Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[Solid at the back]

Oh.

The chief executive of the US drugmaker Moderna has predicted that existing vaccines will be less effective against Omicron than they have been against the Delta version, sending global stock markets sharply lower.

Stéphane Bancel said while it would take two weeks to get data on how the existing vaccines perform against the new Covid variant – and whether it causes severe disease – it would take several months to tweak the current vaccines to tackle Omicron.

“There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level … we had with Delta,” Bancel told the Financial Times.

Bancel said the high number of Omicron mutations on the spike protein, which the virus uses to infect human cells, and the rapid spread of the variant in South Africa suggested existing vaccines would not be very effective, predicting a “material drop” in the effectiveness.​

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...accines-may-be-less-effective-against-omicron

To counter that, I have just see this:

Omicron Unlikely to Cause Severe Illness in Vaccinated People, BioNTech Founder Says

Variant could lead to more infections but vaccinated people likely remain protected from severe disease, Ugur Sahin says​

https://www.wsj.com/articles/omicr...ated-people-biontech-founder-says-11638286176

I think Moderna CEO is talking about a drop off from being protected from infections. Aslong as they prevent severe illness - then they work.

How's your infection?

 

[dsr-burnley]

I would say the head of a pharmacy company predicting that the vaccine they produced for a strain of virus saying it is not going to be as effective against a fairly (was going to say heavily but that might be overstating it so won't) mutated version of the same virus is probably talking sense.

We tried wait and see before and it didn't end well. Bring in some precautions now and you can all laugh at the likes of me in a couple of months time if the new strain amounts to nothing if it makes you feel better.

Moderna might have produced their vaccine for delta variant, but Pfizer and AstraZeneca didn't. Their vaccines were produced against the original recipe so far as I know - certainly not against delta. So that's no reason why it will work less well than against delta variant.

 

[e77]

How many people have that jab in the UK? Not many ? Which good be a positive Seems the other 2 makers are less negative.

I’m not against these

The danger is if as we all hope, it’s a nothing - the Government will lose a percentage of the people who will claim it’s crying wolf.

I am not sure they are going to lose people by accelerating the vaccination programme and asking people to wear face coverings in shops and public transport. It isn't a return to lockdown and needs to be put in perspective.

 

[e77]

Moderna might have produced their vaccine for delta variant, but Pfizer and AstraZeneca didn't. Their vaccines were produced against the original recipe so far as I know - certainly not against delta. So that's no reason why it will work less well than against delta variant.

Again I am not claiming to be an expert but my understanding is the new strain is more mutated than Delta. From memory the vaccine was slightly less effective against Delta so expecting any vaccine to be less effective against a further mutated version is a fair prediction.

Blindly assuming everything will be ok isn't a luxury decision makers have.

 

[The Clamp]

Top UK health officials urges cancelling Christmas/Winter parties

I know this is not what people want to hear but I think this is absolutely the right approach, we should all now be doing our bit to stay in our household bubbles and restricting contacts as much as possible (and social distancing when we do come into contact with others). All of this can limit the spread of the new variant until we understand how this will impact us.

Cool. You stay in your bubble and feel safe. I’ve got my first Christmas off in four years and I’m gonna be socialising like Stringfellow. Enjoy your bubble Christmas!

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

I am not sure they are going to lose people by accelerating the vaccination programme and asking people to wear face coverings in shops and public transport. It isn't a return to lockdown and needs to be put in perspective.

Plus whacking on £100 per person returning to the UK on a test that won’t be checked

There are already less people wearing masks now than the last time it was law with some places saying they won’t enforce it.

No one is saying it is, but it’s just the facts of this (as Whitty said) people will just go numb to it

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1465764316888641545?s=20

Very early findings on vaccine.

 

[crodonilson]

SAGE scientists say Omicron may require 'very stringent' response

But they (SAGE) note: "Any significant reduction in protection against infection could still result in a very large wave of infections. This would in turn lead to a potentially high number of hospitalisations even with protection against severe disease being less affected."

Although the size of any future wave remains "highly uncertain", the scientists say it may be of a scale that requires "very stringent response measures" to avoid unsustainable pressure on the NHS.

