Of course, “how much protection against transmission you get from immunity” is a key question. You might naively think – I certainly did – that if immunity reduces your viral load and prevents your symptoms, it’s a safe bet that it stops you from spreading the disease. But, as Dr Al Edwards, a professor in biomedical technology at the University of Reading, points out, it’s not as simple as that. Lots of viruses (including cold coronaviruses) spread very easily without symptoms, and you could reduce viral load an awful lot while still having many billions of virus particles in your system.
Annoyingly, there isn’t much data on the impact of vaccines on transmissibility. Most of the studies only looked at symptomatic disease, and got people to take a PCR test only if they showed symptoms. But the Oxford study has been getting people to do a swab every week (I know, I’m on it and it’s been really quite unpleasant). Early data from their trial suggests that two jabs reduces transmission by about 67%.
If that’s indicative, which I hope it is, then there is going to be significant and growing selection pressure on the virus to find ways around the vaccine immunity. The E484K mutation appears to be one such way.
That makes it all sound quite scary. I shall now give some reasons to be less scared. First, it’s only somewhat better at evading immunity: being vaccinated still gives you significant protection, especially (it seems) against severe disease. “We expect the potency to drop a bit with the new variants,” says Edwards, “but we don’t expect people to be completely immunologically naive.” Your body will still have a much improved chance of churning out a response quickly enough to stop you from getting really ill.
The other positive thing is that, having made all these vaccines, it’s relatively easy to simply make new ones. In the case of the mRNA vaccines, that’s especially true – they’re extremely plug-and-play, just put a new strand of RNA in and off they go. But, says Edwards, even the adenovirus ones like Ox/AZ are relatively easy to repurpose.
Of course, we’ll need to get better at testing them and licensing them. The Moderna vaccine was ready to go within a few days of the SARS-Cov2 genome being sequenced last January, but it took 11 months to be declared safe and effective. If we want new vaccines ready quickly in response to new strains, we’ll need to be a lot more nimble. The idea of human challenge trials has somewhat dropped off the radar lately, but it might be worth considering doing those in young, healthy volunteers each time you need a new version of a vaccine, because you can get safety and efficacy results so much faster if you don’t have to wait for people to get the disease naturally.
There’s another thing to consider. There are two things that drive evolution: selection and mutation. We’ve just been talking about selection pressures: that is, if there’s some mutation which is better at transmitting, or better at evading immunity, then it will tend to become more common in the population, because each virus will on average have more offspring than its non-mutant rivals. (That’s why the B.1.1.7 virus is so widespread in the UK now.)
But selection needs mutation to work upon. It might be that lions would be even better predators if they had wings and breathed fire, but if such a mutation never arises (which it won’t) then we’ll never find out.
The way to keep the number of mutations down is to keep the number of cases down. It’s fairly linear: if you have twice as many infected people, all else being equal, you have about twice as many chances for a virus throwing up some dangerous new mutation.
(That is around the whole world, by the way. A new variant arising in Delhi or Rio de Janeiro will be here pretty quickly. We need to vaccinate everyone, everywhere, as quickly as possible.)
So that means that there is still a very strong case for keeping cases low, even as the deaths and hospitalisations drop. It will be enormously tempting to open up society again once the most vulnerable are vaccinated, but that will mean providing a huge opportunity for the virus to spread and mutate, while also piling the selection pressure on so those mutations will tend to become widespread. We’ll essentially be creating a perfect petri dish for mutant versions.
That might be a price worth paying; perhaps the economic gains (and therefore the real-life gains) will be sufficient to offset the risks, especially given the possibility of making new vaccines quickly. But in general, the lesson of this pandemic seems to have been that more relaxed restrictions backfire. And this government doesn’t have a great track record in actually thinking about the costs and benefits: it has a tendency to just put off eating the shit sandwich as long as possible.
Testing for the “South African variant” (which I assume, and scientists seem to agree, means not just literally the South African ones, but any with the E484K mutation) is a good thing. Testing and quarantining at the border is a good thing, and keeping cases low is important. But this probably won’t be the last time we see the E484K mutation, or others like it, which help the virus partially escape immunity. Charles Darwin would understand.
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Subscribe“But in general, the lesson of this pandemic seems to have been that more relaxed restrictions backfire.”
Tom, have you heard of a place called Florida?
In all seriousness, though, the various U.S. states offer quite a lot of comparisons of different stringencies and durations of NPI’s. In some cases there are states relatively close together that adopted different strategies. That provides some opportunities to look at comparisons with similar climates/latitudes but different NPI’s, as it’s become apparent in the winter just how sharply seasonal this virus can be. I could go through various pairings, but the short answer is that there’s no clear correlation between NPI’s and cumulative COVID fatalities.
And, for those not familiar with the details of U.S. COVID #’s by state, Florida has been largely open since September (in-person schools, in-door dining, bars, attendance at sporting events), subject generally only to some capacity limits. (Some measures are county-by-county, so they aren’t precisely the same across the state.) Florida’s per capita reported COVID deaths are below the overall U.S. average despite having the 2nd-highest % age 65+ of any state. On current trends, it looks like that will hold. SARS-CoV-2 is currently on the decline essentially everywhere in the U.S., including Florida, after peaking in December or January.
I suspect that climate may have something to do with it, but a large warm-weather state with much more stringent restrictions (California) is going to end up in about the same place as Florida for per capita reported COVID deaths. California in fact now has slightly more per capita COVID fatalities than Florida if one adjusts for the age makeup of the population.
Excellent point. Stringent lockdowns haven’t worked anywhere that people want to go in large numbers.
I wouldn’t call it a “stringent lockdown”, but San Francisco’s pretty strict approach consistently since March has arguably been pretty successful in terms of deaths (300 odd deaths out of a million), particularly compared to my hometown of LA (17k deaths out of 10m), which has remained busy pretty much since the summer (and noticeable more so since late December).
But of course, SF and LA are very different cities, so I don’t mean to overgeneralise. More to point out that the comparison between Florida and California isn’t as simple as “lockdown vs no lockdown”.
San Francisco? Chuckle
California has been a covid basket case compared to Florida. Plus it’s economy is reeling while Florida’s is on track to recover much quicker. You’d have been much better off in Florida than in California over the last year.
Florida has 125 deaths/100k compared to 106/100k in California. And California’s GDP per capita is about a third more than Florida’s; Florida will have to recover a lot to ever challenge California’s economic performance. So what metric are you using for comparison?
Florida has a significantly older population than California. Unemployment is CA is 9%, it’s 6.1% in FL.
Ok, so your metric is unemployment. Unemployment is terrible, I’m never going to question that. But I would point out, for example, that in 2019 the US had higher unemployment than Poland, but no one would follow your logic and suggest that the US was an economic basket case compared to Poland. I stand by my point that California has a far superior economy to Florida’s, and it seems very unlikely that Covid will change that, though of course we shall have to wait and see.
Looks like you’re forgetting that companies are leaving CA in droves and going to states like Fl. Where exactly are all these unemployed going to get jobs in CA with all the restaurants and hair salons and nail salons and other businesses going out of business? See if CA had kept them open like FL, it wouldn’t have so many closed businesses. Those CA businesses are gone for good, the owners went under. Poor leadership is a real burden and CA will suffer for it. There is a recall effort to get rid of Gavin Newsome but if it doesn’t work, CA residents get what they voted for, good and hard.
Not denying there are issues with California’s economy and management. But low tax states like Florida are hardly models for upholding the social welfare of their citizens, particularly as they grow. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”
Incidentally, I know from your comments on this site that you don’t like California’s culture or politics. You’re entitled to your opinion, but I’d suggest it would give your criticisms more force if you worked with the facts and then made your best case on that basis, rather than trying to fix the facts to support your worldview.
Your knee-jerk reactions against California remind me of a European who doesn’t like what the US stands for and is therefore constantly predicting its downfall. I happen to be a European who doesn’t bet against either the US or California — though I think there’s plenty of room for improvement of the social welfare of working class citizens here. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see who’s right. But in the meantime, I think you’d be more persuasive if you lowered the temperature of your comments a bit.
It’s not about taxes. It’s about employment opportunities. California killed too many, Florida did not make the same mistake. With so many companies leaving California and so many businesses gone forever due to California’s mismanagement where do you expect the unemployed to work? Gavin Newsom is trying to do an about face, mostly to save his own hide now that there’s a recall effort, but it’s too late, the businesses he killed won’t come back.
