Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[Boris Sprinkler]

Yeah it’s not a beautiful language. Google does it’s best. Learning it was a task.
It’s not proper naughty though. They need more evidence of that. It’s probably naughty to stand up with manipulated statistics and use those as a reason for the current situation rather than the real reason which was to keep UK plc running.
which is what Britain is to these truth twisters. A fucking company.
failure at the beginning of the pandemic sets the scene now.
It doesn’t effect my life per se. other than their behavior now towards Europe may affect my application to stay when it is reviewed in august. And Roger Dawltry is a prick

 

[TopCat]

The evidence is OK for it. Especially when people continue to follow measures.

I want to hug my mum.

 

[LDC]

I want to hug my mum.

Yeah it's rubbish, but the vaccine was never going to make that sensible whatever the % of protection was.

 

[Johnny Doe]

At a time of national crisis, to stick to negotiated agreements and refuse to help is a disgrace. We’ve been busting a fucking gut in the NHS.

My mate's a fireman and says they've been busting a gut too, but because they're so low on numbers, if even a couple of people are off sick, there's a real danger they wouldn't be able to respond to calls to contain fires.

 

[bimble]

Yeah it's rubbish, but the vaccine was never going to make that sensible whatever the % of protection was.

Do you have an idea what would have to happen in order for hugging of mums to become once again a sensible thing to do?
(I’m struggling a lot with the lack of any pointers on the beginning of the end of all this, not any kind of date just an outline of what an acceptable level of risk would actually look like).

 

[TopCat]

Yeah it's rubbish, but the vaccine was never going to make that sensible whatever the % of protection was.

What, say we both get a second jab it's still no hugs? I know this I just miss her and my kids etc...

I have a letter from Hattmancock saying even when I have been vaccinated (done now) to continue to shield until further notice.

 

[LDC]

Do you have an idea what would have to happen in order for hugging of mums to become once again a sensible thing to do?

I'd just follow the guidance as to when that's sensible; which I guess means we're going to need some combination of a massive drop in infection incidence, large % of people vaccinated, etc. Not anytime soon I think.

Personal decisions over risk might not follow that exactly of course.

 

[LDC]

What, say we both get a second jab it's still no hugs? I know this I just miss her and my kids etc...

I have a letter from Hattmancock saying even when I have been vaccinated (done now) to continue to shield until further notice.

Yeah, current guidance is vaccination makes no difference to what anyone does with the other measures I'm afraid.

 

[TopCat]

Despite being wobbly on my feet today I feel rather pugnacious over this today. Fucks sake.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

I concur. Although not wobbly, Im gonna stop reading British news. Its not relevant to me and I am grateful I don't hav to live it day to day. You have my sympathy. Apologies if i upset anyone. I will blame it on seeing a story about Priti Patel and her boner for making things illegal. It just spiralled from there.

Fuck UK plc.

 

[teqniq]

What the fuck is this bullshit? It smacks of a decsion made to make the goevenment look good in terms of the amount of people vaccinated:

Vaccinators could lose their licences for giving second doses prematurely

‘There is a complete refusal at the highest levels to grant permission for second doses before 12 weeks’

www.independent.co.uk

British Medical Association says 12-week Pfizer vaccine dose gap is ‘difficult to justify’

The British Medical Association (BMA) has called on England’s Chief Medical Officer to reduce the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccination, stating that it is "difficult to justify"

inews.co.uk

 

[SpookyFrank]

British Medical Association says 12-week Pfizer vaccine dose gap is ‘difficult to justify’

The British Medical Association (BMA) has called on England’s Chief Medical Officer to reduce the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccination, stating that it is "difficult to justify"

inews.co.uk

Doesn't even make sense in terms of boosting the total numbers, because obviously banning people from giving the jabs will reduce the total number of jabs. It's demented, spiteful bullshit.

 

[LDC]

Doesn't even make sense in terms of boosting the total numbers, because obviously banning people from giving the jabs will reduce the total number of jabs. It's demented, spiteful bullshit.

