Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[William of Walworth]

AverageJoe : I'm a fair bit less pessimistic than you, particularly about the vaccine.
I'll get back to this, but I hope you're wrong.

 

[William of Walworth]

are they now saying the vacinne might not work?

Source?

Who's saying this?

 

[Wilf]

are they now saying the vacinne might not work?

I just read this that says it should do and that even if it doesn't, the vaccine can be quite easily modified. Sounded a bit optimistic to me about the speed of that re-engineering, but that's what they are saying.
What do we know about the two new Covid-19 variants in the UK? | World news | The Guardian

 

[Badgers]

Source?

Who's saying this?

The WHO are global and not political ish

ONS too

Also follow the BMJ for local

Someone cleverer than me will probably answer better mate.

 

[2hats]

I just read this that says it should do and that even if it doesn't, the vaccine can be quite easily modified. Sounded a bit optimistic to me about the speed of that re-engineering, but that's what they are saying.

RNA vaccines can be re-formulated quickly by re-encoding the target antigen. Then the production process is cell-free and virus-free, highly scalable and relatively low-cost. All help shorten the timeframe (well should do as the technology becomes more mainstream).

For more information, an up to date review of RNA vaccine platforms - DOI:10.3389/fimmu.2020.608460 .

 

[BigMoaner]

RNA vaccines can be re-formulated quickly by re-encoding the target antigen. Then the production process is cell-free and virus-free, highly scalable and relatively low-cost. All help shorten the timeframe (well should do as the technology becomes more mainstream).

For more information, an up to date review of RNA vaccine platforms - DOI:10.3389/fimmu.2020.608460 .

Isn't science beautiful.

 

[BigMoaner]

Source?

Who's saying this?

No one. It was my own wondering...

 

[elbows]

I called it a while ago that we'll have a civil war, and some scoffed and told me to calm down. But with the emotions for everyone being on a roller-coaster ("there's a vaccine - yay!, soz you're in Tier 4 - boo) and the increasing aggression between maskers and non maskers, plus the general lack of money people have and the associated increase in a lack fo tolerance.... Well we're just cooking up a perfect storm of hatred amongst ourselves for next year.

Where are the precursors to civil war? There is no point leaping ahead, not when predictions about some things that would surely come first have not come true in this pandemic so far.

Elite splits, breakdown of normal political systems, coups and suchlike are some potential civil war precursors that havent seemed relevant in this pandemic so far, so I will leave those to one side for now.

Which leaves civil unrest as the obvious candidate and sign of things heating up and breaking down. There have been fears and predictions on that front in this pandemic, but I think that after 1 or 2 trips round lockdown cycles without very much of this actually happening, people are more likely to resist making such predictions again until such a time as they actually see accumulating evidence and pressure building in a way that is undeniable. There will be a danger in the air under those conditions that I would expect to be palpable. When hardly anyone focuses on such things, I think its because danger at those levels just isnt there to be felt at that time.

Not this winter at least. I reckon more than enough people were already resigned to what this winter was going to be about. The new variant stuff reinforces that sense. The likely grim data in the weeks ahead will further set the tone.

People have sacrificed much so far but I dont have a sense that their ability to sacrifice much more for a good while yet has reached some kind of limit. Things could still happen that makes a different sort of shit hit the fan that makes a mockery of this post, but I just dont have a sense of that right now. People are fed up, but it takes more than that to really heat things up, and if thats going to happen I'd not expect it in response to this winters measures, I'd expect it if the same sort of cycle of failures shows signs of being on repeat too much in 2021. And even then, if enough people keep buying into the next promise of a silver bullet, the cycle could repeat further without the sort of thing you imagine coming anywhere close to fruition.

 

[strung out]

Presumably once we reach a point at which say everyone over 65 and those who are clinically vulnerable have been vaccinated (25% of the population?) pressure will grow to open everything back up again and get back to as normal a life as possible. Sure we'll still have a few (single figure?) deaths from those who fall outside of the vaccinated groups, but I reckon those will be seen as an acceptable cost of returning to normal life.