Are SAGE advocating a further lockdown?

 

[beorhthelm]

Are SAGE advocating a further lockdown?

no.
the words quoted are quite easy to understand. read them on face value rather than adopt a fearful stance and read them other ways. situation is uncertain, they are taking no position at this point.

 

[n1 gull]

Well done Boris you got sleaze off the front pages;


I've seen nothing in this variant that warrants Britain's extreme response to it: Dr ANGELIQUE COETZEE, the doctor who alerted the world to the Omicron Covid variant, says we are over-reacting to the threat

As chair of the South African Medical Association and a GP of 33 years’ standing, I have seen a lot over my medical career.

But nothing has prepared me for the extraordinary global reaction that met my announcement this week that I had seen a young man in my surgery who had a case of Covid that turned out to be the Omicron variant.

This version of the virus had been circulating in southern Africa for some time, having been previously identified in Botswana.

But given my public-facing role, by announcing its presence in my own patient, I unwittingly brought it to global attention.

Quite simply, I have been stunned at the response – and especially from Britain.

And let me be clear: nothing I have seen about this new variant warrants the extreme action the UK government has taken in response to it.

No one here in South Africa is known to have been hospitalised with the Omicron variant, nor is anyone here believed to have fallen seriously ill with it.

 

[beorhthelm]

Well done Boris you got sleaze off the front pages;


I've seen nothing in this variant that warrants Britain's extreme response to it: Dr ANGELIQUE COETZEE, the doctor who alerted the world to the Omicron Covid variant, says we are over-reacting to the threat
...

wierd article. singling out the UK government who have been moderate compared to some, the world reacted quite strongly. almost as if the editors have put words her mouth. which is a shame as it detracts from the main story, that in SA they are not seeing much negative impact from the variant (cases are up in some regions).

elsewhere, cases in UK down, hospitalisation down, death with covid down. stats going up are the testing and jabs.

 

[Swansman]

SAGE scientists say Omicron may require 'very stringent' response

But they (SAGE) note: "Any significant reduction in protection against infection could still result in a very large wave of infections. This would in turn lead to a potentially high number of hospitalisations even with protection against severe disease being less affected."

Although the size of any future wave remains "highly uncertain", the scientists say it may be of a scale that requires "very stringent response measures" to avoid unsustainable pressure on the NHS.

Are SAGE advocating a further lockdown?

Here we go again.

Back in May you suggested over and over that restrictions should not be lifted because some "SAGE expert" thought you were in a third wave and that lockdown was the only reason you didnt have a shit ton of deaths:

No, no, no.

The point of lockdowns has predominantly to prevent our healthcare services from being overwhelmed which would not only have an impact on people with covid getting the treatment they require but all other services being compromised, not to mention the focus on covid meaning again waiting lists increase for all sorts of other conditions and operations. If there is a risk in future (and I sincerely hope if people are sensible and follow the rules this will not again be the case) of the NHS being overwhelmed I would fully expect our government to protect those services and lockdown again, as an absolutely last resort.

What predominant members of sage are advocating now is not another lockdown but a pause on the reopening until we can fully establish the risk associated with this new variant, that would be prudent and sensible and enable us to avoid the scenarios of March, November and January where the government buried its head in the sand and was reactionary rather than proactive to the impending threats which led to 3 national lockdowns and 130,000+ dead.

Restrictions were lifted. There was no third wave. There was no tons of deaths despite the lack of your beloved lockdown.

Death rates will change according to variables, such as the amount of mixing and likelihood of coming into contact with someone with covid, and the transmissibility of the disease. Whilst all of the data in the vaccines effectiveness is very encouraging it needs to be taken with some understanding of the limitations of that data as it is from a time when lockdown was also doing much of the heavy lifting keeping deaths down.

Anyway one of the leading SAGE scientists who knows much more about it than you are I believes we are now into our third wave.

Third wave gas now begun and extra restrictions needed SAGE scientist warns

A month later, in early June:

4 week delay announced on Monday to view the full impact of Delta variant and decide what further measures either way need to be taken. I do though understand why some of the ante lockdown brigade are so desperate for the 21st June to go ahead because at current rates by the time of the new delay of 19th July we will be at 50,000+ daily cases and at those rates there is no way SAGE will be signing off a full redaction of all social distancing and measures to stop the virus. Surely there is no way we can stop measures until cases are consistently downwards?