No, it's really not. It's very clear why it's done. It's to get more people vaccinated and so give protection to more of the vulnerable groups. The only alternative is to give a smaller number of people more protection, and in the current situation the decision has been made that is not as effective in protecting more people. That might change, but currently it does make clinical sense.

And of course the BMA are going to argue that, that's their job, to represent the best interests of doctors, not to argue for the best clinical option for the population as a whole. You can't have GP surgeries making their own decisions over this, or the whole thing will be chaotic and unfair and will cause massive rows. People are already moaning about the different speeds areas are vaccinating, can you imagine if the surgery down the road started giving second jabs against advice when some people haven't had their first?

 

[Mation]

lets not forget that just before christmas the rules in the UK were that those whose profession was of a certain type didnt need to be tested in order to travel without any testing requirements. Such as "working on an advertising film production crew" or being a business wanker.
Those professional types travelling to and from the UK are almost certainly to blame for the spread of the "British variant"
Funnily, when the PM was blathering on yesterday about it being more worse x 10 cos it's English "ENGERLAND!!!" a story was released here that said, there is no evidence of this at all. Smitter den britiske variant mindre, end vi troede? SSI-læge forklarer nye beregninger

You are being consistantly lied to. Recognise.

I don't know if it's an artefact of the translation, but that article is using infectivity interchangeably with contagiousness, it seems, when the two don't refer to the same thing.

 

[SpookyFrank]

No, it's really not. It's very clear why it's done. It's to get more people vaccinated and so give protection to more of the vulnerable groups. The only alternative is to give a smaller number of people more protection, and in the current situation the decision has been made that is not as effective in protecting more people. That might change, but currently it does make clinical sense.

And of course the BMA are going to argue that, that's their job, to represent the best interests of doctors, not to argue for the best clinical option for the population as a whole. You can't have GP surgeries making their own decisions over this, or the whole thing will be chaotic and unfair and will cause massive rows. People are already moaning about the different speeds areas are vaccinating, can you imagine if the surgery down the road started giving second jabs against advice when some people haven't had their first?

But the article mentions doctors being investigated for giving a handful of second jabs when the alternative was letting them go to waste. That has nothing to do with public health strategy.

E2a: and any doctor giving second doses is just following the evidence-based protocol for the vaccine. That is what doctors are supposed to do. They should not have to defer to political decisions that require them to go against the principles of evidence-based practice.

 

[platinumsage]

But the article mentions doctors being investigated for giving a handful of second jabs when the alternative was letting them go to waste. That has nothing to do with public health strategy.

No it doesn’t, it mentions doctors being investigated for giving second doses. The bit about doses going to waste was a rumour. Even if true it should be investigated because there’s no reason with proper planning that leftover Pfizer doses can’t be administered to people who haven’t had their first dose yet.

 

[Spandex]

British Medical Association says 12-week Pfizer vaccine dose gap is ‘difficult to justify’

The British Medical Association (BMA) has called on England’s Chief Medical Officer to reduce the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccination, stating that it is "difficult to justify"

inews.co.uk

What the government are doing with the vaccines is trying to reduce the number of people dying in the current wave of the virus as far as possible.

What the government aren't doing is trying to make as many people as possible as immune as possible during the current wave of the virus.

They haven't been completely transparent about this. All the talk of the vaccine as saviour isn't going to happen until the second doses are done, which under the current plan isn't going to start happening until the spring. That's probably why talk of things being better by the spring is morphing into talk of things being better in the summer.

From the vaccine manufacturers, the WHO and the BMA's point of view the vaccines are to give people immunity to Covid. This is what has been tested for and what will make the big difference in being able to reopen society. The government have come up with another plan and aren't using the vaccine as intended at the moment. That's where the criticism of their plan is coming from. They've calculated that by giving twice as many people a partial dose, they'll save thousands of lives in the short term. Their calculation is that delaying the second dose won't make a difference to its effectiveness. That's a reasonable assumption, but not backed by scientific evidence. It's a bit of a roll of the dice. Hopefully it'll work, otherwise the UK will be fucked for a long time to come.