That's just speculation rather than prediction or a desired outcome btw.

 

[Hyperdark]

Many seem to believe we will vaccinate more than a million people a week all through next year and that we will be out of this by 2022
Thats a fairy tale

 

[cupid_stunt]

Many seem to believe we will vaccinate more than a million people a week all through next year and that we will be out of this by 2022
Thats a fairy tale

Depends on doses being able and how many they recruit to carry out the vaccinations, my SiS has been accepted for the training programme, as a retired NHS lab scientist, hence she got her first covid jab yesterday.

There was talks of enrolling people from the likes of the military, Red Cross, St John's Ambulance Service, etc.

 

[bimble]

I just read something scary about the 'south african strain', saying how young people with no pre-existing conditions seem to be getting very seriously ill, and it made realise that all year I've not yet felt really afraid for my own self, was always about other people (my parents, partner with health issues etc).
Dawned on me finally how unbelievably stressful things must have been all year for people who have been living every day with a real fear of actually dying of this thing.

 

[platinumsage]

I just read something scary about the 'south african strain', saying how young people with no pre-existing conditions seem to be getting very seriously ill, and it made realise that all year I've not yet felt really afraid for my own self, was always about other people (my parents, partner with health issues etc).
Dawned on me finally how unbelievably stressful things must have been all year for being who have been living every day with a real fear of actually dying of this thing.

I'm afraid I have zero confidence in PHE's contract tracing of people from South Africa who have arrived here in the last two weeks. There should be thousands of staff out there chasing passengers lists and close contacts, and compelling people into mandatory quarantine using the existing powers of the 1984 Public Health Act. Instead we have Hancock issuing a plea in a press conference that probably less than 1% of relevant people watched, and that'll be it. A bit like that first super-spreader from Singapore in February when PHE asked close contacts to isolate without releasing his name or location for data protection reasons.

It's like nothing can be learnt from Taiwan and South Korea.

 

[teuchter]

Presumably once we reach a point at which say everyone over 65 and those who are clinically vulnerable have been vaccinated (25% of the population?) pressure will grow to open everything back up again and get back to as normal a life as possible. Sure we'll still have a few (single figure?) deaths from those who fall outside of the vaccinated groups, but I reckon those will be seen as an acceptable cost of returning to normal life.

That's just speculation rather than prediction or a desired outcome btw.

It's worth remembering that there will be deaths in the vaccinated groups too. 95% is pretty impressive but it means that 1 in 20 people who've been vaccinated will not be protected. So you can perhaps divide the death rate by 20 but then multiply it by something that represents less cautious behaviour in general.

 

[cupid_stunt]

It's worth remembering that there will be deaths in the vaccinated groups too. 95% is pretty impressive but it means that 1 in 20 people who've been vaccinated will not be protected. So you can perhaps divide the death rate by 20 but then multiply it by something that represents less cautious behaviour in general.

IIRC, whilst some receiving the vaccine still got infected, none had it serious enough to need hospital treatment.

 

[William of Walworth]

are they now saying the vacinne might not work?

Source?

Who's saying this?

The WHO are global and not political ish

ONS too

Also follow the BMJ for local

Someone cleverer than me will probably answer better mate.

About vaccines specifically, I've read very little (yet!) about them being defeated by new strains, or even just rendered significantly less effective.

I have read some credible articles by actual scientists -- see the Covid Mutations thread for one or two examples -- which say the opposite.

And from just above, both of these links are relevant :

I just read this that says it should do and that even if it doesn't, the vaccine can be quite easily modified. Sounded a bit optimistic to me about the speed of that re-engineering, but that's what they are saying.
What do we know about the two new Covid-19 variants in the UK? | World news | The Guardian

RNA vaccines can be re-formulated quickly by re-encoding the target antigen. Then the production process is cell-free and virus-free, highly scalable and relatively low-cost. All help shorten the timeframe (well should do as the technology becomes more mainstream).

