COVID19

[Which Tyler]

I have a question about those statistics on re-reading. Is that 12.3% of the 47,780, or 12.3% of the 29.4%? Cause one of those is 5,877 deaths and one is 1,728 deaths.

I mean, it's still incredibly worrying either way, but one of those is far worse than the other.

12.3% of the 47,780
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 885v1.full
Which is 350% the re-admisison rate compared to the controls and 770% the death rate (controls being people of the same medical demographic)

[Puja]

I have a question about those statistics on re-reading. Is that 12.3% of the 47,780, or 12.3% of the 29.4%? Cause one of those is 5,877 deaths and one is 1,728 deaths.

I mean, it's still incredibly worrying either way, but one of those is far worse than the other.

12.3% of the 47,780
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 885v1.full
Which is 350% the re-admisison rate compared to the controls and 770% the death rate (controls being people of the same medical demographic)

As with everything COVID related, I should have assumed the worst as default! Thanks for that.

Puja

[Which Tyler]

Incidentally, ONS had a little difficulty with the latest update on the deaths figures, here's the latest (so up to 8/01/21)

Covid Deaths.jpg

[Sandydragon]

1610 new deaths recorded today as a result of covid, a new record high.

The lockdown effect seems to be taking a bit long this time, possibly due to younger people having more serious symptoms and perhaps surviving longer in hospital? Regardless, we are now over 90000 dead and I wouldn't bet against 100K by the time its over.

The vaccine can't come soon enough.

[Which Tyler]

1610 new deaths recorded today as a result of covid, a new record high.

The lockdown effect seems to be taking a bit long this time, possibly due to younger people having more serious symptoms and perhaps surviving longer in hospital? Regardless, we are now over 90000 dead and I wouldn't bet against 100K by the time its over.

The vaccine can't come soon enough.

plus the ~13,000 in that 6 week period through April which weren't counted as Covid deaths due to lack of testing / fudging of figures (people like my Aunt Joy*)
plus the 5,875 from the study above dying from complications of long covid (and therefore beyond the 28 day limit)
plus however many others in the same situation not captured by that study (their cut-ff date was 31st August)



*Died mid-April with a "chest infection", exhibiting persistent cough, high fever, anosmia, fatigue and D&V - wasn't even tested for Covid because "Covid isn't in that wing of the home"

[Eugene Wrayburn]

So fucking obvious.

The traceability & contamination points make sense.
Not sure where the report on radio 2 this morning about these ad hoc quickies came from, but some interesting brucie-bonus observations here..
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/heal ... doses.html

Britain had that 6th dose issue. Advice is now to use it.

The other bonuses weren't mixing of vials but just the fact that doses not used at the end of the day are being chucked out. Thus if there's a no show or there are others left over - I'm presuming they crack open some extra in case of breakages rather than risking sending people home disappointed - doctors were vaccinating anyone around. I definitely don't care about that. The NY position of fining doctors and hospitals if they give it out of priority order is fucking insane. Every person vaccinated is a bonus for everyone regardless of where they were in the queue.

As long as the dose given is within the time frame accommodated by clinical trial parameters, yes, but outside of that window is experiment, not treatment.

I'll declare I have skin in this game - my 80+ year old mother has just been bumped from a 3 week second dose to a 12 week one. However it seems to me it's clearly the right thing to do as a society. Sure it might decrease efficacy for those who get it, though the scientific thought seems to be that for at least one of the vaccines it's more likely to improve, but the efficacy of no vaccine dose is 0%. For at least one of the vaccines larger intervals were tested. This isn't just the government going mental - god knows they're a bunch of cunts I wouldn't trust to run a whelk stall - but the product of serious scientific thought.
Anyway issues discussed here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000r605

[paddy no 11]

Haven't Israel just said that 1 dose is much lower than expected

Surely doing 2 doses properly is the way to go?

[Puja]

Haven't Israel just said that 1 dose is much lower than expected

Surely doing 2 doses properly is the way to go?

Herd immunity's a dirty phrase now, but it's now a good thing. 2 doses properly might be the right thing if you're planning on licking a COVID petri dish, but as far as reducing the risk of getting infected, you are better to have a large vaccinated population with 50% immunity than a small vaccinated population with 70% immunity.

Puja

[Which Tyler]

Haven't Israel just said that 1 dose is much lower than expected

Surely doing 2 doses properly is the way to go?

Depends on the details.
Is it better to have 55% immunity in 10 million people, or 90% immunity in 5 million?
Does the single dose "just" provide lesser immunity? or does it reduce how infectious they are? etc etc.