I agree it’s not everything, but taxation is at the heart of the Newsom recall campaign, alongside immigration, homelessness (quelle surprise the temperate West Coast, including Vancouver, attracts people with no shelter) and the death penalty (obviously to a European like me, and to many Californians, opposition to the death penalty is the mark of a civilised society, but I digress.) Despite Musk’s well-publicised complaints, California will remain the global start up hub, and on the small business front I expect new businesses to pop up in the place of those that failed during the pandemic (people will still want to go to restaurants and hair salons after this; though more working from home post-pandemic will be a threat to shops in business districts, so I do accept there may be some structural unemployment that must be addressed). I also absolutely agree there are serious structural issues in California (and other states) generally and the standard of living of ordinary workers must be the focus of the post-Covid economic recovery.
Yes California has very business unfriendly taxes which is one reason that businesses leave. The recall has many facets, not the least of which is the burden over Covid shutdowns Newsom has placed on California businesses that has caused so many of them to close forever. There won’t be jobs while other states have not decimated their businesses like California has. Best of luck to California workers looking for jobs at closed businesses.
Homelessness is not the mark of a civilized society. Neither are streets filled with human excrement. If you feel at home there, best of luck to you as well.
I absolutely agree with you: Homelessness certainly is not a mark of a civilised society. California is in some respects a victim of its own success in that rents are unaffordable for many (as well as a failure to build enough houses). And the socio-economic system of the US as a whole is at issue too; it is of course also uncivilised that a person can be bankrupted and left homeless by an essential medical bill. Or that there is no effective social welfare net for mentally ill/addicted people on the street.
I was sympathetic with your point of view until your final two sentences, the first of which is a gross exaggeration (and also somewhat dehumanising in my opinion) and the second is just ad hominem (like if I were to say “if you feel at home surrounded by Confederate flag-waving racists, best of luck to you in Texas or South Carolina or wherever” etc etc; it’s unfair, petty and simply unnecessary.)
California is not a victim in any way. It’s run by people who are not themselves exposed to the results of their own policies. You don’t think Gavin or Nancy have homeless people using the bathroom outside their own door do you? Of course they don’t. Nancy is snug in her mansion with her $14,000 refrigerator stuffed with $12/pint ice cream while other Californians do live with these things because their leaders allow it to happen. They simply do not care. You can’t use a public street as a bathroom in most places. In California, you can. You can’t set up tents and block streets and business entrances in most places, in California you can. That’s why people do these things in California, because it’s allowed. Keep voting for these people, you get more of the same. Find leaders who don’t believe people should have to live this way and you may get change.
You are aware that homelessness is not a problem everywhere in the US like it is in California? Even in other very expensive areas. How is it that California cannot manage any better than to be number 1 in homelessness? Stop excusing poor leadership. Elect people who believe in the dignity of their residents.
You were the one who said you felt at home in California. If you think it isn’t dehumanizing to have to live in SF, you haven’t been there.
I’m not really sure how to progress this conversation, Annette. I had thought that you, like I, were unhappy as a matter of principle with the fact that California ” the country’s most populous and wealthy state ” also has the country’s highest homeless population. But you convey a mix of envy for successful/wealthy people as well as the idea that people in power should just clear homeless/vulnerable people from storefronts (as to where, you do not say). I’m struggling to piece together from this what your principles are.
I said my hometown is LA, not that I believe everything that California does is perfect. I believe in nuance. For you everything seems very black and white, and completely subjective. In any event, you seem unable to make a point (and I agree with several of your points) without launching an ad hominem/personal attack. The US needs more empathy.
We can simply disagree, nothing wrong with that. I’m not unhappy with the homeless problem in California because I don’t have to live there. I’m not trying to run a business there with the door blocked by a tent city. I’m not walking down the sidewalk scraping human excrement off my shoe. Surely you are aware that not everyone wants to or has to put up with that. I’m not a fan of anti-social behavior in general and I believe it reduces quality of life for everyone, although the poor bear the brunt of it. But then the poor don’t get elected, do they?
I have no empathy at all for people who elect leaders who impose conditions on their residents that they would never accept themselves. I have no empathy with people who repeatedly in spite of overwhelming evidence of incompetence, continue to make the same bad electoral choices. Can you think of any reason why I should?
I’ll ignore that cute phrasing about you having no empathy, as you know that’s not what Californians are voting for, even if that’s what (on your case, which I have some sympathy for) they end up with.
Without empathy for each other’s situation, it will be difficult to achieve mutual understanding and find common ground.
I very much hope most people will try to lower the temperature and achieve consensus, even when the extreme left and right are raging at each other/into their respective echo chambers.
It’s quite sincere. What is it you think people are voting for when they elect people like Pelosi and Newsom? Change? How much more evidence of incompetence on the part of Eric Garcetti and London Breed do you need? Btw, LA and SF are not alone on this, New Yorkers elected Bill de Blasio so no empathy there either I’m afraid. A bad choice is a bad choice but you are supposed to learn from it and not keep making the same bad choice.
There’s plenty of mutual understanding. Some people will accept certain conditions and others will not. The common ground is that each of us make our own choices, what’s more common than that?
If you want something different, make a different choice. Part of maturity is accepting the consequences of your choices rather than demanding empathy because you repeatedly voted for people even after you knew they would do nothing to improve quality of life for Californians. Anyone can make an occasional bad choice, but repeatedly with concrete evidence that it’s a bad choice? No, no empathy at all in that case.
My friends in California are reeling with the effects of hard lockdown. Not just economic implications, but mental health.
Where do your friends live? Nobody has been forced to stay at home in California, if that’s what you mean by a “hard lockdown” (which to my mind evokes Italy or Australia or China etc).
Hard lockdowns are stay at home orders excluding essential workers and restricted travel even iro how far you can go from your homes. That is what the most recent lockdown in California is being reported as in the press. They sometimes go with heavy handed restrictions against a lot of sectors continuing working.
Lesley, take my word as someone living in LA: the stay at home orders are completely unenforced. I drive to go hiking in the mountains and traffic at times is almost at normal (i.e. terrible) LA levels. The beaches and streets on the West Side are full. And as you point out, huge swathes of the workforce are exempted for the order anyway, including e.g. my cleaner (who got very sick with Covid last year and is still weak). We are not prisoners. (I’m not commenting on whether LA’s approach is the most sensible/effective.)
California are bankrupt, both morally and financially.
The world’s fifth largest economy and most popular tourist destination in the US.
Despite having the type of problems all big countries have, I think we’ll be OK!
As someone living in Los Angeles, I can assure you there were no stringent lockdowns here.
I thought that in California you have been locked up for ages now. Schools are closed, aren’t they?
Not at all! We are absolutely free (stay at home orders are totally unenforced), streets and beaches are packed. You are right that in many places there have been lengthy in-person school closures and also there remain indoor dining bans. The wisdom of closing schools and restaurants while making no meaningful attempt to encourage people to social distance in their private lives is debatable, to say the least. But the reality is we are not “locked up” in any way.
From the interview on schools and what you get on the media I got a totally different impression.
You can’t trust anyone, I suppose…
Maybe lockdown has different meanings to different people? Can’t figure this out myself.
Precisely. There’s no authoritative definition of what constitutes a “lockdown”. More a mix of different policies. Which makes simple comparisons between different jurisdictions rather difficult. And means, I think, a lot of commentators on here are unintentionally talking at cross purposes.
Well I think the point is it’s all relative. That’s why I take issue with people using the word “lockdown” as if it’s a meaningful definition of something. It means very different things in LA, London, Sydney, Wuhan, Paris etc etc etc.
I would agree with you however that the UK media generally conveyed the wrong impression of what “stay at home” orders meant in practice in LA/California. And the coverage was correct that LA hospitals reached maximal ICU capacity and were under intense strain due to the Covid spike at the end of the year, not unlike in the UK and other places.
As I understand it, LA has a slightly higher death rate per capita than e.g. London, but much lower than e.g. Stockholm.
Besides friends accounts of what they are experiencing there, we have seen YouTube videos of deserted streets. Aieee.
Certainly not deserted in LA, except in business districts (office workers are working from home). There are thousands upon thousands of people on the beaches every evening and LA traffic is not far off normal at times (despite so many working from home). SF is always pretty quiet and FiDi has been deserted by office workers now working from home, so you may have seen images from there. But residential/dining areas like the Marina have actually seemed busier/have more energy, because dining has been on the street rather than indoors.
I used the phrase “stringent restrictions” intentionally to denote measures such as lengthy indoor dining bans (eventually an outdoor dining ban) and little if any in-person schooling.
Is that summary correct?
In-person schooling is quite location-specific, but yes there have been lengthy closures. And indoor dining bans (plus shorter outdoor dining bans). My point is more that the streets/beaches are packed and private socialising replaced public socialising, so the idea there is some kind of enforced “lockdown” like Italy or even the U.K. is very misleading. Incidentally, I think it’s certainly very arguable there’s no point closing outdoor dining and schools if people are free to socialise and crowd together as they wish anyway.
