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The Future Now – the biggest impact of COVID – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited February 2021 in General
imageThe Future Now – the biggest impact of COVID – politicalbetting.com

It’s always hard to know how the future will judge the present. Events which utterly dominated government policy and public discourse can be forgotten in a matter of years. Other events were passed by almost unnoticed at the time, and yet – in retrospect – seem incredibly important.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited February 2021
    Leon said:

    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People faxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?
    Whatever happens, we aren't getting rid of restrictions this year. There will be no return to mass gatherings like gigs.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240
    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240
    Ah, I see Francis already replied. So you get it twice. You’re welcome
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    fpt

    I don't think there is a grand conspiracy about lockdown but I do think, as I have said from March, that government by Chief Medical Officer is not something I approve of.

    Equally, if you have a press conference every day at 5pm with the PM and CMO and Head of the NHS about, say, smoking, or mountaineering, or 3-day eventing, you will pretty soon end up with a ban on those activities.

    The only relevant criteria are hospitalisations and deaths. The lockdowns were, depending on the govt's particular PR aim, to protect the NHS and/or to save lives. If hospitalisations decrease to the point whereby we are not facing a "crisis" and there is a reduced or no danger of hospitals being overwhelmed, the lockdowns should end.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240
    edited February 2021
    ‘In the future, Covid will be mentioned in passing, and only when describing the extraordinary story of how we conquered virus and cancers.’

    I’m sorry, but this is utter drivel


    ‘In the future, World War 2 will only be mentioned in passing, and only when describing the extraordinary story of how we harnessed nuclear power for weapons and energy’ - is the exact equivalent
  • Leon said:

    Ah, I see Francis already replied. So you get it twice. You’re welcome

    At the moment, the rate of reinfection is about 0.7%....sounds like Saffers COVID is basically 100%.
  • Leon said:

    Ah, I see Francis already replied. So you get it twice. You’re welcome

    With a bit of luck, mildly the second time. It's not just anti-body (reasonably specific) immunity you get - but also T-cell.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited February 2021
    Hopefully the media will now shut up about foreign holidays this year. With Saffers Covid, we ain't going on them....

    Unfortunately darling, you are going to have to go with that dreadful £20k a week cottage in the Cotswolds.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
  • ozymandiasozymandias Posts: 1,503
    TOPPING said:

    fpt

    I don't think there is a grand conspiracy about lockdown but I do think, as I have said from March, that government by Chief Medical Officer is not something I approve of.

    Equally, if you have a press conference every day at 5pm with the PM and CMO and Head of the NHS about, say, smoking, or mountaineering, or 3-day eventing, you will pretty soon end up with a ban on those activities.

    The only relevant criteria are hospitalisations and deaths. The lockdowns were, depending on the govt's particular PR aim, to protect the NHS and/or to save lives. If hospitalisations decrease to the point whereby we are not facing a "crisis" and there is a reduced or no danger of hospitals being overwhelmed, the lockdowns should end.

    This. This is the solution. There can be no other way. We cannot and never will prevent people from dying. That is the uncomfortable but indisputable truth. As long as our hospitals can manage then normal life must
    resume. Those that want to isolate can. In the meantime the rest of the world gets on with things.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited February 2021

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    Was a bit disappointed to hear that Oxford were saying autumn before the update comes out.

    There really shouldn't be any reason why the likes of Pfizer would take that long, it is literally the equivalent of changing a few lines of programming code.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Leon said:

    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?
    We've already got booster shots for it on the way and daily capacity to vaccinate 1m people per day.

    We also have a long term bet with Valneva and CureVac.

    We're also investing in world leading mutation busting modelling to predict viral evolutionary pathways so that future vaccines are one step ahead of the game.

    What this means is that the government needs to get serious about border controls. Have a completely open economy and I'd also suggest a two island approach with Ireland. Once we've got the infrastructure in place to rapidly immunise people to variants with CureVac we can begin to roll out vaccine passports for overseas travel.
  • GaussianGaussian Posts: 793
    Cases in Scotland seem to have stopped falling, particularly in areas like Edinburgh that have got down to fairly low numbers around 60 or 70 per week per 100,000, but appear to be stuck there now.

    Maybe lockdown adherence is slipping, or maybe it's now just circulating among people who do still have to go out. Either way, it's not good news for the partial primary school reopening planned in two weeks.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    For evidence of people trying to discredit the government's vaccine program, we need look no further than this thread.

    To whit, Leon and Francis Urquhart.

    Leon is particular seems keen to sow discord, panic and fear. Very keen.

  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    Was a bit disappointed to hear that Oxford were saying autumn before the update comes out.

    There really shouldn't be any reason why the likes of Pfizer would take that long, it is literally the equivalent of changing a few lines of programming code.
    They may need to also edit the vector.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?
    We've already got booster shots for it on the way and daily capacity to vaccinate 1m people per day.

    We also have a long term bet with Valneva and CureVac.

    We're also investing in world leading mutation busting modelling to predict viral evolutionary pathways so that future vaccines are one step ahead of the game.

    What this means is that the government needs to get serious about border controls. Have a completely open economy and I'd also suggest a two island approach with Ireland. Once we've got the infrastructure in place to rapidly immunise people to variants with CureVac we can begin to roll out vaccine passports for overseas travel.
    We seem to be incapable of proper border control, probably because they know it will decimate the UK economy. And sure, booster shots and vaccine tweaks are coming, but not for months. Autumn?

    In that light we could be in for a third wave. Or lockdown til Autumn.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,256
    On topic: Nice header, Robert. I agree completely. mRNA vaccines are huge and Covid was the thing needed to unleash the funding to actually develop and deliver them on a large scale. Not a new idea, but then neither were many of the things pushed by (e.g.) war from research to reality.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    The government should state clearly and firmly that it is not in the business of maintaining destructive lockdowns just to prevent people getting nasty colds.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    You know your shit on this topic, so I always read you carefully. But I’m not sure your first claim is absolutely true. We just don’t know
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?
    We've already got booster shots for it on the way and daily capacity to vaccinate 1m people per day.

    We also have a long term bet with Valneva and CureVac.

    We're also investing in world leading mutation busting modelling to predict viral evolutionary pathways so that future vaccines are one step ahead of the game.

    What this means is that the government needs to get serious about border controls. Have a completely open economy and I'd also suggest a two island approach with Ireland. Once we've got the infrastructure in place to rapidly immunise people to variants with CureVac we can begin to roll out vaccine passports for overseas travel.
    We seem to be incapable of proper border control, probably because they know it will decimate the UK economy. And sure, booster shots and vaccine tweaks are coming, but not for months. Autumn?

    In that light we could be in for a third wave. Or lockdown til Autumn.
    My dear fellow, one could almost imagine your attempts to stir up discord were deliberate. Very deliberate.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?
    We've already got booster shots for it on the way and daily capacity to vaccinate 1m people per day.

    We also have a long term bet with Valneva and CureVac.

    We're also investing in world leading mutation busting modelling to predict viral evolutionary pathways so that future vaccines are one step ahead of the game.

