Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[littlebabyjesus]

I don't get the accelerating of second doses. That comes after new evidence that both Pfizer and az benefit from the 12 week delay. They judge that this is better than accelerating first doses? I'd like to see the workings and assumptions behind that.

 

[brogdale]

I don't get the accelerating of second doses. That comes after new evidence that both Pfizer and az benefit from the 12 week delay. They judge that this is better than accelerating first doses? I'd like to see the workings and assumptions behind that.

Yeah, kind of undermines the previous story that 1 dose was fine and dandy with a 12 week gap.

 

[Teaboy]

I don't get the accelerating of second doses. That comes after new evidence that both Pfizer and az benefit from the 12 week delay. They judge that this is better than accelerating first doses? I'd like to see the workings and assumptions behind that.

It doesn't strike me as very difficult to work out. It will be the same line of thinking that led them to the long delay between 1st and 2nd does initially. Something they were heavily criticized for.

 

[Sue]

No deviation from May 'roadmap', but "I must level with you" about June.

Hmmm

If it helps any, my company sent out a mail yesterday saying we have to be back in the office on 21/06. So far, their timing has been impeccable --they send out an email like that and piss everyone off. Next thing, we're back in lockdown and they have to row back. Based on this, I can confidently predict things will not be back to normal on 21/06.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Cases in places like Bolton are surging specifically in the non-vaccinated population. That's kind of encouraging as it suggests the vaccine may be effective against the Indian variant, but it also follows previous patterns that new spread starts among those who move around the most, ie the young. Naively, I would have thought that getting first doses into people asap would be the priority now to slow the spread. As I said, I'd like to see the workings.

 

[LDC]

Yeah, kind of undermines the previous story that 1 dose was fine and dandy with a 12 week gap.

My understanding is that the 12 week gap is good for immunity, but this new shortening of the gap is down to trying to reduce transmission of the new variant as fully vaccinated people have been shown to lessen that.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It doesn't strike me as very difficult to work out. It will be the same line of thinking that led them to the long delay between 1st and 2nd does initially. Something they were heavily criticized for.

The worries I read at the time were that the efficacy of the first jab would start wearing off before the second jab could 'lock in' the immunity. Those fears now appear not to have been well founded. They seem to have lucked into more or less the optimal time gap. That's where I'm confused.

 

[brogdale]

My understanding is that the 12 week gap is good for immunity, but this new shortening of the gap is down to trying to reduce transmission of the new variant as fully vaccinated people have been shown to lessen that.

I'd like to believe that; trouble is I think that the big-pharma timeframe might be governed as much by $ as 'science' and the state timeframe as much by 'politics' as 'science',

 

[littlebabyjesus]

My understanding is that the 12 week gap is good for immunity, but this new shortening of the gap is down to trying to reduce transmission of the new variant as fully vaccinated people have been shown to lessen that.

Fair enough. That makes sense, I guess.

They still seem very slow in responding to me. Insistence on centralised decision-making causes delays. If they allow surge vaccinating in Bolton from today, that means they've wasted three days completely unnecessarily, cos it was requested on Tuesday.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'd like to believe that; trouble is I think that the big-pharma timeframe might be governed as much by $ as 'science' and the state timeframe as much by 'politics' as 'science',

The thing I'm concerned about is that they seem to have made a plan and to be reluctant to adjust it. I'm still puzzled as to how they calculated that teachers aren't a priority group when they went back to work on 8 March, while refusing to prioritise prison inmates and staff was borderline criminal imo, and nothing to do with any science. What arguments were being made against surge vaccination over the last three days?

And of course, we can't know much of this cos SAGE is not transparent.

 

[bimble]

Anyone feel like reading something really depressing?

"Assuming the vaccines hold up, more people could be hospitalised than in the first wave – putting the NHS at risk – if the variant is much more than 30% more transmissible, University of Warwick models show. At 40% more transmissible, hospitalisations could reach 6,000 per day, far above the peak of the second wave, and 10,000 per day if the variant is 50% more transmissible."

India variant could lead to serious third wave of Covid in UK

Analysis: If B.1.617.2 proves highly transmissible, hospitalisations could peak again, models show

www.theguardian.com

 

[LDC]

Fair enough. That makes sense, I guess.

They still seem very slow in responding to me. Insistence on centralised decision-making causes delays. If they allow surge vaccinating in Bolton from today, that means they've wasted three days completely unnecessarily, cos it was requested on Tuesday.

JCVI against surge vaccinating on balance apparently. Modelling shows it's less effective overall than the current program.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Anyone feel like reading something really depressing?

"Assuming the vaccines hold up, more people could be hospitalised than in the first wave – putting the NHS at risk – if the variant is much more than 30% more transmissible, University of Warwick models show. At 40% more transmissible, hospitalisations could reach 6,000 per day, far above the peak of the second wave, and 10,000 per day if the variant is 50% more transmissible."

