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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

The UK govt are the covidiots of Europe. Hoarding a vaccine that may very soon be useless.

It's very unlikely to be useless. Nor are they hoarding it. Other than that, spot on.

It's not often I agree with Frank, but he's spot on here, we're certainly not hoarding vaccines, every dose delivered is going into arms as quick as the NHS can do it.
 
More on T-cell responses to the South African strain:


Note that those aren't responses to human vaccine sera but are based off animal models.

However, better T-cell, rather than antibody response wouldn't be inconsistent with their human trials data and the mild episodes (big pinch of salt: small numbers, wide confidence intervals).

One possible explanation for AZD1222 antibody response seemingly lagging all the other leading vaccines (aside from, here, sub-optimal dosing regime and, more generally, homologous boosting), in particular relative to J&Js Janssen single dose (human adenovirus viral vector) vaccine, is that it hasn't made use of prefusion stabilisation (used not only by Ad26.COV2.S, but also at least by BNT162b2, mRNA-1273 and NVX-CoV2373).

All the above might also suggest that AZD1222 could be somewhat less effective at transmission reduction than the other vaccines.
 
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Listen to these fucking cunts:
NHS Has Been 'Nothing Special' In Covid Pandemic, Right-Wing Think Tank Claims

The NHS’s performance during the Covid pandemic has been “nothing special” and the public have “no reason to be grateful” for its existence, a free-market think tank has claimed.


 
Free market think tanks are going out of fashion, so I suppose I would expect increasingly shrill tones from such entities going forwards.

I'd rather listen to the head of the CBI these days! eg this from earlier in Feb:

Invoking the work of the 1945 Labour government to reboot Britain’s economy from the devastation of the second world war, and contrasting it with the response to the 2008 financial crisis, he said the government, businesses and trade unions needed to work together on a fightback plan.

“I believe we must, and we will, come together to forge a better decade. More 1945 than 2008,” he said.

 
I really do expect to have numerous opportunities to piss myself with laughter as those free market shitheads lose all the momentum - its been happening for years already and the very least they deserve is to feel what its like when 'There Is No Alternative' is aligned against their agenda instead of in favour of their shit.

TINA turned on them. TINA Turner!
 
Belatedly - Shocked, I am - they are getting the quarantine and fines in place, but haven't quite managed to close the airports or formally restrict them to emergency flights only? Just about 3 or 4 days ago johnson was going through the 'it's a balance... we, can't shut them... capitalism', wasn't he?
 
Belatedly - Shocked, I am - they are getting the quarantine and fines in place, but haven't quite managed to close the airports or formally restrict them to emergency flights only? Just about 3 or 4 days ago johnson was going through the 'it's a balance... we, can't shut them... capitalism', wasn't he?

They havent even included all countries, jsut the ones on the red list. Scotland goes a little further, but wants the UK to go further still:

Scots arriving via England from "red list" countries will be required to complete their mandatory hotel quarantine there before returning home north of the border.

Scottish Transport Secretary Michael Matheson said he would continue to press the UK government to adopt a "more comprehensive approach and require all arrivals to go into quarantine hotels".

Under new measures announced today, arrivals into England from red list countries will be taken to hotels to quarantine - while all other arrivals will see out their isolation at home.

All arrivals will be required to take two PCR tests during their quarantine and provide negative results before release.

But in Scotland, all international arrivals - not just those from red list countries - will be required to go into hotel quarantine.

The Scottish government is also limiting overseas training for elite athletes to only sportsmen and women and coaches preparing for the Olympics and Paralympics.

Matheson insisted the "stronger approach" Scotland was taking to international quarantine was "necessary and proportionate".

Thats from 15:19 of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-55992464
 
Well, the news continues to get better, from a fucking shit situation, we continue to move in the right direction, but still some way to go yet.

First dose vaccinations now just under 12.3m

New cases - 14,401, overall a drop of 25.3% in the last week.

New deaths - 333, which is down 73 on last Monday's 406, that brings the 7-day average down to around 891 a day, a drop of 22.4% in the last week.

Today's reported figures -

First dose vaccinations now 12,646,486

New cases - 12,364, overall a drop of 26.6% in the last week.

New deaths - 1,052, which is down 397 on last Tuesday's 1,449, that brings the 7-day average down to around 835 a day, a drop of 25.7% in the last week.
 
