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Covid 19, novel corona virus. Split from off-grid thread


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The vaccination programme continues, aiming at all those, 18 years old or over.    The next question is, do we vaccinate teenagers and children?   There is no simple answer.

     First of all, what would the vaccine protect young people from?     For them, a Covid infection causes only mild symptoms with very few, those with other chronic illness or the very young indeed, being severely ill.   The UK decided that the AZ shouldn't be given to those under 30, because while the risk of the side effect CVST (Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis) affects all ages, the benefits of vaccination in that age group were much less than for older people.    The risk/benefit balance offered too much risk, despite CVST being an excessively rare event, there having been about 14 cases per million vaccines given.    When the risk of Covid is so low for children, should we give any vaccine to them at all?

The contrary argument, that vaccinating children protects society, is secondary to the first.       A child cannot make their own decision on any treatment, and the principle for anyone making a decison on their behalf has to be, what will best benefit the child?

Secondly, it has been well said that "None of us are safe, until we are all safe".    While Covid infects people around the world, new variants will occur, as the virus copying process in their cells makes mistakes as it always will, and a few that give the virus an advantage will take hold, as the Delta variant is in the UK.    The more that are infected, the more variants will turn up, and the next might be unaffected by vaccination!      So should we be using a limited supply of vaccine to protect UK children from almost nothing, while millions of adults in the world are unprotected?      

The side of the equation that Nick mentions has no data in it yet.  The recent rise in Delta  infections in the UK is too recent to know if there will be another peak of hospitalisations and death.   The next three weeks will show if we are protected by the vaccination programme, and by how much.   

John 

Edited by JohnD
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The lady wife was looking at the various rates etc for Brighton+Hove.

The over 60's infection rate is rising almost imperceptibly. The big increases are in 15-29s, with the other older and younger groups also increasing pretty rapidly.

However, only a handful of deaths since mid march. And I suspect they are people who could well have died of a number of causes, just they happened to have had covid recently, or were vulnerable enough that almost anything would have been life ending (just like my parents last year, they didn't get covid but anything would have taken them, and did)

The death rate is also below expected levels. Again, predictable as so many older or vulnerable were taken by covid last year, many of those would have lasted until now.... 

I think we won't see the hospitalisation or death rates increasing anything like the infection rates. And many of those who do become seriously ill are likely to be those who haven't been vaccinated when offered. (and I do understand that fully vaccinated is not a guarantee, but still orders of magnitude better than not)

But as is now being mooted by the latest cabinet appointee,  we are getting to the point where we are going to have to live with Covid. We have done the right thing, all the most likely to be seriously ill are vaccinated (or refused, idiots. and some can't be vaccinated, I do have sympathy with them. But they will be in similar situation with flu and other common illnesses)

Time to start to get back to normal. But it will be a bit of an experiment. What I am certain of is that annual boosters will be the norm, just like having the flu jab.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It’s strange….. Covid is everywhere. Infections high and rising fast. We know far more people affected now than ever before. From those merely “tagged” by the test and trace app, to a family where double (Pfizer) vaccinated parents (one of whom almost certainly had the actual virus a year ago) have caught the virus from one of their kids, who presumably brought it home from school. One of them is quite ill; hopefully won’t progress to really ill!

And yet….. nobody…… on this deranged island…….. from the “top” (pinnacle of stupidity?) down appears to give a damn. Even my father, 82 years old and in slightly dodgy health, seems to think it’s a good idea to go up to London and wander about.:ohmy:

As the disease is “only” killing 50 to 60 a day, apparently it’s gone away never to return.  Some countries still haven’t had that many deaths in total……

Can’t see it ending well. Am I a pessimist or a realist? :huh:

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34 minutes ago, Nick Jones said:

Can’t see it ending well. Am I a pessimist or a realist

Think your a realist. Government not legally enforcing mask wearing in certain situations,  leaving up to business to decide, and then leaving them to try and enforce is joke.

 

 

 

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Cases soaring in mid-summer did not happen last year, despite absence of vaccines. Strange. It might be that 'everyone' now thinks it is now safe to mingle, but mingling outdoors was supposed -last summer - to be relatively safe ( supposedly the virus   was killed by sunlight or flushed away by open windows). Cases soaring now is really odd.  Is it possible that the rtPCR tests used to define a case are somehow delivering false positives from the vaccinated ? If the present case numbers are an accurate measure of live virus then the prospects for the young un-vaccinated look dire. I am hoping that false positives are in play, despite the implication for test-and-trace.  If the soaring cases are real it does nor bear thinking about the coming winter

If case numbers do not fall in response to a sunny summer then that might be a clue to false positives. D3 worked last summer.

