Coronavirus

[teamsaint]

No, it is not "just plain wrong", but it is not just plain right, either. See, for instance, https://news.yahoo.com/vaccinated-pe...44G5O-DAMuI740 . Perhaps the way to think about the issue is that vaccination helps accelerate the development of herd immunity by giving the virus less opportunity to mutate.

Vaccinated people can spread the virus. There is a very widespread perception that they can't.

[Bryn]

Vaccinated people can spread the virus. There is a very widespread perception that they can't.

That's a far too black and white presentation of the case. Vaccination vastly reduces the virus load in a vaccinated person who becomes infected. They thus shed much lower levels of virus when they cough or sneeze, consequently reducing the opportunity to infect others.

[vinteuil]

My life is my own. I am a free man.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.


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[teamsaint]

That's a far too black and white presentation of the case. Vaccination vastly reduces the virus load in a vaccinated person who becomes infected. They thus shed much lower levels of virus when they cough or sneeze, consequently reducing the opportunity to infect others.

I agree that the whole business of infection, vaccination, herd immunity is far more complex. Of course it is.

But the simple and very widespread ( and misused) perception that vaccinated people are " safe" (for others) and unvaccinated are not is dangerous, because of the social consequences of that misunderstanding and misuse.

[Simon B]

Someone in officialdom ought to be publicly putting a number on this, surely?
Based on the figures Prof van Tam gave yesterday, they seem to be saying that, all other things being equal:

i) Person B, vaccinated sufficiently long ago with a single dose of AZ, sees their risk of contracting symptomatic C19 upon encountering a fully contagious person A reduced by about 65%.
ii) For those among the other 35% who don't get this protection who go on to develop symptomatic illness, the risk of them then passing it on to un-vaccinated close contact C is reduced by circa 40%.

Ergo, the probability of that single chain of transmission A->B->C has been reduced to (1-0.65)*(1-0.4) = 21% of what it was before. If person C is vaccinated, it reduces to 7%. And so on.

This ought to all get better yet by some proportion after a second dose but there's no reliable data yet.

Reducing the risk of a single chain of infection like this to 1/5 is a big gain but it's a long way from total protection in itself. However, when replicated across a sufficiently large proportion of the population the expectation is that the effective R of C19 is thus pushed from its unmitigated 3-5 down to less than 1, even in the absence of masks, distancing etc. At this point the epidemic fades into the background. (Until or unless the evolutionary pressure of the vaccine causes an escape mutant to take hold). That's the point, isn't it?

[Dave2002]

The recent briefings, such as yesterday's with Jonathan van Tam, have continued to emphasise that there are still major problems. It does look as though the data supports the view that vaccination has helped to protect the elderly, but the protection is not 100%. There are reports from India that even some people who have had a vaccination were still unfortunate and died, and the situation there does seem dire. JvT was careful to point out that the data does support a view that significant control against the virus was due to social distancing measures, and that these should continue for quite some time - though presumably more on a voluntary basis than because of government edicts.

For our own UK population now that people as young as 42 can now request a jab, the issue of blood clots might arise again. Even though the risks from coronavirus are generally worse, the relative probability of a bad outcome for younger people does present issues. What would be good to know for (say) people under 40 - often women - would be if there are treatments which can offset any possible blood clot alarms, or whether illnesses onset so rapidly that it just becomes a form of Russian roulette. Most people - men or women - won't have problems, but some might be worried about whether they might become ill and whether they would get treament in time. Some of us might have concerns about our younger family members - if they might be thought to be vulnerable.

Another issue which might cause problems for some people - particularly those who have kept well away from most others for over a year now - is whether if they start to mix with others again, they will pick up other diseases - colds, flu etc., which in the past they might have been able to fend off well enough, but now that they have been isolated from others for a while they might not have the sort of resistance which one might expect for fairly common conditions. We don't know whether that is something which has been noticed yet by the experts in health care in the UK or elsewhere.

Of course there are now many other conditions which will be problematic given the regimes we have been operating under for the last year. Treatable cancers and heart and respiratory problems might now have become untreatable, and even relatively minor health issues, such as dental treatment, might now have given rise to much greater problems.

[Serial_Apologist]

There are reports from India that even some people who have had a vaccination were still unfortunate and died, and the situation there does seem dire.

A doctor in one of the hospitals in India was suggesting that possibly those succumbing post-vaccine had already been infected prior to the jab and had not yet manifest symptoms. Track'n'test has hardly got off the ground there as yet.

Another issue which might cause problems for some people - particularly those who have kept well away from most others for over a year now - is whether if they start to mix with others again, they will pick up other diseases - colds, flu etc., which in the past they might have been able to fend off well enough, but now that they have been isolated from others for a while they might not have the sort of resistance which one might expect for fairly common conditions. We don't know whether that is something which has been noticed yet by the experts in health care in the UK or elsewhere.

I'm not so sure immunity in general diminishes that quickly, though the plot is still open for that question as regards Covid-19. Personally I have not experienced greater severity from colds after not having been infected for several years.

[Dave2002]

A doctor in one of the hospitals in India was suggesting that possibly those succumbing post-vaccine had already been infected prior to the jab and had not yet manifest symptoms. Track'n'test has hardly got off the ground there as yet.

