Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[two sheds]

I've already had mine 15 quid at the chemist's. Supposedly a lot of people my mum knows have had bad reactions to it so she hasn't had hers yet.

tell her I've not even had a sore arm

mind you coronavirus vaccine kept at -70 has to make your arm somewhat sore

 

[cupid_stunt]

I've paid for mine, cost me £12 on 14th October and I'm over 60 never mind 50 so fuck you Hancock

Why did you do that, when it was announced months ago that it would be expanded to include everyone over 50?

 

[Supine]

tell her I've not even had a sore arm

mind you coronavirus vaccine kept at -70 has to make your arm somewhat sore

They might let it warm up a bit first

 

[elbows]

I'm also aware that my previous post might not be terribly helpful, but I attempted it anyway because of the shape of that data at the moment, and because if people are instead looking at deaths by date of reporting, they are seeing this sort of thing at the moment:

 

[MickiQ]

Why did you do that, when it was announced months ago that it would be expanded to include everyone over 50?

It wasn't very well publicised then since I certainly didn't know about it

 

[cupid_stunt]

It wasn't very well publicised then since I certainly didn't know about it

It was all over the news at the time, TV, radio & papers, and discussed on here, sorry you missed it somehow.

I thought it was announced back in late Aug./early Sept., in fact it was actually announced back in July.

Most comprehensive flu programme in UK history will be rolled out this winter

Providers will work to vaccinate more than 30 million people during this flu season – millions more than received it last year.

www.gov.uk

 

[elbows]

I see that the vaccine for NHS workers as part of the initial wave of vaccinations got a brief mention today in the press conference. I wonder what uptake will be like. I know that for a number of years they were shamed by relatively low uptake of influenza vaccination in this sector, and spent a fair amount of money on internal campaigns to improve that picture, managing to get it above 70% for the first time a couple of years ago I believe. Its not just the wider public where skepticism towards vaccination can have unwanted impacts.

 

[MickiQ]

It was all over the news at the time, TV, radio & papers, and discussed on here, sorry you missed it somehow.

I thought it was announced back in late Aug./early Sept., in fact it was actually announced back in July.

Most comprehensive flu programme in UK history will be rolled out this winter

Providers will work to vaccinate more than 30 million people during this flu season – millions more than received it last year.

www.gov.uk

Bummer, well £12 won't break me and I know for next year. Well actually £24 since I paid for Mrs Q's as well. She's 58 so she would have been free as well. Son got a voucher off his employer and his G/F was jabbed at the hospital since nurses get it for free anyway. Don't know if that isa regular thing or just a 2020 special cause of the lurgy.

 

[LDC]

I see that the vaccine for NHS workers as part of the initial wave of vaccinations got a brief mention today in the press conference. I wonder what uptake will be like. I know that for a number of years they were shamed by relatively low uptake of influenza vaccination in this sector, and spent a fair amount of money on internal campaigns to improve that picture, managing to get it above 70% for the first time a couple of years ago I believe. Its not just the wider public where skepticism towards vaccination can have unwanted impacts.

I've been meaning to write a longer post about that issue and the conversations I had recently with some NHS workers (who were bordering on covid conspiracy) but as part of that encounter I did come across a vaccine refuser at work. They said they refuse all vaccines and generally 'would rather die than take a pill every day'. They also went on to say the government figures are massively exaggerated, 'with covid/not of covid' and all that nonsense. So yes, working in the NHS doesn't insulate you from idiotic conspiracy thinking around covid, vaccines, etc.

 

[ignatious]

When you get ill the virus starts replicating itself inside your body. This is how you get ill and this is how you become infectious. Your immune system is primed by the vaccine to recognise the virus so it can attack it and stop it replicating. How would you therefore be infectious but not ill?

You can have suppressed symptoms but still be contagious, just as you can be asymptomatic and contagious. The table on page 2 of this article shows that none of the ongoing trials are aiming to prove their vaccine can interrupt person to person transmission. Hopefully they will but it’s not scientifically certain fwiu.

 

[elbows]

So in todays press conference they had the same sort of issues when trying to talk about the picture that I've been having recently, ie the temptation to talk about peaks and plateaus whilst at the same time being cautious about what several days further data may show.