I was just about to make the same point, the only thing I’d add are some other examples eg South Dakota compared to N Mexico, N Jersey and N York. Or the various Danish counties with different policies after the mink outbreak, Or the relevant lack of Lockdown in Sweden compared to Belgium etc etc
I just skimmed the article because the more I read it the more I lost the will to live.
I just would like to understand *why* we are SO concerned with variants now, at this precise moment in time. How many variants have there been and we didn’t care up until the other day (i.e. when the first vaccine was approved in the UK)?
So, bottom line, we will be in lockdown till society extinguish itself, and with it the various version of covid.
Job done.
Well done.
Got to keep the fear up, make sure every adult toddles off down the vax centre when called. Pfizer estimate $24bn sales of their vaccine. Coincidence? Have a scary mutation and that’s $24bn sales every year.
Meanwhile, in the real world, most people have a functioning immune system which will largely identify the minor mutations of the slow mutating coronaviruses, and kill the mutation as well.
I just would like to understand *why* we are SO concerned with variants now, at this precise moment in time.
because civil unrest is brewing, people are pushing back after months of lockdown and isolation, some folks even have the audacity to want to make a living. Since much of the govt strategy has focused on fear, a new source of fear is needed. And just in time, a new strain of the virus, because you know, that has never happened in the history of viruses. I’m starting to think that the point is to extinguish us, not the virus.
Dr John Campbell says the cap for the virus is about 29,000 variants and 12,000 have been identified already. Many more may have existed and haven’t been strong enough to be identified. All good!
Something I’ve known since I was five years old: cold and flu viruses mutate. CoronaVirus is one form of the cold. We are destroying lives and spending billions to track whether Johnny may have a cold, even though he doesn’t even have the sniffles. Protect the elderly, protect those with co-morbidities, and stop the madness!
If there were two injections sitting in front of me right now, one with the CoronaVirus, the other with the vaccine, I’d take my chances with the virus. It’s not that I don’t trust the vaccine, I believe it is helpful at best, harmless at worst. But I have faith in my immunity system, thank you very much. I’d survive this cold, just as I’ve survived exposure to hundreds (thousands?) of cold viruses throughout my existence, and my body would be better prepared for the next variant.
Live in fear if you like. But PLEASE focus…try to stay focused… Protect the elderly, protect those with co-morbidities, and stop the madness!
I hope, after selecting the virus rather than the vaccine, you’d have the decency to self isolate until there was no trace of virus in your system so you didn’t impose your choice on others.
And I think the common cold is one form of a Coronavirus, not the other way round.
I hope that you are aware that people carry many viruses (Flu/CMV) and bacteria (TB, E.Coli) which could pose problems for the immune suppressed. We do not ask people carrying these viruses/bacteria to isolate – life would come to a complete standstill. In stead, we wash our hands and keep as healthy as possible while those with immune suppression need to take extra care. That is the only common sense approach to the current germ phobia.
I would do what the law required, and even without the law, would not engage with others and risk being “that guy”. But note this is a extreme cultural change. I was raised in the traditional “suck-it-up” approach. I got this…I can still get through work…I’m tough. Until the boss says – go home. That’s how I was raised. You can get out of bed, then you show up for work. Not anymore.
Also, just so you know, I am currently in Korea, and as far as containment and low mortality rates, this country has done an excellent job. When someone tests positive, they are isolated…PERIOD. For Korean citizens, that means being taken from your family and put in isolation for 14 days. Your family must isolate at home, unless any of them test positive, then it’s off to the cell. HOWEVER, after 14 days, EVEN IF YOU STILL TEST POSITIVE, they send you on your way.
In other words, there is no “self isolate until there was no trace of virus in your system”.
(CoronaVirus, Rhinovirus, Respiratory Syncytial Virus are some examples of common cold viruses.)
When someone tests positive, they are isolated…PERIOD.
that’s quite a leap from what much of the west is doing, isolating most of the population on the basis of nothing. Maybe South Korea understands the definition of ‘quarantine’ better than English speaking nations do.
A state that takes controlling viral transmission seriously and understands PCR tests and has read the papers on secondary attack dynamics and caught their epidemic EARLY enough to institute these sort of controls.
Very refreshing.
Do they use some sort of phone app as well, to assist all this tracing and isolating ?
Yes, in some cases. For example, anyone living here that re-enters the country is authorized to home quarantine, but gets an app installed. If the phone is idol too long during daytime hours, an alarm goes off , and it must be moved, or someone is showing up to check – so people can’t just leave their phone at home and take off. Also, the whole country is wired with video everywhere. People aren’t real-time monitoring all the video (I don’t think!), but it’s available for review, if some is believed to have broken quarantine. The fines are very large, and in addition, you’ll be take away to quarantine in a Government facility if you break quarantine.
Anyway, the culture here is different. The people general abide by the rules.
By the way, they also treat with hydrochloroquine and zinc…been doing it for nearly a year for high risk patients diagnosed. Apparently, they haven’t listened to the newsreader talking heads about that, and instead followed the science.
Hydroxychloroquine and Zinc. There were guidelines issued in February to Korean physicians to consider using a variety of anti virals for elderly patients, at risk, very early on in the disease process.
These recomendations were amended in June by the Korean Health Authorities to : Remdesivir only for patients with moderate disease and on oxygen + halting all use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine after the results of clinical trials completed early in June showed no benefit for these medications (quelle surprise)
And then, there’s the AMA, beginning on page 16 of http://www.ama-assn.org/system/fil....
Quite a mea culpa. But based on the information from actual practicing physicians (the ones seeing hundreds of patients a week, not the bureaucrat policy docs that haven’t seen a patient in 30 years) the AMA already knew the treatment was extremely effective and appropriate for certain high risk groups, provided it was given early enough. They lied about it, and came out strongly against it anyway.
Of course, they quietly released this a few days before the US elections. Well, no one can say they waited until after the election to tell the truth. I wonder how many people died because of this politicization of science and medicine?
Yep. They are affirming the right of physicians in the US to prescribe HCQ etc. off label early on in the course of the disease provided the patient is happy to go along with that.
I guess the relevant bit is :
“Whereas, There are many studies that indicate that the use of Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin is effective and front-line physicians are using the therapy where permissible (13, 14, 15);
I would expect references 13, 14 and 15 to be 3 proper studies supporting the assertion that HCQ +/- Azithromycin is an effective treatment for Covid, but they aren’t – the first reference is a clinical trial proposal, the second is a poor quality narrative review and the third is a piece from CNN. Who is taking the piss here ?
I am afraid that in the world of ethical medicine particularly when you are prescribing a drug with known downsides, anecdotes or “gut feeling” or personal biases or patient preferences just don’t cut it. For re-purposed drug therapies you are much better served by a properly conducted systematic review like this 5 star rated paper on the McMaster Uni. Covid 19 evidence alerts :
The Outcome of Hydroxychloroquine in Patients Treated for COVID-19: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Can Respir J. October
Why should healthy people who understand how virus’s work shut down their lives for the sake of a few clowns who didn’t pay attention in science and biology class?
You can still catch and spread the virus having had the vaccine.
Can you refer me to a source for this please? I have recently had a vaccination.
After a lot of argument on this site I am coming around to your viewpoint – that is a major plus point for the site and shows that both sides of the argument are being well-presented (or you could say that it shows that I am stupid).
The problem with the pro-lockdown arguments is that they assemble a lot of facts but don’t answer any questions. For me, they still don’t.
The arguments for lockdown are a bit like what Churchill supposedly said about democracy: Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Or what Baldwin said about the miners’ union before the General Strike – that he thought he’d met the most unreasonable people he’d ever come across … until he met the mine owners. The lockdowns have not been especially well handled, but the arguments against them have the great benefit of not having been tested. And to the extent that they have – the Swedish model – it’s not obvious that they have been more successful than the obvious comparators in Scandinavia.
India has sixteen percent of the world’s population. It also has sixteen percent of covid infections. Curiously, though, it only has ten percent of fatalities. It’s case fatality rate is the lowest in the world at only 2 percent. It’s covid wards are emptying out and its daily infection rate is dropping. How is this all happening in a country where social distancing — especially in its huge slums — is a joke? It appears the human immune system is on the case and the Indians seem to be developing a natural herd immunity, just as the World Health Organization has redefined the term to mean only that immunity which comes out of a needle.
Maybe it’s time everyone stopped panicking, started manning up and facing things like this the same way our grandparents would have faced them and just got on with it, and the first thing we need to do is to accept that everything the culture has been pumping into us for the last sixty years is poisonous. Our ancestors were right. History has not ended. We still face all the same challenges as our forebears and we’ll just have to dust off that old-fashioned virtue of fortitude. It really doesn’t behoove us to feel such terror in the face of a microbe.
