Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[LinekersLegs]

Do the vaccines get tweaked to combat a new variant?

For Covid they haven’t yet as protection has generally held up.

Flu vaccine is tweaked every year to target the predicted most active strains although given fhe lead times on manufacturing some of those predictions are more successful than others,

Selecting Viruses for the Seasonal Flu Vaccine

Vaccine composition is reviewed each year and updated as needed based on which influenza viruses are making people sick.

www.cdc.gov

 

[roydo]

Do the vaccines get tweaked to combat a new variant?

They do for Flu every year.

 

[ToffeeTim]

Don’t think I explained it well either. I’m a data guy, not an explainer.

No its my bad, not yours!

 

[ToffeeTim]

The only evidence which matters at the moment is that it is still going to cause deaths and is spreading incredibly quickly.

All evidence in the round matters, which is why restrictions are a last resort imo. I'm not sure i can deal with another lockdown.

People are triple vaccinated. If we don't think its safe now then it may never be safe to be fully open. Covid will not disappear, its here probably for rest of our lives.

 

[tsubaki]

Nope all evidence in the round matters, which is why restrictions are a last resort. I cant cope with another lockdown

Not sure that first bit makes sense; restrictions aren’t a last resort - lockdowns are.

As for the second bit I agree with you 100%, but sadly this virus doesn’t care about your, mine or anyone else’s feelings. The government’s not learned it’s lessons from the first two lockdowns and so it seems reality will be going for the hat-trick against us.

I just hope people realise how utterly they’ve failed rather than getting gulled by social media freedom types blaming paedo elites.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Not sure that first bit makes sense; restrictions aren’t a last resort - lockdowns are.

As for the second bit I agree with you 100%, but sadly this virus doesn’t care about your, mine or anyone else’s feelings. The government’s not learned it’s lessons from the first two lockdowns and so it seems reality will be going for the hat-trick against us.

I just hope people realise how utterly they’ve failed rather than getting gulled by social media freedom types blaming paedo elites.

This, sadly, is probably the long and short of it.

 

[Armaghtoffee]

Very stark message for NI:

Dr Tom Black, chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) in Northern Ireland, warned those who socialise next week will get Covid-19.

He said the Omicron variant was so infectious, the stark warning was a ''confident prediction''.

''You go out and mix with a crowd next week, one of them will have Omicron,'' Dr Black told BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback programme.

''It's so infectious, you'll then come home with it. Which is why I won't be going out socialising this week or next.''

 

[LinekersLegs]

Making vaccines is tricky and there have been several instances of entire batches of vaccines having to be thrown oit because of manufacturing/quality control issues. Despite those issues we really should have made stronger pushes to expand manufacturing globally.

 

[PhilM]

Not sure that first bit makes sense; restrictions aren’t a last resort - lockdowns are.

As for the second bit I agree with you 100%, but sadly this virus doesn’t care about your, mine or anyone else’s feelings. The government’s not learned it’s lessons from the first two lockdowns and so it seems reality will be going for the hat-trick against us.

I just hope people realise how utterly they’ve failed rather than getting gulled by social media freedom types blaming paedo elites.

I'm not saying you're wrong here, but rightly or wrongly I do feel that apathy, tiredness and unrest has set it, which manifests itself as complacency or lack of care.

We're getting record number of cases, albeit with hopefully a milder strain and more people vaccinated, but mask wearing and social distancing is quite low.

To some extent, you could say that perhaps the need is less now due to the circumstances, but it's only going to help the spread of this variant.

Only a small percentage of the population may require hospitalisation or get seriously ill from this virus let alone die, which is the line I keep hear.

... but basic maths says 1% of 1,000,000 is more than 1% of 100,000, and 1% of 20,000,000 is even greater.

 

[LinekersLegs]

Edit @Harryflashman think this is the point Whitty might have been making

 

[LinekersLegs]

 

[Ghost Rider]

I'm not saying you're wrong here, but rightly or wrongly I do feel that apathy, tiredness and unrest has set it, which manifests itself as complacency or lack of care.

We're getting record number of cases, albeit with hopefully a milder strain and more people vaccinated, but mask wearing and social distancing is quite low.

To some extent, you could say that perhaps the need is less now due to the circumstances, but it's only going to help the spread of this variant.

Only a small percentage of the population may require hospitalisation or get seriously ill from this virus let alone die, which is the line I keep hear.

... but basic maths says 1% of 1,000,000 is more than 1% of 100,000, and 1% of 20,000,000 is even greater.

Why does it have to be 1%?

Everyone uses 1 as the bare minimum but if all the information is correct about the varient then it can be much lower.

If we go by weekly numbers, back in the summer it was 1.5% of weekly cases hospitalised, with as little as 0.45% fully vaccinated making those weekly totals up.

Now even if we ran with 0.45% as the base vaccinated figure here , based on a higher transmission it could well still translate into extremely high numbers into hospital. I'm not psychic so I can't dispute that element.

However it's less than 1%.

Going deeper , if it is 1%, how many vaccinated / unvaccinated will make that 1% up?

Because if everything we know about the variant is true then it will affect the unvaccinated far more than the vaccinated. So to what extent will the hospital's be filled with the 50 million compared to the few million?

That is what we will find out. The two offer completely different scenarios.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Unfortunately there's an awful lot of people clinging to the news and reports they want to hear. I too would love Omicron to be mild and all this passes. However, I also fully understand Chris Whitty's caution.

It's his job to carefully scrutinise the evidence and make, as best he can with evidence available / identifiable uncertainties, decisions and recommendations to safeguard health and health care in the UK.

 

[efcfanwirral]

All evidence in the round matters, which is why restrictions are a last resort imo. I'm not sure i can deal with another lockdown.

People are triple vaccinated. If we don't think its safe now then it may never be safe to be fully open. Covid will not disappear, its here probably for rest of our lives.

I think they'll try vaccine passports and permanent lockdowns for the unvaccinated/mandatory regular (3 monthly) vaccinations first. Anyone happy to take a jab every 3 months gets to live their life with the possible exception of height of winter.

That jab had better be 100% safe to be taken that often because that's what we're getting.

 

[PhilM]

Why does it have to be 1%?

Everyone uses 1 as the bare minimum but if all the information is correct about the varient then it can be much lower.

If we go by weekly numbers, back in the summer it was 1.5% of weekly cases hospitalised, with as little as 0.45% fully vaccinated making those weekly totals up.

Now even if we ran with 0.45% as the base vaccinated figure here , based on a higher transmission it could well still translate into extremely high numbers into hospital. I'm not psychic so I can't dispute that element.

However it's less than 1%.

Going deeper , if it is 1%, how many vaccinated / unvaccinated will make that 1% up?

Because if everything we know about the variant is true then it will affect the unvaccinated far more than the vaccinated. So to what extent will the hospital's be filled with the 50 million compared to the few million?

That is what we will find out. The two offer completely different scenarios.

1% was an arbitrary number I used to set the point - 0.45% of x is less than 0.45% of x2 (squared) or whatever. This is where the concern lies.

While less people may be dying from COVID, the impact it may have on the NHS, which is already stretched, may itself lead to more related sickness or death.

It's not hard to understand that more people with COVID = more people who may be seriously ill or die.