The "anti-lockdown brigade" did get their way and it was a reasonably happy clappy summer.

In July you suggested there would be a lockdown in October. There wasnt:

Hospitalisations now up nearly 50% now weekly and deaths similarly and this is before Mondays loosening of remaining restrictions, absolute madness. I strongly suspect we will be back in some form of lockdown by end of October once flu and other respiratory illnesses start circulating. The NHS simply will not be able to cope, it is already cancelling operations and procedures again and is under winter pressures in the middle of summer with worse to come.

Come October and now it is Christmas in danger:

Good Morning Britain lead story this morning that we need to urgently speed up booster jabs in order to save Christmas. It's so frustrating that we didn't have to find ourselves in this position, when the media are again questioning if we need another lockdown.

One thing you were right about however:

I think their own cut strategy will be very interesting, when you've been enforcing lockdowns of entire states on the basis of a single case I'm not sure how well their citizens will respond to being told at some point of going back to normal or becoming used to thousands of daily cases (which is fairly inevitable when they relax restrictions) or welcoming international travel ever again.

Some clearly fell in love with doom & gloom and worst case scenarios.

 

[Billy the Fish]

Blindly assuming everything will be ok isn't a luxury decision makers have.

That's fair enough.

Give them a month to gather data and prove what the effects are. If there's marginal or no difference to Delta then restrictions should be lifted straight away.

 

[Bozza]

That's fair enough.

Give them a month to gather data and prove what the effects are. If there's marginal or no difference to Delta then restrictions should be lifted straight away.

Restrictions? Can we have some perspective here, please?

Pretty much everything (possibly absolutely everything) is open and operating as it was pre-pandemic. In a small handful of places, we are requested to wear a face covering. It could, some would say should, be considerably more than that, both in terms of where face coverings should be worn and other changes to try and limit spread.

In fact, I'm not even going to call face coverings a "restriction", I'm going to call them an "enabler". By taking this small measure, it currently enables me to go to pubs, restaurants, gigs, cinemas, theatres, football and all manner of other events just as I did in 2019.

 

[dsr-burnley]

Restrictions? Can we have some perspective here, please?

Pretty much everything (possibly absolutely everything) is open and operating as it was pre-pandemic. In a small handful of places, we are requested to wear a face covering. It could, some would say should, be considerably more than that, both in terms of where face coverings should be worn and other changes to try and limit spread.

In fact, I'm not even going to call face coverings a "restriction", I'm going to call them an "enabler". By taking this small measure, it currently enables me to go to pubs, restaurants, gigs, cinemas, theatres, football and all manner of other events just as I did in 2019.

Can a mask really be called an "enabler" when it means that once again, deaf people are unable to communicate?

 

[dsr-burnley]

That's fair enough.

Give them a month to gather data and prove what the effects are. If there's marginal or no difference to Delta then restrictions should be lifted straight away.

I wouldn't give them a month. The new laws should have been introduced for a week, and not renewed unless they have been brought back to the House of Commons before the expiry date. They can be extended, a week at a time and no more, until the evidence confirms they are not needed. Four months was outrageous.

 

[Bozza]

Can a mask really be called an "enabler" when it means that once again, deaf people are unable to communicate?

Yep.

 

[beorhthelm]

I wouldn't give them a month. The new laws should have been introduced for a week, and not renewed unless they have been brought back to the House of Commons before the expiry date. They can be extended, a week at a time and no more, until the evidence confirms they are not needed. Four months was outrageous.

outrageous is going too far. its unnecessary and difficult to manage. if/when we're told in coming weeks Omicron has little effect on disease severity (likely according to AZ, Pfizer, SA data, other sources), it will be very difficult to maintain enforcement, it'll be largely ignored except as a quasi-political ball to kick about.

 

[n1 gull]

I can't wait for football this evening. I must remember keys, ticket, phone, enabler

 

[Bozza]

I can't wait for football this evening. I must remember keys, ticket, phone, enabler

Good man - great to have you on board at last.