I have suggested before, though I don’t pretend to know, that as Covid is well-known to attack older people first (because their immune systems have worn out) the fact that India has a very young population could be the answer. Europe and the USA have older populations. Not sure about Brazil.
I don’t doubt you’re right, but it only serves to make my point. We can’t cure death. None of us are getting out alive and if this virus is attacking the old, it’s actually a tribute to our societies that we have such an overhang of elderly to begin with. In the interests of full disclosure, I’m 57 years old and severely overweight. I’m in the virus’s target group, but I don’t have all that many years left anyway and I don’t want to waste them uselessly trying to extend them, and I’m pretty sure a great many old people feel the same. There’s a question of proportion here that’s just simply being ignored.
I am older than you and I have this argument every day in the kitchen with my wife. It might actually be a woman’s thing: women talk and form circles of friends and if someone is ill or dies, they circle around and ‘support’ each other. This is what she tells me.
I counter by saying that about 70% of the Covid infections are women and about 70% of those dying are men. The figures might not be exact but it does make the point.
My mother is 86 (with bad lungs) and she feels exactly the same way. She is happy to take reasonable precautions (e.g. avoiding large crowds and staying away from sick people) but otherwise wants to go back to normal living and take her chances with the time she has left. For her, it’s a question of “what’s the point of living if I can’t see my grandkids?” And most of her elderly friends seem to feel the same way.
I think you’ve got a good point there – average (median) age of population in India is 27 and UK is 40. Life expectancy at birth 70 in India and 82 in UK. Mean age of death from Covid in UK up to end of last year – 81.
They also have far fewer people with many of the kinds of comorbid conditions that put people at risk, like obesity, diabetes and hypertension.
All of which is simply because they are younger.
Brazil’s population is also pretty young – life is tough for many people. Families are no longer as large, and only recently has provision for the elderly become a hot topic. So there demographic curve doesn’t have the massive skew to children and young adults as in Africa.
As a very broad generalization, Brazil is one generation behind the UK on the demographic curve, and one generation ahead of Africa.
in a word. Hydroxychloroquine.
which in the US has, miraculously, become acceptable. Months after a former president, and no small number of independent practitioners, say the drug could be useful.
Correct.
Not, apparently in a 30,569 cohort of rheumatoid arthritis and SLE sufferers in the UK who were on low dose HCQ for > 6 months prior to the pandemic in the UK.
No benefit in terms of avoiding death by Covid in this cohort compared with similar patients not taking HCQ.
The difference between real science and wishful thinking.
produce the studies then, the authors, and who commissioned them. We, the public, will decide what is valid information, and what isn’t. I happen to know, that the Indian government have issued a 5 day course pack to ordinary GP’s, of HCQ, Zinc, and Azithromycen
Ivermectin sounds very promising, but it’s too cheap to be of great interest to those in power, it seems.
For us here in South Africa…. Ivermectin. Everyone busy with it here. Banning makes zero difference in fact this has upped the desire to take it. No faith in governments. Many people are following the science avidly. One state in India has been doling it out with good results I believe.
Perhaps the populations of India and East Asia (and Africa?) have been more routinely infected with zoonotic coronaviruses, and perhaps that affords some degree of immunity. I don’t know.
To be sure, the trajectories of the coronavirus are hard to characterize, but it’s getting harder and harder to argue that the idea that developed nations can somehow contain the virus is nothing more than a conceit.
“Scientists have confirmed that the deadly new “Galapagos” variant, which killed the entire population of the island, and many of it’s neighbouring islands hundreds of miles away, has arrived in the UK. It is thought to have come from an infected turtle washed ashore on Brighton beach last Easter. Health Minister Matt Hancock stated that the government is taking this new threat extremely seriously, and will be implementing a “temporary” lock-down of Brighton residents until 2023, or until a Galapagos vaccine can be rolled out. Scientific advisor, Prof Chris Witty stated that it was unlikely that this deadly strain would effect politicians, police officers, or supermarket workers, but was probably fatal to all other non essential people.
.Honestly, these fcking people must think we, the public, came up the Thames on a banana boat.
Amusing but not so wildly far-fetched as to be totally unbelievable in this Covid nightmare world we are living in, I fear. As I often say, don’t give them ideas.
There is as much fiction in my comment, as the bullshit Boris & Co have been feeding to a gullible public over the last year. Complete and utter nonsense.
Spot on.
As long as we keep locked down until they all go away they don’t stand a chance. Diseases can’t kill us when we’re already dead from poverty-induced starvation. Checkmate! What else ya got, COVID?
No, lockdowns prevent all deaths didn’t you know? I’ve not heard mention of other sort of deaths for nearly a year.
In all seriousness if we keep these lockdowns going we can suppress some other diseases like flu too. An optimistic view could be that we increase the average life expectency upto 83 – 84 – perhaps even higher. And all we’d have to do is commit to isolation, poverty and loneliness.
Hard lockdowns don’t work generally, except in some isolated island nations who locked out hard and early…. and have to remain locked out. Less susceptible nations also seem at outlier. When I read the author’s scary comment that more relaxed restrictions backfire, it calls into question the rest of his facts. Has he not seen epidemic curves yet? Seen when lockdowns were introduced? Seen when masks were introduced? I invite him to look at the current South African epidemic curve where there was no hard lockdown. Cases and deaths trending way down, with businesses, gyms, beauty parlours, hairdressers, restaurants open. Travel anywhere in the country. Hotels, guest houses open. Local taxis full to the brim with shouty people. People in poor townships living cheek by jowl. Some restrictions, but most were ludicrous and made no sense e.g. curfews, beaches, alcohol (alcohol is a complex one in SA because it affects hospital space). The only restriction that made some sense was a limit on large crowded events. People have been more cautious during the surge, but went about their business.
There was indeed a hard lockdown for five weeks in late March/ April 2020 in South Africa. For those who exercise by walking, cycling etc. it was five weeks of torture not being able to do so. It’s also difficult to explain to a dog that they cannot go for a walk for five weeks when they are used to doing so every day. It severely affected my mental health and of many other people and it’s never been explained by the government.
There have been two epidemic curves. The first one was hard lockdown, the second one no hard lockdown and the restrictions I mentioned. The second epidemic curve is the SA variant which is the most recent one and the one being discussed. I specifically said ‘current epidemic curve’.
Where on earth have you got your info about SA from? They had a very very hard lockdown that was extremely heavily policed . At present they have national ( I think) Alert Level 3 restrictions which aren’t exactly ‘ travel anywhere etc etc’
I live here and I know the rules well. I certainly can travel anywhere in the country. Hard lockdowns were very early in the first wave and didn’t suppress the virus at all. The epidemic curve pushed through. Level 3 in the second wave means the restrictions I mentioned in my post. I specifically said ‘current epidemic curve’. There have been two epidemic curves.
Yes, I’ve seen your Governemtns pages and pages of rules and regulations including ones about travel both within your country and , if anyone manages, to other countries. Are you saying that the first lockdown didn’t reduce the number of infections- was it pure coincidence that cases dropped from very, very high levels after the restrictions were introduced, and similarly, is it also pure coincidence that case numbers in the second wave have dropped massively after your enhanced leave 3 restrictions were introduced or again, are you saying it’s all just pure coincidence
If the lockdowns that Tom Chivers relentlessly promotes were vaccines they’d be
At best 50% effective at saving the vulnerable, probably far less.
Kill 10,000s of those who weren’t at risk
Have severe short term and long term side effects.
It would struggle to get off the drawing board.
Now we have lockdown forever fever, Hancock and SAGE frightened of losing their powers.
Aw, how cute, Tom has just learned that viruses mutate.
Of course, that doesn’t change Tom’s view that lockdowns are the solution.
I’ll bring you up to speed on the next few years, Tom, and save you the torturous learning process you seem to be going through.
Covid will remain endemic, it will continue to mutate, viruses will never be 100% effective. Lockdowns will continue to “stop covid” in the summer months, before mysteriously failing to work during the winter respiratory disease season.
By about 2025, when our society and our economy are just a smouldering ruin, Tom will write a ground-breaking analysis that Lockdowns don’t work, and we shouldn’t have carried on with them past 2020. Tom will feel shock and wonder that this was not obvious to anyone at the time. He might even write a piece about how nobody could have seen the failures of lockdown coming.
How do you define lockdowns don’t work? Do you mean restricting human to human close contact doesn’t restrict the spread of the virus and limit deaths or serious illness, at least in the short term? Or do you mean they don’t work sufficiently well to be worth doing?
If the latter, then we’d need to see some analysis of what the extent and impact of the virus spreading without lockdowns would be and what the impact of lockdowns are and then weigh those options up.
How do you define lockdowns don’t work?
