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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

Breaking news, the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen single dose vaccine has been approved for use in the UK.

They were hoping this could increase take-up in the younger age groups, as it's more convenient having just one jab, but there's been reports of possible blood clotting events associated with it, so maybe it will be restricted like the AZ one.



Janssen single-dose Covid vaccine approved by UK

I'm wondering if they might use it as a "booster" for the most vulnerable (& those that were jabbed very early) later in the year ?
 
Yeah, not sure of the use cases for J&J in the UK now. I can see it being of most use in remote areas of poorer countries and ethically we should probably give them all away for that use.

Agreed, although could also be useful for those here who have chaotic lifestyles and might find it harder to return for a second jab eg. homeless people, people in active addiction?
 
I'm wondering if they might use it as a "booster" for the most vulnerable (& those that were jabbed very early) later in the year ?

No theyve already confirmed that will be pfizer. Theyve bought 60m extra. Not sure if there is any trial data on using it as a booster yet... i think theres a study underway tho.

Id imagine they will probably hold off on the widespread use of J&J for the moment, especially in under 40s... cos of the clotting thing. They might also donate some abroad who knows. Or they might deploy it in badly affected areas where they need to go door to door or jab very quickly.
 
Oh ffs. I'm trying to book a few days off to visit my lass in Scotland - this is the last bastard thingI want to see
I really want to go and see my family -- it's been a lonely year -- but seems too early to make any plans just yet. :( (I'd be doing Edinburghish and Glasgow.)
Glasgow to remain in lockdown level 3 ahead of potential level 2 move next week
Glasgow to remain in lockdown level 3 ahead of potential level 2 move next week
 
Sensible....ethical....Boris Johnson... He'll probably throw them all in the sea and get a five point poll lift out of it, going on recent evidence.
I've of the opinion we should target a specific country or a limited set of countries and donate the vaccines en mass rather than spread them over lots of countries. Such as countries that have ordered from India but aren't likely to get them anytime soon.

Hopefully, the USA will delete its Defence Production Act on vaccines soon so it can export and the rest of the world can make more.

its become a very interconnected world
 
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Your sense of timing is off. We havent finished the phase of easing restrictions yet, we have not returned to baseline normal behaviour which would allow the virus to spread with its maximum potential. At this stage all we need are signs of the situation growing worse in a couple of locations. Those signs are present, and then it becomes about more complicated detail of exact scale, and waiting to see if the same pattern happens in other locations.

There is no doubt that vaccinations have altered the picture of population susceptibility, and that this is one of the major inputs into modelling of what sort of sized waves to expect, and when. Thats extremely good news, but again the devil is in the detail, and some aspects of the vaccine success can actually lead to complacency and poor analysis of the current situation and risk. The key question is whether the level of immunity in the population, via previous infections and the vaccine programme, is enough to prevent a large wave from developing in the coming months.

Put it this way: Vaccines already given would be expected to change the timing, pace etc of the development of a subsequent wave. Therefore you should not be using the speed at which the last wave developed, in a pre-vaccine era, in order to conclude that the Indian variant is of no concern because it hasnt exploded everywhere yet. Yes it is possible that a combo of vaccines given already and enough people taking things seriously will be enough to keep a subsequent wave modest or barely visible. But it is simply too soon to make that claim. As I keep saying, the modelling implied a third wave might arrive in July, so there is absolutely no way I can be reassured before then.

I think we are all of the opinion post the 17th May, cases were going to rise. We clearly can't be in lockdown forever. So is just a matter of timing + vaccination.
It's just the numbers going into hospital that is the big worry. While this has risen, it's not huge yet and mainly under 35's.

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The good news is the number of people needing ventilation has yet to rise, at 120 people.
 
This isn't good. Town was rammed today. Buses were as busy as they ever were pre Covid. Roads are hectic now with, presunably, people off for a weekend break.

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Earlier this week we went back over 3000 new cases reported in the daily figures, today we're on 4,182, a 24% increase in the 7-day average compared to the 7 days before.

