Lancet publication. Full reference coming
Against death?
From Table 2, the 76% appears to be effectiveness against symptomatic cases.
Right, so David's got his sums wrong.
The biggest issue now is getting the second doses and trying to get down the ages for first doses. But we are very much moving from protecting the NHS to saving individual lives.
"Wales would consider introducing curfews for men to help women feel safer in the event of a ‘crisis’, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said.
The politician said the action would not be ‘top of the list’ and would only ever be temporary – but refused to rule it out if ‘dramatic action’ was called for. It comes after Green Party peer Baroness Jones of Moulescoomb suggested a 6pm curfew for men after women were told to change their behaviour following Sarah Everard’s disappearance.
Mr Drakeford was asked by the BBC about the idea of introducing curfews on men in areas where there were concerns of women being assaulted."
Mark Drakeford was making a spur-of-the-moment response to a question. Whether this is an idiocy that he already regrets or reveals a worrying streak of extreme authoritarianism is unclear. Given that the remark came from a Labour leftist you could advance either argument.
Jenny Jones, on the other hand, wasn't being entirely serious with her original remark but was seeking to make a point. Feminists have been proposing male curfews in response to horrors like the Sarah Everard murder for decades. The point, of course, is not to achieve a male curfew but to highlight that a de facto female curfew exists and is profoundly wrong.
Yep her comment was in direct response to claims - including by the Met Police briefing women door to door whilst investigating the murder - that the best way for women to stay safe was for them to stay off the streets. It is such a profoundly wrong message to send that Jenny Jones' response, particularly since she has emphasized it is not meant to be taken seriously as a proposal, seems to me seems entirely proportionate.
Before radical feminists got demonised as “TERFS” making the same point was commonplace. You would see similar sentiments on banners during “Reclaim the Night” marches that were organised as a reaction to exactly the same “women stay off the street” message. I have no doubt that Jenny Jones went on such marches when younger. In fact I remember first reading such RadFem literature in her leader, Sian Berry’s, living room at Trinity in the Nineties, while smoking spliffs and playing Sonic the Hedgehog on her Sega Megadrive.
That's quite interesting - not unlike Ed Davey's political development. Impressed by Greenery at University, he then swapped to Lib Dems to have a space sympathetic to the same ideas whilst having a hope in hell of implementing things.
"Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 requiring hospital admission from 22 days after the first dose was 100% (0 cases in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group vs 15 cases in the control group), with a lower bound of the one-sided 97·5% CI of 72·2% (appendix p 5)."
Two slight tangents - is there any empirical evidence women are more likely to suffer an adverse reaction to either Pfizer of AZ than men? Just an unscientific anecdotal observation but in my circle the number of women reporting some (albeit mild) reaction to the vaccination seems greater than men but I don't profess any real evidence.
Second, I'm left with the perception on here there are a number who wish to erase the Covid experience from their minds completely - to pretend it never happened and to go back to exactly the life they were living in February 2020.
OTOH, there are those for whom it has been a revelatory experience - I've heard a number of colleagues say how much their admiration for the work of teachers has grown while one former colleague decided the life of work wasn't for her and she quit to become an artist. The last year has given me a chance to reflect and consider my life priorities - I think where I'm getting to is for all the pain, fear and the loss of thousands of people, for some Covid has been a positive experience.
Having some time to think about what's important is never a bad thing.
“we are (not in any way) banning the words 'mother' or 'father'."
Advising Staff against using the words is just as daft
I know this is the Generation Gap thing, but why?
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
Which is fine for us given all of our vaccines are approved by the EMA.
You are assuming we have EU vaccine passports.
Although I am inclined to think that distinctions like that may undermine the scheme.
We don't have EU vaccine passports because we aren't in the EU. Not sure if you somehow missed that news.
And I don't really understand your surprise that the EU only recognises EMA approved vaccinations. Why would you recognise as effective a vaccine that your regulatory authorities hadn't assessed as effective? You might add one or two at a later date (where they'd not filed in your jurisdiction due to focusing on others but where there is compelling evidence of effectiveness). But you're not just going to wave people through on the basis that the Chinese government has shoved something in someone's arm that they claim works.
How is this going to work for countries within the EU using Sputnik (or a Chinese vaccine) on the side? Are the EU going to insist they are all re-done with approved vaccines?
Two slight tangents - is there any empirical evidence women are more likely to suffer an adverse reaction to either Pfizer of AZ than men? Just an unscientific anecdotal observation but in my circle the number of women reporting some (albeit mild) reaction to the vaccination seems greater than men but I don't profess any real evidence.
Second, I'm left with the perception on here there are a number who wish to erase the Covid experience from their minds completely - to pretend it never happened and to go back to exactly the life they were living in February 2020.
OTOH, there are those for whom it has been a revelatory experience - I've heard a number of colleagues say how much their admiration for the work of teachers has grown while one former colleague decided the life of work wasn't for her and she quit to become an artist. The last year has given me a chance to reflect and consider my life priorities - I think where I'm getting to is for all the pain, fear and the loss of thousands of people, for some Covid has been a positive experience.
Having some time to think about what's important is never a bad thing.
Forgetting it ever happened appears to have been the world’s collective response to the 1918-20 pandemic so this is not new.
I love the extreme gaslighting that occurs these days with moronic ideas.
Abolish the Police!*
*actually don't abolish them at all, just re-train, re-allocate, and trim budgets.
Zero Covid!*
*not actually, zero covid, but minimal covid.
Abolish means abolish. Zero means zero.
Chris Whitty: "I'm a scientist. Zero means zero. If you don't mean zero don't call it zero." Guernsey CMO "Zero Covid is epidemiologically illiterate"
It means targeting zero. You don't need to be massively obtuse. When people say they have "zero tolerance" for bullying it doesn't mean they have wished bullying into non-existence. They are literally tolerating bullying because at the point when they make that comment the bullying has happened.
If it means targeting zero or zero tolerance then the call should be for Covid Zero Tolerance, or Target Zero Covid, not Zero Covid. It does not take an unreasonable or obtuse person to conclude it means something other than the intended meaning at present.
If a message is willfully or otherwise misinterpreted so easily, it is not fit for purpose and should be changed to avoid misunderstandings, not stuck without of, what, some loyalty to a PR slogan?
The point is, whether there is any Covid or not is outside our control. What is in our control is whether our policy is always to reduce incidence of Covid or whether we get to a level that we accept, and then implement lockdown, mask-wearing and other non-medical interventions as are needed to keep that level in bounds ("living with the virus").
Rather than complaining "there is no such thing as Zero-Covid", people could more usefully spend the thirty seconds explaining the choice. Because there is a choice to be made.
No because there isn't a choice to be made. We need to live with Covid, there is no other rational choice. There is no choice to be made.
If someone else wants to make an alternative suggestion then let them explain what they mean. Do they mean having a lockdown every time there's even a single case like New Zealand? If not, what do they mean?
If you asked me last year, I would have said, go for the least cases, every time. It's not just about avoiding the awful tragedy of mass death, although that's a reason alone. By getting your case rate down, you can avoid having to take the strictest lockdown measures.
Now we are assuming vaccinations have changed the equation. We are relying on vaccination making non-medical interventions redundant. If so, the issue is moot because case rates will head to zero of their own accord.
I would feel a lot more comfortable if someone stood up and said, we're out of the woods, Vaccinations mean that we will never need any non-medical interventions again and this is this basis for our confidence.
We have a government that has made multiple assumptions on things including Covid and Brexit that turned out catastrophically false. I don't have a huge amount of trust, frankly,
“we are (not in any way) banning the words 'mother' or 'father'."
Advising Staff against using the words is just as daft
I know this is the Generation Gap thing, but why?
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
Parent and Guardian does not mean the same as Mother and Father.
