Coronavirus

[french frank]

My decisions are my own business, nobody elses.

I'm not sure what you are meaning here? Your opinions are your own business: your decisions, insosfar as they affect your own behaviour, may be of public concern.

[Dave2002]

It is not clear to me at all that there is any basis for suggesting that there may be no need to vaccinate people in the 18 - 29 age group.

I agree with your overall sentiments, though it's possible that younger people might need a different vaccine. It may be that the virus - being opportunistic in nature - is now adapting to cause more problems for younger people. The original Covid-19 definitely seemed to target - cause more problems for - older people, whereas other diseases - the 1918-20 pandemic for example may have caused relatively more deaths in younger groups. The latest coronavirus could be adapting in that direction. India would be a great development ground for this virus.

[Dave2002]

... that I don’t think we should vaccinate people in cases where it is not necessary.

That depends on what the necessity is. If it's to save the life of the person being vaccinated, then I assume you have no objection, but you maybe object to having a vaccine in order to reduce the chances of others picking up this nasty diseasee. Normally I would agree with you, but this virus seems to be really bad news, so reducing its incidence in the population either by social distancing, vaccination or other measures, would seem to be a good thing.

If people really think that vaccination might be bad for them, then they should be allowed the freedom to decide for themselves - but they should work out their own reasons - which might in some sense be altruistic - to help others. We haven't yet reached a stage of compulsory vaccination.

Which is self evident of course.

Under the current circumstances it is really not.

[teamsaint]

I'm not sure what you are meaning here? Your opinions are your own business: your decisions, insosfar as they affect your own behaviour, may be of public concern.

Perhaps I should have said “ my decision making”.
People need to make health decisions in their own best interests, in my opinion. I’m guessing that this would usually be in the public interest too, in the vast majority of cases.
And of course that cuts both ways, since public health interest sometimes mean restricting very expensive treatments to the individual.

[teamsaint]

That depends on what the necessity is. If it's to save the life of the person being vaccinated, then I assume you have no objection, but you maybe object to having a vaccine in order to reduce the chances of others picking up this nasty diseasee. Normally I would agree with you, but this virus seems to be really bad news, so reducing its incidence in the population either by social distancing, vaccination or other measures, would seem to be a good thing.

If people really think that vaccination might be bad for them, then they should be allowed the freedom to decide for themselves - but they should work out their own reasons - which might in some sense be altruistic - to help others. We haven't yet reached a stage of compulsory vaccination.

Under the current circumstances it is really not.

Dave, all I meant by that line was that if it is unnecessary, it is unnecessary. In an absolute sense. A semantic thing.that’s all .
Certainly not trying to reduce complex arguments to a single line.

Of course all of us want the virus gone or reduced to minimal levels asap. At what other medical or social cost is complex.

[Simon B]

Anyone who determines that antibody status does matter can (providing they can access £65 and think it is worth it) establish it with a test claiming good accuracy and administered by a probably trustworthy entity - e.g. BUPA.

As someone whose age cohort only recently became generally eligible for the vaccine I contemplated doing this. I have my suspicions about a rather unpleasant illness which afflicted me and most of my colleagues in spring 2020. This started with one staff member coming back ill from... a skiing holiday in the Italian Alps. Two colleagues' partners who also fell ill shortly after are doctors, which meant they were among the limited number of people being tested at the time: confirmed cases. That said, every second person has an "I think I've had it" tale, so not much can reliably be read into it.

On balance I reasoned that even if I did have antibodies they'd likely have faded in efficacy by now and that while young enough to not be at much risk of intubation or death I don't much fancy the apparently significant risk of long Covid. I'm aware of what this has done to two acquaintances - previously very healthy women of around 30. The type that think getting up at 5am to run 10k or swim 100 lengths before putting in a long day in a high skill high pressure job is perfectly normal. Months later, not being able to manage a full day in work in one case or getting exhausted from walking a few hundred yards to the shops in the other didn't figure in their expectations of life.

Meanwhile, there are around 90 people Killed or Seriously Injured per billion vehicle miles in the UK. That's barely 100 miles for each 1/100,000 risk of a KSI so loosely speaking the risk of KSI from having the vaccine is equivalent to travelling 100 miles by road. Make it 200 for the sake of argument. Or 1,000. Same difference. I would travel that far by road in a week sometimes before all this started and like most people gave it essentially no thought because a degree of self-delusion about risks like this is necessary for the continuation of normal life.