Peter

 

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Last summer we were playing with the “original” variant. 
 

Today we are at least two evolutions on from that with the Kent variant, itself very significantly more infectious but now out-evolved by the Delta (Indian) variant which is even more infectious.  Not in fact the same game as last summer.  

But for the vaccines, we would be in DEEP shit.

And now here we are creating the conditions to drive evolution to get around the vaccines…..

Utter madness.

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The delta variant is ca 50% more infectious than last summer's Kent, but the soaring numbers of PCR+ves this summer are waaaaay more than last summer's. Something odd is going on, the vaccines should have  reduced transmission. Hospitalisations and deaths are similar to last summer, its the "cases" determined by PCR that are anomalous.

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But we had no vaccines in summer 2020 and infections ( "cases" defined by PCR) were much lower then than now. If the soaring  cases now are due to more mixing witout masks etc then we are in for a rough winter, and the large numbers infected increase te chance of yet more variants arising. So I hope the soaring cases reflect false positives resulting from vaccines interfering with the PCR. If the primers used in the PCR test are cognate with the spike sequences used in the vaccines, it would need only a few B-cells expressing spike sequences in the tonsil swab to give a false PCR result. The devil is in the details of the PCR protocol. Peter

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At work (a city LA) we are seeing increased testing in the community, schools and workplace. 
 

PRC was all we had at the beginning if you had symptoms 

now we have LFT everywhere and they are good at picking up a symptomatic.

also “in the past” one positive meant the whole household and other close contacts would just isolate. 
now they are all testing. 
 

we didn’t have the more transmissible variants either.

look at the vaccines as hopefully keeping you out of hospital or severe illness. 
 

it doesn’t seem to stop getting the infection or spreading it.

I advise that you maintain your own protection as always advised in the past.

it’s what we are advising businesses that they need to maintain their COVID Risk Assessments

Edited by Hamish
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  • 2 weeks later...

Looks like more anti-vax BS to me.

The counter view

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.euronews.com/amp/2021/04/05/experts-debunk-claims-that-vaccines-cause-new-covid-19-variants

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.logically.ai/articles/scientists-vs-science-interviews-with-mike-yeadon-and-robert-malone%3fhs_amp=true

What is dangerous are UK “government” policies, which appear to actively encourage virus spread within the country and invite virus from overseas in.  This certainly provides plenty of evolutionary possibilities.

Have recently heard of another relatively young and very fit person who, though double vaccinated, is suffering quite badly with the virus (next day or two will show whether he’s going to need hospital treatment) I’m feeling really quite wary…..

 

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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I think the clue is in the byline: "Real America's Voice"    See: https://americasvoice.news/

 

The vaccine, Nick, is not and never has been claimed as 100% effective.   There are many reports of people suffering from  proven Covid after being twice vaccinated, but with a much lower chance of being so ill as to need hospital.       A good example is Andrew Marr, the journalist and TV presenter, who had a severe stroke a few years ago, and is still paralysed down one side.      He made a courageous and determined recovery from that, and now has his own TV programme, but missed one week when he caught Covid, despite being doubly vaccinated.   With his medical history he is 'vulnerable' and without the vaccine would have been very much at risk, but was back in front of the cameras a week later.

See this page from Covid-Zoe, the symptom study, on the risk of Covid after vaccination: https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/risk-covid-after-vaccine   They estimated the risk after two doses at 0.03%.

JOhn

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Interesting, and alarming, article in New Scientist: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133453-400-uk-conditions-are-ideal-for-evolving-vaccine-resistant-covid-variants/?utm_source=nsday&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NSDAY_290721

I hope you can read it all (I'm a subscriber).  It reports that scientist think that, like the 'common cold', another coronavirus, Covid will continue to mutate and evolve new variants.  Those already have become more infective, and may become resistant to the immunity provided by current vaccines.    Mutation can only occur during replication, which only happens when a new host is infected, and will be selected in classic Darwinian evolution, when there are many who are immune, through vaccination or prior infection.    The situation in the UK now, with most of the population having had at least one dose of vaccine, but still a high rate of infection, is an ideal culture medium for those new variants!

John

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I’m certainly not meaning to say that the vaccines are ineffective, though equally I’m well aware that they are not 100%.

What I do find concerning is that I know of two significantly symptomatic cases in double vaccinated people, with no other risk factors, within the fairly small circle of second degree family contacts.

This will keep my behaviour more restricted that current government policy allows.

Edit:

Can’t access the whole article without subscription John, but looks like it supports my earlier comments about UK govt policy providing fertile ground for mutations.

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