Second, I'm left with the perception on here there are a number who wish to erase the Covid experience from their minds completely - to pretend it never happened and to go back to exactly the life they were living in February 2020.
We've basically spent the last year under house arrest, with large parts of our economy devastated due to a botched research, probably funded by the Chinese military. Well the circumstantial evidence seems overwhelming, but we'll never know for sure. Why are we in the West so chilled out about this?
Ignore for a moment the fact that the question is being begged - I'm not sure we are so chilled actually but moving on from there....
it would be helpful to have examples of what, for the west, would count as both unchilled and as a set of policies providing a solution to whatever you think the soluble problem is.
Many problems don't have solutions, and when they don't being chilled may be the best we can do. Is this one of them?
Which is fine for us given all of our vaccines are approved by the EMA.
You are assuming we have EU vaccine passports.
Although I am inclined to think that distinctions like that may undermine the scheme.
We don't have EU vaccine passports because we aren't in the EU. Not sure if you somehow missed that news.
And I don't really understand your surprise that the EU only recognises EMA approved vaccinations. Why would you recognise as effective a vaccine that your regulatory authorities hadn't assessed as effective? You might add one or two at a later date (where they'd not filed in your jurisdiction due to focusing on others but where there is compelling evidence of effectiveness). But you're not just going to wave people through on the basis that the Chinese government has shoved something in someone's arm that they claim works.
How is this going to work for countries within the EU using Sputnik (or a Chinese vaccine) on the side? Are the EU going to insist they are all re-done with approved vaccines?
You either approve Sputnik later or no, they don't get a vaccine passport. Again, there are various vaccines out there of different degrees of effectiveness and safety, and there has to be some standard that you set - approval by the EMA seems a perfectly sensible standard for the EU to set, and approval by the MHRA for the UK to set. The alternative very quickly becomes anything shoved into someone's arm.
If you asked me last year, I would have said, go for the least cases, every time. It's not just about avoiding the awful tragedy of mass death, although that's a reason alone. By getting your case rate down, you can avoid having to take the strictest lockdown measures.
That's easy to say, but in practice, it doesn't work. Even Australia has had to use the strictest lockdown measures to maintain its zero covid policy.
"Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 requiring hospital admission from 22 days after the first dose was 100% (0 cases in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group vs 15 cases in the control group), with a lower bound of the one-sided 97·5% CI of 72·2% (appendix p 5)."
Yep, and from Table 2, efficacy 22 days after first dose was 76% against symptomatic infection.
Have to say, it is not the best or clearest written set of conclusions I have ever read.
Two slight tangents - is there any empirical evidence women are more likely to suffer an adverse reaction to either Pfizer of AZ than men? Just an unscientific anecdotal observation but in my circle the number of women reporting some (albeit mild) reaction to the vaccination seems greater than men but I don't profess any real evidence.
Second, I'm left with the perception on here there are a number who wish to erase the Covid experience from their minds completely - to pretend it never happened and to go back to exactly the life they were living in February 2020.
OTOH, there are those for whom it has been a revelatory experience - I've heard a number of colleagues say how much their admiration for the work of teachers has grown while one former colleague decided the life of work wasn't for her and she quit to become an artist. The last year has given me a chance to reflect and consider my life priorities - I think where I'm getting to is for all the pain, fear and the loss of thousands of people, for some Covid has been a positive experience.
Having some time to think about what's important is never a bad thing.
Forgetting it ever happened appears to have been the world’s collective response to the 1918-20 pandemic so this is not new.
I of course want to get back to freely socialising, travelling etc (although I realise it will probably be another year before we can travel freely again) and it has of course been a year where about 8 months have been spent under varying degrees of house arrest. But it is worth finding the positives - I have rediscovered the pleasures of walking, and some of my friends have discovered it for the first time, so expanding social opportunities. I have explored my local area, and my employer has discovered that home working is, indeed, a thing. It hasn't been a good year, but it is worth working out what you can take away from it.
"Wales would consider introducing curfews for men to help women feel safer in the event of a ‘crisis’, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said.
The politician said the action would not be ‘top of the list’ and would only ever be temporary – but refused to rule it out if ‘dramatic action’ was called for. It comes after Green Party peer Baroness Jones of Moulescoomb suggested a 6pm curfew for men after women were told to change their behaviour following Sarah Everard’s disappearance.
Mr Drakeford was asked by the BBC about the idea of introducing curfews on men in areas where there were concerns of women being assaulted."
Mark Drakeford was making a spur-of-the-moment response to a question. Whether this is an idiocy that he already regrets or reveals a worrying streak of extreme authoritarianism is unclear. Given that the remark came from a Labour leftist you could advance either argument.
Jenny Jones, on the other hand, wasn't being entirely serious with her original remark but was seeking to make a point. Feminists have been proposing male curfews in response to horrors like the Sarah Everard murder for decades. The point, of course, is not to achieve a male curfew but to highlight that a de facto female curfew exists and is profoundly wrong.
Yep her comment was in direct response to claims - including by the Met Police briefing women door to door whilst investigating the murder - that the best way for women to stay safe was for them to stay off the streets. It is such a profoundly wrong message to send that Jenny Jones' response, particularly since she has emphasized it is not meant to be taken seriously as a proposal, seems to me seems entirely proportionate.
Before radical feminists got demonised as “TERFS” making the same point was commonplace. You would see similar sentiments on banners during “Reclaim the Night” marches that were organised as a reaction to exactly the same “women stay off the street” message. I have no doubt that Jenny Jones went on such marches when younger. In fact I remember first reading such RadFem literature in her leader, Sian Berry’s, living room at Trinity in the Nineties, while smoking spliffs and playing Sonic the Hedgehog on her Sega Megadrive.
First you were at school with Milo Yiannopoulos, then at college with Sian Berry? D'you suppose it was exposure to proto-Trumpists and eco-warriors in your youth that set you firmly down the path of centrist-dad-dom?
Now that I think about it, did saving cute animals from the terrors of encroaching mechanization in Sonic help shape her Green [Hill Zone] politics? Hmmm....
“we are (not in any way) banning the words 'mother' or 'father'."
Advising Staff against using the words is just as daft
I know this is the Generation Gap thing, but why?
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
Parent and Guardian does not mean the same as Mother and Father.
Indeed, it might be shockingly contentious to say this but absolutely every human alive has a biological mother and father.
On topic, unless Covid-19 mutates into a flesh eating variant then this is the last de jure lockdown, I don't think people will forego another summer at home.
I suspect as we saw last July once the lockdown formally ended people exercised a bit of caution and didn't go back to the way things were straight away.
Unlike last year I'm a very optimistic, the vaccines work, we'll have fully immunised our most vulnerable by June 21st, heck I'm getting my second dose at the end of April.
I'm really looking forward to whoring roaring 20s.
Completely disagree with this, David. You've bought into the "zero COVID" arguments without realising it.
Firstly - one dose of AZ (the backbone of our programme) provides incredible immunity against severe symptoms and hospitalisation, better than the FDA approved J&J vaccine.
Secondly - case R has decoupled from the hospitalisation rate, does it matter if 20k people get it asymptomatically or only get mild symptoms?
Thirdly - your fully immunised figure is way out of date. The first proper unlockdown step is all the way on 19th May, counting two weeks before that takes us to 5th May. That takes us to 17m fully immunised people with both doses that are at the end of their two week waiting period. This is groups 1-5.
Fourth - in April we're expecting a huge uptick in vaccine deliveries from Moderna, Novavax and J&J. There's some talk that the government may dump the 12 week waiting policy for under 50s and bring it down to 6 weeks for Novavax and Moderna. Given the supply situation there's a very, very good chance that every single adult will have received their first dose by the 19th May and will get their second in advance of 21st June.
The critical part of this is giving the majority of under 50s the new vaccines which don't require a 12 week waiting time like AZ. From April we will have two new ones available that give >95% protection against symptoms and 100% protection against severe symptoms, that's a game changer.
