[Drinking] Which pub would you choose?

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I’m going to assume that you are mixing me up with someone else, otherwise you have already lost any argument by making up quotes.

I agree it is a “fact” that if the vaccine has worked then you will be immune and not be able to spread the virus - however what you are disregarding is that it only works 100% in 80% of cases. I won’t be risking giving the virus to vulnerable people by unprotected contact despite having had the vaccine.

Claiming the vaccine is 100% effective is just as “dangerous” as spreading rumours that discourage others from being vaccinated.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/27/astrazeneca-vaccine-oxford-covid-19-safe-uk-pfizer/

The data, released on Feb 2, found a single dose was 76 per cent effective in fending off infection between 22 days and 90 days post-injection, rising to 82.4 per cent after a second dose at that stage.


The PHE data, from more than seven million people, found that either jab cuts the risk of hospitalisation among over 80s by more than 80 per cent while reducing infections in such age groups by around two-thirds.

Apologies. Yes, that was someone quoting you or vice versa. My mistake.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Deliberately attempting to infect vaccinated individuals is NOT the only way to test efficacy of the vaccine. Over 25 million people have had their first jab already and the number having received a second dose is rapidly increasing. 1. All that is needed to check whether or not it works 100% is to see how many of those contract COVID and 2. test for those who have caught COVID but aren’t displaying symptoms.

1. Experimental design? I can think of numerous reasons why 'seeing how many' will tell you nothing definitive. First I expect numbers will fall massively in the summer because it did last summer (it is a seasonal flu). That would bias the findings - you need a time matched control group if you want a quick answer. Otherwise you'd need to wait till the autumn when numbers will rise to get a clear picture. That said, the virus may well have mutated again by the autumn (this is what happens with ordinary flu after all). So a vaccine that worked very well now (my expectation and hope) won't be working at all in September. Meanwhile people like whoever it was (Neville's Breakfast?) can claim there is still no evidence the vaccine works, giving a green light to the dimbots to say 'well I'm not taking it, then'. Second, how do you 'see how many' other than by empidemiological study (collecting data over time from multiple centres)? I looked at epidemiological data for other vaccines for numerous other diseases a year ago. The data are all over the place. You can't beat a prospective study - swift and unequivocal.

2. Not sure how you do the latter. It would require testing everyone. And....when? You can't select people who have caught COVID and display no symptoms in advance because you don't know they have caught COVID because they have no symptoms. Take me for example. I have been vaccinated. I have no symptoms. You can test me and....what?

Sorry to be pernicketty....it's what I do.

 

[Beanstalk]

I will be one of the last to get vaccinated by the looks of things and if it means not getting Covid I can absolutely do without going to the pub for a little bit longer. Don’t get me wrong, pubs are arguably the best thing about this country but Christ I can’t believe this is the hill that some people (potentially in a very literal sense) are willing to die on.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I just don’t think it as straightforward as you are saying. Quite a good discussion in this Guardian link, in particular about Long Covid and about the protection provided by the vaccine ie the prevention of hospitalization and death rather than infection.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....021/mar/12/vaccines-long-covid-health-answers

I won’t cherry pick quotes from scientists or health bodies in the article but there are plenty to choose from. I do think the avoidance of hospitalization and death is wonderful in itself. I’ve had my first jab and am looking forward to the second and to follow up boosters for new variants. I also think that there is a risk of over confidence from vaccinated people and it is going to be interesting when the pubs re-open.

I agree that it is wonderful in itself. Absolutely. No question. But I am also keen to know whether the vaccine works like any other vaccine (stopping me catching a disease - I've never had typhoid, TB, yellow fever etc. and never will), or not. And as I may have said, numbers of hospitalizations and deaths is a soft endpoint needing only 'clinical judgement' (a bit like numbers of 'heart attacks' and is easy to measure (well, factoring in that COVID cases will fall in the summer anyway, like they did last year, so we won't really know what's happening from looking at crude numbers of hospitalizations and deaths till the autumn, and by then the virus may have mutated). So these data are not telling me what I want to know - does the vaccine prevent people catching COVID and spreading it?

But, and this is key for me (maybe not for you, which is fine) it is a soft endpoint because it is quicker and easier to measure, not a key endpoint that allows us to infer that the vaccine reduced the severity of the disease without stopping it, and reduced it spreading without preventing it spreading, as has been suggested on this thread. It is important to not infer beyond the question's answer (although the temptation is overwhelming - and humans are the kings and queens of extrapolatory pattern recognition - seeing patters that don't exist). I add that, yes, so far there is no evidence that the vaccine will guarantee that nobody will catch COVID and will stop it spreading, but my reading of the data is that the risk of my catching COVID is now vanishingly small.