However, with around a 50% effectiveness rate, that still means that many people could get sick if there's a very high prevalence - which there must now be in India, and presumably people in the most vulnerable grouops are still at significant risk. Michael Rosen's account of having the disease and being treated in a UK hospitall is telling - "If I agree - 50/50 ...." and otherwise "Zero" - his account of being asked for permission to put him into a medically induced coma. So 50/50 - slightly different situation - based on vaccination rather than other medical treatment. 50/50 is better than zero - but still not great if one can avoid the problems altogether.

In the UK with asymptomatic cases, and younger people now moving around more, it is likely that there will be an endemic level, and we don't yet know how that will pan out. If younger people are able to survive and only experience mild illness, and there isn't a new variant which is more difficult for that group, then things may continue to improve.
Conversely ....

I guess we're still not completely out of this mess yet.

I'm not so sure immunity in general diminishes that quickly, though the plot is still open for that question as regards Covid-19. Personally I have not experienced greater severity from colds after not having been infected for several years.

Though the medical experts are really concerned about people who have had known conditions, or have (apparently) developed them recently - i.e. been diagnosed in the last year or so.

[DracoM]

Actually, is any work being done on the skin damage beng done to so many hands regularly and maybe over-regularly hand-sanitising?
Drying? Chapping?

[cloughie]

Actually, is any work being done on the skin damage beng done to so many hands regularly and maybe over-regularly hand-sanitising?
Drying? Chapping?

It has probably boosted sales of Neutrogena Norwegian Formula.

[Anastasius]

46.5% in England among 16-24s quoted in the Mail.

If it's in the Mail, it must be right. Seriously, do they quote their sources ? Are the sources peer-reviewed ? Does mainstream media actually understand that term ?

I have to confess to not being clear at all about all the various antibody tests. Do they discriminate between having had Covid and survived and that of being vaccinated ? The Com-Covid2 trials have a separate 'immunology' cohort who have two extra visits to have nasal and saliva tests done in addition to the blood tests. t-cells was mentioned in passing.

I'm on the trial and had my second jab of what I know not which - AZ, Moderna or Novavax. All I know is that I've had a humdinger of a reaction this time compared to the first AZ where all that happened was loss of appetite for about a week. This time in addition to appetite loss, I've had chills, total fatigue, diarrhoea, but strangely enough zero reaction around the injection site. Can't even see where the needle went in. We fill in a daily e-diary for the first 7 days and I'm impressed with the trial doctors as they've called me twice now to check up on how I'm doing.

[Bryn]

I was a bit surprised to see ( in the Mail) that apparently almost 50% of 16-24s have covid antibodies. I can’t see figures for how many have had vaccinations, but it can’t be more than 10% of the group at a guess, meaning that 40% approx have had covid or had prior immunity.
Any thoughts?

The relevant paragraph reads:

As well as through jabs, antibodies are made in response to previous infection. The fact that almost half (46.5 per cent) of people aged 16 to 24 in England tested positive for antibodies suggests younger people are enjoying protection from prior infection

However, earlier in the Mail article it is made clear that these are estimates. I do not think all 15-24 year-olds in the UK have been tested for the relevant proteins. The conclusion drawn by the Mail's 'journalist(s)' is hack-commentary, not science journalism.

[teamsaint]

Nonetheless, the question remains as to whether we should be vaccinating young people who have antibodies.

A serious question, regardless of where is was reported. ( and of course the figures are estimates, like so many other “ reputable” statistics we read.)And lets face it, all of the media have pretty serious issues to address about the way they have reported the current health crisis.

Edit: the ONS figures are here.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveyantibodydatafortheuk/28april2021

Not sure where the Mail got its numbers, as they are higher than this survey ( the ONS survey is data from before 11 April ) , but nonetheless, those in the age range Range 22-25 are showing as about 40% having antibodies, and that will have risen no doubt.
Still a surprisingly high number, IMO.

Futher edit: if anybody has a report on those antibody stats from another source, that would be interesting to see.

[Dave2002]

Can't think about this straight right now, but the data - however acquired - states x% have measurable levels of antibodies, so this is then taken to imply that either they have been vaccinated or they have been exposed to the disease. Another possibility is that the tests are incorrect - but let's not follow that. So now we need to look at how the sampling for the estimates have been done. It is now stated that most of the over 50s have been vaccinated, so the additional information about which people in the samples have been vaccinated needs to be taken into account. That information is needed in order firstly to try to establish how effective the vaccination process is. What we don't know is what the profile for the samples was, and what data was recorded, and how the calculations have been established for younger people, who probably haven't been vaccinated yet.

Sorry - it's too early in the day for me to think about this in detail! Maybe someone else can think about this.

[Serial_Apologist]

Actually, is any work being done on the skin damage beng done to so many hands regularly and maybe over-regularly hand-sanitising?
Drying? Chapping?

Tell me about it! Having tried variously priced grades of Nivea I've resorted to alternating between Scholl's heal balm, and the prescription Clobavate I have had for a couple of years for an ongoing exzema problem, made worse by low temperatures.