You've got Stockholm syndrome wrt lockdown, it's time to let it go.
I hate to say it, but I think David isn’t pleased with how well things are going.
Steady on. I very much tend to Max's side of the argument but David Herdson is very far from an authoritarian on this. His tweets on Covid have been balanced and measured throughout the pandemic and he's often spoken of his frustration at the more pedantic restrictions.
He might simply be trying to put an interesting counter-argument to us, to fill a debating space that he doesn't currently see being contested. It's very hard to write good thread headers, still less to do them regularly on a Saturday morning every single week.
I'm grateful for the debates he initiates through them. He's always interesting, and he makes you think.
I have a lot of time for David and always look forward to his Saturday piece.
But if someone is going to quote stats on vaccine efficacy, I’d like to see a source. I have not seen it reported that the vaccines (David doesn’t differentiate) cut deaths by only 75% after one shot.
I was under the impression that we just don’t know, but early indications are that they are both excellent. Of course, we don’t know if the protection will ware off before the second doses so there is a reason to be cautious.
I’m not desperate to accelerate the unlocking, but I think the reality is that once the weather picks up, that will be that. The pressure on the NHS will never be what it was thanks to the vaccine, so we’re on a one way journey.
My understanding is that both Pfizer and AZN seem to be 70-80%+ effective at stopping symptomatic COVID infection after one shot.
Completely disagree with this, David. You've bought into the "zero COVID" arguments without realising it.
Firstly - one dose of AZ (the backbone of our programme) provides incredible immunity against severe symptoms and hospitalisation, better than the FDA approved J&J vaccine.
Secondly - case R has decoupled from the hospitalisation rate, does it matter if 20k people get it asymptomatically or only get mild symptoms?
Thirdly - your fully immunised figure is way out of date. The first proper unlockdown step is all the way on 19th May, counting two weeks before that takes us to 5th May. That takes us to 17m fully immunised people with both doses that are at the end of their two week waiting period. This is groups 1-5.
Fourth - in April we're expecting a huge uptick in vaccine deliveries from Moderna, Novavax and J&J. There's some talk that the government may dump the 12 week waiting policy for under 50s and bring it down to 6 weeks for Novavax and Moderna. Given the supply situation there's a very, very good chance that every single adult will have received their first dose by the 19th May and will get their second in advance of 21st June.
The critical part of this is giving the majority of under 50s the new vaccines which don't require a 12 week waiting time like AZ. From April we will have two new ones available that give >95% protection against symptoms and 100% protection against severe symptoms, that's a game changer.
You've got Stockholm syndrome wrt lockdown, it's time to let it go.
I hate to say it, but I think David isn’t pleased with how well things are going.
Steady on. I very much tend to Max's side of the argument but David Herdson is very far from an authoritarian on this. His tweets on Covid have been balanced and measured throughout the pandemic and he's often spoken of his frustration at the more pedantic restrictions.
He might simply be trying to put an interesting counter-argument to us, to fill a debating space that he doesn't currently see being contested. It's very hard to write good thread headers, still less to do them regularly on a Saturday morning every single week.
I'm grateful for the debates he initiates through them. He's always interesting, and he makes you think.
I have a lot of time for David and always look forward to his Saturday piece.
But if someone is going to quote stats on vaccine efficacy, I’d like to see a source. I have not seen it reported that the vaccines (David doesn’t differentiate) cut deaths by only 75% after one shot.
I was under the impression that we just don’t know, but early indications are that they are both excellent. Of course, we don’t know if the protection will ware off before the second doses so there is a reason to be cautious.
I’m not desperate to accelerate the unlocking, but I think the reality is that once the weather picks up, that will be that. The pressure on the NHS will never be what it was thanks to the vaccine, so we’re on a one way journey.
My understanding is that both Pfizer and AZN seem to be 70-80%+ effective at stopping symptomatic COVID infection after one shot.
Completely disagree with this, David. You've bought into the "zero COVID" arguments without realising it.
Firstly - one dose of AZ (the backbone of our programme) provides incredible immunity against severe symptoms and hospitalisation, better than the FDA approved J&J vaccine.
Secondly - case R has decoupled from the hospitalisation rate, does it matter if 20k people get it asymptomatically or only get mild symptoms?
Thirdly - your fully immunised figure is way out of date. The first proper unlockdown step is all the way on 19th May, counting two weeks before that takes us to 5th May. That takes us to 17m fully immunised people with both doses that are at the end of their two week waiting period. This is groups 1-5.
Fourth - in April we're expecting a huge uptick in vaccine deliveries from Moderna, Novavax and J&J. There's some talk that the government may dump the 12 week waiting policy for under 50s and bring it down to 6 weeks for Novavax and Moderna. Given the supply situation there's a very, very good chance that every single adult will have received their first dose by the 19th May and will get their second in advance of 21st June.
The critical part of this is giving the majority of under 50s the new vaccines which don't require a 12 week waiting time like AZ. From April we will have two new ones available that give >95% protection against symptoms and 100% protection against severe symptoms, that's a game changer.
You've got Stockholm syndrome wrt lockdown, it's time to let it go.
I hate to say it, but I think David isn’t pleased with how well things are going.
Steady on. I very much tend to Max's side of the argument but David Herdson is very far from an authoritarian on this. His tweets on Covid have been balanced and measured throughout the pandemic and he's often spoken of his frustration at the more pedantic restrictions.
He might simply be trying to put an interesting counter-argument to us, to fill a debating space that he doesn't currently see being contested. It's very hard to write good thread headers, still less to do them regularly on a Saturday morning every single week.
I'm grateful for the debates he initiates through them. He's always interesting, and he makes you think.
I have a lot of time for David and always look forward to his Saturday piece.
But if someone is going to quote stats on vaccine efficacy, I’d like to see a source. I have not seen it reported that the vaccines (David doesn’t differentiate) cut deaths by only 75% after one shot.
I was under the impression that we just don’t know, but early indications are that they are both excellent. Of course, we don’t know if the protection will ware off before the second doses so there is a reason to be cautious.
I’m not desperate to accelerate the unlocking, but I think the reality is that once the weather picks up, that will be that. The pressure on the NHS will never be what it was thanks to the vaccine, so we’re on a one way journey.
My understanding is that both Pfizer and AZN seem to be 70-80%+ effective at stopping symptomatic COVID infection after one shot.
Completely disagree with this, David. You've bought into the "zero COVID" arguments without realising it.
Firstly - one dose of AZ (the backbone of our programme) provides incredible immunity against severe symptoms and hospitalisation, better than the FDA approved J&J vaccine.
Secondly - case R has decoupled from the hospitalisation rate, does it matter if 20k people get it asymptomatically or only get mild symptoms?
Thirdly - your fully immunised figure is way out of date. The first proper unlockdown step is all the way on 19th May, counting two weeks before that takes us to 5th May. That takes us to 17m fully immunised people with both doses that are at the end of their two week waiting period. This is groups 1-5.
Fourth - in April we're expecting a huge uptick in vaccine deliveries from Moderna, Novavax and J&J. There's some talk that the government may dump the 12 week waiting policy for under 50s and bring it down to 6 weeks for Novavax and Moderna. Given the supply situation there's a very, very good chance that every single adult will have received their first dose by the 19th May and will get their second in advance of 21st June.
The critical part of this is giving the majority of under 50s the new vaccines which don't require a 12 week waiting time like AZ. From April we will have two new ones available that give >95% protection against symptoms and 100% protection against severe symptoms, that's a game changer.
You've got Stockholm syndrome wrt lockdown, it's time to let it go.
I hate to say it, but I think David isn’t pleased with how well things are going.
Steady on. I very much tend to Max's side of the argument but David Herdson is very far from an authoritarian on this. His tweets on Covid have been balanced and measured throughout the pandemic and he's often spoken of his frustration at the more pedantic restrictions.