How do you define that they do work? Perhaps that is part of the problem; we insist on absolutes as if those are the only options. We are finally seeing stories and studies about the wholly predictable consequences of prolonged lockdowns. Those who warned this would happen months ago were accused of wanting to kill grandma, as if forcing her into months of isolation was somehow a good thing.
We also know that the virus is particularly harsh on specific populations, yet the govt model is to insist that everyone is at equal risk. Kids are being taught to fear human contact, we’ve had not just mask ‘wars’ but dueling guidance on their efficacy. Most recently, our panicker-in-chief Dr Fauci has twisted himself into knots over the value of two masks vs one. When the supposed experts contradict themselves, it’s no wonder the layman gets confused and frustrated.
Complex problem solving seem to be beyond most public health officials. If engineers had to do their jobs in the same manner, buildings would be collapsing all around us.
Count the number of engineers in government – or politics genetally. Shouldn’t take long. Than count the PPE graduates. That will take a while longer. Of course engineers have more satisfying career options than politics. But who needs PPEs outside of politics?
It wasn’t just lockdown and restrictions that apparently stopped the 1st wave, it was a world class track and trace system.
Then come the end of summer the restrictions, and the track and trace system stopped working for reasons unknown.
While lockdowns worked in the first wave, they don’t appear to have been as effective in this second wave – most probably due to lower actual compliance. Part of this will be because the initial terror about COVID has worn off. Individuals are now more likely to know friends and relatives who have had it and recovered, reducing the fear factor element and making people more sanguine about catching it – particularly younger people. Tightening lockdowns further may have a perverse counter reaction.
A second observation is that mass-mask wearing also hasn’t had the benefit expected. In theory mask wearing is good, particularly in interior spaces. However, by comparing countries that enforced mask wearing more widely, wearing of masks in general doesn’t seem to have helped in the way expected. Compliance will be an issue – lots of people wear masks badly, or overuse a single mask without replacing it.
However, a hypothesis is that wearing masks too much leads to the mask concentrating the virus particles, and then the observation of mask-wearers is that they often touch and fiddle with the mask, and then touch other items, could lead to more spreading, rather than less. More selective mask wearing (eg short term, enclosed spaces only and an emphasis on good mask hygiene) might be more effective.
I suspect with masks that if they do offer any benefit that this is negated by the extra confidence they instill in people to go out and to get too close to people. People are also still convinced that they are to protect the wearer.
If masks were even 1% efffective at stopping transmission they would in theory be worth it. But if masks also cause people to go shopping more or/and get a lot closer to people then they can undo a lot of gains, in fact have a negative overall effect.
And as you say people don’t wear them correctly, over use them or the masks themselves are fairly useless.
We have argued here many times about how masks are not being used properly. I don’t think it is possible for a population of 64 million to wear masks properly as a unit. Therefore they can be worse than useful as you say.
My problem is that despite the lockdown thousands are dying every day. Why?
Because the vulnerable are still living in care homes, go to hospital when they are ill and live in multi-generational households, none of which are closed down, and all of which are key theatres of transmission. Gyms, shops, pubs and restaurants, even when open, were actually very minor theatres of transmission as the weekly PHE report states. No government seems to have appreciated the criticality of doing *something* about care homes, even now – try googling “Basingstoke care home COVID” and see what you get returned.
People are generally unhealthy, many are overweight (thanks to government dietary guidelines), lack exercise, sun exposure and are stressed and inflamed. This is disastrous for one’s immune system’s ability to withstand infection.
can we take a look at who those thousands are? Mostly it has been older people who also have other health issues. This virus is simply taking advantage of already compromised systems, and maybe it’s time to consider that if thousands are dying daily with lockdowns, then perhaps lockdowns are more of a problem than a solution.
..but they are not. If you go on to the Office of national Statistics website, you will see that less people died in the UK in 2020, than in any other year in the last ten years (barring 2019, which was extremely low). According to the panic porn BBC, we should have 74,000 plus excess deaths. Where are they?
Oh look here they are:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peop…
“Using the most up-to-date data we have available, the number of deaths
up to 1 January 2021 was 614,096, which is 75,013 more than the
five-year average.”
Lockdowns certainly didn’t save them and may even have contributed to their death.
On the ONS website or in easy to read graphical format on PHE: “Excess mortality in England, week ending 15 January 2021”
80,238 and counting (from March 27 2020) as there is at least a 2 month lag in counting all cause excess mortality in the UK because of the delays in coroner’s courts.
Not good enough. that’s a tired excuse. The dates run from January 1st, year upon year, and when you see 2020 it is no different to any other year. They even put an astrick “estimated” number just to confuse the issue this year, but when you go back to the month of October (year upon year) they’re all pretty much the same. No matter which way you cut it, those 80.000 death do not show up. So my question to you is, why do you always try to bolster the official narrative. Do you have a vested interest?
Misinformation bordering on lunacy. Please see Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge, one of the world’s top statisticians, who works with ONS and has written publicly about the UK’s excess deaths, years of life lost prematurely, and hospitalisations (UK’s ICU wards were 3x more full over Christmas than they were in 2017 during one of the worst flu seasons in 50 years).
Really?…is that so?….can you just point me to those excess death figures, because they don’t appear on the ONS official annual mortality figures. We should be seeing some 80,000 plus excess death rates in 2020. Where have they gone?
You can go to the ONS website and their weekly statistical bulletins do in fact discuss the excess deaths. As the UnHerd moderators typically take days to approve any comment with an external link, I will post the link in a separate comment which you’ll be able to see in a day or two once the moderators have approved it.
In the meantime, here’s some info from renowned statistician Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge and the Royal Statistical Society (that you can google and easily source yourself) which accounts for those 80,000 plus excess deaths you speak of:
“From ONS data, we can calculate that between September and the end of 2020 there were around 21,000 excess deaths in England and Wales. Yet there were 29,000 deaths with Covid on the death certificate, so there has been a substantial deficit of around 8,000 non-Covid deaths. We are, then, faced with a statistical challenge ““ how could this happen?
First, around half of this 8,000 will be people whose primary cause of death was something else: they died “with”, rather than”’from”, Covid. Second, there has been almost no flu. But sadly, we are seeing the absence of the many elderly people who were among the 59,000 excess deaths between March and June, but would otherwise have survived until later in the year.“
David Spiegelhalter, “Behind the numbers: how to make sense of ‘excess’ deaths“, The Guardian, 17 January 2021
And on his Twitter account, on 22 December 2020, Spiegelhalter wrote:
“For time of year, total and excess deaths are without recent precedent. But deaths without Covid as primary cause are at lowest level for 10 years. Minimal flu, and some brought forward by first-wave?“
And this from the Financial Times, on 20 November 2020 (“Covid kills, but do we overestimate the risk?“), concerning the “they would have all died anyway argument”:
“Prof Spiegelhalter estimates that only 5 to 15 per cent of the deaths are people who would have died this year. He also points out that after a huge spike in excess deaths during the spring, there was no great deficit of deaths in the summer. If all that we saw during the first wave had simply been ‘harvesting’, to use a gruesome term — i.e., a short-term increase in the mortality rate that then causes a subsequent drop in deaths because some of the most vulnerable will have died during the earlier spike — we would have seen a big fall in the summer months, which we didn’t.“
I highly recommend Prof Spiegelhalter’s twitter page, where he links a lot of the data/graphs on excess deaths, years of life lost prematurely (i.e. most Covid fatalities would not have died for many years) etc.
Again you are simply attempting to mislead. You don’t look at “this” year, you look at the last twenty years to get the full picture. What is your agenda?
Here’s the ONS link I referred to in my other comment:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peop…
On the contrary, the authoritative ONS website describes the 80,000+ excess deaths in great detail:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peop…
Misinformation. You can go to the ONS website and their weekly statistical bulletins do in fact discuss the excess deaths. I’ve posted the link elsewhere, but it may take the UnHerd moderators a day or two to approve a comment with an external link.
In the meantime, here’s some info from renowned statistician Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge and the Royal Statistical Society (that you can google and easily source yourself) which accounts for those 80,000 plus excess deaths you speak of:
“From ONS data, we can calculate that between September and the end of 2020 there were around 21,000 excess deaths in England and Wales. Yet there were 29,000 deaths with Covid on the death certificate, so there has been a substantial deficit of around 8,000 non-Covid deaths. We are, then, faced with a statistical challenge ““ how could this happen?