Well, all of the numbers currently available seem to show a quite distinct peak in deaths around the 19th Jan, with quite a sharp change from rising rapidly to falling rapidly. The downwards trajectory at the moment appears to be steeper than the one following the 1st wave peak.

The peak comes just about exactly 2 weeks after 'lockdown 3' was implemented. Can we take this as a signal that not only has this lockdown worked, but that those saying it isn't 'hard' enough are probably wrong?
 
Well, all of the numbers currently available seem to show a quite distinct peak in deaths around the 19th Jan, with quite a sharp change from rising rapidly to falling rapidly. The downwards trajectory at the moment appears to be steeper than the one following the 1st wave peak.

The peak comes just about exactly 2 weeks after 'lockdown 3' was implemented. Can we take this as a signal that not only has this lockdown worked, but that those saying it isn't 'hard' enough are probably wrong?
Well, we can take it that lockdowns work and that, more lockdown works better than less. Beyond that though, it's about which activities have the most risk attached to them, as to what you should control. But, once you get past a level where a functioning test and trace system would contain the pandemic, it really is about lockdowns.
 
Can we take this as a signal that not only has this lockdown worked, but that those saying it isn't 'hard' enough are probably wrong?

Some fears of mine including the deaths plateauing at the very highest levels for a very long time have certainly been avoided, which is excellent.

But in regards whether the lockdown was hard enough or not, I will judge that in part on whether the number of deaths keep falling all the way to negligible levels, or whether it gets stuck at a certain level at some point.

If we reset our feeling about what counts as a high level of infection, as we should given quite how large the peak was and how that affects perceptions once things have fallen back down the other side then there is still a very long way to go indeed. And I will go nuts if we get a repeat of the feeble test & trace etc summer phase last year, where some areas were stuck with a situation where infections in the community persisted and local lockdowns involved plenty of pain without as much gain as was required. I do expect them to do better with that stuff this time, but its too early for me to go on about opportunities taken and opportunities squandered until infection levels fall to a level that unlock various responses (eg test & trace stands a much better chance when there are far fewer daily infections to deal with). The prospect of the vast majority of samples being able to be tested to determine their genomics was music to my ears when JVT mentioned it the other day, but again this relies on total number of positive cases being lower than it has been in recent months.
 
Belatedly - Shocked, I am - they are getting the quarantine and fines in place, but haven't quite managed to close the airports or formally restrict them to emergency flights only? Just about 3 or 4 days ago johnson was going through the 'it's a balance... we, can't shut them... capitalism', wasn't he?

Indeed, and of course they won't be doing that. Patel's idea of fitting people with a tag for the duration of the quarantine would have been better than this is.
 
Some fears of mine including the deaths plateauing at the very highest levels for a very long time have certainly been avoided, which is excellent.

But in regards whether the lockdown was hard enough or not, I will judge that in part on whether the number of deaths keep falling all the way to negligible levels, or whether it gets stuck at a certain level at some point.

If we reset our feeling about what counts as a high level of infection, as we should given quite how large the peak was and how that affects perceptions once things have fallen back down the other side then there is still a very long way to go indeed. And I will go nuts if we get a repeat of the feeble test & trace etc summer phase last year, where some areas were stuck with a situation where infections in the community persisted and local lockdowns involved plenty of pain without as much gain as was required. I do expect them to do better with that stuff this time, but its too early for me to go on about opportunities taken and opportunities squandered until infection levels fall to a level that unlock various responses (eg test & trace stands a much better chance when there are far fewer daily infections to deal with). The prospect of the vast majority of samples being able to be tested to determine their genomics was music to my ears when JVT mentioned it the other day, but again this relies on total number of positive cases being lower than it has been in recent months.

Sadly, I don't. There is no indication they've learnt the slightest thing from that failure, or even identified what a failure it was.
 
The downwards trajectory at the moment appears to be steeper than the one following the 1st wave peak.

When looking at that sort of thing its a good idea to drill down to the regional level. I dont have the right graphs handy right now but there was plenty of regional variation the first time that I'm sure contributed to the nature of the downwards trajectory. From memory the fall in things like hospital admission rates after the first wave peak was very steep in the London region, but quite a different shape for large parts of the deline in the North West, for example.
 