He might simply be trying to put an interesting counter-argument to us, to fill a debating space that he doesn't currently see being contested. It's very hard to write good thread headers, still less to do them regularly on a Saturday morning every single week.
I'm grateful for the debates he initiates through them. He's always interesting, and he makes you think.
I have a lot of time for David and always look forward to his Saturday piece.
But if someone is going to quote stats on vaccine efficacy, I’d like to see a source. I have not seen it reported that the vaccines (David doesn’t differentiate) cut deaths by only 75% after one shot.
I was under the impression that we just don’t know, but early indications are that they are both excellent. Of course, we don’t know if the protection will ware off before the second doses so there is a reason to be cautious.
I’m not desperate to accelerate the unlocking, but I think the reality is that once the weather picks up, that will be that. The pressure on the NHS will never be what it was thanks to the vaccine, so we’re on a one way journey.
My understanding is that both Pfizer and AZN seem to be 70-80%+ effective at stopping symptomatic COVID infection after one shot.
Which is fine for us given all of our vaccines are approved by the EMA.
You are assuming we have EU vaccine passports.
Although I am inclined to think that distinctions like that may undermine the scheme.
We don't have EU vaccine passports because we aren't in the EU. Not sure if you somehow missed that news.
And I don't really understand your surprise that the EU only recognises EMA approved vaccinations. Why would you recognise as effective a vaccine that your regulatory authorities hadn't assessed as effective? You might add one or two at a later date (where they'd not filed in your jurisdiction due to focusing on others but where there is compelling evidence of effectiveness). But you're not just going to wave people through on the basis that the Chinese government has shoved something in someone's arm that they claim works.
How is this going to work for countries within the EU using Sputnik (or a Chinese vaccine) on the side? Are the EU going to insist they are all re-done with approved vaccines?
58.7% of the vote as it stands. If it weren't for Trump this cleaving towards incumbency would be blindingly obvious to all. Explains, for me, the consistent Tory leads.
The current projections are Labor 53, Nationals 4 and Liberals 2 which would be a huge result for Labor and for the State Premier Mark McGowan.
Liberal leader Zac Kirkup probably didn't do himself any favours with this:
Conceding after the polls close is one thing but conceding two weeks in advance never sends a strong message to your supporters. Kirkup himself has lost his own seat which the Liberals have held since 1966. To be fair, Kirkup only became leader 4 months ago.
Some of the swings being recorded by Labor are into double figures but it's early days and a lot of votes still to be counted but it looks a disastrous night for the Liberals.
"Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 requiring hospital admission from 22 days after the first dose was 100% (0 cases in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group vs 15 cases in the control group), with a lower bound of the one-sided 97·5% CI of 72·2% (appendix p 5)."
Yep, and from Table 2, efficacy 22 days after first dose was 76% against symptomatic infection.
Have to say, it is not the best or clearest written set of conclusions I have ever read.
Yes....
What I got from it -
- 22 days first dose, 76% efficacy against infection - 22 days after first dose, no hospitalisations (pretty much) - too few deaths to present results, but zero in the vaccinated arm
I agree on the presentation of results. Why not put what I have just written?
Which is fine for us given all of our vaccines are approved by the EMA.
You are assuming we have EU vaccine passports.
Although I am inclined to think that distinctions like that may undermine the scheme.
We don't have EU vaccine passports because we aren't in the EU. Not sure if you somehow missed that news.
And I don't really understand your surprise that the EU only recognises EMA approved vaccinations. Why would you recognise as effective a vaccine that your regulatory authorities hadn't assessed as effective? You might add one or two at a later date (where they'd not filed in your jurisdiction due to focusing on others but where there is compelling evidence of effectiveness). But you're not just going to wave people through on the basis that the Chinese government has shoved something in someone's arm that they claim works.
How is this going to work for countries within the EU using Sputnik (or a Chinese vaccine) on the side? Are the EU going to insist they are all re-done with approved vaccines?
Or the EMA could license them in due course.
I can see that happening with Sputnik, but I'm not so sure about SinoPharm.
"Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 requiring hospital admission from 22 days after the first dose was 100% (0 cases in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group vs 15 cases in the control group), with a lower bound of the one-sided 97·5% CI of 72·2% (appendix p 5)."
On this basis, they should lift all legally binding restrictions 22 days after all the over 50s are vaccinated. Which very roughly is Easter. I just don’t understand at all the rationale for keeping things going all the way to June, it should be a big bang opening in April.
“we are (not in any way) banning the words 'mother' or 'father'."
Advising Staff against using the words is just as daft
I know this is the Generation Gap thing, but why?
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
At parkrun they tend* to remind "small people" that they have to run with their "big people".
*Tended I suppose. But it looks like junior parkrun is coming back on 11 April and the 5k version hopefully in June.
Which is fine for us given all of our vaccines are approved by the EMA.
You are assuming we have EU vaccine passports...
Isn't it safe assumption that entry requirements will be based on the same list of vaccines?
Given the EC current swivelled eye response to UK over vaccinations, they will probably add in similar extra unnecessary red tape e.g. within EC, any document issued to say you have been jabbed, UK 2 different doctors, antibody test, plus filling in pre-travel ESTA style form with all this info to be submitted 7 days before travel.
And verified by an EU-qualified veterinarian.
Any obstacle to the UK will only see individual EU countries adopting their own rules to suit their demands and economies
"Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 requiring hospital admission from 22 days after the first dose was 100% (0 cases in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group vs 15 cases in the control group), with a lower bound of the one-sided 97·5% CI of 72·2% (appendix p 5)."
On this basis, they should lift all legally binding restrictions 22 days after all the over 50s are vaccinated. Which very roughly is Easter. I just don’t understand at all the rationale for keeping things going all the way to June, it should be a big bang opening in April.
Because even though the hospitalization rate for those younger than 50 is small, it is not zero. And a small fraction of a very big number is still a very big number.
On topic, unless Covid-19 mutates into a flesh eating variant then this is the last de jure lockdown, I don't think people will forego another summer at home.
I suspect as we saw last July once the lockdown formally ended people exercised a bit of caution and didn't go back to the way things were straight away.
Unlike last year I'm a very optimistic, the vaccines work, we'll have fully immunised our most vulnerable by June 21st, heck I'm getting my second dose at the end of April.
I'm really looking forward to whoring roaring 20s.
What is this fixation with the 1920s - will we see the return of flappers, will I have to learn the Mashed Potato and the Charleston and does this mean the end of silent movies and the coming of the dreadful "talkies"?
The 1920s was also a time of hyper inflation -are you looking forward to buying a wheelbarrow to carry round your cash - you'll need a wheelbarrow of cash to pay for the new wheelbarrow of course?
If all people want to do is dance, drink and forget, that's their right. I'd rather draw some other lessons from all this.
Which is fine for us given all of our vaccines are approved by the EMA.
You are assuming we have EU vaccine passports.
Although I am inclined to think that distinctions like that may undermine the scheme.
We don't have EU vaccine passports because we aren't in the EU. Not sure if you somehow missed that news.
And I don't really understand your surprise that the EU only recognises EMA approved vaccinations. Why would you recognise as effective a vaccine that your regulatory authorities hadn't assessed as effective? You might add one or two at a later date (where they'd not filed in your jurisdiction due to focusing on others but where there is compelling evidence of effectiveness). But you're not just going to wave people through on the basis that the Chinese government has shoved something in someone's arm that they claim works.
How is this going to work for countries within the EU using Sputnik (or a Chinese vaccine) on the side? Are the EU going to insist they are all re-done with approved vaccines?
Or the EMA could license them in due course.
I can see that happening with Sputnik, but I'm not so sure about SinoPharm.
Sputnik is very effective, but I think they haven't sought approval in the EU.
That view of Eastern Europe before the war is fascinating. A world we lost afterwards that never really came back.