    What this means is that the government needs to get serious about border controls. Have a completely open economy and I'd also suggest a two island approach with Ireland. Once we've got the infrastructure in place to rapidly immunise people to variants with CureVac we can begin to roll out vaccine passports for overseas travel.
    We seem to be incapable of proper border control, probably because they know it will decimate the UK economy. And sure, booster shots and vaccine tweaks are coming, but not for months. Autumn?

    In that light we could be in for a third wave. Or lockdown til Autumn.
    My dear fellow, one could almost imagine your attempts to stir up discord were deliberate. Very deliberate.
    I want lockdown over TOMORROW. I have very close friends and family who are now cracking up. This latest lockdown is hellish, for many. It is destroying our economy and our capital city.

    I hate it. But this bug is what it is
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    For evidence of people trying to discredit the government's vaccine program, we need look no further than this thread.

    To whit, Leon and Francis Urquhart.

    Leon is particular seems keen to sow discord, panic and fear. Very keen.

    To wit.

    I thought you approved of that, or is the complaint he is invading your territory?

    And surely Sage and the government were always going to sabotage the vaccine anyway, if it hadn't turned out to be shit to start with, in order to engineer Lockdown Without End?
  • Elon Musk's car firm Tesla has said it bought about $1.5bn (£1.1bn) of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin in January and expects to start accepting it as payment in future.

    BBC News - Elon Musk's Tesla buys $1.5bn of Bitcoin causing currency to spike
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55939972
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    Impeccably timed header as bear was starting to land a few in its perennial battle with bull.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240
    edited February 2021
    Interesting and (sorry contrarian) slightly depressing Sky report on the variants. It does not despair, however

    https://apple.news/AgK0kIc-XSbOCK4lZEnr8EQ
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    It’s a setback, but you are probably going too far.
    • The sample size in the new study was small. Of 1749 participants, 42 got sick, of whom 19 had the vaccine and 23 had a placebo, producing an efficacy figure of just 22 per cent.
    • However, no one became severely ill or died.
    • That is partly because participants were young – average age 31 – but also because while the vaccine doesn’t appear to prompt a significant immune response in the form of antibodies specific to 501Y.V2, it does still boost a broader immune response in the form of T cells. That also appears to be true of reinfection.
    • So AstraZeneca believes its vaccine still offers protection against serious illness and death from the variant. The same, with respect to T-Cells, will likely be true of reinfection.
    • In any case, South Africa has shipments of the Pfizer, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson vaccines on order, and all appear to provide protection against the variant, including among over 65s.o.
    Finally, if you want some good news from South Africa, look at their case numbers and mortality over the last six weeks. Dropping like a rock.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    edited February 2021
    Johnson is refusing to rule out a lockdown extension.

    Panicky Hancock presser at 5...

    Over a week-end, we are now almost at the post vaccine lockdown stage.

    So...about those pubs....
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Leon said:

    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People faxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?
    Whatever happens, we aren't getting rid of restrictions this year. There will be no return to mass gatherings like gigs.
    The only way the UK has gigs in the summer, is if the border gets shut now and the new SA strain is eliminated.
  • Leon said:

    ‘In the future, Covid will be mentioned in passing, and only when describing the extraordinary story of how we conquered virus and cancers.’

    I’m sorry, but this is utter drivel


    ‘In the future, World War 2 will only be mentioned in passing, and only when describing the extraordinary story of how we harnessed nuclear power for weapons and energy’ - is the exact equivalent

    I don't have any idea how the future will regard Covid, but for some perspective WW2 directly caused the deaths of around 3% of the world's population. Covid is likely to top out at somewhere around 0.05% of the world's population. Still utterly horrible but in no way comparable in the way you would like it to be.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240
    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    It’s a setback, but you are probably going too far.
    • The sample size in the new study was small. Of 1749 participants, 42 got sick, of whom 19 had the vaccine and 23 had a placebo, producing an efficacy figure of just 22 per cent.
    • However, no one became severely ill or died.
    • That is partly because participants were young – average age 31 – but also because while the vaccine doesn’t appear to prompt a significant immune response in the form of antibodies specific to 501Y.V2, it does still boost a broader immune response in the form of T cells. That also appears to be true of reinfection.
    • So AstraZeneca believes its vaccine still offers protection against serious illness and death from the variant. The same, with respect to T-Cells, will likely be true of reinfection.
    • In any case, South Africa has shipments of the Pfizer, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson vaccines on order, and all appear to provide protection against the variant, including among over 65s.o.
    Finally, if you want some good news from South Africa, look at their case numbers and mortality over the last six weeks. Dropping like a rock.
    Yes, the drop in cases and deaths in SA is encouraging. No one seems entirely sure why. Herd immunity in townships has been posited. Tho I also note the SA health minister is warning of a third wave

    https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/465684/south-africa-must-prepare-for-a-possible-third-covid-19-wave-mkhize/
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Elon Musk's car firm Tesla has said it bought about $1.5bn (£1.1bn) of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin in January and expects to start accepting it as payment in future.

    BBC News - Elon Musk's Tesla buys $1.5bn of Bitcoin causing currency to spike
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55939972

    That’s totally nuts, Musk is playing with fire here, given he’s already been slapped by the SEC in the US for Tweeting bollocks.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    IshmaelZ said:

    For evidence of people trying to discredit the government's vaccine program, we need look no further than this thread.

    To whit, Leon and Francis Urquhart.

    Leon is particular seems keen to sow discord, panic and fear. Very keen.

    To wit.

    I thought you approved of that, or is the complaint he is invading your territory?

    And surely Sage and the government were always going to sabotage the vaccine anyway, if it hadn't turned out to be shit to start with, in order to engineer Lockdown Without End?
    That's your conspiracy theory, not mine. You own it.

    Its clear though, that, as far as coming out of lockdown is concerned, we are getting to a situation where all bets are off.

    There won;t be a roadmap on 22 February, schools may well not go back on 8 March and we won;t be having a great summer.

    What are the reasons?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Scott_xP said:

    Dear EU

    We neither read nor understood the deal we signed.

    Again.

    Yours, BoZo and chums.
    I bet all those shellfisherpeople voted for Brexit as well.

    Fuck em.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    You know your shit on this topic, so I always read you carefully. But I’m not sure your first claim is absolutely true. We just don’t know
    We do know the Novavax and J&J ones are true for that. And that while the AZ one wasn't investigated for that in this (statistically very underpowered) SA study, it uses very similar technology with very similar immunogenic outcomes.