I know enough scientists, also, to know that too many give glib quotes to the media. I did my media training (yes, FFS, I have had media training ) on the day the president of my research society (a medic, as it happens) did his a few years ago and he was (and is) ****ing diabolic in front of a microphone and camera. It was pitiful to behold. Medics are generally worse than scientists (unless they have trained like Chris and Xand) - as soon as they step beyond what is known they are no better than chance. I've know medics who are antivivisectionists. I'm staying away from the media as best I can because I know I will learn nothing there from quoted opinion. I go by peer reviewed research (which excludes an awful lot - including all the anti-Fauci bollocks propagated last year - I have countless emails from people trying to rope me in )

Anyway - good chat and apologies if I get excessively aeriated and rude. I'm on the spectrum (and as Mrs T says 'sometime's you such an ******** ****')

 

[Creaky]

1. Experimental design? I can think of numerous reasons why 'seeing how many' will tell you nothing definitive. First I expect numbers will fall massively in the summer because it did last summer (it is a seasonal flu). That would bias the findings - you need a time matched control group if you want a quick answer. Otherwise you'd need to wait till the autumn when numbers will rise to get a clear picture. That said, the virus may well have mutated again by the autumn (this is what happens with ordinary flu after all). So a vaccine that worked very well now (my expectation and hope) won't be working at all in September. Meanwhile people like whoever it was (Neville's Breakfast?) can claim there is still no evidence the vaccine works, giving a green light to the dimbots to say 'well I'm not taking it, then'. Second, how do you 'see how many' other than by empidemiological study (collecting data over time from multiple centres)? I looked at epidemiological data for other vaccines for numerous other diseases a year ago. The data are all over the place. You can't beat a prospective study - swift and unequivocal.

2. Not sure how you do the latter. It would require testing everyone. And....when? You can't select people who have caught COVID and display no symptoms in advance because you don't know they have caught COVID because they have no symptoms. Take me for example. I have been vaccinated. I have no symptoms. You can test me and....what?

Sorry to be pernicketty....it's what I do.

If it’s possible to run trials, essentially using a small population, to judge efficacy of a vaccine then surely a much larger population will give even more accurate results.

By testing a random representative selection of the vaccinated population for COVID then this should show the proportion of asymptomatic infections at that time. Or have I missed something.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

If it’s possible to run trials, essentially using a small population, to judge efficacy of a vaccine then surely a much larger population will give even more accurate results.

By testing a random representative selection of the vaccinated population for COVID then this should show the proportion of asymptomatic infections at that time. Or have I missed something.

What you say is correct apart from the asymptomatic infections bit. To know that you need to screen well people and show that (i) a proportion that can be accurately estimated (this means sufficient numbers of people) are people who, although well, have active virus in their body and that (ii) a proportion of them don't go on to develop COVID in the typical time frame (2 weeks-ish to be on the safe side). To have any relevance it is also necessary to test whether these people can pass on the virus. The latter would be hard to determine accurately. Also doing these tests has nothing to do with the vaccine (unless you do the test on one group that has had the vaccine and another that has not had the vaccine). This really needs to be done prospectively (as part of a designed study) not restrospectively (as a data dredge, piecing together patient records and lab tests, from mining available data sources) as there will be far too much noise and error, especially if the 'signal' (the difference between groups) is weak. There is no point doing an experiment if the outcome has to be unequivocal to have any meaning (another bone of contention of mine that I will park for today - my aversion to 'risk taking' in experimental design).

It boils down to this and apologies if you already know this:

To test whether a medicine whether it be a vaccine, drug or surgery 'works' you have to compare it with not using it (or, more usually, versus current best treatment). To remove bias (anything that may contribute to a difference in outcome) everything must be the same in the two test groups, apart from the new medicine. The medicine must be compared with the other group by giving the other group a placebo. This is a randomized blinded controlled trial.

Doing this is impossible if you're testing an artificial heart for example, because the doctor and the patient will notice the lack of chest wound (!).

Doing this is unethical when the new treatment is thought (with justification) to be very likely to be beneficial. In such situations evey patient is given the new treatment, and some other means of testing its value is invented. The nature of the testing may change with time, with monitoring of early indications of likely benefit, and more thorough data collection and analysis later. Time being of the essence here.

With COVID vaccine it would be unethical to use a placebo control group (injecting the vaccine's vehicle - such as saline or whatever it is - to the control group).

So with COVID vaccine we can look for signs of benefit in the population over time. The chosen readout could initially be evidence of lower reported rates of infection, or hospitalizations, or death. However it will take at least a year to build confidence in the data via this route because of the seasonal decline in COVID that will kick in during May, and it may also be confounded i the autumn if the virus mutates to a resistant strain, as flu does every year. It may take several years, therefore, before we have data that are truly persuasive that the vaccine has benefit.

Thus with smallpox we knew the vaccine worked because over some years we ended up with zero cases in the UK, and this situation prevailed for many years. The same was true for measels but we started seeing cases more recently due to parents refusing to get their kids vaccinated owing to the anti-vaxxer movement that sprang up after Andrew Wakefield. Or the dick head movement as I call it. Or even the ****wit child-killer movement. Take your pick.

As for the vaccine only attenuating the severity of the disease or making it less likely to spread, by the same reasoning as above, this will take years to assess too. That was not your question I don't think. Someone else. Interesting Q in restrospect. I got a bit cross when I read it though. My bad.