I came to the view that the apparent short term risk of the vaccine is small enough to be equivalent to risks I and everyone else take routinely without bothering to think about it. Any risk analyst will tell you that in general people are woefully bad at understanding risk and making sane tradeoffs so this seemed as rational a way of looking at it as any.

The longer term risk thing is almost impossible to wrangle with on both sides of the equation as it involves trying to trade remote and probably unquantifiable risks. Sometimes you just have to hope for the best, in this case that the risk of direct long term harm from the vaccine is as near to nothing as makes no odds while everything else flowing from it adds up to net benefit.

Net result: Needle in arm.

[Bryn]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/30/figures-on-covid-deaths-post-jab-show-vaccines-success-scientists-say

[teamsaint]

Anyone who determines that antibody status does matter can (providing they can access £65 and think it is worth it) establish it with a test claiming good accuracy and administered by a probably trustworthy entity - e.g. BUPA.

As someone whose age cohort only recently became generally eligible for the vaccine I contemplated doing this. I have my suspicions about a rather unpleasant illness which afflicted me and most of my colleagues in spring 2020. This started with one staff member coming back ill from... a skiing holiday in the Italian Alps. Two colleagues' partners who also fell ill shortly after are doctors, which meant they were among the limited number of people being tested at the time: confirmed cases. That said, every second person has an "I think I've had it" tale, so not much can reliably be read into it.

On balance I reasoned that even if I did have antibodies they'd likely have faded in efficacy by now and that while young enough to not be at much risk of intubation or death I don't much fancy the apparently significant risk of long Covid. I'm aware of what this has done to two acquaintances - previously very healthy women of around 30. The type that think getting up at 5am to run 10k or swim 100 lengths before putting in a long day in a high skill high pressure job is perfectly normal. Months later, not being able to manage a full day in work in one case or getting exhausted from walking a few hundred yards to the shops in the other didn't figure in their expectations of life.

Meanwhile, there are around 90 people Killed or Seriously Injured per billion vehicle miles in the UK. That's barely 100 miles for each 1/100,000 risk of a KSI so loosely speaking the risk of KSI from having the vaccine is equivalent to travelling 100 miles by road. Make it 200 for the sake of argument. Or 1,000. Same difference. I would travel that far by road in a week sometimes before all this started and like most people gave it essentially no thought because a degree of self-delusion about risks like this is necessary for the continuation of normal life.

I came to the view that the apparent short term risk of the vaccine is small enough to be equivalent to risks I and everyone else take routinely without bothering to think about it. Any risk analyst will tell you that in general people are woefully bad at understanding risk and making sane tradeoffs so this seemed as rational a way of looking at it as any.

The longer term risk thing is almost impossible to wrangle with on both sides of the equation as it involves trying to trade remote and probably unquantifiable risks. Sometimes you just have to hope for the best, in this case that the risk of direct long term harm from the vaccine is as near to nothing as makes no odds while everything else flowing from it adds up to net benefit.

Net result: Needle in arm.

Thanks Simon. That is very much the kind of thought process I would tend towards. And a very helpful post IIMSS.

[Dave2002]

This looks really interesting - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...accine/618701/

An article about how to tackle many coronavirus variants - before they tackle us.

Let's hope we don't get to this

Finally, above this category are the most ominous: “variants of high consequence.”

[Bryn]

This looks really interesting - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...accine/618701/

An article about how to tackle many coronavirus variants - before they tackle us.

Let's hope we don't get to this

Be wary. Be very wary of articles pubished by The Atlantic. They have a rather poor history regardng dodgy articles. Li-Meng Yan's views have been widely dismissed by highly regarded virologists in the west.

[Dave2002]

Be wary. Be very wary of articles pubished by The Atlantic. They have a rather poor history regardng dodgy articles. Li-Meng Yan's views have been widely dismissed by highly regarded virologists in the west.

Thanks for the heads-up. Will keep an open mind - but a wary one.

[Dave2002]

Another very small case study - Seychelles.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/06/seychelles-vaccines-covid-cases/

This is an example of a country which embarked on early vaccinations, but is now experiencing some problems.
This is not too encouraging - unfortunately.

[DracoM]

And 'Indian' variants now in UK - spells serious trouble in various cities, one senses?

[gurnemanz]

And 'Indian' variants now in UK - spells serious trouble in various cities, one senses?

I fear you may be right. Just had jab two so might or might not be protected.

[Bryn]

I fear you may be right. Just had jab two so might or might not be protected.

Which vaccine? The Pf/B appears to offer a higher degree of protection against this variant, as it does with others.