    If we have to, we re-jab with Novavax and J&J. But we shouldn't have to.
  • Leon said:

    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    It’s a setback, but you are probably going too far.
    • The sample size in the new study was small. Of 1749 participants, 42 got sick, of whom 19 had the vaccine and 23 had a placebo, producing an efficacy figure of just 22 per cent.
    • However, no one became severely ill or died.
    • That is partly because participants were young – average age 31 – but also because while the vaccine doesn’t appear to prompt a significant immune response in the form of antibodies specific to 501Y.V2, it does still boost a broader immune response in the form of T cells. That also appears to be true of reinfection.
    • So AstraZeneca believes its vaccine still offers protection against serious illness and death from the variant. The same, with respect to T-Cells, will likely be true of reinfection.
    • In any case, South Africa has shipments of the Pfizer, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson vaccines on order, and all appear to provide protection against the variant, including among over 65s.o.
    Finally, if you want some good news from South Africa, look at their case numbers and mortality over the last six weeks. Dropping like a rock.
    Yes, the drop in cases and deaths in SA is encouraging. No one seems entirely sure why. Herd immunity in townships has been posited. Tho I also note the SA health minister is warning of a third wave

    https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/465684/south-africa-must-prepare-for-a-possible-third-covid-19-wave-mkhize/
    Well herd immunity seems to have completely failed in Brazil in spite of the fact it was shown that up to 70% of the population of some towns had been infected. I am not sure what is going on in South Africa but I am not sure we can necessarily ascribe it to herd immunity.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    For evidence of people trying to discredit the government's vaccine program, we need look no further than this thread.

    To whit, Leon and Francis Urquhart.

    Leon is particular seems keen to sow discord, panic and fear. Very keen.

    To wit.

    I thought you approved of that, or is the complaint he is invading your territory?

    And surely Sage and the government were always going to sabotage the vaccine anyway, if it hadn't turned out to be shit to start with, in order to engineer Lockdown Without End?
    That's your conspiracy theory, not mine. You own it.

    Its clear though, that, as far as coming out of lockdown is concerned, we are getting to a situation where all bets are off.

    There won;t be a roadmap on 22 February, schools may well not go back on 8 March and we won;t be having a great summer.

    What are the reasons?
    The spread of the SA virus and the relative inefficacy of the vaccine. This is not difficult or controversial stuff. Nobody likes it, but pretending it ain't so gets you nowhere.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Elon Musk's car firm Tesla has said it bought about $1.5bn (£1.1bn) of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin in January and expects to start accepting it as payment in future.

    BBC News - Elon Musk's Tesla buys $1.5bn of Bitcoin causing currency to spike
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55939972

    Just in time for the Tether investigation to tank Bitcoin.

    Impecable timing.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?
    We've already got booster shots for it on the way and daily capacity to vaccinate 1m people per day.

    We also have a long term bet with Valneva and CureVac.

    We're also investing in world leading mutation busting modelling to predict viral evolutionary pathways so that future vaccines are one step ahead of the game.

    What this means is that the government needs to get serious about border controls. Have a completely open economy and I'd also suggest a two island approach with Ireland. Once we've got the infrastructure in place to rapidly immunise people to variants with CureVac we can begin to roll out vaccine passports for overseas travel.
    We seem to be incapable of proper border control, probably because they know it will decimate the UK economy. And sure, booster shots and vaccine tweaks are coming, but not for months. Autumn?

    In that light we could be in for a third wave. Or lockdown til Autumn.
    My dear fellow, one could almost imagine your attempts to stir up discord were deliberate. Very deliberate.
    I want lockdown over TOMORROW. I have very close friends and family who are now cracking up. This latest lockdown is hellish, for many. It is destroying our economy and our capital city.

    I hate it. But this bug is what it is
    I've been wondering about that. I'm enough of a misanthrope to not mind the lack of social contact thing normally, but this lockdown is definitely harder than the first.

    Partly, I suspect it's the fact that it's winter, so it's cold and gloomy, so it isn't as possible to do the going to the park and waving at acquaintances thing. It's also gone on for longer... In London, we've had lockdown in November, a relaxation in early December, then basically lockdown ever since. And some places have had it worse- did Leicester ever get out of its local lockdown? Seems unimaginably long ago.

    But on top of that, there was something heroic about Lockdown 1. The Thursday Claps, people putting rainbows in their windows. The teddy bear trails. This lockdown hasn't had any of that- Clap for Sir Tom didn't really happen, there's no "Thank You Baked Potato". it's just been grey and boring. When I predicted a Puritan Lockdown (you can leave the house for Work or Church, but nothing else), it was in the knowledge that that would be really boring.

    Spring (and the fact that lockdown is doing its job) will help before the vaccine does. But spring will come, and that will help. And mega-capacity testing is there for 2021, which it wasn't in 2020. Spring and summer will be fine, whatever. Hence the key month is September. And the mRNA vaccines are blooming clever. Yay boffins.

    Courage, my flint-knapper.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    For evidence of people trying to discredit the government's vaccine program, we need look no further than this thread.

    To whit, Leon and Francis Urquhart.

    Leon is particular seems keen to sow discord, panic and fear. Very keen.

    To wit.

    I thought you approved of that, or is the complaint he is invading your territory?

    And surely Sage and the government were always going to sabotage the vaccine anyway, if it hadn't turned out to be shit to start with, in order to engineer Lockdown Without End?
    That's your conspiracy theory, not mine. You own it.

    Its clear though, that, as far as coming out of lockdown is concerned, we are getting to a situation where all bets are off.

    There won;t be a roadmap on 22 February, schools may well not go back on 8 March and we won;t be having a great summer.

    What are the reasons?
    The spread of the SA virus and the relative inefficacy of the vaccine. This is not difficult or controversial stuff. Nobody likes it, but pretending it ain't so gets you nowhere.
    Ishmael will there ever, ever be a reason, ever, that you will disbelieve for accepting lockdown, ever? Is there ever a point at which you will say Nah, not accepting that, I'll take my chances and take my freedoms back.

  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,140

    Scott_xP said:

    Dear EU

    We neither read nor understood the deal we signed.

    Again.

    Yours, BoZo and chums.
    I bet all those shellfisherpeople voted for Brexit as well.

    Fuck em.
    Don't think that is wholly fair. There was quite an ambivalent attitude to Brexit amongst the inshore fishing industry in Scotland, and real worries were being expressed as I recall. Much more likely to be worried, for obvious reasons, than the big trawler barons so loved by Messrs/Mdmes Hoey, Farage, Gove etc who can relocate/sell their catch within the EU.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240

    Leon said:

    ‘In the future, Covid will be mentioned in passing, and only when describing the extraordinary story of how we conquered virus and cancers.’

    I’m sorry, but this is utter drivel


    ‘In the future, World War 2 will only be mentioned in passing, and only when describing the extraordinary story of how we harnessed nuclear power for weapons and energy’ - is the exact equivalent

    I don't have any idea how the future will regard Covid, but for some perspective WW2 directly caused the deaths of around 3% of the world's population. Covid is likely to top out at somewhere around 0.05% of the world's population. Still utterly horrible but in no way comparable in the way you would like it to be.
    Don’t be a twit, I don’t WANT it to be like WW2, and nor is it.. I’m just pointing out that Robert’s point is ludicrous. We won’t ‘forget about Covid’ or ‘only remember it in passing when talking about the great science it produced’

    Terrible human disasters often produce great science. That’s how we react to them. That doesn’t mean we forget the disasters, and the pain and horror that came with.

    Covid is going to be a collective scar on humanity for a generation, and it ain’t over yet.

    We will TRY and forget it, we will want to talk about anything but, as the memory will be so painful. But it will be there, lurking.

    The economic and psychological aftershocks of lockdown alone will last for years.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,611
    Leon:

    Why don't you read the bloody research before smearing your doom porn over what is (otherwise) a (mostly) intellectual and interesting forum?