So, if I put on my obtuse pedant's hat I can accept that maybe the vaccine is useless. We don't know yet.

However, my experience tells me that when the best brains are supported by unlimited money, and then the nation engages with a programme that has already delivered a medicine to half the population, a medicine of a type that has the power to totally eradicate a disease if there is compliance (i.e., people agree to take the vaccine), my expectations are that the COVID vaccine will work and, indeed, does work.

Let's revisit this in a year's time - feel free to bounce!

Apologies if I haven't answered your question.

 

[AlbionBro]

I would choose the passport public house, as I fear free for all could get a bit rowdy.

 

[Tokyohands]

Faced with that choice I think I'd just sit in the park with a couple cans of Special.

 

[Uncle C]

The Wizard

"So someone who has had the vaccine can still carry the virus and pass it on"..... Correct. At last you are learning real facts

"whats the point of vaccine certificates for pubs then? You’re arguing against the very point you are supporting"...... It reduces the chances of spreading Covid which is the best any of these measures can achieve. There is no cure.

"Educate myself The vaccine even with one dose offers 98% protection against severe disease, stopping people dying is really all that matters and the vaccine does that, even after one dose"..... Tell that to those that were hospitalised with tubes down their throats, in a coma or indeed suffering the disabilitating effects of long Covid.

Time to stop getting your facts from Twitter.

 

[Napper]

the non vaccinated pub.

98% of deaths came from an age group now covered so same as i dont live in fear of colds and bad flus i would pick the pub which will have less bores in

May pop in the vaccinated one with fake docs though

 

[Iggle Piggle]

Out of interest where would your civil liberties line cross at? Some random doorman having access to your medical history? Credit status? as your covid passport is scanned? Before you can blink we will be like China with social credit reporting.

Some random doorman isn't going to have access to my medical history and see if I've had genital warts or not (disclaimer, I haven't but there were one or two in my time where I was worried about what might drop off the next day) but whether I've had a COVID jab or a negative test for it. I couldn't care less who knows about that. Credit status like the rest of it is available anyway. Try getting a mobile phone on contract without one. You can't beat the system so my advice to my kids is to be very careful what you post on the Internet and play it instead. One day - rightly or wrongly - the wrong picture or comment could stop you getting a job.

China limits what you can view on the Internet, soldered people not following the rules into their own home, had a mysterious accident at a hospital with loads of COVID patients and tried to cover up how all this started. I'm no fan of this government - and there are some in it like Priti Patel who'd have the society like that if they could - but we are miles away from how they operate. Showing I've had a COVD jab to avoid wearing a mask in a boozer is a price I'll happily pay. To answer your question, I'd consider showing my COVID passport a step too far if you then had to wear masks and adhere to social distancing once inside as what then was the point of showing ? I am also against my kids wearing masks in school lessons when they are tested twice a week. If none of them have COVID what exactly are we protecting them against? I'm happy to follow rules and share some personal information in doing so but I don't like doing so where there seems to be little point to it all. Masks in schools is a case in point. They should have done it before we had mass testing.

 

[Hotchilidog]

I'd go in the pub that I preferred to go in. I am not in favour of the vaccine passport and creating a two tier society. Pubs are safe to open freely or they are not entrance should be conditional.

I have been in favour of every lockdown, and critical of their criminally lethal late deployment but the point of them was to eliminate the lethal threat of the virus. Once the hospitals are empty and the deaths have ceased we should be good to resume.

 

[Badger Boy]

I am lucky enough to have the option of either when I get my second dose in a few weeks. I will go to any pub which is open. It's time to get back on proper pub meals and watching other people drinking!

 

[crodonilson]

Following on from The Vaccine passport for pubs thread. I saw a question on Twitter and would be interested to see the results on this Board.

If there were 2 pubs next door to each other, One landlord insists on Vaccine passports and the other Couldn't care less.
Which pub would you drink in?

I know my answer, and I wouldn't be drinking with The Matt le Tissiers of this world.

Depends, if it were a free for all inside the one with the passports doubt I would go in there, if it had strict social distancing controls and manadatory face masks then I would go.

 

[rippleman]

I'm no fan of a pub where I have to book, sit at a table, endure slow and generally hopeless table service, have to order a "substantial meal" etc etc. I won't be headed into any pub that still has that kind of regime.

If I have to show my vaccine card to go in a "proper pub" I will be more than happy to do so.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

I'm no fan of a pub where I have to book, sit at a table, endure slow and generally hopeless table service, have to order a "substantial meal" etc etc. I won't be headed into any pub that still has that kind of regime.

If I have to show my vaccine card to go in a "proper pub" I will be more than happy to do so.

I think the "substantial scotch egg" rule is consigned to history now and won't apply again.

 

[Bry Nylon]

From what I've seen / heard around where I live, many people seem to exhibit an attitude that a single dose of vacine is 100% effective. So on that basis, I shan't be going to either pub.

As a nation, the vaccination programme has given us a massive edge but I just hope it doesn't result in a collective sense of complacency that sleep-walks us into a 3rd wave.