And as per a previous conversation here, they are still sticking with the 'just show one graph' approach.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/937225/20201120_-_Press_conference_slide.pdf

One additional days data is actually available from the same source, and the 14,479 has reduced to 14,236. And here is my graph of the regional version of the same data:


Source of data I used for that graph is the daily spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

 

[Supine]

I've been meaning to write a longer post about that issue and the conversations I had recently with some NHS workers (who were bordering on covid conspiracy) but as part of that encounter I did come across a vaccine refuser at work. They said they refuse all vaccines and generally 'would rather die than take a pill every day'. They also went on to say the government figures are massively exaggerated, 'with covid/not of covid' and all that nonsense. So yes, working in the NHS doesn't insulate you from idiotic conspiracy thinking around covid, vaccines, etc.

Although it's almost certainly a minority view in an organisation that employs a million+ people.

 

[elbows]

Stop with the flying analogies. Over.

You know we'll be in trouble if we tune into a press conference and see this. Or perhaps given the performance of the current bunch we will be better off. I dont see so much of Whitty and Vallance these days, think they got punctured and the puncture repair kit is stuck in some port backlog.

 

[elbows]

JVT with his “over” on the presser.

Thanks to my amazing abilities to research and present only the most vital and pressing details in this pandemic, I can reveal that a flurry of local media stories (from what I can tell, literally the exact same story), reported on November 11th that the over thing is something he has already been doing when having video calls behind the scenes:

Amid the euphoria of this week’s announcement of a possible vaccine, Prof Van-Tam – who marks the end of his input in behind-the-scenes video briefings with the sign-off “over” – drew from his own love of football to sound a word of caution.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam: The epidemiology expert with a touch of the everyman

The deputy chief medical officer for England draws on his own experiences to explain the impact of coronavirus.

www.expressandstar.com

This Guardian piece on todays over action did not pick up on that history. But they did notice his backdrop of Boston United programmes, although when discussing his history of strained analogies, I believe they missed the 2nd goal in the penalty shootout.

Van-Tam Covid show is all 'over' but far from out

Deputy chief medical officer employs two-way radio jargon for self-isolated press briefing

www.theguardian.com

 

[elbows]

And yes, some aspects of this belong in the 'big up the expert' file that I opened when the most obvious pieces in regards Whitty appeared in the press back in the day. They really didnt have much to work with on that one, nothing warm and personal they could play off to build Whitty into a more well rounded character that could hope to resonate on additional levels. I could more than tolerate Whitty in the early months because when stood in the same room as Johnson and Vallance, he was not offensive and did not routinely insult our intelligence. However he did mostly fit a certain caricature of a somewhat remote doctor. And it was inevitable that since he was one of the figureheads who had to announce the original, doomed government timetable for action against the first wave, that would do some damage, as did subsequent events such as his and Vallances responses to the Cummings thing, in contrast to Van-Tams. And then with the second wave response Whitty and Vallance were rather used to take a fair chunk of the heat coming from anti-lockdown sections of the media and the tory party. I dont think they are now totally useless in any public messaging role, but it is sensible to save them for particular occasions and use Van-Tam as the regular. I think I've been calling for this since the Cummings thing, but mostly in the form of naff humour.

Speaking of which, I'd be interested to see a new format where Van-Tam will take requests from the public to use particular flavours of analogy of their choosing, in return for peoples pledges to adhere more stringently to the restrictions than they were previously.

I would like to request a knobbly-knees contest analogy before this thing is over.

 

[20Bees]

Why did you do that, when it was announced months ago that it would be expanded to include everyone over 50?

It was indeed well publicised that over-50s would be eligible for a free flu jab this winter. I paid for mine at Boots last year and received a reminder letter early in September, booked it online that day and had the jab on 30 September. As I work in a public facing role I wanted to be protected before flu season kicked in, rather than having to wait until the core group of over-65s and those with medical reasons had (rightly) been prioritised.
I wonder whether the option for those not in priority groups to pay privately (eg in Boots) for the Covid-19 vaccine will become commonplace within a year or so.

 

[William of Walworth]

Talking of Van-Tam (as a little way upthread), his letter to The Guardian criticising their sensationalist front page crap** wasn't half bad I thought -- look at this from the letter :

It is oversimplistic to imply that any vaccines are “superior” or “inferior”. The results we will have initially for any vaccine will pertain to efficacy determined over a relatively short timeframe. A vaccine with slightly lower headline efficacy than another may prove to be the one that offers more durable protection or a greater effect on transmission. Comparing vaccines based on a single interim estimate of effectiveness is therefore a mistake.

The UK has targeted seven vaccines, procuring, over time, a total of 355m doses for the UK population, and vaccine effectiveness will be closely monitored in real time.

**I can't now find the original Guardian piece -- about vaccines and their availability
But it was ridiculously sensational -- front page too! -- about how poor availability would be.