    –––

    However, in good news, the Novavax vaccine could still protect against the South African variant, although the efficacy dropped from 95% (against the original strain) to 60% against the South African variant (49% if people living with HIV were included).

    While vaccine efficacy against mild-to-moderate disease has taken a hit with regard to the South African variant, it's expected vaccine efficacy will fare better against severe disease.

    This was true for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

    The Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses similar technology to AstraZeneca, and the immune response induced by these two vaccines is similar.

    For that reason, the AstraZeneca vaccine may well retain good efficacy against severe disease.

    Antibodies aren't the only thing that's important.

    T-cells likely play a role in preventing severe disease, and there's evidence to suggest the T cell response is not substantially affected with regard to the South African variant.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Investing according to twitter seems to be that if something is going up, it'll definitely go up more.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240

    Leon said:

    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    It’s a setback, but you are probably going too far.
    • The sample size in the new study was small. Of 1749 participants, 42 got sick, of whom 19 had the vaccine and 23 had a placebo, producing an efficacy figure of just 22 per cent.
    • However, no one became severely ill or died.
    • That is partly because participants were young – average age 31 – but also because while the vaccine doesn’t appear to prompt a significant immune response in the form of antibodies specific to 501Y.V2, it does still boost a broader immune response in the form of T cells. That also appears to be true of reinfection.
    • So AstraZeneca believes its vaccine still offers protection against serious illness and death from the variant. The same, with respect to T-Cells, will likely be true of reinfection.
    • In any case, South Africa has shipments of the Pfizer, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson vaccines on order, and all appear to provide protection against the variant, including among over 65s.o.
    Finally, if you want some good news from South Africa, look at their case numbers and mortality over the last six weeks. Dropping like a rock.
    Yes, the drop in cases and deaths in SA is encouraging. No one seems entirely sure why. Herd immunity in townships has been posited. Tho I also note the SA health minister is warning of a third wave

    https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/465684/south-africa-must-prepare-for-a-possible-third-covid-19-wave-mkhize/
    Well herd immunity seems to have completely failed in Brazil in spite of the fact it was shown that up to 70% of the population of some towns had been infected. I am not sure what is going on in South Africa but I am not sure we can necessarily ascribe it to herd immunity.
    In Manaus it looks like they DID reach herd immunity, but then along came a new variant so they all got reinfected. At least, that is one theory I’ve read. It is at least as plausible as any, although somewhat dismaying.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240

    Leon:

    Why don't you read the bloody research before smearing your doom porn over what is (otherwise) a (mostly) intellectual and interesting forum?

    –––

    However, in good news, the Novavax vaccine could still protect against the South African variant, although the efficacy dropped from 95% (against the original strain) to 60% against the South African variant (49% if people living with HIV were included).

    While vaccine efficacy against mild-to-moderate disease has taken a hit with regard to the South African variant, it's expected vaccine efficacy will fare better against severe disease.

    This was true for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

    The Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses similar technology to AstraZeneca, and the immune response induced by these two vaccines is similar.

    For that reason, the AstraZeneca vaccine may well retain good efficacy against severe disease.

    Antibodies aren't the only thing that's important.

    T-cells likely play a role in preventing severe disease, and there's evidence to suggest the T cell response is not substantially affected with regard to the South African variant.

    Lol. Given that your entire comment is cut and pasted from a Sky report I already posted downthread, your accusation of doom-porn-mongering seems a bit redundant

    I report the good news and the bad news as I see it, with a dash of opinion. At the moment we are receiving rather bad news, it seems to me, after a run of great news around the vaccines. You are free to disagree
  • GaussianGaussian Posts: 793
    Leon said:

    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    It’s a setback, but you are probably going too far.
    • The sample size in the new study was small. Of 1749 participants, 42 got sick, of whom 19 had the vaccine and 23 had a placebo, producing an efficacy figure of just 22 per cent.
    • However, no one became severely ill or died.
    • That is partly because participants were young – average age 31 – but also because while the vaccine doesn’t appear to prompt a significant immune response in the form of antibodies specific to 501Y.V2, it does still boost a broader immune response in the form of T cells. That also appears to be true of reinfection.
    • So AstraZeneca believes its vaccine still offers protection against serious illness and death from the variant. The same, with respect to T-Cells, will likely be true of reinfection.
    • In any case, South Africa has shipments of the Pfizer, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson vaccines on order, and all appear to provide protection against the variant, including among over 65s.o.
    Finally, if you want some good news from South Africa, look at their case numbers and mortality over the last six weeks. Dropping like a rock.
    Yes, the drop in cases and deaths in SA is encouraging. No one seems entirely sure why. Herd immunity in townships has been posited. Tho I also note the SA health minister is warning of a third wave

    https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/465684/south-africa-must-prepare-for-a-possible-third-covid-19-wave-mkhize/
    There is no mystery about the falling case numbers in South Africa. They started a lockdown at the end of December, and surprise surprise, cases peaked around two weeks later.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,611

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    Spot on Andy, but why let the facts get in the way of some attention-grabbing hysteria from Leon? Cruel of you.
  • When the virus mutates and a new vaccine is manufactured to deal with the new spike or whatever it targets then does that new adjusted vaccine need to go through Phase III and all the other trials again, like the first one did, or can it be used immediately?

    Given that the trials were the time consuming element prior to manufacture, how much time can be saved on new vaccinations?

    Does that differ between mRNA and tradition Oxford style vaccinations?
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,611
    edited February 2021
    TOPPING said:

    fpt

    I don't think there is a grand conspiracy about lockdown but I do think, as I have said from March, that government by Chief Medical Officer is not something I approve of.

    Equally, if you have a press conference every day at 5pm with the PM and CMO and Head of the NHS about, say, smoking, or mountaineering, or 3-day eventing, you will pretty soon end up with a ban on those activities.

    The only relevant criteria are hospitalisations and deaths. The lockdowns were, depending on the govt's particular PR aim, to protect the NHS and/or to save lives. If hospitalisations decrease to the point whereby we are not facing a "crisis" and there is a reduced or no danger of hospitals being overwhelmed, the lockdowns should end.

    Great post. That is certainly true, and would also lead to the end of several other activities beyond those your cite.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    I agree. 2020 will be seen as pivotal. 1914-2020 as a successor to Hobsbawm's Long Century (1789-1914)?
    It's possible. Though I also agree with @Leon's objection. Covid will be seen as the catalyst for changes which were happening already. Here are 3.
    1 The end of American hegemony. Trump will loom large. As a symptom not a cause.
    2 The end of the Thatcher /Reagan economic consensus. It's been struggling since the GFC to find Solutions. Now not many are reaching for its playbook.
    3 We learned to use the Internet properly. Rather like horses became anachronistic after WW2 for all but leisure and entertainment so will all transactions which can be done Online. They'll linger on for a couple of decades, same as horse drawn deliveries did, but will fade away. As will cash.
    Shopping will never be the same again.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited February 2021
    Duplicate.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    You know your shit on this topic, so I always read you carefully. But I’m not sure your first claim is absolutely true. We just don’t know
    We do know the Novavax and J&J ones are true for that. And that while the AZ one wasn't investigated for that in this (statistically very underpowered) SA study, it uses very similar technology with very similar immunogenic outcomes.