For more information, an up to date review of RNA vaccine platforms - DOI:10.3389/fimmu.2020.608460

None of this is in any way intended to be complacent or over-optimistic about vaccines though, prone as I sometimes can be re the latter

 

[William of Walworth]

That article by Ian Sample linked to by Wilf above, is a set of useful-looking Q & A's, including these :

Will vaccines need to be updated?
It is unlikely that vaccines will need to be changed immediately. While both new variants contain multiple mutations in the spike protein, most people respond to a vaccine shot by producing a broad range of antibodies that disable the virus by gumming up many different parts of it. So even though some antibodies generated by the vaccine might not work as well against the virus, others are unlikely to be affected. Overall, the vaccine may be slightly less effective, but the impact could be minimal.

How quickly can vaccines be changed if required?
It depends on the vaccine. So-called mRNA vaccines, such as the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, are based on a strand of genetic material, the mRNA, which can be redesigned in a day or two. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine also uses genetic code for the spike protein and can be swiftly redesigned. The next steps, such as tests to check for the correct immune response, can take place within weeks before approval and manufacturing.

Mildly reassuring, those

 

[souljacker]

Up until recently, I only knew one person who had the virus and he was a colleague of a colleague. In the last few days my best mate, 2 houses in our road, a couple from school and 2 people in my group of mates have tested positive. The South East is getting hit hard in this wave.

 

[2hats]

 

[William of Walworth]

For more information, an up to date review of RNA vaccine platforms - DOI:10.3389/fimmu.2020.608460

Blimey! That was a really!! tough read for a non-scientist -- I only managed to focus on the broader points

Thanks for posting it though, and from what I managed to grasp , the authors' conclusions are quite encouraging for vaccine-knowledge development

(ETA : I posted this just before I saw that Twitter thread just above... so in the short term at least, even positive vaccine news can't outweigh all the other shit that's going on )

 

[frogwoman]

My sister's husbands brother (in tier 4) has just gone to stay with his clinically vulnerable parents after spending the weekend in Brighton staying with friends for the weekend he has just tested positive.

 

[2hats]

PHE confirms LFT effective with new variant, though no figures provided (yet).

 

[kabbes]

What are the raw numbers like because an increase from 2 to 8 is 200%?

What, everybody is just letting this go, are they?

 

[bimble]

2% of people in London have the virus right now, bbc radio just said. So one in every 50 infectious right now? Every intensive care bed full with covid patients it said, though i am not sure what region that was.

 

[lazythursday]

What, everybody is just letting this go, are they?

Cornwall increased by 252 cases in last week according to the government website. It is still low (70 odd per 100,000) compared to everywhere else.

 

[prunus]

What, everybody is just letting this go, are they?

<decided it could be taken as unkind, though it wasn’t meant so>

 

[lazythursday]

Groan. Now I realise what I missed.

 

[Miss-Shelf]

The trouble is, that in the prevailing media climate, it'd end up being a thing where 3 dinner ladies, a team of management accounts, another of estate agents, and several mums from Huddersfield would all end up competing to make the perfect vaccine while overcoming challenges involving linguini, custard, and coasteering, interspersed with heartwarming stories about how their disabled nieces/nephews inspired them to take part.

Which is pretty much what current Government policy seems to be, now I think about it.

What's wrong with dinner ladies and mums?

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Up until recently, I only knew one person who had the virus and he was a colleague of a colleague. In the last few days my best mate, 2 houses in our road, a couple from school and 2 people in my group of mates have tested positive. The South East is getting hit hard in this wave.

Same, until 10 days ago I knew the guy in the office next to mine and one of my customers had had it, and that's it. Oh and my mum's neighbour who died from it, but I didn't know him personally. Now I have one customer in hospital with it and another in bed at home, plus another who's brother has it. And one sister in law has two kids in different years been told to isolate and other sis in law has one. Rampant.

 

[2hats]