The other problem, besides whether the vaccine will be as effective with the second dose delayed to the limit of its known effectiveness, is ensuring people get their second dose as soon as possible around the 12 week mark. One potential problem is supply - will the government be able to secure all those second doses after giving the confirmed supply out as first doses? The other is knowing exactly who is due their second dose when. With the rush to vaccinate people - people being given a jab when they take their parents, doctors calling round as they've got some spare, the pizza delivery driver being given a shot when he turns up with food for the vaccination staff - will the record keeping be accurate enough to know when people are due their second dose?

Wanting to save lives isn't a bad objective, but the government's plan does build risks into the program that could come back to bite us all. Fingers crossed all round?

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

But its not being run from the perspective of saving lives. It’s been engineered from the perspective of making them look good. on that front it seems to be failing. Agree?

 

[LDC]

E2a: and any doctor giving second doses is just following the evidence-based protocol for the vaccine. That is what doctors are supposed to do. They should not have to defer to political decisions that require them to go against the principles of evidence-based practice.

No, that's not true. And it's not a political decision, it is a JCVI recommendation based on the evidence for mass population protection not individual protection.

Giving people second doses at a shorter interval means a longer delay for some vulnerable people getting any protection.

 

[killer b]

But its not being run from the perspective of saving lives. It’s been engineered from the perspective of making them look good. on that front it seems to be failing. Agree?

What does this mean

 

[platinumsage]

That's a reasonable assumption, but not backed by scientific evidence. It's a bit of a roll of the dice. Hopefully it'll work, otherwise the UK will be fucked for a long time to come.

I wouldn't say it's not backed by scientific evidence, there's plenty of evidence about vaccines and the immune system that provides a sound basis on which to enact this policy. Sure there haven't been specific clinical trials on this specific dose regimen yet, but then that's to be expected given the timelines. We didn't do specific trials on 90+ year olds either, or on people in care homes, that doesn't mean it's not the right decision to vaccinate those people.

 

[LDC]

Their calculation is that delaying the second dose won't make a difference to its effectiveness. That's a reasonable assumption, but not backed by scientific evidence.

Not strictly true, there is some data to back the decision up. But yes, it is a calculated gamble, one I think the evidence shows is the right one currently.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

fucking around with the time between vaccines. Claiming that Brexit is the reason that the vaccine was available first anywhere in the world because they threw out that ghastly EU. Its all self serving media manipulation and the long game is they will attempt to look like saviours.

I dont know why they just dont go the whole hog and make Corona illegal.

 

[LDC]

I do think some people are getting a bit mixed up with their understandable lack of trust and fair anger at the government not letting them see anything that happens as the right decision tbh.

 

[platinumsage]

But its not being run from the perspective of saving lives. It’s been engineered from the perspective of making them look good. on that front it seems to be failing. Agree?

As I said earlier, how does administering single doses make them look good? That is a conspiracy theory that makes no sense. If they had used the original dose interval they could have looked just as good on the metric of total doses adminstered.

 

[prunus]

What the government are doing with the vaccines is trying to reduce the number of people dying in the current wave of the virus as far as possible.

What the government aren't doing is trying to make as many people as possible as immune as possible during the current wave of the virus.

They haven't been completely transparent about this. All the talk of the vaccine as saviour isn't going to happen until the second doses are done, which under the current plan isn't going to start happening until the spring. That's probably why talk of things being better by the spring is morphing into talk of things being better in the summer.