    If we have to, we re-jab with Novavax and J&J. But we shouldn't have to.
    My guess is we will be rejabbing, because people will simply demand it. Those who’ve had AZ will want the greater certainty of the MRNA vaccines. Human psychology. And as the UK has ordered hundreds of millions of both types...
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    edited February 2021

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    Spot on Andy, but why let the facts get in the way of some attention-grabbing hysteria from Leon? Cruel of you.
    On this, You Andy and I are as one. How nice.

    A lot of very, very irresponsible stuff in the news today from outlets that should know better. Let's hope the government learns a lesson. Some people do want lockdown to go on for as long as possible, whatever the efficacy.
  • Everything trending down except tests:


  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    edited February 2021
    Robert's quite right to remind us of the very significant silver linings that the pandemic brings with it. Like the world wars or the space race, decades of investment and research have been condensed into a brief period because the crisis created problems that left no option but for them to be solved - war, as a perceptive fellow once pointed out, is a violent teacher. If we're being really optimistic, it's possible to imagine that more lives will soon be saved by these technologies than were lost in the emergency that engendered them; or even that the next pandemic would have been crippling enough to take human civilization down entirely, had this one not given us the weapons to fight it.
  • Johnson is refusing to rule out a lockdown extension.

    Panicky Hancock presser at 5...

    Over a week-end, we are now almost at the post vaccine lockdown stage.

    So...about those pubs....

    WTF are you withering on about today?

    We are not post vaccine by any means of the imagination. Getting the first dose to over 70 year olds is a very good first part of the vaccination process, but it's just under a quarter of the vulnerable doses that need to be done.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    My mental model of what happens, which is very possibly completely wrong because immunology is a strange and complex discipline that causes problems for even those who have studied it for years and I'm just some guy on the internet who has got a layman's idea of what goes on from being curious during this pandemic:

    - Antibodies patrol the bloodstream that are targeted at various viruses. the level of these depends on the level of "risk" your immune system perceives so drops off over time. If a virus that is targeted comes along, these things flock to it and gum up the bit that tries to invade cells (the spike, with coronavirus), making it so it can't even latch on and get to work. This is referred to as "sterilising immunity" and means the virus essentially bounces off.

    - T-cells, in two types, also wander around. These keep going. Some randomly knock on cells "doors" and ask them to show what's inside; if the cell has a "dodgy" thing inside (the T-cell compares with a list it keeps of trophies from previous encounters) it orders the cell to instantly self destruct, and the cell must comply. This is "fighting the virus" when it's around and reduces the level of damage the virus can do if your T-cells are armed with the correct list and patrolling regularly. I visualise grizzled versions of Judge Dredd ("I AM the immunity!")

    - The second type goes scurrying off to B-cells, which are antibody factories, and orders them to start churning out more of those antibodies seen above. This prevents any virus that's already wandering through the system from getting much further.

    All very simplified and quite possibly completely wrong.

    The vaccines power up both the T-cells and get the antibodies going. Because the SA variant has adjusted its spike, the antibodies are less effective at gumming it up, so can still often get through even when they're swamping it. They'll take out some of them, of course, and lower the viral concentration, which will help the T-cells with the level of activity needed.

    The T-cells, however, are still effective, so while the virus doesn't "bounce off" and gets further than hoped, it still runs into the problem of the Judge Dredd T-cells, which make the challenge of getting far enough to cause serious damage so much harder.

    Those who know far more will probably laugh at all that and be able to adjust it to what the real status is.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Robert's quite right to remind us of the very significant silver linings that the pandemic brings with it. Like the world wars or the space race, decades of investment and research have been condensed into a brief period because the crisis created problems that left no option but for them to be solved - war, as a perceptive fellow once pointed out, is a violent teacher. If we're being really optimistic, it's possible to imagine that more lives will soon be saved by these technologies than were lost in the emergency that engendered them; or even that the next pandemic would have been crippling enough to take human civilization down entirely, had this one not given us the weapons to fight it.

    Is the right attitude. Necessity is the mother of invention.

    There's no way we'd have seen mRNA technology so quickly without the pandemic, I'd love to see a Nobel Prize go to the couple at BioNTech.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240
    Gaussian said:

    Leon said:

    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    It’s a setback, but you are probably going too far.
    • The sample size in the new study was small. Of 1749 participants, 42 got sick, of whom 19 had the vaccine and 23 had a placebo, producing an efficacy figure of just 22 per cent.
    • However, no one became severely ill or died.
    • That is partly because participants were young – average age 31 – but also because while the vaccine doesn’t appear to prompt a significant immune response in the form of antibodies specific to 501Y.V2, it does still boost a broader immune response in the form of T cells. That also appears to be true of reinfection.
    • So AstraZeneca believes its vaccine still offers protection against serious illness and death from the variant. The same, with respect to T-Cells, will likely be true of reinfection.
    • In any case, South Africa has shipments of the Pfizer, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson vaccines on order, and all appear to provide protection against the variant, including among over 65s.o.
    Finally, if you want some good news from South Africa, look at their case numbers and mortality over the last six weeks. Dropping like a rock.
    Yes, the drop in cases and deaths in SA is encouraging. No one seems entirely sure why. Herd immunity in townships has been posited. Tho I also note the SA health minister is warning of a third wave

    https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/465684/south-africa-must-prepare-for-a-possible-third-covid-19-wave-mkhize/
    There is no mystery about the falling case numbers in South Africa. They started a lockdown at the end of December, and surprise surprise, cases peaked around two weeks later.
    You’re wrong, I believe. There is some mystery because the lockdown basically didn’t happen in the townships, because it is impossible to social distance/isolate or practice great hygiene in these densely populated, impoverished places. Yet still cases have crashed. Hence the herd immunity theory, tho it is just a theory, I admit

    Similar things have happened in India. Which is even poorer, and more crowded. Cases have just fallen away (long before any vaccines arrived)

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india/

    Hey, look, this is GOOD news. Perhaps the bug, at some point, just fizzles out.

    Let us pray.
  • Any news on the Imperial College vaccine which iirc was mRNA-based but which the government declined?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240
    More GOOD news


    330 deaths, 14,000 cases
  • I guess it is a little worrying that the Saffers have suspended the rollout of the Oxford vaccine.

    I'd advise the UK government to do a media blitz to reassure UK recipients of the Oxford vaccine.

    My father who should be out jabbing the masses towards the end of the month has said his job became a little harder today.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,611
    Leon said:

    Leon:

    Why don't you read the bloody research before smearing your doom porn over what is (otherwise) a (mostly) intellectual and interesting forum?

    –––

    However, in good news, the Novavax vaccine could still protect against the South African variant, although the efficacy dropped from 95% (against the original strain) to 60% against the South African variant (49% if people living with HIV were included).

    While vaccine efficacy against mild-to-moderate disease has taken a hit with regard to the South African variant, it's expected vaccine efficacy will fare better against severe disease.