Devil's in the details

[Eugene Wrayburn]

Haven't Israel just said that 1 dose is much lower than expected

Surely doing 2 doses properly is the way to go?

I haven't seen anything from Israel yet. Of course 2 doses properly is the way to go but even the UK who are doing surprisingly well with roll out can't do it instantaneously. I'm not a mathematician but it seem to me that vaccinating everyone with 60% effectiveness is better than vaccinating 50% of people with 95% effectiveness.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

Haven't Israel just said that 1 dose is much lower than expected

Surely doing 2 doses properly is the way to go?

Depends on the details.
Is it better to have 55% immunity in 10 million people, or 90% immunity in 5 million?
Does the single dose "just" provide lesser immunity? or does it reduce how infectious they are? etc etc.

Devil's in the details

They need to do the transmissibility studies already!! It's pretty important for how I decide to deal with my mother post vaccination.

[morepork]

Haven't Israel just said that 1 dose is much lower than expected

Surely doing 2 doses properly is the way to go?

Herd immunity's a dirty phrase now, but it's now a good thing. 2 doses properly might be the right thing if you're planning on licking a COVID petri dish, but as far as reducing the risk of getting infected, you are better to have a large vaccinated population with 50% immunity than a small vaccinated population with 70% immunity.

Puja

So all that time and money to end up with a coin toss?

What a cop out.

[morepork]

So fucking obvious.

Britain had that 6th dose issue. Advice is now to use it.

The other bonuses weren't mixing of vials but just the fact that doses not used at the end of the day are being chucked out. Thus if there's a no show or there are others left over - I'm presuming they crack open some extra in case of breakages rather than risking sending people home disappointed - doctors were vaccinating anyone around. I definitely don't care about that. The NY position of fining doctors and hospitals if they give it out of priority order is fucking insane. Every person vaccinated is a bonus for everyone regardless of where they were in the queue.

As long as the dose given is within the time frame accommodated by clinical trial parameters, yes, but outside of that window is experiment, not treatment.

I'll declare I have skin in this game - my 80+ year old mother has just been bumped from a 3 week second dose to a 12 week one. However it seems to me it's clearly the right thing to do as a society. Sure it might decrease efficacy for those who get it, though the scientific thought seems to be that for at least one of the vaccines it's more likely to improve, but the efficacy of no vaccine dose is 0%. For at least one of the vaccines larger intervals were tested. This isn't just the government going mental - god knows they're a bunch of cunts I wouldn't trust to run a whelk stall - but the product of serious scientific thought.
Anyway issues discussed here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000r605

Then you are winging it. The pre-clinical safety data is of limited value now. Is she up for the Oxford or the Pfizer product? The former shoudn't require two doses as it is a recombinant adeno associated vector. The Pfizer one is an RNA vaccine that has very narrow tolerances, and I don't know what the response to a degraded RNA/carrier compound would be. Not catastrophic, I would think, but I don't know.

[paddy no 11]

Haven't Israel just said that 1 dose is much lower than expected

Surely doing 2 doses properly is the way to go?

I haven't seen anything from Israel yet. Of course 2 doses properly is the way to go but even the UK who are doing surprisingly well with roll out can't do it instantaneously. I'm not a mathematician but it seem to me that vaccinating everyone with 60% effectiveness is better than vaccinating 50% of people with 95% effectiveness.

Statisically yes but practically I don't think it makes much sense, especially given Israeli reports

Do anything half assed cant work even if it does confer a statistical advantage

Israeli says 33% which is nonsense from a re opening society perspective

[Puja]

Haven't Israel just said that 1 dose is much lower than expected

Surely doing 2 doses properly is the way to go?

Herd immunity's a dirty phrase now, but it's now a good thing. 2 doses properly might be the right thing if you're planning on licking a COVID petri dish, but as far as reducing the risk of getting infected, you are better to have a large vaccinated population with 50% immunity than a small vaccinated population with 70% immunity.

Puja

So all that time and money to end up with a coin toss?

What a cop out.

That's the point of the exponential nature of virus dynamics though - making it so 50% of the population are immune cuts a massive swathe through its transmissability. It's far more than the coin toss that 50% suggests.

Plus, I will note that I pulled those percentages out of the usual place that I keep statistics, so don't base any opinions on those numbers.

Puja

[morepork]

Herd immunity's a dirty phrase now, but it's now a good thing. 2 doses properly might be the right thing if you're planning on licking a COVID petri dish, but as far as reducing the risk of getting infected, you are better to have a large vaccinated population with 50% immunity than a small vaccinated population with 70% immunity.