Yep. Hitler pretty conclusively won his tussle with Hindenburg (assume that's Hindenburg in the image) shortly afterwards, insofar as there was much of a tussle.
Completely disagree with this, David. You've bought into the "zero COVID" arguments without realising it.
Firstly - one dose of AZ (the backbone of our programme) provides incredible immunity against severe symptoms and hospitalisation, better than the FDA approved J&J vaccine.
Secondly - case R has decoupled from the hospitalisation rate, does it matter if 20k people get it asymptomatically or only get mild symptoms?
Thirdly - your fully immunised figure is way out of date. The first proper unlockdown step is all the way on 19th May, counting two weeks before that takes us to 5th May. That takes us to 17m fully immunised people with both doses that are at the end of their two week waiting period. This is groups 1-5.
Fourth - in April we're expecting a huge uptick in vaccine deliveries from Moderna, Novavax and J&J. There's some talk that the government may dump the 12 week waiting policy for under 50s and bring it down to 6 weeks for Novavax and Moderna. Given the supply situation there's a very, very good chance that every single adult will have received their first dose by the 19th May and will get their second in advance of 21st June.
The critical part of this is giving the majority of under 50s the new vaccines which don't require a 12 week waiting time like AZ. From April we will have two new ones available that give >95% protection against symptoms and 100% protection against severe symptoms, that's a game changer.
You've got Stockholm syndrome wrt lockdown, it's time to let it go.
I hate to say it, but I think David isn’t pleased with how well things are going.
Steady on. I very much tend to Max's side of the argument but David Herdson is very far from an authoritarian on this. His tweets on Covid have been balanced and measured throughout the pandemic and he's often spoken of his frustration at the more pedantic restrictions.
He might simply be trying to put an interesting counter-argument to us, to fill a debating space that he doesn't currently see being contested. It's very hard to write good thread headers, still less to do them regularly on a Saturday morning every single week.
I'm grateful for the debates he initiates through them. He's always interesting, and he makes you think.
I have a lot of time for David and always look forward to his Saturday piece.
But if someone is going to quote stats on vaccine efficacy, I’d like to see a source. I have not seen it reported that the vaccines (David doesn’t differentiate) cut deaths by only 75% after one shot.
I was under the impression that we just don’t know, but early indications are that they are both excellent. Of course, we don’t know if the protection will ware off before the second doses so there is a reason to be cautious.
I’m not desperate to accelerate the unlocking, but I think the reality is that once the weather picks up, that will be that. The pressure on the NHS will never be what it was thanks to the vaccine, so we’re on a one way journey.
My understanding is that both Pfizer and AZN seem to be 70-80%+ effective at stopping symptomatic COVID infection after one shot.
Completely disagree with this, David. You've bought into the "zero COVID" arguments without realising it.
Firstly - one dose of AZ (the backbone of our programme) provides incredible immunity against severe symptoms and hospitalisation, better than the FDA approved J&J vaccine.
Secondly - case R has decoupled from the hospitalisation rate, does it matter if 20k people get it asymptomatically or only get mild symptoms?
Thirdly - your fully immunised figure is way out of date. The first proper unlockdown step is all the way on 19th May, counting two weeks before that takes us to 5th May. That takes us to 17m fully immunised people with both doses that are at the end of their two week waiting period. This is groups 1-5.
Fourth - in April we're expecting a huge uptick in vaccine deliveries from Moderna, Novavax and J&J. There's some talk that the government may dump the 12 week waiting policy for under 50s and bring it down to 6 weeks for Novavax and Moderna. Given the supply situation there's a very, very good chance that every single adult will have received their first dose by the 19th May and will get their second in advance of 21st June.
The critical part of this is giving the majority of under 50s the new vaccines which don't require a 12 week waiting time like AZ. From April we will have two new ones available that give >95% protection against symptoms and 100% protection against severe symptoms, that's a game changer.
You've got Stockholm syndrome wrt lockdown, it's time to let it go.
I hate to say it, but I think David isn’t pleased with how well things are going.
Steady on. I very much tend to Max's side of the argument but David Herdson is very far from an authoritarian on this. His tweets on Covid have been balanced and measured throughout the pandemic and he's often spoken of his frustration at the more pedantic restrictions.
He might simply be trying to put an interesting counter-argument to us, to fill a debating space that he doesn't currently see being contested. It's very hard to write good thread headers, still less to do them regularly on a Saturday morning every single week.
I'm grateful for the debates he initiates through them. He's always interesting, and he makes you think.
I have a lot of time for David and always look forward to his Saturday piece.
But if someone is going to quote stats on vaccine efficacy, I’d like to see a source. I have not seen it reported that the vaccines (David doesn’t differentiate) cut deaths by only 75% after one shot.
I was under the impression that we just don’t know, but early indications are that they are both excellent. Of course, we don’t know if the protection will ware off before the second doses so there is a reason to be cautious.
I’m not desperate to accelerate the unlocking, but I think the reality is that once the weather picks up, that will be that. The pressure on the NHS will never be what it was thanks to the vaccine, so we’re on a one way journey.
My understanding is that both Pfizer and AZN seem to be 70-80%+ effective at stopping symptomatic COVID infection after one shot.
"Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 requiring hospital admission from 22 days after the first dose was 100% (0 cases in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group vs 15 cases in the control group), with a lower bound of the one-sided 97·5% CI of 72·2% (appendix p 5)."
On this basis, they should lift all legally binding restrictions 22 days after all the over 50s are vaccinated. Which very roughly is Easter. I just don’t understand at all the rationale for keeping things going all the way to June, it should be a big bang opening in April.
Because even though the hospitalization rate for those younger than 50 is small, it is not zero. And a small fraction of a very big number is still a very big number.
Your thinking has been warped by a year of quite extraordinary measures. The vaccine programme is not stopping at age 50, the seasons are still marching on and the room for the virus to spread gets ever smaller given increasing immunity (both acquired and vaccine). I don’t say it lightly but the pathetic attitude of this article and your own comment makes me angry.
I love the extreme gaslighting that occurs these days with moronic ideas.
Abolish the Police!*
*actually don't abolish them at all, just re-train, re-allocate, and trim budgets.
Zero Covid!*
*not actually, zero covid, but minimal covid.
Abolish means abolish. Zero means zero.
Chris Whitty: "I'm a scientist. Zero means zero. If you don't mean zero don't call it zero." Guernsey CMO "Zero Covid is epidemiologically illiterate"
It means targeting zero. You don't need to be massively obtuse. When people say they have "zero tolerance" for bullying it doesn't mean they have wished bullying into non-existence. They are literally tolerating bullying because at the point when they make that comment the bullying has happened.
I don't know if Zero (targeted) Covid is a good strategy or not at this point. Vaccination has changed the equation massively. On the one hand, it makes it easier to have a Zero-Covid strategy. On the other hand it may make it less necessary.
I do know that if our governments had properly pursued a Zero-Covid strategy, or even a Less-Covid strategy, many of those 125 000 would still be with us today,
For me the key here is whether the majority who have had the vaccine are either immune from the virus or simply protected from its worst effects. If they are immune then zero Covid works because there will simply not be enough vectors for a viable quantity of the virus to exploit and it will become extinct. If it is the latter then it won't. and it will probably be a complicating factor for those already ill and vulnerable.
I don't think we know yet what the preponderance of those who have been vaccinated are but my gut feel is that although there have been sharp falls in those groups with high vaccination rates it is probably not as sharp as it would have been if there was a complete barrier to transmission. So, if I was putting money on it I would bet we will end up living with this virus as a background noise. But we shall see.
Which is fine for us given all of our vaccines are approved by the EMA.
You are assuming we have EU vaccine passports.
Although I am inclined to think that distinctions like that may undermine the scheme.
We don't have EU vaccine passports because we aren't in the EU. Not sure if you somehow missed that news.