    This was true for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

    The Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses similar technology to AstraZeneca, and the immune response induced by these two vaccines is similar.

    For that reason, the AstraZeneca vaccine may well retain good efficacy against severe disease.

    Antibodies aren't the only thing that's important.

    T-cells likely play a role in preventing severe disease, and there's evidence to suggest the T cell response is not substantially affected with regard to the South African variant.

    Lol. Given that your entire comment is cut and pasted from a Sky report I already posted downthread, your accusation of doom-porn-mongering seems a bit redundant

    I report the good news and the bad news as I see it, with a dash of opinion. At the moment we are receiving rather bad news, it seems to me, after a run of great news around the vaccines. You are free to disagree
    No, you trade in hysteria and histrionics – that's what you do.

    On the few occasions you move away from doom pornography you are one of the best posters on here. Sadly those sojourns are becoming ever more infrequent.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    Johnson is refusing to rule out a lockdown extension.

    Panicky Hancock presser at 5...

    Over a week-end, we are now almost at the post vaccine lockdown stage.

    So...about those pubs....

    WTF are you withering on about today?

    We are not post vaccine by any means of the imagination. Getting the first dose to over 70 year olds is a very good first part of the vaccination process, but it's just under a quarter of the vulnerable doses that need to be done.
    I doubt even you would deny there is an attempt today to discredit the vaccine program as a way out of lockdown. By some in the media and some in SAGE. The government? who knows.

    Bit Johnson refused to rule out a lockdown extension, even though we are ahead of schedule in vaccination, and on every measure the disease is receding.


  • Leon said:

    More GOOD news


    330 deaths, 14,000 cases

    You are a Daily Mail journalist and I claim my £5.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762
    Scott_xP said:
    That is undoubtedly true but we are trying incredibly hard at great cost to reduce the domestic incidence of the disease at the present time and it is bloody stupid to have those expensive efforts undermined by fresh infection from abroad, especially given the risks of more aggressive variants.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762
    Leon said:

    More GOOD news


    330 deaths, 14,000 cases

    Is that not a weekend effect? Seems far too much of a fall to be otherwise.
  • On topic: Robert is over-egging the pudding in saying that in future, Covid will be mentioned in passing, but he's absolutely right that the boost this has given to mRNA research is going to be crucial in future. In that respect the speed-up of technological change is rather like WWII: necessity and urgency driving innovation. In fact I think that the scope of future applications of mRNA-based therapies will be even bigger than he says. The ability to deliver highly specific proteins within cells - in some cases to specific organs - may open up treatments for some of the nastiest and most difficult diseases, such as cystic fibrosis. It could well be another of those major medical revolutions like the invention of vaccinations and the discovery of antibiotics.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    My mental model of what happens, which is very possibly completely wrong because immunology is a strange and complex discipline that causes problems for even those who have studied it for years and I'm just some guy on the internet who has got a layman's idea of what goes on from being curious during this pandemic:

    - Antibodies patrol the bloodstream that are targeted at various viruses. the level of these depends on the level of "risk" your immune system perceives so drops off over time. If a virus that is targeted comes along, these things flock to it and gum up the bit that tries to invade cells (the spike, with coronavirus), making it so it can't even latch on and get to work. This is referred to as "sterilising immunity" and means the virus essentially bounces off.

    - T-cells, in two types, also wander around. These keep going. Some randomly knock on cells "doors" and ask them to show what's inside; if the cell has a "dodgy" thing inside (the T-cell compares with a list it keeps of trophies from previous encounters) it orders the cell to instantly self destruct, and the cell must comply. This is "fighting the virus" when it's around and reduces the level of damage the virus can do if your T-cells are armed with the correct list and patrolling regularly. I visualise grizzled versions of Judge Dredd ("I AM the immunity!")

    - The second type goes scurrying off to B-cells, which are antibody factories, and orders them to start churning out more of those antibodies seen above. This prevents any virus that's already wandering through the system from getting much further.

    All very simplified and quite possibly completely wrong.

    The vaccines power up both the T-cells and get the antibodies going. Because the SA variant has adjusted its spike, the antibodies are less effective at gumming it up, so can still often get through even when they're swamping it. They'll take out some of them, of course, and lower the viral concentration, which will help the T-cells with the level of activity needed.

    The T-cells, however, are still effective, so while the virus doesn't "bounce off" and gets further than hoped, it still runs into the problem of the Judge Dredd T-cells, which make the challenge of getting far enough to cause serious damage so much harder.

    Those who know far more will probably laugh at all that and be able to adjust it to what the real status is.

    I know much less than you but, for what it is worth, that is my understanding too.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846
    edited February 2021

    Johnson is refusing to rule out a lockdown extension.

    Panicky Hancock presser at 5...

    Over a week-end, we are now almost at the post vaccine lockdown stage.

    So...about those pubs....

    WTF are you withering on about today?

    We are not post vaccine by any means of the imagination. Getting the first dose to over 70 year olds is a very good first part of the vaccination process, but it's just under a quarter of the vulnerable doses that need to be done.
    I doubt even you would deny there is an attempt today to discredit the vaccine program as a way out of lockdown. By some in the media and some in SAGE. The government? who knows.

    Bit Johnson refused to rule out a lockdown extension, even though we are ahead of schedule in vaccination, and on every measure the disease is receding.


    Reporting facts is not seeking to discredit. The very worst thing that can happen is that we all decide the vaccines have solved all our Covid problems and we lift all restrictions only to find evidence of limitations on the efficacy of the vaccines was ignored or downplayed. That way we end up back with more deaths and yet more lockdowns next winter all because the Politicians were too frightened of upsetting people like you and their more vocal (and less intelligent) back benchers.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762
    On topic can I just brown nose a little and say what a truly excellent thread header this is. If newspapers carried this quality of article I might even buy one.

    I think @MaxPB in particular has been urging the UK government to make sure that we keep up with the mRNA research and the development of vaccines based upon that. In fairness the government, or at least Kate Bingham, seems very alert to this but I wonder if its full potential beyond Covid has yet been recognised.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited February 2021

    Any news on the Imperial College vaccine which iirc was mRNA-based but which the government declined?

    Put on ice for the immediate Future. They have been tasked with working on some other covid related stuff.

    The deal the government did last week is for a vaccine with the same proposed benefits as the Imperial work i.e. mRNA with is more stable so doesn't require anything more than refrigerator.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    edited February 2021

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    Was a bit disappointed to hear that Oxford were saying autumn before the update comes out.

    There really shouldn't be any reason why the likes of Pfizer would take that long, it is literally the equivalent of changing a few lines of programming code.
    Yes, but producing quantities for a safety trial, and then putting it into bulk production, is something else entirely.
    If that's what the timescale refers to, then it's not unreasonable.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    More GOOD news


    330 deaths, 14,000 cases

    Is that not a weekend effect? Seems far too much of a fall to be otherwise.
    22% week-on-week drop in deaths, 25% in cases.