Puja

So all that time and money to end up with a coin toss?

What a cop out.

That's the point of the exponential nature of virus dynamics though - making it so 50% of the population are immune cuts a massive swathe through its transmissability. It's far more than the coin toss that 50% suggests.

Plus, I will note that I pulled those percentages out of the usual place that I keep statistics, so don't base any opinions on those numbers.

Puja

When you say immunity, do you actually mean efficacy? Efficacy is how effective is vaccine at preventing actual disease. You are going to have to vaccinate over 80% of the population to get herd immunity with a vaccine efficacy of 50%...

[Puja]

So all that time and money to end up with a coin toss?

What a cop out.

That's the point of the exponential nature of virus dynamics though - making it so 50% of the population are immune cuts a massive swathe through its transmissability. It's far more than the coin toss that 50% suggests.

Plus, I will note that I pulled those percentages out of the usual place that I keep statistics, so don't base any opinions on those numbers.

Puja

When you say immunity, do you actually mean efficacy? Efficacy is how effective is vaccine at preventing actual disease. You are going to have to vaccinate over 80% of the population to get herd immunity with a vaccine efficacy of 50%...

Please note that I have no idea of the actual efficacy of the Oxford vaccine with a delayed second dose. Given that a smaller second dose showed to be a higher efficacy rate of around 92% in the trials (small sample on that though), it might be that a longer delayed second dose is still up at 70%ish. I don't know the numbers. I'm kinda hoping the people who are making these decisions do.

Puja

[morepork]

I'm wrong. It's not an adeno associated virus, its an adenovirus wot is found in chimpanzees. The 90% efficacy was seen in a two-dose regimen that had a low dose followed by a a standard dose.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanc ... 1/fulltext

[Which Tyler]

In 25 countries including the USA, UK, France, Switzerland and Sweden COVID-19 has now killed over 0.1% of the total population. IIRC, a few months back there were suggestions that the IFR could be as low as 0.1%. I think now that 25 countries, many of which have good quality healthcare systems, have surpassed that number for the total population of the country it suggests the IFR of COVID-19 is quite a bit higher than 0.1% across an entire population.

This is also the official figures, for the UK (for example) as discussed above, our death total is probably about 20-25% higher than official.
Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Project1.jpg

ETA, looking at that chart again, the UK is back to having more active cases than recovered!

[Galfon]

Britain had that 6th dose issue. Advice is now to use it.... Every person vaccinated is a bonus for everyone regardless of where they were in the queue.

Yes some local boroughs are ensuring thawed vaccine is fully used (within 5 days) where possible and offering non-priority group individuals a jab based on age criteria from the issuing GP practice list.
I think rules on sharing data between practices means this was deemed the best way -(they probably won't have an occupation marker on the GP register.)
A colleague got his recently after a surprise contact from his GP.

[Which Tyler]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ne-england?

[Mellsblue]

My favourite news story of the day:

‘As Gregory Gregoriadis arrived for his vaccine, he was keen to know which one he was getting.

He was not worried about its efficacy. He wanted to know if he was about to test the fruit of his early labours. He said: “They told me, ‘Yes, it’s Pfizer.’ I was excited.”

Almost 50 years ago, Professor Gregoriadis, 86, of University College London, had a paper published in the journal Nature. Its title was “Liposomes as immunological adjuvants”. Its suggestion was that some vaccines could be better delivered encased in droplets of fat to increase the effectiveness of the vaccine.

As a means of delivering drugs and vaccines, such liposomes have been useful in the years since. The approach reached a pinnacle with the “lipid nanoparticles” used in Pfizer’s vaccine. The serum’s revolutionary mRNA technology would be weaker if it did not have an adjuvant to amplify it. Those little balls of fat are now in the professor’s system and driving a vaccination programme around the world.

“I’m proud that the vaccine technology . . . has its origins in the work we first carried out in London 50 years ago,” he said.’

[Digby]

It's a better story than Boris going back on his word the virus isn't now more dangerous inside a day.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

It's a better story than Boris going back on his word the virus isn't now more dangerous inside a day.

Did he give his word? Jesus he's a fuckwit. Can we have some politicians with even a rudimentary understanding of scientific method and that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?

[Which Tyler]

It's a better story than Boris going back on his word the virus isn't now more dangerous inside a day.

Did he give his word? Jesus he's a fuckwit. Can we have some politicians with even a rudimentary understanding of scientific method and that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?

Maybe we can adopt Angela Merkel when she steps down in Germany?
A straight swap for Farage who was going to bugger off to Germany when Brexit goes tits up - so 3 weeks ago now.