Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Tubey]

er - that was why the Israelis didn’t do that (either in that test or in their own programme)? we’ve also not got vaccine shortages or scarce resources?

We do have scarcity. If we didn't, we'd be able to vaccinate the entire population in a week - supply is the limiting issue.

It's saying the real world results of delaying the second dose has shown substantial early reductions, making it a viable approach.

Sorry, but this is davek-esque levels of stubbornness from you. It's clear as day the approach has paid off.

 

[Tipp blue]

Yet, the stats remained roughly flat from from when hospitality re opened last year on the 4th July, until the schools and uni`s re opened ?

Schools are Uni`s are what turbo charged things, not hospitality.

I can really only speak for the school I work in and the one my wife works in, my school a second level with a little under 1000 students including the ASD unit and 80 staff had 2 positive cases among students one of which was confirmed at the end of the Halloween midterm so likely didn't pick it up in school, and no cases in the staff. My wife's school primary, with 53 students and 5 staff had 0 cases. I'm quite confident that the numbers that the government are telling us about school cases are accurate certainly in Ireland.
I've heard people complaining that the HSE government and department of education were hiding cases so they could keep schools open, again speaking for my school, the HSE sent the school a letter to send to all parents/guardians outlining that there was a positive case and this action is to be taken. If there is hiding being done it's at individual school level not any higher than that.

 

[Barnfred 55]

The latest results from a random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that coronavirus infection levels among children aged 11 to 16 have risen slightly in England, with 0.43 per cent of secondary school age children testing positive in the week ending 20 March compared to 0.31 per cent the previous week.


LOCK IT DOWN, 0.12% IS HARD TO COPE WITH

I'm sure this ONS random testing is based on around 30,000 tests per month.

With schoolchildren these days we don't need to rely on such random testing for our data. In England, we're currently carrying out around 800,000 tests per day in our schools, colleges and Universities, with students being tested twice a week. Our scientists will know exactly what the rate of infection is amongst our 11-16 yo's. something the New Scientist magazine will only have access to once that information is released to the public.

The good news is that all the positive test results from these extra 800k daily tests will have already been reported in the daily covid stats, and that the overall infection rates of the country continue to reduce, albeit at a much reduced rate, in spite of all the extra testing. I don't know the infection rate for this specific age group, but they did announce recently that there were 12000 positive tests across the school ages during the first 2 weeks of re-opening.

The very good news, is that the vast majority of these positive tests would have been asymptomatic, and they would all have casually continued going about their business whilst spreading the virus. But due to test trace and isolate, all of these students, and those they have come into contact with, will have been told to self isolate.

The upshot of all this is that they expected to see a small rise in student infections following the re-opening of schools, but that these would start to reduce again once the TTI system kicked in. So what we're seeing with the ONS results is somewhat expected, and I suppose it's reassuring that it appears the data taken from the ONS random sampling can be relied on to some extent.

 

[coollino]

another week, another time my parents act like they are the only people living by the restrictions and that everything is personal ffs

 

[spectateur]

And admit the U.K. was right and they were wrong, that’s never going to happen with the ego’s of politicians.....

I don't think that there is any specific right or wrong at this stage.
It's not a game, although from some of the UK media you would think otherwise.
Indeed, if it was a game, OK, even if UK appear to be winning, there is a long way to go, even to half time.

 

[Barnfred 55]

Because EU loves regulations and rules.. it would appear that the vaccine roll out is finally getting up to pace in the EU after a terribly slow start, reports in Ireland are that we can expect a million vaccines a month from April, with a population of about 5.5 million, things will start to change quickly. Fingers crossed.

Let's hope so. This government has shown a commitment to keep our borders with the Republic open so it's in our interest too if you get vaxxed up.

 

[ForeverBlue92]

another week, another time my parents act like they are the only people living by the restrictions and that everything is personal ffs

The big question is - IS it personal?!

 

[Tipp blue]

Let's hope so. This government has shown a commitment to keep our borders with the Republic open so it's in our interest too if you get vaxxed up.

Hopefully, I'm planning on a trip up north during the summer, I want to see the giants causeway.

 

[coollino]

The big question is - IS it personal?!

not at all, it just sounds like their boomer friends are doing what they want with whoever and they aren't happy we aren't 'compromising' on the restrictions. where we kind of have been, but not to the level they want.

 

[degsy]

lol

You're ridiculous.

Mate, China just doesn't 'do' news that reflects badly on them...except maybe to cover up worse news that would reflect worse upon them

 

[Barnfred 55]

I think it’s because there isn’t the clear trend in evidence showing that delaying the Pfizer dose for as long as we were going to works that you suggest here. If anything, it looks the opposite:

Delaying the second dose of covid-19 vaccines

Concerns remain about effectiveness in older adults On 30 December 2020, the UK announced a deviation from the recommended protocol for the Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vaccine, prolonging the interval between doses from 3 to 12 weeks.12 Similar decisions were made for the Oxford-AstraZeneca...

www.bmj.com

I'm not saying it's perfect. The Pfizer jab is much better for the oldies after the second jab. That's never been the question though.

It's whether giving, say 10m one jab is better than giving 5m 2 jabs. The 10m given 1 jab are at a much reduced risk of getting severe covid. On the other hand 5m have received no jab and are at high risk of getting severe covid. Each new data report that is produced is positive to the effectiveness of one jab, even with the Pfizer vaccine.

 

[tsubaki]

We do have scarcity. If we didn't, we'd be able to vaccinate the entire population in a week - supply is the limiting issue.

It's saying the real world results of delaying the second dose has shown substantial early reductions, making it a viable approach.

Sorry, but this is davek-esque levels of stubbornness from you. It's clear as day the approach has paid off.

No we don’t - there’s all manner of issues (staff, space etc) that affects how many vaccinations could be given, not just supply. Do you really think we could vaccinate 9.2 million people a day?

More importantly though, you are the one with the hyperbole here - there are two big reasons why it’s impossible to say this (delaying vaccines) has worked yet.

Firstly, there is the rather large fact we’ve been in lockdown for the duration, and we saw in this lockdown broadly the same reductions we saw in the first one. It’s only after we reopen that we will be able to establish if the vaccination programme as a whole has worked (and that won’t show if delaying it worked unless there are a substantial number of one dose people who can be studied).

Secondly, we’ve not been delaying the dose of a big chunk of the population (the AZ crowd) - they’re getting it as AZ intended, and as it was authorised. This is what that study you’ve cited actually found as well (albeit with Pfizer) - proof that a correctly administered vaccine works (given that 91% of the study got their second dose within 28 days). The study did not establish how long the first doses protection lasts for, just that it gave protection for the first weeks (which we knew already).

Both of these factors mean that it’s going to be really difficult for scientists to prove in future if delaying doses worked, which is probably why we’ve not seen any published studies yet into its efficacy as a policy (never mind “numerous studies”). This shouldn’t be surprising, given that we are still in the middle of this and haven’t even emerged from lockdown yet.

 

[degsy]

The big question is - IS it personal?!

It is to them...and thats what counts

 

[Barnfred 55]

Hopefully, I'm planning on a trip up north during the summer, I want to see the giants causeway.

When I said borders I was referring to the UK in general, not just that part of it in Ireland.

There are millions of Irish in the UK (and I'm sure many Brits in Ireland too) and many millions more who, like me, have family over there.

 

[jaybx1878]

Just had the text to book my second jab, getting it done on the 14th April.