India variant could lead to serious third wave of Covid in UK

Analysis: If B.1.617.2 proves highly transmissible, hospitalisations could peak again, models show

www.theguardian.com

The article makes a good point that surge vaccinating now could backfire as it's essentially too late in places like Bolton. I'm still concerned by the dithering, though. They need to be able to respond quickly.

Of course the fuck up was allowing it in in the first place. It's clearly entered the country several separate times.

 

[elbows]

JCVI against surge vaccinating on balance apparently. Modelling shows it's less effective overall than the current program.

And some of Johnsons wording in the press conference implied that fiddling around with the vaccination programme timing may be more useful if this variants transmissibility is only increased a bit, but that we are in deep shit that will require non-vaccine based measures if the increase in transmissibility is on the high end of things.

A lot of the substance of the press conference has already been covered by the conversations we've been having all week on this thread. So I'll just point out a few things:

The classic UK error in this pandemic was still present in some of Johnsons logic - claiming that we will act quickly once clear and unambiguous data is available means that we will not actually end up acting quickly, because data tends to be slow to come in and somewhat vague for quite some time.

In this new laissez-faire era of pandemic control measures, the measures are more like advice, more of the burden is now left to individual judgement rather than not reopening pubs etc. When Johnson was going on about this, he was keen to emphasise how important this is in areas where lots of new variant cases have already been discovered. But Whitty was pretty keen to point out how widespread the seeding of this variant has been already, and how the likes of Bolton are far from the only areas affected. Given the lag to our surveillance, my advice is that people all across the nation should think carefully before deciding to visit a pub indoors, etc etc. Reassurances that the numbers in your area arent as bad as the places that grab the headlines have been shown to be false reassurances in the past, and people should keep those lessons in mind.

I dont know how much more I will have to say on this variant in the coming days because my expectations are very strongly connected to how transmissible this new variant turns out to be. Although the authorities say they do not have an answer to that vital question yet, I suspect that they suspect its on the high side, or else they would have been tempted not to draw so much attention to the gloomier scenarios at all at this particular moment.

 

[Sunray]

I don't get the accelerating of second doses. That comes after new evidence that both Pfizer and az benefit from the 12 week delay. They judge that this is better than accelerating first doses? I'd like to see the workings and assumptions behind that.

This is taken from real world data, Pfizer second does up to 99% effective against death but still gathering data. Takes time to know.

https://khub.net/documents/135939561/430986542/Summary+of+evidence+on+vaccine+effectiveness+against+different+outcomes.pdf/5ea31c93-1dbe-f2d0-4f58-457f45422d22

 

[elbows]

They've also taken a shit on some of the logic they explained in previous months, when setting out why they were leaving such a large gap between relaxation steps, and only changing a limited number of things per phase. Back then I'm pretty sure that either Vallance or Whitty went on about how it would be hard to judge certain things if too many variables were changed simultaneously.

Well, given we are now trying to determine the extent to which the new variant is more transmissible, isnt stuff like imminently allowing people to hug, meet indoors including in pubs etc, going to complicate the analysis?

 

[elbows]

Anyone feel like reading something really depressing?

"Assuming the vaccines hold up, more people could be hospitalised than in the first wave – putting the NHS at risk – if the variant is much more than 30% more transmissible, University of Warwick models show. At 40% more transmissible, hospitalisations could reach 6,000 per day, far above the peak of the second wave, and 10,000 per day if the variant is 50% more transmissible."

India variant could lead to serious third wave of Covid in UK

Analysis: If B.1.617.2 proves highly transmissible, hospitalisations could peak again, models show

www.theguardian.com

I already depressed the thread in this manner earlier this week by finding that modelling and going on about it.

#36,556
#36,570

 

[elbows]

The thing I'm concerned about is that they seem to have made a plan and to be reluctant to adjust it. I'm still puzzled as to how they calculated that teachers aren't a priority group when they went back to work on 8 March, while refusing to prioritise prison inmates and staff was borderline criminal imo, and nothing to do with any science. What arguments were being made against surge vaccination over the last three days?

And of course, we can't know much of this cos SAGE is not transparent.

The delays in publication of SAGE papers have come down by a lot as the pandemic has gone on, so I was recently able to see updated modelling from early May much sooner than I otherwise would have expected to earlier in the pandemic.

I'd say there is always some scientific rationale behind their vaccination programme decisions, but there are quite a lot of different ones to choose from, all manner of balancing acts that we may or may not feel they have done properly. And I have severely overdone my pandemic detail waffling this week so I'm sorry that I cannot add some pertinent detail to this response.

Certainly it would be a mistake to think of JCVI as some wholly independent entity, so I dont consider them to be any more pure or less compromised by various practicalities and balancing acts than the other parts of the decision making system on this.

 

[Artaxerxes]

The sodding City of sodding Glasgow will doffing remain in sodding Level sodding 3 of sodding coronavirus restrictions, for one sodding more sodding week and until sodding Monday 24th of sodding May.