First, around half of this 8,000 will be people whose primary cause of death was something else: they died “with”, rather than”’from”, Covid. Second, there has been almost no flu. But sadly, we are seeing the absence of the many elderly people who were among the 59,000 excess deaths between March and June, but would otherwise have survived until later in the year.“
David Spiegelhalter, “Behind the numbers: how to make sense of ‘excess’ deaths”, The Guardian, 17 January 2021
And on his Twitter account, on 22 December 2020, Spiegelhalter wrote:
“For time of year, total and excess deaths are without recent precedent. But deaths without Covid as primary cause are at lowest level for 10 years. Minimal flu, and some brought forward by first-wave?“
And this from the Financial Times, on 20 November 2020 (“Covid kills, but do we overestimate the risk?”), concerning the “they would have all died anyway argument”:
“Prof Spiegelhalter estimates that only 5 to 15 per cent of the deaths are people who would have died this year. He also points out that after a huge spike in excess deaths during the spring, there was no great deficit of deaths in the summer. If all that we saw during the first wave had simply been ‘harvesting’, to use a gruesome term — i.e., a short-term increase in the mortality rate that then causes a subsequent drop in deaths because some of the most vulnerable will have died during the earlier spike — we would have seen a big fall in the summer months, which we didn’t.“
I highly recommend Prof Spiegelhalter’s twitter page, where he links a lot of the data/graphs on excess deaths, years of life lost prematurely (i.e. most Covid fatalities would not have died for many years) etc.
“I shall now give some reasons to be less scared”
If you become infected you have a 99.7% chance of survival. Or, if you are under 60, you are more likely to die driving 40 miles a day to and from work.
Golly, not so scary now.
Not sure the argument for reducing the number of cases as being the best way of reducing the number of dangerous mutations in viruses is scientifically sound. Certainly more mutations are possible the larger the number of cases, but they are then far more likely to become milder. Explained here by Matt Ridley:
“Viruses will always evolve to be more contagious if they can, but respiratory viruses also often evolve towards being less virulent. Each virus is striving to grab market share for its descendants. The best way of achieving this is to print as many copies of itself as possible while in a human body, yet not make that person so ill that they meet fewer people.
Where the sceptics have a point is that it is a worrying possibility that lockdowns could prevent this natural attenuation of the virus. They keep the virus spreading mainly in hospitals and care homes among the very ill, preventing the eclipse of lethal strains at the hands of milder ones.
If so, and it’s only a possibility, then not only do lockdowns fail to wipe out the disease, they may be prolonging our agony.”
http://www.rationaloptimist…
The consensus wisdom about variants is that they arise through transmission. The more transmission, the more the chance of new variants. True. What however give a particular variant a competitive advantage? It is surely reasonable to hypothesise that our restrictions have done precisely that. The original virus was clearly declining in its potency to spread in London during November. Infections were decreasing. Along came a variant that could reach the parts the old one could not. The impact of B117 was swift and sudden. It may be, I’m only speculating, that slowing down the natural spread of a virus may make the rise of a new variant more likely.
All that aside we should take some encouragement from the speed with which the new variant has peaked and declined in England, Ireland and Portugal. More transmissibility may go hand in hand with a shorter period of dominance.
How tickling it is to read all of this discussion of the UK and South Africa variants of the So-Racist-to-Call-it-Wuhan-Or-China virus.
One way you could mitigate the incidence of Covid 19 infection Mr Chivers is to stop using the word “scary” so much.
It’s a fact that fear and stress weaken the immune system which opens the host to opportunistic infection. So less fear and anxiety might actually help to lower the infection rate.
I hope the media is listening.
It sells.
What good has it been? Lockdowns, mask wearing, vaccines, social distancing. Failure is staring society in the face everywhere you look. The brilliant “experts”, politicians, scientists, etc. have had a year to make a difference and they failed. Turns out Viruses are great money making opportunities for con men and “experts” have no answers. Turn off your TV. Go out into the world. Enjoy your life. Why worry about the illusion of control. Exercise. Eat healthy. Social closing as much as possible. This is how to be a healthy human rather than a lab rat for big pharma.
If the vaccine prevents hospitalisation, serious illness and death, then covid becomes just like a cold or mild flu – so why on earth would we still need to lock down? Vaccinate the vulnerable and over 50s and Just let people get it and get over it.
Logic dictates that the more effective the restriction to reduce infection the more infectious the disease becomes because only the more infectious varieties overcame the restrictions – Also the more debilitating the disease the more victims will remove themselves from activity which means the less debilitating variants dominate the arena because they get to be out and about with their less debilitated host and so the disease becomes less and less harmful – When you Lockdown or Mask up everybody, assuming those measures have some effect, then the natural tendency for the disease to become less harmful is curtailed and the chance of it mutating the other way so as to become more deadly may be invoked. So what we are doing in what seems a blind panic is likely making it worse and to go on until we realise our measures are pointless and return to accepting we live in a soup of virus and bacteria and always have done and that is what we are supposed to do – Of course the politicians and officials have become rather puffed up with all their new powers and may like to take the view that if their authoritarian measures are pointless it is equally pointless to stop so they will carry on with delight in their megalomania!
Not sure what logic or science you are using but it’s somewhat flawed and dangerous
David, what is dangerous is not performing a reality check on theories that then tend to pose themselves as dogma. Which is neither scientific.
Thank you Lindsay, for summing up what I also find logical and scientific for nine months now.
Mutations. if the Vaxx program does not work there is no point continuing with mass slow suicide by lockdown.
The same logic could be used for shutting everything down permanently because the influenza virus mutates so rapidly as it spreads around the world (usually from China) every year. If the vaccines make COVID even a bit less deadly, it will be in the same ballpark as the flu for mortality rate–so why pick this particular virus for totalitarian lockdown measures? We need to get it through our heads that we are not going to eliminate this virus. We are going to have to learn to live with it and people are going to die–just as they do every year during flu season. Just as they do every time we decide not to spend money on twinning a highway. There is no “win” to be had here. Life is not fair. We just need to figure out the least bad option and accept it.
Least bad option is lockdown . Anything Welsh will require rapid investment to increase the size of the NHS in a very short time period – its takes years to train Drs.
Covid is not deadly to the vast majority of people. Depending on country it rates from a mild to bad flu season EXCEPT THE FLU HITS ALL AGES AND COVID DOES NOT,
If you still believe all this baloney regarding mutating viruses I suspect you still believe in the tooth fairy.
Everything is a smokescreen for the Great Financial reset which I understand is about to be thwarted by some good true men.
CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHY SUCH HYSTERIA for a virus which is no threat to more than 99% of people? I simply do not understand. And viruses mutate constantly – we have long known that.
The mortality group worldwide is the same group at risk from everything – very sick with 2-3 other diseases slowly killing them, very old and more often in aged care drugged to the eyeballs and fed crap food.
The Flu is pretty universal in effect. Not so Covid. In my bit of Australia I have seen one mask in a year, people kept hugging, a mini lockdown for a couple of weeks and I still know no-one who has had Covid, or been in hospital let alone died.
Our hospitals are empty and we have had 909 deaths, out of about 28,000 ‘cases’ in just over a year, of very sick and old, compared to the 2017 bad flu season when 1,100 died, of all ages IN LESS THAN HALF THAT TIME, and 300,000 sought medical help.
And they wonder why so many do not believe the hype.
Well, lucky you. You live in a country which was successful in more or less getting rid of it . I is definitely not hype in the UK so please stop insulting us
Our immune systems have been involved in an arms race with every bug on the planet since we climbed out of the primeval soup. The admittedly brilliant scientists are just trying to give us a bit of an edge.
A few scientists are brilliant, most just average human beings so invested in their own domain, they cannot grasp the bigger picture
What brilliant scientists would that be then? So far I haven’t seen a single shred of science behind any of this nonsense. It’s become farcical.
I do wonder about the feasibility of “vaccinate everyone, everywhere”. Just consider how other worldwide vaccinations have fared. We’ve eradicated just one disease. Also consider the typical take-up of vaccination programmes even in a developed country.
It seems more likely to me (stressing that CV-19 is NOT AT ALL like the flu) that we will have a new CV-19 vaccine every year or so, aimed at whatever cocktail of variants have recently emerged from the 3rd world, similar to the way in which we now have an annual flu programme.
Now how many people will take this annual vaccine once the current pandemic is over? I suppose it will depend on the information we have, a few years out, on the true effects of CV-19 on the average infectee – the one who shows no obvious symptoms. This is currently a bit of a black hole in our understanding, all the focus having been, naturally, on the dying and seriously ill.
I am not happy with Tom’s comment that the UK government is only good at putting off eating the shit sandwich for as long as possible. This ignores the fact that there are so many instances where the only good option is the one that seems least worst. Allow the UK to at least give economic activity a greater opportunity to function v do the absolute maximum to lockdown and address the virus is a simple way of putting these choices. His comment also ignores the role of the anti social few in our society from aiding and abetting covid. He is making the same convenient decision to blame the government for everything that the media and Starmer do. Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t have this dilemma because the UK as a whole is supporting the Scottish economy not her. So the doesn’t have a shit sandwich to eat anyway does she? Not surprising she gets an A* from the folks who think covid is the only issue and Boris gets a D-. Disappointed with you Tom
So Mr Chivers just wants us to be locked up forever? Or how long? What metric does he suggest
Could Covid-19 vaccines facilitate the evolution of more virulent variants?