Of course, there're various things in play - stage 3 unlocking, the Indian variant, and surge testing in hotspot areas - and an increase in new cases was always expected as we unlock, it's hospital admissions they are more interested in.

Sadly, the admissions have been going up the last few days, on Wednesday the 7-day average was up +10.8%, yesterday +19.9%, today +25.2%.

Deaths reported yesterday were up +14%, today they are up +38.1%.

If these tends continue, I fucking hope they delay the next stage of unlocking.
 
Earlier this week we went back over 3000 new cases reported in the daily figures, today we're on 4,182, a 24% increase in the 7-day average compared to the 7 days before.

Of course, there're various things in play - stage 3 unlocking, the Indian variant, and surge testing in hotspot areas - and an increase in new cases was always expected as we unlock, it's hospital admissions they are more interested in.

Sadly, the admissions have been going up the last few days, on Wednesday the 7-day average was up +10.8%, yesterday +19.9%, today +25.2%.

Deaths reported yesterday were up +14%, today they are up +38.1%.

If these tends continue, I fucking hope they delay the next stage of unlocking.
Guardian leading on that line right now...

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Those trends in cases etc are very worrying.

There have been a few mutterings about potential delays to the June unlockening ... but a few days ago bojo was saying that he didn't see anything in the available data that would indicate that.
But, looking at those trends ...

Unless the vaccination rate gets better in the areas with higher case rates of the "Indian" variant and people are sensible over the next few week (and especially over this coming bank holiday w/end) I forsee some more trouble ahead.

Personally, I think the May step should have been delayed as we hadn't managed to keep the "Indian" variant out and now it is here, we don't seem to be able to get cases under control - at least in some areas.

I know using "local" restrictions didn't work well last time they were tried, but surely the lessons have been learnt ... maybe they should be tried again.
 
I really cant draw attention to national hospital admission figures yet. I know you can get some rises out of certain rolling averages but when I look at the daily numbers I still dont really have anything to add beyond what I pointed out yesterday. In my book the rolling average rises are mostly still just showing up because there was an additional dip in the past that I tend to see as a blip. #37,335

Obviously if I zoom into places like Bolton then their hospital admissions and numbers in hospital show a more obvious increase.
 
The surge testing in my local area which has now been ongoing for a week had failed to make any interesting difference to the daily case numbers here, but today there is a sign that may be changing. I have to wait more days to be sure though, and the graphs I could show wont show anything interesting yet, unlike a bunch of other places that we are now used to hearing about on the news.
 
Yes, what he is saying is entirely consistent with basic pandemic maths, lessons learnt (or not learnt) from the first wave and the second wave, modelling at the start of May, and the wide range of uncertainty about the exact impact of the new variants and whether or not we might just about get away with things given levels of vaccination etc.

Nothing much has changed in terms of my expectations since I first started going on about the modelling much earlier in May. The 'great news' about vaccine effectiveness is actually a mixed picture, contrary to the headlines, but we've discussed that already as well. I just have to wait and see. A very sensibile country that erred on the side of caution would not have done the May unlocking on schedule, let alone the June unlocking which is the step plenty of experts especially shit themselves about right now.
 
I can see Worthing cropping-up in reports over the next few days, being the area with the highest increase in new cases, at a whopping 1200% reported today. :bigeyes:

However, over the last few days, Worthing has been reported as one of only two areas with zero cases, then we went to one, now 13 or 11.7 per 100k population - hence the 1200% increase, which again demonstrates that when case numbers are very low, just a few extra cases can produce a very big percentage increase.

And, there was me thinking of getting this map framed. ;)

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Hancock was wittering about hoping to have broken the link between cases and hospital admissions because of vulnerable people having had vaccines. Is there any evidence of this?

Its true to some extent, the billion dollar question is to what extent.

Its always been a numbers game, when they fucked it all up to start with they got the numbers wrong and we had to live with the consequences whilst plan B had time to take hold. Then the seocnd time Johnson was an utter cunt and fucked it all up despite the basic reality being so obvious to so many.