This sodding means no sodding travel sodding in and sodding out of sodding Glasgow is sodding allowed for the next sodding week, unless sodding travel is sodding necessary.

"Glasgow will remain in Quarantine until the immigrants are deported."

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

So, yet again we’re going to unlock stuff and then regret it. Brilliant.

 

[bimble]

i missed those posts elbows but tbh it just feels like some data to back up the grim sense of foreboding i've had since last month (when i was getting news from people in india).

 

[elbows]

Speaking of more timely availability of SAGE papers, the summary minutes of yesterdays meeting are already available!

And they include this:

It is therefore highly likely that this variant is more transmissible than B.1.1.7 (high confidence), and it is a realistic possibility that it is as much as 50% more transmissible. There are also plausible biological reasons as to why some of the mutations present could make this variant more transmissible.

If this variant were to have a 40-50% transmission advantage nationally compared to B.1.1.7, sensitivity analyses in the modelling of the roadmap in England (SAGE 88) indicate that it is likely that progressing with step 3 alone (with no other local, regional, or national changes to measures) would lead to a substantial resurgence of hospitalisations (similar to, or larger than, previous peaks). Progressing with both steps 3 and 4 at the earliest dates could lead to a much larger peak. Smaller transmission advantage would lead to smaller peaks.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/986564/S1236_Eighty-nineth_SAGE_meeting.pdf

I am of the opinion that we should not be proceeding with the May relaxations, but of course the government decided otherwise.

 

[elbows]

Johnson was trying to make it sound like our surveillance was nice and timely these days, but one of the slides Whitty went through shows otherwise.

Whitty mentioned the exponential growth shown, but as we can see the figures for the week starting May 3rd are hugely incomplete, and there is a bit of text next to the graph that goes on about variant cases can be identified many weeks after the sample date.



from https://assets.publishing.service.g...s_Conference_Slides_for_broadcast_updated.pdf

 

[elbows]

Also from yesterdays SAGE meeting document:

Early indications are that there is some antigenic distance between B.1.617.2 and wild-type virus, and that this distance is greater than that for B.1.1.7, but less than for B.1.351, and similar to that for B.1.617.1 (low confidence). This means that there may be some reduction in protection given by vaccines or by naturally acquired immunity from past infection, though data on this are still mixed.

Any such reduction is likely to affect protection against infection more than protection against severe disease or death. If protection against infection were reduced it could contribute to a transmission advantage over B.1.1.7. PHE has linked data on vaccinations and variants and is monitoring for any signals of an impact on vaccine efficacy.

There are other documents from yesterday that I have not had time to read yet. Scroll down a bit on the following page to see them. SAGE meetings, May 2021

 

[baldrick]

Oh for fucks sake.

It's not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.

 

[platinumsage]

Anyone feel like reading something really depressing?

"Assuming the vaccines hold up, more people could be hospitalised than in the first wave – putting the NHS at risk – if the variant is much more than 30% more transmissible, University of Warwick models show. At 40% more transmissible, hospitalisations could reach 6,000 per day, far above the peak of the second wave, and 10,000 per day if the variant is 50% more transmissible."

India variant could lead to serious third wave of Covid in UK

Analysis: If B.1.617.2 proves highly transmissible, hospitalisations could peak again, models show

www.theguardian.com

The Warwick modelling assumes vaccines are only 80% effective at preventing deaths and hospitalisations after one dose and 90% after two doses. This is nonsensical given what we know, and if figures even slightly closer to reality are used the 6000 hospitalisations a day quickly drops away.

 

[miss direct]

Why are we banging on about hugging when so many are still unvaccinated?

 

[Sunray]

The Warwick modelling assumes vaccines are only 80% effective at preventing deaths and hospitalisations after one dose and 90% after two doses. This is nonsensical given what we know, and if figures even slightly closer to reality are used the 6000 hospitalisations a day quickly drops away.

The problem with that thinking is we don't yet know if there is any reduction in the effectiveness of the vaccines on the Indian variant.
What if it's less than 80%? Vaccines aren't perfect.

The WHO said it appeared to have a higher rate of transmission and that there was preliminary evidence suggesting some vaccines may be less effective against it.

 

[bimble]

The Warwick modelling assumes vaccines are only 80% effective at preventing deaths and hospitalisations after one dose and 90% after two doses. This is nonsensical given what we know, and if figures even slightly closer to reality are used the 6000 hospitalisations a day quickly drops away.

Why are they doing it so wrong then? (I don't know 'what we know')

 

[Cloo]

Exactly baldrick

[Selfish post alert] Fuck. My daughter's bat mitzvah at the end of June is gonna get cancelled again, isn't it? What's worse, they'll probably dither about and it'll be a week or two before.

Just as well we've arranged a zoom celebration earlier in the week, cos it might be all we get.