And I don't really understand your surprise that the EU only recognises EMA approved vaccinations. Why would you recognise as effective a vaccine that your regulatory authorities hadn't assessed as effective? You might add one or two at a later date (where they'd not filed in your jurisdiction due to focusing on others but where there is compelling evidence of effectiveness). But you're not just going to wave people through on the basis that the Chinese government has shoved something in someone's arm that they claim works.
That article doesn't mention it, but I am sure when I read about this originally, the idea was that it would be expanded to allow non-EU people to visit the EU.
"Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 requiring hospital admission from 22 days after the first dose was 100% (0 cases in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group vs 15 cases in the control group), with a lower bound of the one-sided 97·5% CI of 72·2% (appendix p 5)."
On this basis, they should lift all legally binding restrictions 22 days after all the over 50s are vaccinated. Which very roughly is Easter. I just don’t understand at all the rationale for keeping things going all the way to June, it should be a big bang opening in April.
Because even though the hospitalization rate for those younger than 50 is small, it is not zero. And a small fraction of a very big number is still a very big number.
Your thinking has been warped by a year of quite extraordinary measures. The vaccine programme is not stopping at age 50, the seasons are still marching on and the room for the virus to spread gets ever smaller given increasing immunity (both acquired and vaccine). I don’t say it lightly but the pathetic attitude of this article and your own comment makes me angry.
My attitude is pathetic? I thought it was a legitimate concern that the NHS would be overwhelmed by people being sick if the thing was allowed to let rip?
58.7% of the vote as it stands. If it weren't for Trump this cleaving towards incumbency would be blindingly obvious to all. Explains, for me, the consistent Tory leads.
The current projections are Labor 53, Nationals 4 and Liberals 2 which would be a huge result for Labor and for the State Premier Mark McGowan.
Liberal leader Zac Kirkup probably didn't do himself any favours with this:
Conceding after the polls close is one thing but conceding two weeks in advance never sends a strong message to your supporters. Kirkup himself has lost his own seat which the Liberals have held since 1966. To be fair, Kirkup only became leader 4 months ago.
Some of the swings being recorded by Labor are into double figures but it's early days and a lot of votes still to be counted but it looks a disastrous night for the Liberals.
That’s why I don’t get the criticism of Swinson stating that she was going to be the next PM. Certainly no-one believed her but I think the 2010 Clegg-gasm got punctured when he limited his public sights to propping up either Brown or Cameron.
Really good, fair analysis by David. The pressure to be optimistic is not coming from most of the population, who in poll after poll lean on the cautious side, but from some backbenchers. Johnson is easily strong enough to ignore them if he can repress his own bias to cheery optimism. The population has been very tolerant so far but if he relaxes too early and then needs a new lockdown in early summer, I can see a real backlash.
My workplace (100 staff) is shut till September, and most of us think it'll be spring 2022 before it partially reopens. I don't know anyone who's had a haircut this year, apart from some home efforts. People round here are still being very careful - many wearing masks on walks, steering long circles around each other (with friendly nods of appreciation), hurrying through supermarkets if they go at all.
The number of people who err on the optimistic side increases with every vaccination that happens. Again anecdotally every single person I have met who has been vaccinated is now less cautious - dangerously so given many only had it done within the last week.
Funnily enough I've been more cautious and risk adverse since having the vaccine as I'd kick myself if I caught it now whilst my immunity is building...
I had mine on Thursday, it was a 30 mile round trip. I could have had it locally next weekend... but it occurred to me that it would be great if 22 days was up on Good Friday and I can be a bit more casual about meeting a few more groups of 6. But apart from going walking with 2 friends on Tuesday I am planning to follow the rules. My support bubble is at their second home in Cornwall at the moment (for work) so I haven't even visited them recently.
"Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 requiring hospital admission from 22 days after the first dose was 100% (0 cases in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group vs 15 cases in the control group), with a lower bound of the one-sided 97·5% CI of 72·2% (appendix p 5)."
On this basis, they should lift all legally binding restrictions 22 days after all the over 50s are vaccinated. Which very roughly is Easter. I just don’t understand at all the rationale for keeping things going all the way to June, it should be a big bang opening in April.
Because even though the hospitalization rate for those younger than 50 is small, it is not zero. And a small fraction of a very big number is still a very big number.
Your thinking has been warped by a year of quite extraordinary measures. The vaccine programme is not stopping at age 50, the seasons are still marching on and the room for the virus to spread gets ever smaller given increasing immunity (both acquired and vaccine). I don’t say it lightly but the pathetic attitude of this article and your own comment makes me angry.
My attitude is pathetic? I thought it was a legitimate concern that the NHS would be overwhelmed by people being sick if the thing was allowed to let rip?
The fraction of under 50s hospitalised with covid is so tiny and the vaccine programme progressing so quickly that there is no danger at all of the nhs being “overwhelmed” if we opened up in April. Don’t forget a growing chunk of even the under 40s have already had one dose.
“we are (not in any way) banning the words 'mother' or 'father'."
Advising Staff against using the words is just as daft
I know this is the Generation Gap thing, but why?
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
Parent and Guardian does not mean the same as Mother and Father.
Indeed, it might be shockingly contentious to say this but absolutely every human alive has a biological mother and father.
But consider who a University might be writing to. The main contexts I can think of are "the adults we should contact when a student has a medical or personal crisis" or "the adults invited to graduation". In those contexts, P+G is more inclusive and accurate than M+F, because it allows for the possibility that a student isn't with their biological parents any more. Which is why schools have used this language for decades.
Now it's possible that there's some secret campaign by the University of Manchester to destroy the nuclear family. The alternative is that the Daily Mail and Toby Young have decided to make a mountain out of something that isn't even a molehill.
“we are (not in any way) banning the words 'mother' or 'father'."
Advising Staff against using the words is just as daft
I know this is the Generation Gap thing, but why?
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
Parent and Guardian does not mean the same as Mother and Father.
Indeed, it might be shockingly contentious to say this but absolutely every human alive has a biological mother and father.
Unless God has been knocking up other women without their consent, again.
"Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 requiring hospital admission from 22 days after the first dose was 100% (0 cases in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group vs 15 cases in the control group), with a lower bound of the one-sided 97·5% CI of 72·2% (appendix p 5)."
On this basis, they should lift all legally binding restrictions 22 days after all the over 50s are vaccinated. Which very roughly is Easter. I just don’t understand at all the rationale for keeping things going all the way to June, it should be a big bang opening in April.
Because even though the hospitalization rate for those younger than 50 is small, it is not zero. And a small fraction of a very big number is still a very big number.
Your thinking has been warped by a year of quite extraordinary measures. The vaccine programme is not stopping at age 50, the seasons are still marching on and the room for the virus to spread gets ever smaller given increasing immunity (both acquired and vaccine). I don’t say it lightly but the pathetic attitude of this article and your own comment makes me angry.
My attitude is pathetic? I thought it was a legitimate concern that the NHS would be overwhelmed by people being sick if the thing was allowed to let rip?
The fraction of under 50s hospitalised with covid is so tiny and the vaccine programme progressing so quickly that there is no danger at all of the nhs being “overwhelmed” if we opened up in April. Don’t forget a growing chunk of even the under 40s have already had one dose.
What analysis is this based on, or is it just a gut feeling?
"Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 requiring hospital admission from 22 days after the first dose was 100% (0 cases in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group vs 15 cases in the control group), with a lower bound of the one-sided 97·5% CI of 72·2% (appendix p 5)."
Yep, and from Table 2, efficacy 22 days after first dose was 76% against symptomatic infection.
Have to say, it is not the best or clearest written set of conclusions I have ever read.
Quite! Far from Oxford's finest publication, I must say.
Still, I'm glad that the vaccine turned out so well, in spite of the semi-bungled study.