 

[elbows]

I have very little opinion formed about what availability to expect because I havent looked much at what production rates the key manufacturers are likely to achieve. We shall see, and its not hard to imagine the Guardian over-egging certain angles, especially as they were probably seeking to counter some of the giddy predictions from those who were indulging a bit too hard in vaccine fanfare.

I'm just catching up with this news about T-cells that came about as a result of a PHE study.

Covid antibodies 'last at least six months'

The more antibodies people have, the lower their chances of re-infection, a study suggests.

www.bbc.co.uk

There are several different aspects to that side of the story but for now I am focussing more on this bit:

It found in June about a quarter of the key workers studied had high levels of T-cells which recognised the Covid virus in their blood - but only just over half of them appeared to have had Covid-19.

The paper concluded this immunity was likely to be there "because of previous infection with coronaviruses other than SARS-CoV-2", for example the common cold virus.

And those people with high levels of the relevant T-cells "appeared to be protected from Covid-19 in the four months after recruitment", whether they had previously been infected Covid-19 or not.

But Dr Rupert Beale at the Francis Crick Institute pointed out that this equated to "only a very small proportion of adults (less than 10%, maybe much less than 10%)" who would be protected by pre-existing T cell immunity.

This is certainly one angle that should be considered by those who are seeking additional factors to explain the complete picture of variation between timing and severity of outbreaks in various regions and nations. It is a shame that I believe most nations routine surveillance of the various different sorts of existing human coronaviruses is likely to have been rather unimpressive, and I dont know how much data I will find that could indicate the timing of previous large outbreaks of different coronaviruses in different countries. Probably hardly any at all. These other coronaviruses have very dull names like OC43 and NL63, and there are I believe 4 of them that we have discovered so far and lump together, along with some other viruses that aren't coronaviruses at all, as the common cold.

 

[LDC]

Although it's almost certainly a minority view in an organisation that employs a million+ people.

For sure, although all the three people at my work that I chatted to at the same time about it in the staff room had some level of conspiracy thinking. Although I was less interested in the antivax stuff and more the general beliefs around the pandemic. I just keep being surprised how deep some elements of conspiracy thinking have gone within society, and then I had a long conversation with them trying to understand why.

The very short version is a mistrust of the government and experts and a bit of anti-Chinese racism - one of the people thought it was purposefully created and released by the Chinese State. When I gave some facts, one of them actually said in response, "Yes, maybe that's true, but this is what I feel is going on." One of them came up with the classic, "Well my friend's cousn works in a lab and has seen the virus under a microscope and it's too perfect to be natural." TBH I found it very depressing, made me feel quite fucking despairing.

 

[kabbes]

Since we’re talking about flu jabs, maybe somebody with more epidemiology knowledge than me can help me out.

My understanding of vaccines has always been that it is dangerous to undervaccinate a population. That is, if you don’t vaccinate at high enough a level, you risk accelerating the evolution (or risk causing epigenetic change to enact) either of virulence or infectiousness in the virus, making it much harder to contain. You should either vaccinate to herd immunity levels and kill the virus off or you should let it mutate more harmlessly.

So I don’t understand why this thinking is not applied to the flu vaccine, despite flu proving itself particularly adaptable. Why are we happy to vaccinate a pretty small % of the population and risk the consequences that can come with this?

 

[andysays]

Since we’re talking about flu jabs, maybe somebody with more epidemiology knowledge than me can help me out.

My understanding of vaccines has always been that it is dangerous to undervaccinate a population. That is, if you don’t vaccinate at high enough a level, you risk accelerating the evolution (or risk causing epigenetic change to enact) either of virulence or infectiousness in the virus, making it much harder to contain. You should either vaccinate to herd immunity levels and kill the virus off or you should let it mutate more harmlessly.

So I don’t understand why this thinking is not applied to the flu vaccine, despite flu proving itself particularly adaptable. Why are we happy to vaccinate a pretty small % of the population and risk the consequences that can come with this?

My understanding (and I don't claim to have more epidemiology knowledge than the next person) is that what you're saying applies more to things that don't evolve or mutate naturally anyway, so one course of vaccine lasts many years (eg the stuff most people get in infancy/early childhood).

But as the flu virus mutates rapidly anyway, having a vaccination one year won't protect you the following year, you need to get the new one, which protects against the particular strain which is expected to be prevalent. So the idea of lasting herd immunity through vaccination doesn't work with flu, it's more a question of protecting those within the population who are considered most vulnerable.

I'm happy to be corrected on any or all of that if anyone with more epidemiology knowledge than me or kabbes knows better.