Questions are being raised about the new coronavirus variants[1,2,3,4], and their emergence in the UK, South Africa and Brazil – is it coincidental these countries are where AstraZeneca vaccine trials are underway?
Could the new coronavirus variants be related to the possibility that the vaccines may not prevent transmission, and therefore facilitate the evolution of new variants?
For example, UK Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam says “…we do not yet know the impact of the vaccine on transmission of the virus. So even after you have had both doses of the vaccine you may still give Covid-19 to someone else and the chains of transmission will then continue”.[5]
With the possibility the experimental coronavirus vaccine products might not prevent transmission of the virus, is it possible these could be ‘leaky vaccines’, i.e. “anti-disease vaccines that do not prevent transmission” which “can create conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts”? This is described in Andrew F. Read et al’s study re Marek’s disease in poultry, i.e. Imperfect vaccination can enhance the transmission of highly virulent pathogens, published in 2015.[6]
While Read et al note most human vaccines are sterilizing (transmission-blocking) – (e.g. the measles vaccine), Read is “concerned about the next generation of vaccines that are being developed against diseases like HIV and malaria. People don’t naturally develop life-long immunity to these conditions after being infected, as they would against, say, mumps or measles. This makes vaccine development a tricky business, and it means that the resulting vaccines will probably leak to some extent.” Read says “This isn’t an argument against developing those vaccines, but it is an argument for ensuring that we carefully check for transmission.”[7]
Is anyone thinking about the potential problems that might arise if these vaccines do indeed fail to prevent transmission, and what this might mean for the unvaccinated, i.e. if these could be “anti-disease vaccines that do not prevent transmission” which “can create conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts”?
References:
1. Covid-19: What new variants are emerging and how are they being investigated? BMJ 2021;372:n158.
2. Andrew D Stevens BMJ Rapid Response: Re: Covid-19: What new variants are emerging and how are they being investigated? 22 January 2021.
3. How the Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine was made. BMJ 2021;372:n86.
4. Rajalakshmi Lakshman BMJ Rapid Response: Re: How the Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine was made. 23 January 2021.
5. The vaccine has given us hope, but we still need to follow the rules. The Telegraph, 23 January 2021.
6. Andrew F. Read et al. Imperfect vaccination can enhance the transmission of highly virulent pathogens. PLoS Biol. 2015 Jul; 13(7): e1002198.
7. Leaky vaccines enhance spread of deadlier chicken viruses. National Geographic. 27 July 2015.
Please read “SARS-CoV-2 RBD in vitro evolution follows contagious mutation spread, yet generates an able infection inhibitor” Jiri Zahradnik et al. Preprint (2nd version) 2021-01-29 and “The lethal triad: SARS-CoV-2 Spike, ACE2 and TMPRSS2. Mutations in host and pathogen may affect the course of pandemic” Matteo Calcagnile et al. Preprint 2021-01-14.
If you search for the phrase “”bleeding edge virology” and the word “Zahradnik” or for the phrase “update-2021-01-31 for aminotheory” you will find my attempt to summarise the first article.
These new variants, strains or whatever are much higher performing viruses, due to their spike proteins’ Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) having greatly increased affinity for the ACE-2 receptor. This makes them more transmissible, more efficient at causing intense infections and harder to eradicate with nutrition, drugs, innate immune responses and adaptive immune responses: antibodies raised by prior infection or vaccination.
Zahradnik et al. evolved (in yeast, not viruses) further mutations which increase RBD affinity for ACE-2 receptors far more (640 times) than the current “British” or “South African / Brazilian” variants, which have 3.5 and 12.7 times the affinity of ordinary (mid-2020) viruses. If anyone can convince me that this is not extremely alarming, I would greatly appreciate it!
Vitamin D remains a critical nutrient in strengthening healthy immune responses and in curtailing the dysregulated, hyper-inflammatory, self-destructive, immune responses which lead some people to have severe COVID-19 symptoms. However, with these new variants, and those which are likely to evolve sooner or later, I am no longer confident that suitably high, population average, vitamin D levels of 50ng/ml 125nmol/L, which would be twice the UK summer peak, are sufficient to quell COVID-19 transmission to reasonably low levels.
The virus variants we face now are far more efficient than those whose transmission and degree or severe outcomes were strongly quelled in the UK summer of 2020. Proper vitamin D intakes (0.125 micrograms 5000 IU / day for 70kg adults) AND vaccination AND social distancing, masks etc. are all going to be important parts of reducing transmission of these new variants, strains. Lockdowns are unsustainable and extraordinarily destructive, so lets hope we don’t need them permanently as these new and likely future strains / variants become widespread.
Since in nature mutations generally result in a weaker form, why this change?
could genetic meddling in vaccines in general do this given how heavily vaxxed people are today? How many of the very sick or dead got a Flu jab?
“Since in nature mutations generally result in a weaker form”
This is a common “urban myth” about viruses. It isn’t true. Viruses mutate subject to a number of influences and also randomly. There is no general rule that all mutations are weaker.
okay. do you have references?would like to read latest theories.
AND if it was manmade in a laboratory experiment then ‘normal’ mutation factors would not apply.
has the old belief in mutation weakening changed in recent times? during the 40 or so years of the max-vax age?
noted scientists raised this problem long ago-
Sir Macfarlane Burnet, Nobel Prize laureate for immunology suggested over half a century ago that genetics, nutrition, psychological and environmental factors (ecological medicine) may play a more important role in resistance to disease than the assumed benefits of artificial immunity induced by vaccination procedures (Burnet 1952 p106).
He suggested that in years to come society may have to reassess the belief scientists were placing in vaccination. He considered that genetic deterioration of the population may be a consequence of universal mass vaccination campaigns and he postulated that ‘some of our modern successes in preventative and curative medicine may on the longest view be against the best interests of the state’ (Burnet 1952 p107).
Burnet (1952) believed that genetic constitution was the most important hidden variable in disease statistics. Gilbert (2004) reinforces this theory with a new definition of environmental health that emphasises the importance of genetic potential to health outcomes from environmental hazards. This is described in chapter 2. It is possible that the genetics and health of the population are at risk if these factors are not considered in the preventative strategies that are adopted in the control of infectious diseases.
Burnet FM. 1952. The Pattern of Disease in Childhood. Australasian Annals of Medicine. 1: 2: pp93-107.
Just ask a virologist. Or read a good virology text book.
Read Mattt Ridley “Stresses and strains: the evolution of Covid is not random”
His hypothesis: Viruses don’t become weaker when our response results in the promotes the transmission of the most virulent strains. Putting those suffering the worst in hospital, creating conditions where the virus mostly spreads in hospitals, is a route to breeding stronger forms.
And, since Covid-19 has not been truly isolated in a once-clinical sense, how on earth can they identify mutations?
So much smoke, mirrors, snake-oil and computerised rubbish on Covid.
“how on earth can they identify mutations”
With genomic sequencing.
but if it was not forensically identified in the first place, on what basis?
and given the deeply flawed nature of the PCR test, how reliable is the original data?
the trouble with computers and data-crunching is in what gets selected to feed in or garbage in – garbage out
Genomic sequencing is another new form of science like modelling and therefore poor science. it is techo-toy, whizz-bang, computer fiddling stuff.
quote –
How accurately and reliably genome sequencing measures genome variants is termed “analytical validity.” Analytic validity depends on how many times a nucleotide base is read by the sequencing platform during the sequencing process. The more times a particular base is read, the higher the accuracy that it was measured, or “called,” correctly at that particular position. The number of times a particular base is called is the “read depth” or “coverage depth.” The coverage depth can be affected by the quantity and quality of DNA available for sequencing, as well as the computational capabilities of the software selected to determine the DNA sequence. A certain minimum coverage depth is required as the acceptable threshold to be confident that the nucleotide base was called correctly.
Because the DNA is not read at uniform coverage across the genome, it is possible that segments of the genome could be read below the minimum coverage depth. If the depth coverage is not sufficient, it is possible that a base will be identified that is not actually present in a person’s genome. For example, if a mutation that leads to a disease is mistaken for a normal gene (a false negative), the person could think they have been successfully tested for a condition and found to be “negative” for it, whereas that might not be the case. Conversely, a gene could be misread as a mutation that is expected to lead to an adverse condition, whereas in reality, the person is not harbouring such a mutation in their genome (a false positive). A small fraction of the genome might not be sequenced if it reads below the minimum coverage depth.