“we are (not in any way) banning the words 'mother' or 'father'."
Advising Staff against using the words is just as daft
I know this is the Generation Gap thing, but why?
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
Parent and Guardian does not mean the same as Mother and Father.
Indeed, it might be shockingly contentious to say this but absolutely every human alive has a biological mother and father.
“we are (not in any way) banning the words 'mother' or 'father'."
Advising Staff against using the words is just as daft
I know this is the Generation Gap thing, but why?
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
Parent and Guardian does not mean the same as Mother and Father.
Indeed, it might be shockingly contentious to say this but absolutely every human alive has a biological mother and father.
Unless God has been knocking up other women without their consent, again.
“we are (not in any way) banning the words 'mother' or 'father'."
Advising Staff against using the words is just as daft
I know this is the Generation Gap thing, but why?
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
Parent and Guardian does not mean the same as Mother and Father.
Indeed, it might be shockingly contentious to say this but absolutely every human alive has a biological mother and father.
Unless God has been knocking up other women without their consent, again.
Since we seem to be sharing our personal vaccine news thought I'd share mine. Got my first dose this morning (Astra Zenica). I'm Group 6 (Unpaid Carer) in Swansea County. Feeling fine so far!
“we are (not in any way) banning the words 'mother' or 'father'."
Advising Staff against using the words is just as daft
I know this is the Generation Gap thing, but why?
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
Parent and Guardian does not mean the same as Mother and Father.
Indeed, it might be shockingly contentious to say this but absolutely every human alive has a biological mother and father.
But consider who a University might be writing to. The main contexts I can think of are "the adults we should contact when a student has a medical or personal crisis" or "the adults invited to graduation". In those contexts, P+G is more inclusive and accurate than M+F, because it allows for the possibility that a student isn't with their biological parents any more. Which is why schools have used this language for decades.
Now it's possible that there's some secret campaign by the University of Manchester to destroy the nuclear family. The alternative is that the Daily Mail and Toby Young have decided to make a mountain out of something that isn't even a molehill.
I know which one I would bet on.
I don't remember any contact from my kids' school which didn't begin with "Dear Parent or Guardian," And that's been the case for 15 years.
Since we seem to be sharing our personal vaccine news thought I'd share mine. Got my first dose this morning (Astra Zenica). I'm Group 6 (Unpaid Carer) in Swansea County. Feeling fine so far!
Hurrah!
Last PBer to get vaccinated has to pay for a round at the next PB meet.
“we are (not in any way) banning the words 'mother' or 'father'."
Advising Staff against using the words is just as daft
I know this is the Generation Gap thing, but why?
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
Parent and Guardian does not mean the same as Mother and Father.
Indeed, it might be shockingly contentious to say this but absolutely every human alive has a biological mother and father.
Before radical feminists got demonised as “TERFS” making the same point was commonplace. You would see similar sentiments on banners during “Reclaim the Night” marches that were organised as a reaction to exactly the same “women stay off the street” message. I have no doubt that Jenny Jones went on such marches when younger. In fact I remember first reading such RadFem literature in her leader, Sian Berry’s, living room at Trinity in the Nineties, while smoking spliffs and playing Sonic the Hedgehog on her Sega Megadrive.
First you were at school with Milo Yiannopoulos, then at college with Sian Berry? D'you suppose it was exposure to proto-Trumpists and eco-warriors in your youth that set you firmly down the path of centrist-dad-dom?
Now that I think about it, did saving cute animals from the terrors of encroaching mechanization in Sonic help shape her Green [Hill Zone] politics? Hmmm....
I checked and it turns out Milo couldn’t have overlapped with me at the Langton, he’s 10 years younger than me.
That view of Eastern Europe before the war is fascinating. A world we lost afterwards that never really came back.
Yep. Hitler pretty conclusively won his tussle with Hindenburg (assume that's Hindenburg in the image) shortly afterwards, insofar as there was much of a tussle.
Incorrect. Hitler lost his tussle with Hindenburg in an absolute landslide in 1932.
I think you are confusing it with the events just prior to Hindenburg’s death in 1934 - while he was still in office and 86 years old - when Hitler shot all his intraparty rivals and several others, to ensure there would be no opposition to his combining the role of President and Chancellor under the new title ‘Fuhrer.’
Which is fine for us given all of our vaccines are approved by the EMA.
You are assuming we have EU vaccine passports.
Although I am inclined to think that distinctions like that may undermine the scheme.
We don't have EU vaccine passports because we aren't in the EU. Not sure if you somehow missed that news.
And I don't really understand your surprise that the EU only recognises EMA approved vaccinations. Why would you recognise as effective a vaccine that your regulatory authorities hadn't assessed as effective? You might add one or two at a later date (where they'd not filed in your jurisdiction due to focusing on others but where there is compelling evidence of effectiveness). But you're not just going to wave people through on the basis that the Chinese government has shoved something in someone's arm that they claim works.
How is this going to work for countries within the EU using Sputnik (or a Chinese vaccine) on the side? Are the EU going to insist they are all re-done with approved vaccines?
Or the EMA could license them in due course.
I can see that happening with Sputnik, but I'm not so sure about SinoPharm.
Sputnik is very effective, but I think they haven't sought approval in the EU.
It should be effective, having made good use of all the British cash invested into Oxford and AZ.
“we are (not in any way) banning the words 'mother' or 'father'."
Advising Staff against using the words is just as daft
I know this is the Generation Gap thing, but why?
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
Parent and Guardian does not mean the same as Mother and Father.
Indeed, it might be shockingly contentious to say this but absolutely every human alive has a biological mother and father.
For now. But if we always cling to the old ways nothing changes.
That’s why I don’t get the criticism of Swinson stating that she was going to be the next PM. Certainly no-one believed her but I think the 2010 Clegg-gasm got punctured when he limited his public sights to propping up either Brown or Cameron.
As an aside, the WA results remind me of the 1994 results in Sutton. That was a great night but you had to feel for the Conservative Group leader who lost her seat and saw Labour become the official Opposition.
Looking further back, the Cheam West by-election in July 1968 has always intrigued me - the Conservative won 909 votes or 97.8% of the vote. The Labour candidate got 20 votes or 2.2% on a turnout just shy of 18%. In 1990, the LDs captured Cheam West from the Conservatives - one of the defeated Conservative candidates was Christopher Heaton-Harris who is now MP for Daventry and Railways Minister.
Comments
https://twitter.com/NormanHermant/status/1370723511044481027
This isn’t one of them.
Although I am inclined to think that distinctions like that may undermine the scheme.
That's a very common pattern for US Presidents, Nixon and LBJ being partial exceptions (they recovered a little from their nadirs but Nixon's retrospective rating remains prettty terrible and Johnson's is mixed).
There's a slightly misty eyed view of the past, and it also suddenly becomes much easier after office to avoid sticky issues and associate yourself with positive things.
One has to wonder how far that will operate with Trump given his continued interest in playing a very active role, and the fact he was embroiled in an attempted coup at the end of it all.
Unfortunately, they don`t either.
Normally passports aren't shown at Shengen borders aiui.
I am a bit bemused how Wales seems to have unlimited supply, while the other parts of the UK seems to be restricted by supply issues.
Thanks, as always, for your Saturday piece, @david_herdson.
I presume the basis behind the roadmap is the three weeks to allow the first dose to take full effect. The problem may be if the messaging is getting through that once you've had one vaccination you are invincible and can go back to a full pre-Covid life immediately.
As we know it can take up to 21 days to achieve a highly respectable level of immunity, there's a sound basis for maintaining the current lockdown to prevent the newly vaccinated rushing off to get a haircut or go down the pub or whatever. It's frustrating and I understand this but even though I had my first vaccination yesterday, I'm not going to do anything different this side of Easter.