From the vaccine manufacturers, the WHO and the BMA's point of view the vaccines are to give people immunity to Covid. This is what has been tested for and what will make the big difference in being able to reopen society. The government have come up with another plan and aren't using the vaccine as intended at the moment. That's where the criticism of their plan is coming from. They've calculated that by giving twice as many people a partial dose, they'll save thousands of lives in the short term. Their calculation is that delaying the second dose won't make a difference to its effectiveness. That's a reasonable assumption, but not backed by scientific evidence. It's a bit of a roll of the dice. Hopefully it'll work, otherwise the UK will be fucked for a long time to come.

The other problem, besides whether the vaccine will be as effective with the second dose delayed to the limit of its known effectiveness, is ensuring people get their second dose as soon as possible around the 12 week mark. One potential problem is supply - will the government be able to secure all those second doses after giving the confirmed supply out as first doses? The other is knowing exactly who is due their second dose when. With the rush to vaccinate people - people being given a jab when they take their parents, doctors calling round as they've got some spare, the pizza delivery driver being given a shot when he turns up with food for the vaccination staff - will the record keeping be accurate enough to know when people are due their second dose?

Wanting to save lives isn't a bad objective, but the government's plan does build risks into the program that could come back to bite us all. Fingers crossed all round?

Actually what I think the government is doing is trying to reduce the number of people who become sick enough to have to be in hospital at the same time, as far as possible. This should and most probably is coincident with reducing the number of deaths - as presumably if you're not ill enough to have to be hospitalised you're not ill enough to die (but see below) - but the actual aim, the utility function to be maximised, is (I suspect) concurrent hospitalisations. The give as many people at least some protection approach should acheive this (the very simple rule of thumb that I think has been explicitly stated by at least some people is that if the protection given by 1 dose >= 1/2 the protection given by 2 doses then the 1 dose approach reduces incidence).

Some thoughts (just my own): there are some assumptions in this of course - one is that reduction in incidence by vaccine is directly proportional 1:1 to reduction in hospitalisations (if for instance the people who were going to get it severely anyway are less protection by the vaccine, by the common factor that their immune response to this pathogen is weak for some reason, then you wouldn't see that same proportional reduction in hospitalisations as cases); another that partial protection doesn't have the effect of lengthening the course of severe disease in hospitalised patients, eg by making them able to fight it more effectively with partial protection you might have people who would have died in 3 weeks now taking 6 weeks to die - or even (and this is where the hospitalisations/deaths aims diverge) someone who would have died in 3 weeks now surviving, but taking 6 weeks to do so. The latter in particular would be problematical, but it may not be any more problematical with one dose than 2.

I assume and hope that these things are all being thought about, assessed and where possible tested with the data by people more clued up than me in coming up with the current plan.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

As I said earlier, how does administering single doses make them look good? That is a conspiracy theory that makes no sense. If they had used the original dose interval they could have looked just as good on the metric of total doses adminstered.

Cos then, they get to be top of the tables. "We have vaccinated more people than anyone in the world."

 

[LDC]

I think you're a bit on the wrong path with this Boris Sprinkler - you read like you're (understandably) fuming, and what you're saying is not making any reasoned points.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Cos then, they get to be top of the tables. "We have vaccinated more people than anyone in the world."

That's more because the UK was before the EU in approving vaccines, and getting started, the EU still hasn't approved the Oxford vaccine, and now they will be facing delays on supply of it, when they get around to approving it, due on 29th Jan.

AstraZeneca will cut deliveries of the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine to the European Union by 60% in the first quarter of the year, according to Reuters news agency.

The company was expected to deliver around 80 million doses to the 27 EU countries by the end of March, an EU official told the agency.

However, it now expects that to be cut to 31 million doses due to "production problems" at a vaccine factory in Belgium run by its partner Novasep.

Earlier, the Financial Times reported that supplies to the UK would not be affected.

COVID-19: AstraZeneca to 'cut COVID-19 vaccine delivery to EU by 60%'

The EU regulator is due to decide on approval of AstraZeneca's vaccine on 29 January, with a deal to purchase at least 300m doses.

news.sky.com

 

[Boris Sprinkler]