It is therefore important to remember that information obtained from genome sequencing is not to be used for medical interpretation unless it is validated by additional means. It is the first step only in unravelling biological information from personal DNA. However, it should be noted that in a clinical interpretation of genome sequence, a variant that has not met the adequate threshold for statistical accuracy would not be reported to a doctor.
In summary, genome depth coverage varies throughout, and the lower the depth, the lower the probability that base was measured correctly. Conversely, the higher the coverage, the higher the probability of accurate base calling. The current standard expected is a minimum of 95% of the genome being sequenced with 95% or greater accuracy.
from merogenomics
The PCR test has little to do with genomic sequencing.
You really do need to learn more basic science. PCR test have damm all to do with genomic sequencing ! And sequencing is not a new science!
What on earth do you mean by ‘not isolated in a once clinical sense’ it has definitely been isolated and studied in Greta detail.
Was listening to an “expert” called Simon Clarke from Reading Uni today and he seemed to be so negative and pessimistic, saying we would be in this for years, not months and almost implying that mass events like Glasto would be things of the past. He then seemed to backtrack and say not for “this year”. I then did a bit of research on him: as late as October, he was saying there was no imminent vaccine (having said in March that we should not hope for one) Got me thinking, do some of these guys almost have a vested interest in this continuing as it means they can draw attention to themselves?
* If no one were to identify a given variant, what difference would it make? Should we expect that the trajectory of fatalities would exhibit a wave?
* How many waves have we already experienced without having attributed them to the outbreak of new strains?
* How many new strains of other coronaviruses and flu viruses go around the world every year?
* Are we falling in to the trap of management-by-the-numbers (MBTN)? That is, are we fetishizing stuff we can measure merely because we can measure it, and do we not fetishize things that we are not even aware of?
* If we were not aware of the “novel coronavirus”, would we have done anything about it? Would mortality statistics really look that different?
I myself have examined total mortality for the United States, and one can discern the coronavirus phenomenon in those numbers. But the median age of death attributed to coronavirus is just about the median age of death from plain old death. It would be difficult not to conclude that some volume of years-of-life have not been lost, but the losses are orders of magnitude smaller than the losses that obtained from, say, Spanish Flu. Further, given a bad flu will take away an appreciable number of very young people, the losses from the coronavirus might not even exceed the losses that obtain from any given flu season. Hmm…
“Those in public office have let us know that they consider their task to be a manipulative one: confidence-building and grief management. Politics, the politics of a democracy”which entails disagreement, which promotes candor”has been replaced by psychotherapy. Let’s by all means grieve together. But let’s not be stupid together. A few shreds of historical awareness might help us understand what has just happened, and what may continue to happen.”
“Susan Sontag, 17 September 2001
Here we go: “The McNamara Fallacy”. It even has its own website, mcnamarafallacy.com/
Robert McNamara applied MBTN to the war in Vietnam. The DC establishment has applied MBTN to the war in Afghanistan, which has been going on since 2002. Are we now going to mindlessly pour $trillions in to the MBTN of every virus that comes along?
“The McNamara Fallacy”. It even has its own website, mcnamarafallacy.com/
Robert McNamara applied MBTN to the war in Vietnam. The DC establishment has applied MBTN to the war in Afghanistan, which has been going on since 2002. Are we now going to mindlessly pour $trillions in to the MBTN of every virus that comes along?
I am by no means an expert in these matters, but like to be informed. In this vein, please read and make of it what you will….
Global Times “Deaths after Pfizer vaccination at Spanish nursing home aggravate concerns”
Not sure about sources etc, but pricked my ears up. Typed into google deaths Pfizer vaccine….
I know little about this stuff and am unsure what to make of it all…
I’m sorry to have to tell you that the Global Times is run by the Chinese Communist Party. I hope we can agree that we do not want to be disseminating CCP propaganda and conspiracies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
By contrast, the UK’s independent medicines regulator released an initial study on 5 February confirming the safety of the approved Covid vaccines.
“Over 10 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccines have been given across the UK and the MHRA has gathered a large amount of safety data. Data published today shows 22,820 reports of suspected side effects, or an overall reporting rate of 3 in 1,000 doses of vaccine administered from 9 December 2020 to 24 January 2021. This reassuring data has shown that the vast majority of reported side effects are mild and all are in line with most types of vaccine, including the seasonal flu vaccine. These include sore arms and mild ‘flu-like’ symptoms, which reflect a normal immune response to vaccines and are short-lasting.”
https://www.gov.uk/governme…
Please be more careful about checking the authority of the sources you use. The Global Times is run by the Chinese Communist Party. I hope we can agree that we do not want to be disseminating CCP propaganda and conspiracies.
By contrast, the UK’s independent medicines regulator released an initial study on 5 February confirming the safety (at this time) of the approved Covid vaccines.
“Over 10 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccines have been given across the UK and the MHRA has gathered a large amount of safety data. Data published today shows 22,820 reports of suspected side effects, or an overall reporting rate of 3 in 1,000 doses of vaccine administered from 9 December 2020 to 24 January 2021. This reassuring data has shown that the vast majority of reported side effects are mild and all are in line with most types of vaccine, including the seasonal flu vaccine. These include sore arms and mild ‘flu-like’ symptoms, which reflect a normal immune response to vaccines and are short-lasting.”
P.S. I did try posting this with links to sources, but the UnHerd moderators blocked it pending their review, which often seems to take days (by which time the damage of misinformation being spread has often already been done, IMHO). In the interest of time, I have therefore posted without links, but you can find the UK gov announcement by googling the quote I have cited above. You can also google the Global Times to learn about their nefarious activities.
Thank you Eva, I have been very worried about this Pfizer vaccine. Thankfully everyone I know so far has had the Astra zeneca jab with no ill effects. I am still waiting for my blue envelope in the post. I have no doubt when I do get the jab I will be asking which vaccine it is that I am getting. And no doubt when I get home I will wonder about its efficacy and how this might be affected by the delay in the second dose! Which is all a very odd state of affairs, I fear as lay people we know too much (or think we do) about these vaccines. I have never once asked any such questions about my winter flu jab, but now I feel I must know all about this one.
As an aside, and anecdotally if you will allow me, I know now of two ladies who are refusing to have the vaccine. One who is 77, her husband is in his 80s. He took his but she has refused. She is slightly batty, has always refused her flu jab as she swears by eating a bulb of garlic to cure all her ills. I imagine if she was a young mother today she would not immunise her children, instead giving them spoonfuls of manuka honey or some such thing. The second lady however is much more surprising, she is very well known within our church community and I always thought her to be very level headed. But she says she will not take it. Which then led me to think what a privileged position we are in in this country, where we can pick and choose to have a life saving vaccine.
Oh yes, I absolutely understand your concerns and those of your friends. The speed at which these vaccines has been developed is a remarkable scientific achievement — and the preliminary data from Israel where 60% have been vaccinated so far is very encouraging (big fall in hospital admissions among vaccinated groups) — but at the same time it is only natural and reasonable that the sheer pace of trials and vaccination programmes raises questions about adequate safety checks. The good news so far is that the Oxford/Astra, Pfizer and Moderna vaccines appear to be very safe. And for all we know, the delay in the second dose may even improve one’s immune response (we’ll have data on that soon from one-dose trials, as well as from the UK’s real-world experience), so best not to be overly concerned about that for now (similarly best to wait and see with latest news re concerns over vaccine-resistant variants).
Fortunately, there is very little vaccine scepticism in the UK generally. By contrast, in some polls around 60% of French citizens have suggested they do not want to take any Covid vaccine — that may make it very difficult for them to achieve herd immunity (which may require 80%+ of the population to be vaccinated, according to both Fauci in the US and Tegnell in Sweden) in order to get the pandemic under control as quickly as possible.
Hope you and the majority of your friends get vaccinated and protected, and more generally the UK starts to see a big drop in hospitalisations/deaths very soon as a result.
To all those who say ‘ end the restrictions and give us out lives back’, I say stand up in public ( put it on your Facebook pages, make a video) and say loud and clear that ‘I ( provide your name) are more than happy for hospitals to be overwhelmed and for people to die in hospital corridors, at home , on stretchers, ambulances anywhere just as long as I am allowed to get on with my life and go back to eating out , overseas holiday pubs etc etc
why then in parts of the world, like mine, without lockdown and masks the hospitals remain empty?
You said you were in Australia. Australia has used a combination of lockdown and isolation to practically eliminate the virus locally.
There is no virus on the Isle of Man either.
See James below. It’s kind of obvious! Australia was particularly effective in imposing travel bans rights from the start and , like New Zealand, more or less got rid of the virus . The UK, on the other hand has muddled along with badly implemented restrictions that, because of feeble, incompetent implementation, seem to go on and on forever. Fortunately , it looks as if vaccines might help out where the Government failed in everything else
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