The limited re-openings of the end of the month notwithstanding, I'm not convinced a pub garden at a cold Easter is where I want to be,
By April 12th, a much larger number will be 21 days or more after their first vaccination - I'm going to be one of them. A greater number of more protected people should ensure the phased re-opening of society and the economy occurs and as more people get their first and eventually second dose the better.
I'm rarely a supporter of the Government but on this occasion the roadmap looks sensible. I don't quite share David's caution but the political key to this is we cannot go back - this roadmap is more of a one-way street. True, if a vaccine-resistant variant emerges at a future date, appropriate measures will need to be taken but a growing number of immunised individuals should ensure a safe return from mid June.
I don't see Johnson wanting or needing to sacrifice what looks a sensible and coherent schedule on the altar of economic expediency or the febrile desire of some to get back to "normal".
And I don't really understand your surprise that the EU only recognises EMA approved vaccinations. Why would you recognise as effective a vaccine that your regulatory authorities hadn't assessed as effective? You might add one or two at a later date (where they'd not filed in your jurisdiction due to focusing on others but where there is compelling evidence of effectiveness). But you're not just going to wave people through on the basis that the Chinese government has shoved something in someone's arm that they claim works.
If it weren't for Trump this cleaving towards incumbency would be blindingly obvious to all.
Explains, for me, the consistent Tory leads.
https://twitter.com/moylato/status/1370693583137816581?s=20
https://twitter.com/timspector/status/1370728061788958722?s=19
Is the factory in Wales?
The biggest issue now is getting the second doses and trying to get down the ages for first doses. But we are very much moving from protecting the NHS to saving individual lives.
From the body of the article -
"Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 requiring hospital admission from 22 days after the first dose was 100% (0 cases in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 group vs 15 cases in the control group), with a lower bound of the one-sided 97·5% CI of 72·2% (appendix p 5)."
Second, I'm left with the perception on here there are a number who wish to erase the Covid experience from their minds completely - to pretend it never happened and to go back to exactly the life they were living in February 2020.
OTOH, there are those for whom it has been a revelatory experience - I've heard a number of colleagues say how much their admiration for the work of teachers has grown while one former colleague decided the life of work wasn't for her and she quit to become an artist. The last year has given me a chance to reflect and consider my life priorities - I think where I'm getting to is for all the pain, fear and the loss of thousands of people, for some Covid has been a positive experience.
Having some time to think about what's important is never a bad thing.
Using "Parents and Guardians" instead of "Mothers and Father's" doesn't cost anyone anything, and is a little bit kinder to the small number of people who are included by one but excluded by the other.
Nothing is being enforced or banned, but it's just good manners.
Also smaller places. Gibraltar is now at 50% with 2 doses.
And Wales is very approx halfway on a population log scale between Gibraltar and England.
Now we are assuming vaccinations have changed the equation. We are relying on vaccination making non-medical interventions redundant. If so, the issue is moot because case rates will head to zero of their own accord.
I would feel a lot more comfortable if someone stood up and said, we're out of the woods, Vaccinations mean that we will never need any non-medical interventions again and this is this basis for our confidence.
We have a government that has made multiple assumptions on things including Covid and Brexit that turned out catastrophically false. I don't have a huge amount of trust, frankly,
https://twitter.com/BenQuinn75/status/1370731875698872322
Spain 2019 (even before lockdown abuse and killings rocketed)
'Feminist emergency' declared in Spain after summer of violence
Demonstrations across the country come after 19 women were killed by their partners
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/20/mass-protests-in-spain-after-19-women-murdered-by-partners
Poland
Council of Europe 'alarmed' at Poland's plans to leave domestic violence treaty
Rights body condemns move to withdraw from treaty aimed at stopping violence against women
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/26/poland-withdraw-from-treaty-violence-against-women-istanbul-convention
Ireland
Gardaí receive 30% more reports of domestic violence in December
Women’s charities say the figures show a need for more refuge spaces
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/gardaí-receive-30-more-reports-of-domestic-violence-in-december-1.4126882
it would be helpful to have examples of what, for the west, would count as both unchilled and as a set of policies providing a solution to whatever you think the soluble problem is.
Many problems don't have solutions, and when they don't being chilled may be the best we can do. Is this one of them?
Western Australia I thought was quite conservative and old school.
Doesn't strike me as a left-wing stronghold aka Liverpool.
Have to say, it is not the best or clearest written set of conclusions I have ever read.
Now that I think about it, did saving cute animals from the terrors of encroaching mechanization in Sonic help shape her Green [Hill Zone] politics? Hmmm....
I suspect as we saw last July once the lockdown formally ended people exercised a bit of caution and didn't go back to the way things were straight away.
Unlike last year I'm a very optimistic, the vaccines work, we'll have fully immunised our most vulnerable by June 21st, heck I'm getting my second dose at the end of April.
I'm really looking forward to whoring roaring 20s.
Liberal leader Zac Kirkup probably didn't do himself any favours with this:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-25/wa-liberal-leader-zak-kirkup-concedes-he-cant-win-election/13190946
Conceding after the polls close is one thing but conceding two weeks in advance never sends a strong message to your supporters. Kirkup himself has lost his own seat which the Liberals have held since 1966. To be fair, Kirkup only became leader 4 months ago.
Some of the swings being recorded by Labor are into double figures but it's early days and a lot of votes still to be counted but it looks a disastrous night for the Liberals.
What I got from it -
- 22 days first dose, 76% efficacy against infection
- 22 days after first dose, no hospitalisations (pretty much)
- too few deaths to present results, but zero in the vaccinated arm
I agree on the presentation of results. Why not put what I have just written?
*Tended I suppose. But it looks like junior parkrun is coming back on 11 April and the 5k version hopefully in June.
The 1920s was also a time of hyper inflation -are you looking forward to buying a wheelbarrow to carry round your cash - you'll need a wheelbarrow of cash to pay for the new wheelbarrow of course?
If all people want to do is dance, drink and forget, that's their right. I'd rather draw some other lessons from all this.
Hitler pretty conclusively won his tussle with Hindenburg (assume that's Hindenburg in the image) shortly afterwards, insofar as there was much of a tussle.
I don't think we know yet what the preponderance of those who have been vaccinated are but my gut feel is that although there have been sharp falls in those groups with high vaccination rates it is probably not as sharp as it would have been if there was a complete barrier to transmission. So, if I was putting money on it I would bet we will end up living with this virus as a background noise. But we shall see.
Now it's possible that there's some secret campaign by the University of Manchester to destroy the nuclear family. The alternative is that the Daily Mail and Toby Young have decided to make a mountain out of something that isn't even a molehill.
I know which one I would bet on.
Still, I'm glad that the vaccine turned out so well, in spite of the semi-bungled study.
--AS
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/02/17/gay-throuple-parents-three-dads-and-a-baby/
Made me smile anyway
"Dear Parent or Guardian,"
And that's been the case for 15 years.
Last PBer to get vaccinated has to pay for a round at the next PB meet.
Kick off out of bounds.
Get bollocked in the under 15's for that.
And rightly so.
#YearsOfVerbalAbuseFromWelshHasConsequences
Never thought I'd hear language like that on daytime ITV.
I think you are confusing it with the events just prior to Hindenburg’s death in 1934 - while he was still in office and 86 years old - when Hitler shot all his intraparty rivals and several others, to ensure there would be no opposition to his combining the role of President and Chancellor under the new title ‘Fuhrer.’
Probably just a great marketing exercise for smack.
10-0 And 14 men after 12 minutes.
Time for a stroll I reckon.
Looking further back, the Cheam West by-election in July 1968 has always intrigued me - the Conservative won 909 votes or 97.8% of the vote. The Labour candidate got 20 votes or 2.2% on a turnout just shy of 18%. In 1990, the LDs captured Cheam West from the Conservatives - one of the defeated Conservative candidates was Christopher Heaton-Harris who is now MP for Daventry and Railways Minister.