    Good news in my book.....
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,240

    On topic: Robert is over-egging the pudding in saying that in future, Covid will be mentioned in passing, but he's absolutely right that the boost this has given to mRNA research is going to be crucial in future. In that respect the speed-up of technological change is rather like WWII: necessity and urgency driving innovation. In fact I think that the scope of future applications of mRNA-based therapies will be even bigger than he says. The ability to deliver highly specific proteins within cells - in some cases to specific organs - may open up treatments for some of the nastiest and most difficult diseases, such as cystic fibrosis. It could well be another of those major medical revolutions like the invention of vaccinations and the discovery of antibiotics.

    Unnoticed because of covid, a near-miracle treatment for cystic fibrosis arrived last year. I have a familial interest in this

    https://elemental.medium.com/how-the-cystic-fibrosis-miracle-drug-is-playing-out-in-real-life-447de82c6191
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    (FPT)
    There is actually a significant difference between the AZN vaccine, and the otherwise very similar one from Janssen (aka J&J).
    Janssen use a chemically stabilised form of the spike protein in the design of their vaccine; AZN did not use the technique. It might explain the apparent difference in efficacy.
    (I think this is also true of the spike protein in the two mRNA vaccines form Pfizer and Moderna.)

    Stabilizing the closed SARS-CoV-2 spike trimer
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7801441/
    The trimeric spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2 is the primary focus of most vaccine design and development efforts. Due to intrinsic instability typical of class I fusion proteins, S tends to prematurely refold to the post-fusion conformation, compromising immunogenic properties and prefusion trimer yields. To support ongoing vaccine development efforts, we report the structure-based design of soluble S trimers with increased yields and stabilities, based on introduction of single point mutations and disulfide-bridges. We identify regions critical for stability: the heptad repeat region 1, the SD1 domain and position 614 in SD2. We combine a minimal selection of mostly interprotomeric mutations to create a stable S-closed variant with a 6.4-fold higher expression than the parental construct while no longer containing a heterologous trimerization domain. The cryo-EM structure reveals a correctly folded, predominantly closed pre-fusion conformation. Highly stable and well producing S protein and the increased understanding of S protein structure will support vaccine development and serological diagnostics....
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Johnson is refusing to rule out a lockdown extension.

    Panicky Hancock presser at 5...

    Over a week-end, we are now almost at the post vaccine lockdown stage.

    So...about those pubs....

    WTF are you withering on about today?

    We are not post vaccine by any means of the imagination. Getting the first dose to over 70 year olds is a very good first part of the vaccination process, but it's just under a quarter of the vulnerable doses that need to be done.
    I doubt even you would deny there is an attempt today to discredit the vaccine program as a way out of lockdown. By some in the media and some in SAGE. The government? who knows.

    Bit Johnson refused to rule out a lockdown extension, even though we are ahead of schedule in vaccination, and on every measure the disease is receding.
    The facts have changed for the worse, and people have recognised that. The world does not owe you a "yes" to your constant refrain of "are we nearly there yet?" Things are what they are.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    I guess it is a little worrying that the Saffers have suspended the rollout of the Oxford vaccine.

    I'd advise the UK government to do a media blitz to reassure UK recipients of the Oxford vaccine.

    My father who should be out jabbing the masses towards the end of the month has said his job became a little harder today.

    Just let me know, I can take up one of those spare jabs if it's going to go in the bin
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770

    When the virus mutates and a new vaccine is manufactured to deal with the new spike or whatever it targets then does that new adjusted vaccine need to go through Phase III and all the other trials again, like the first one did, or can it be used immediately?

    Given that the trials were the time consuming element prior to manufacture, how much time can be saved on new vaccinations?

    Does that differ between mRNA and tradition Oxford style vaccinations?

    It can be used immediately*, hence why we don't trial the flu vaccine every year.

    * Pfizer's manufacturing process takes 60 days, so that is the key lead time
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,615
    Uk cases by specimen date

    image
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    More GOOD news


    330 deaths, 14,000 cases

    Is that not a weekend effect? Seems far too much of a fall to be otherwise.
    Comparing like with like, the previous Monday (1 Feb) had figures of 18,607 new cases and 406 new deaths.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,615
    UK cases by specimen date and by 100K population

    image
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,615
    UK local R

    image
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,394
    Salmond Inquiry, Part 93....

    https://news.stv.tv/politics/crown-office-urged-to-probe-murrell-committee-evidence

    Mr Murrell less than convincing today, it has to be said.

    The suggested referral is ironic given that the Crown Office is itself in the murk up to its oxters, with calls for the Lord Advocate, James Wolffe, to resign over the Rangers shambles.

    It's all getting very banana republic up here. Maybe that should be turnip republic, in deference to malc?

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    .

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    All vaccines (including the AZ one) still seem to protect near-perfectly against severe illness and provide some protection against mild or moderate illness (bear in mind that the AZ trial in SA used the worst possible dosing regimen - one with 54% efficacy normally compared to the 82% of the 12 week regimen).

    The current lockdown should squish all forms down to a low level, including the SA bug. With more and faster testing available, and deciding which countries to open up to should obviate most of the need for any lockdown.

    And some restrictions are more effective than others - simply banning gatherings over 1000 people (arguably you could still have them if you had reliable and available LFTs that every attendee had to pass) decreases R by an average of 33%.

    On top of that, they'll probably have tweaks to some or most vaccines within three months (before many of us are due our second doses, anyway).
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?
    We've already got booster shots for it on the way and daily capacity to vaccinate 1m people per day.

    We also have a long term bet with Valneva and CureVac.

    We're also investing in world leading mutation busting modelling to predict viral evolutionary pathways so that future vaccines are one step ahead of the game.

    What this means is that the government needs to get serious about border controls. Have a completely open economy and I'd also suggest a two island approach with Ireland. Once we've got the infrastructure in place to rapidly immunise people to variants with CureVac we can begin to roll out vaccine passports for overseas travel.
    We seem to be incapable of proper border control, probably because they know it will decimate the UK economy. And sure, booster shots and vaccine tweaks are coming, but not for months. Autumn?

    In that light we could be in for a third wave. Or lockdown til Autumn.
    My dear fellow, one could almost imagine your attempts to stir up discord were deliberate. Very deliberate.
    I want lockdown over TOMORROW. I have very close friends and family who are now cracking up. This latest lockdown is hellish, for many. It is destroying our economy and our capital city.

    I hate it. But this bug is what it is
    I've been wondering about that. I'm enough of a misanthrope to not mind the lack of social contact thing normally, but this lockdown is definitely harder than the first.

    Partly, I suspect it's the fact that it's winter, so it's cold and gloomy, so it isn't as possible to do the going to the park and waving at acquaintances thing. It's also gone on for longer... In London, we've had lockdown in November, a relaxation in early December, then basically lockdown ever since. And some places have had it worse- did Leicester ever get out of its local lockdown? Seems unimaginably long ago.

    But on top of that, there was something heroic about Lockdown 1. The Thursday Claps, people putting rainbows in their windows. The teddy bear trails. This lockdown hasn't had any of that- Clap for Sir Tom didn't really happen, there's no "Thank You Baked Potato". it's just been grey and boring. When I predicted a Puritan Lockdown (you can leave the house for Work or Church, but nothing else), it was in the knowledge that that would be really boring.