In the vaccine era the link between cases and hospitalisations has been changed, not utterly broken. This makes a difference to the numbers game, but modelling suggests that we are not in a situation where we can allow a huge number of cases to develop without still facing serious consequences in terms of hospitalisations and deaths. This is also where the large remaining uncertainties exist - there isnt doubt that relaxing measures leads to more cases, but there is uncertainty about all the different things vaccine does, and therefore how many of each sort of thing to expect. The number of people vaccinated, how much vaccines reduce transmission, how much they reduce symptomatic disease, how much they reduce hospitalisations and how much they reduce deaths, all feature some uncertainty. New variants have the ability to reduce certainty further. There are positive signs about how much vaccines will achieve, but without certainty and the test of time, it is currently not possible to say exactly how big and how deadly the next wave will be. Possibilities range from it being small enough that its not really much of an issue, to waves of hospitalisation and death that are similar or larger than the ones we've already had.
 
Here is the Gowers letter the Guardian have published. The one that apparently helped change their idiotic herd immunity plan by pointing out that athe numbers just didnt add up. Its a pretty easy read, although it obviously comes with the usual facepalms when we consider the backdrop, how long the fuckwits in power failed to appreciate this in the buildup to the first wave, until the dramatic u-turn that begun late on March 13th 2020. (a u-turn which became obvious to us within a few days). That letters like this, along with criticism from some other experts in public in the buildup to that date, were required to get them to u-turn is still a damning testament to the incompetence of the government and indeed the crap establishment approach to this sort of emergency. Long-standing crap priorities and establishment attitudes are partly to blame. Some of that shit is creeping back in.

 
I’m coming to the conclusion that Dominic Cummings is way smarter than Boris Johnson. Whatever his politics, this makes me think he would have done a much better job than Boris ‘Bodies’ Johnson in this pandemic.
It’s a low bar but it’s clearly true.

 
Since I always went on about hospital infection control in this pandemic, went on about an outbreak at my local hospital last June, and posted a Guardian article about the number of deaths via these sorts of infections, I may as well post the sad stats for my local hospital that the local news site has published.

Information from a Freedom of Information (FOI) act request has revealed that almost a third of Covid-19 deaths came from catching coronavirus from within the hospital itself.

There were 69 probable cases of hospital acquired coronavirus cases at the 'Eliot and 83 definite, a total of 152 between March 2020 and March 2021.

Of these, it resulted in 45 people losing their lives.

They also included Univerity Hospitals Birmingham figures:

Neighbouring University Hospitals Birmingham had the highest number of hospital-acquired Covid-19 infections, at 1,463. It also had the highest number of deaths from Covid-19 caught in the hospital, at 408.

 
Any news on this 'Thai' variant that I saw reported somewhere today? Traced from Thailand and ultimately back to Egypt(!) apparently. 100 or so cases detected in the UK so far. I forget where it was (maybe the BBC live updates today). The Yorkshire variant seems to have gone quiet too.
 
Depends what you are expecting to hear. There wont be that much about them in the news except when the weekly figures come out or there is some specific new concern or study involving them. A lot of the nerdy aspects and the weekly numbers tend to get mentioned on the Covid Mutations thread.
 
A “sense of confusion” is undermining the government’s efforts to suppress coronavirus, a Sage psychologist has warned. Professor Stephen Reicher told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Westminster is in a “pickle” because it appears to have dropped its ‘data, not dates’ principle ahead of its planned lockdown exit on 21 June.

Professor Reicher also accused the government of contradicting itself in current messaging, such as by telling people that they can legally travel and hug each other – but “please don’t”.

From some independent live updates page that I dont normally look at Government’s mixed messages ‘undermining work to control virus’ - follow live

The data not dates thing was always bullshit because they named a lot of dates at the time. They knew how they were supposed to do this properly, but they didnt want to even back then.
 
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