 

[Badgers]

 

[Mation]

Not really sure who March for Change are. Well, I've looked at their website and am still none the wiser, other than that they're "a campaigning organisation all about citizen empowerment in the political issues of the day." Couldn't find them mentioned on here, either...

But good to see more emphasis on aerosol transmission.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Since we’re talking about flu jabs, maybe somebody with more epidemiology knowledge than me can help me out.

My understanding of vaccines has always been that it is dangerous to undervaccinate a population. That is, if you don’t vaccinate at high enough a level, you risk accelerating the evolution (or risk causing epigenetic change to enact) either of virulence or infectiousness in the virus, making it much harder to contain. You should either vaccinate to herd immunity levels and kill the virus off or you should let it mutate more harmlessly.

So I don’t understand why this thinking is not applied to the flu vaccine, despite flu proving itself particularly adaptable. Why are we happy to vaccinate a pretty small % of the population and risk the consequences that can come with this?

I've done a quick search, and found a few articles/papers addressing this. It's been a concern for a while and various people and organisations have advocated programmes aiming for herd-immunity levels of flu vaccination. Perhaps the covid crisis will provide renewed impetus.

This article from 2012 advocates vaccinating the low-risk population to protect the high-risk population, which would require a shift in the priorities in the UK and elsewhere atm. Not only are the elderly the most at risk, but they are also those least likely to develop good immunity from a vaccine. You shouldn't necessarily target your vaccination attempts at the high-risk group. It may make more sense to target low-risk groups instead. Different priorities emerge depending on whether your focus is protecting individuals or protecting populations.

The vaccination coverage required to establish herd immunity against influenza viruses

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Interesting article about the last smallpox death in the world, and how they managed quarantine and tracing contacts.

‘It was a total invasion’: the virus that came back from the dead

In 1978, a photographer at a Birmingham lab fell ill with smallpox, prompting a race against time to prevent an epidemic. Does the outbreak carry lessons for Covid-19?

www.theguardian.com

 

[maomao]

Not really sure who March for Change are. Well, I've looked at their website and am still none the wiser, other than that they're "a campaigning organisation all about citizen empowerment in the political issues of the day." Couldn't find them mentioned on here, either...

But good to see more emphasis on aerosol transmission.

They're some sort of remainer campaign/think tank. The kind of campaign that has directors. And while their covid secure plan is quite good it's not implementable because of the government we have. And there's a link to their 'don't trade with trump' campaign on the front page. Which might only really alienate idiots but any sort of national anti covid strategy needs idiots on board.

 

[StoneRoad]

Leaving aside the problem of refusniks, and their poison-ness attitude, my impression that relatively low levels of flu jabs in an area can be related to the relative difficulty of getting the jab (and cost, for that part of the population that pays for 'scripts).
I know my local GPs have run jab clinics for some years now, and some of the sessions are outside normal hours to address this access problem.

I shall be interested to see how they manage doing the covid-19 jabs.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Leaving aside the problem of refusniks, and their poison-ness attitude, my impression that relatively low levels of flu jabs in an area can be related to the relative difficulty of getting the jab (and cost, for that part of the population that pays for 'scripts).
I know my local GPs have run jab clinics for some years now, and some of the sessions are outside normal hours to address this access problem.

I shall be interested to see how they manage doing the covid-19 jabs.

That's a good point - I wonder if the vaccine will be free for everyone? I presume it would be otherwise the take up will be affected in groups that normally have to pay for flu jabs.

My GP have run Saturday morning flu jab sessions for a few years so guess they might do similar with this vaccine, unless we're all shepherded to a dedicated vaccination centre somewhere.

 

[StoneRoad]

My GPs normally have a flu jab clinic that lasts just over a week, usually including two weekends - and a catch-up session a few days later. This is usually September-ish and they have flyers etc around the main street and in some of the shops as well as a banner pushing jabs.

This year, it seems that they put in even longer hours - partly because of social distancing etc - I haven't been in the main street to look at shop windows for some months, but I'm told the usual displays were put up. I got a text message advising me to book. September was for the main priority groups and they carried on into October with over 65s. One of the nurses said they needed yet more jabs to go down the age groups to include the over 50s.
Note that the over 65s who hadn't had the pneumonia vaccination were also being offered that as well.

As I've said, I think they were well organised and had plenty of customers. More than last year !
Also, one of the Docs said he would have jabbed over 100 people during the past three days of the clinic (he'd been on the general appointments duty list for the other three days that week - and he'd done a few during that as well).

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Note that the over 65s who hadn't had the pneumonia vaccination were also being offered that as well.

Yeah, I'd encourage anyone to get that vaccine too if they can - even though it won't protect against all types, it's better than nothing.