    Spring (and the fact that lockdown is doing its job) will help before the vaccine does. But spring will come, and that will help. And mega-capacity testing is there for 2021, which it wasn't in 2020. Spring and summer will be fine, whatever. Hence the key month is September. And the mRNA vaccines are blooming clever. Yay boffins.

    Courage, my flint-knapper.
    You're a customer ?? :smile:
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,615
    UK case summary

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  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,256
    Leon said:

    Gaussian said:

    Leon said:

    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for Carlotta


    Shit. The truly alarming thing there is what I feared most: past infection with ‘normal’ Covid provides no immunity against SA Covid. This bug is Satanic

    If the Safferbug runs riot in the UK this spring we will be back to square one. They won’t be able to tweak any of the vaccines in time. People will catch it again who’ve already had it. People vaxxed with AZ will also get it. Hopefully they will only get mild/moderate cases, but we don’t know that yet, for sure.

    I don’t want to come over all Black Rook but this is ominous. To me it suggests lockdown until Autumn. And yet I just don’t think the economy can hack that, or the nation’s mental health. So what gives?

    It’s a setback, but you are probably going too far.
    • The sample size in the new study was small. Of 1749 participants, 42 got sick, of whom 19 had the vaccine and 23 had a placebo, producing an efficacy figure of just 22 per cent.
    • However, no one became severely ill or died.
    • That is partly because participants were young – average age 31 – but also because while the vaccine doesn’t appear to prompt a significant immune response in the form of antibodies specific to 501Y.V2, it does still boost a broader immune response in the form of T cells. That also appears to be true of reinfection.
    • So AstraZeneca believes its vaccine still offers protection against serious illness and death from the variant. The same, with respect to T-Cells, will likely be true of reinfection.
    • In any case, South Africa has shipments of the Pfizer, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson vaccines on order, and all appear to provide protection against the variant, including among over 65s.o.
    Finally, if you want some good news from South Africa, look at their case numbers and mortality over the last six weeks. Dropping like a rock.
    Yes, the drop in cases and deaths in SA is encouraging. No one seems entirely sure why. Herd immunity in townships has been posited. Tho I also note the SA health minister is warning of a third wave

    https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/465684/south-africa-must-prepare-for-a-possible-third-covid-19-wave-mkhize/
    There is no mystery about the falling case numbers in South Africa. They started a lockdown at the end of December, and surprise surprise, cases peaked around two weeks later.
    You’re wrong, I believe. There is some mystery because the lockdown basically didn’t happen in the townships, because it is impossible to social distance/isolate or practice great hygiene in these densely populated, impoverished places. Yet still cases have crashed. Hence the herd immunity theory, tho it is just a theory, I admit

    Similar things have happened in India. Which is even poorer, and more crowded. Cases have just fallen away (long before any vaccines arrived)

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india/

    Hey, look, this is GOOD news. Perhaps the bug, at some point, just fizzles out.

    Let us pray.
    I think you overplay the inability to lockdown/isolate etc in poorer countries.

    Lockdowns worked in the US in 1918 [1] for Spanish Flu

    India in 2020 is close in GDP per capita and much better in life expectancy compared to the US in 1918 [2]


    [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/
    [2] https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=1918;;&chart-type=bubbles (US is the biggish green circle in 1918; in 2020 India is one of the big pink one at a similar horizontal position
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,615
    UK hospitals

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  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Fantastic Speccie article on how the vaccine issue played out in government...

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/secrets-of-the-vaccine-taskforces-success
    "The foreign press coverage has turned from mockery to awe, with Britain having vaccinated more people than France, Germany, Italy and Spain put together. Many of those behind this success are virtually unknown to the public. Their story matters, because the Vaccine Taskforce is already being looked to by ministers as a model for how government should work once the pandemic is over.

    "Sir Patrick – backed by Dominic Cummings – went to the Prime Minister and said that a vaccine tsar should be appointed so as to avoid repeating old mistakes. The Chancellor agreed – as a former investor with portfolio he believed a hawkish approach on contracts was necessary, even if it carried risk levels that led Treasury officials to describe it as 'an extremely unusual programme'. ‘They needed someone with immense private expertise — a dealmaker,’ says an aide.

    "In many ways, Kate Bingham was an obvious choice. An established venture capitalist, she has spent her career investing in pharma companies."
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited February 2021
    China spies update. Further to the Times report mentioned on the last thread (or possibly the one before) today sees the publication of this Civitas report on the subject (which I've not had time to read). It can be downloaded as a pdf from the link below.

    • This report draws attention to the little-analysed but pervasive presence of Chinese
    military-linked conglomerates and universities in the sponsorship of high-technology
    research centres in many leading UK universities.

    • In many cases, these UK universities are unintentionally generating research that is
    sponsored by and may be of use to China’s military conglomerates, including those
    with activities in the production of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), including
    intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as well as hypersonic missiles, in which
    China is involved in a new arms race and seeks ‘massively destabilising’ weaponry.

    • Much of this research is entirely based at UK universities, while other research
    outputs include cooperation with researchers in China, often at the military-linked
    universities or companies sponsoring the UK research centre.

    • Many of the research projects will have a civilian use, and UK-based researchers will
    be unaware of a possible dual use that might lead to a contribution to China’s
    military industries.

    • This report illustrates how 15 of the 24 Russell Group universities and many other UK
    academic bodies have productive research relationships with Chinese military-linked
    manufacturers and universities. Much of the research at the university centres and
    laboratories is also being sponsored by the UK taxpayer through research councils,
    Innovate UK, and the Royal Society

    https://www.civitas.org.uk/publications/inadvertently-arming-china/

    @TheScreamingEagles will surely be unsurprised that China has not bothered with that academic backwater at Cowley.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    Johnson is refusing to rule out a lockdown extension.

    Panicky Hancock presser at 5...

    Over a week-end, we are now almost at the post vaccine lockdown stage.

    So...about those pubs....

    WTF are you withering on about today?

    We are not post vaccine by any means of the imagination. Getting the first dose to over 70 year olds is a very good first part of the vaccination process, but it's just under a quarter of the vulnerable doses that need to be done.
    I doubt even you would deny there is an attempt today to discredit the vaccine program as a way out of lockdown. By some in the media and some in SAGE. The government? who knows.

    Bit Johnson refused to rule out a lockdown extension, even though we are ahead of schedule in vaccination, and on every measure the disease is receding.


    Reporting facts is not seeking to discredit. The very worst thing that can happen is that we all decide the vaccines have solved all our Covid problems and we lift all restrictions only to find evidence of limitations on the efficacy of the vaccines was ignored or downplayed. That way we end up back with more deaths and yet more lockdowns next winter all because the Politicians were too frightened of upsetting people like you and their more vocal (and less intelligent) back benchers.
    The truth, Richard, is that viruses always mutate and vaccines always need to be tweaked. We will never, ever arrive at a point where we can guarantee someone won;t get a form coronavirus, or die from it. Unless we are prepared to make sacrifices that will mean the end of basically everything we have known in Britain now for ever.



  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,615
    UK deaths

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  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,615
    Age related data

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This discussion has been closed.