As to whether the weekly numbers are something to celebrate, they obviously are and aren't at the same time (better that it's going down - obviously and genuinely - but not in the sense of ongoing human misery). But to me, anything that remains in the realms of thousands of new infections and hundreds of deaths remains suited to blunt instrument solutions - lockdowns + focused testing to chase after new strains. There has to be a downward step-change, if that's a real phrase, before the whole problem suits itself to specific solutions, local solutions and the rest. Vaccinations will hopefully move us towards that kind of scenario. Problem will be tory loons pushing a reopening on the promise of vaccinations, whilst we are still in the thousands of cases/hundreds of death phrase.
 
Sadly, I don't. There is no indication they've learnt the slightest thing from that failure, or even identified what a failure it was.

Well I'm not going to get too carried away, for example in the press conference the other day it was still very clear that they are not thinking about zero Covid approaches at all.

But it will be hard for them to make as poor a job of test & trace as they did the first time. It has slowly improved in some ways, and I will judge it afresh once we are at a stage where such things become better able to carry more of the burden.
 
Listen to these fucking cunts:
Interesting how they point at the much better Covid experience of the Asian countries and then draw all the wrong conclusions ('it's because of their free market economies and private health care systems'). Also interesting how they don't cite the excellent performance of the Communist regimes in China and Vietnam!
 
When looking at that sort of thing its a good idea to drill down to the regional level. I dont have the right graphs handy right now but there was plenty of regional variation the first time that I'm sure contributed to the nature of the downwards trajectory. From memory the fall in things like hospital admission rates after the first wave peak was very steep in the London region, but quite a different shape for large parts of the deline in the North West, for example.

Also in the first wave there was the terrible wave of care home deaths that was slightly later than the broader community peak, in part due to the way things took a bit of time to filter from NHS discharge policy to care home outbreaks and deaths. We have not avoided care home outbreaks and deaths this time, but the scale and timing of the problem this time is likely a bit different.
 
As to whether the weekly numbers are something to celebrate, they obviously are and aren't at the same time (better that it's going down - obviously and genuinely - but not in the sense of ongoing human misery). But to me, anything that remains in the realms of thousands of new infections and hundreds of deaths remains suited to blunt instrument solutions - lockdowns + focused testing to chase after new strains. There has to be a downward step-change, if that's a real phrase, before the whole problem suits itself to specific solutions, local solutions and the rest. Vaccinations will hopefully move us towards that kind of scenario. Problem will be tory loons pushing a reopening on the promise of vaccinations, whilst we are still in the thousands of cases/hundreds of death phrase.

I will probably allow myself to cheer in some limited way once the number of daily hospital admissions/diagnoses is way lower than it was during the first 'pre new variant talk' phase of the second wave (November). I can still cheer the steep downwards trajectory, but there is a long way to go. Currently its at a level of about half what was seen during the January peak, real progress, I want to see more.

Screenshot 2021-02-09 at 17.49.31.png
Made using data from the UK dashboard.
 
Oh yes and I do of course hope to see vaccines having their impact on all these sorts of figures, changing the game compared to the first time. Not that it will necessarily be easy to distinctly identify all the different factors at work.
 
The shape and trajectory of various data in the first wave is also likely distorted by a lack of testing, and a failure to admit as many people who really would have needed hospital care the first time around.
 
Interesting how they point at the much better Covid experience of the Asian countries and then draw all the wrong conclusions ('it's because of their free market economies and private health care systems'). Also interesting how they don't cite the excellent performance of the Communist regimes in China and Vietnam!
They don't draw that conclusion though. They say:
  • The claim of this paper is not that best performers did well because they have low public spending levels, that they did well because they have open economies, or that they did well because they have non-NHS-type healthcare systems. The claim of this paper is that an effective pandemic response is compatible with a variety of public spending levels, a variety of trade regimes, and a variety of healthcare systems.
 
So have we decided how much protection the AZ vaccine affords against the South African variant (particularly, but others too)?
 
So have we decided how much protection the AZ vaccine affords against the South African variant (particularly, but others too)?

Its early days, I would say the various studies so far mean we can just consider some things in a tentative way.

I dont think the authorities expect it to be amazing against that strain because otherwise the likes of JVT would probably not have publicly raised the idea of autumn boosters, and he deliberately sidestepped getting bogged down in quite how well it would work by instead focussing on a point about how the South African variant is not likely to dominate in the UK in the coming months. And the vaccine developers wouldnt have felt the need to go on so loudly about their work to quickly adapt the vaccine to new strains if they thought that to be a minor issue at this stage.
 
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