Coronavirus Pandemic

[Dio]

It's pretty clear severe covid is a disease of those who haven't been exposed to it yet either via vax or infection. There's different data points that line up on this 98-99% number (antibody prevalence and the case to ICU bed ratio give pretty similar numbers).

But the official 'case number' now has an underestimate error bar the size of Cornwall and is not much use for anything, so I've given up tracking that data. I'm now just looking at the healthcare numbers, since they are very accurate.

[Ollie]

But the official 'case number' now has an underestimate error bar the size of Cornwall and is not much use for anything, so I've given up tracking that data.

It's still OK for checking what direction things are going in, but that's about it. After April 1 I should think it'll be totally useless.

[Cloudane]

Friendo was distressed over something other than covid so that's something. Crossed wires, honestly thought he had it really bad

Still, seen the odd unsettling comment around of being fully vaxxed but struggling to breathe etc. I am hoping it's just the usual case of confirmation bias I.e. people more likely to talk about it if it's a bad one.

But yeah I know immunity isn't shit really, or we'd be in full lockdown with overrun hospitals, I just wish it was a lot better so it could control the numbers better as, well yeah, 1 in 30 is a lot. Doesn't that mean that statistically, if it's at that forever (and showing no signs of dropping, just as you think so it goes up again) your turn would be about once a month? That's a lot of time at work at least... how I've managed to avoid it so far (*touch wood*) I have no idea, been to some crowded places and packed trains.

ZOE says 2.2m cases at the moment which is roughly 1 in 30, ONS agrees with this, PHE is on another planet.

[(o)(o)]

He's making an error that I've seen many people make..

The long list of adverse reactions are ones they are looking for. Not ones that have been reported.

That's why that section is titled Adverse Reactions "of special interest".

Without knowing the total count of people included in this study, it's impossible to know how dangerous the Pfizer jab is.

[Dio]

You're responding to snaff again. He isn't listening.

[KlaxonCow]

Also, more simply, the horse has already bolted. So it's now irrelevant whether we shut the stable door or not now.

By John Hopkins, 10.6 billion jabs have been administered globally thus far.

So, we don't really need to know the count of people in that limited early study, because we've now got a far larger "study", involving billions, where, no, we did not experience too many adverse side effects.

The most worrying side effect was an increased incidence of blood clots, but this was extremely rare - considering that billions of jabs were being administered - and this was horridly misreported in the mainstream media.

Because, as this BMJ graphic illustrates, the incidence of blood clots from the vaccines were significantly less than the incidence of blood clots from natural Covid-19 infection across the board:



Or, in other words, Covid-19 itself causes blood clots. The vaccines actually mitigated against this - significantly reducing the risk - but, well, not perfectly so. Therefore, yes, some jabbed people still died of blood clots.

I mean, you could argue that the blood clot risk would be zero, if someone didn't get jabbed and then managed to never catch Covid-19 or any of its variants for the rest of their life. But, of course, with Covid now being an endemic disease - and we are switching to a "living with Covid" policy - the chances that anyone could actually realistically pull that off is vanishingly small to zero.

So, you know, better to roll the dice on the significantly lower mitigated risk of the vaccines, then take your chances with the blood clot risk from Covid-19 itself - because that's worse.

Indeed, look at the graphic. The pinky-purple - which represents natural Covid-19 infection - is higher in all cases (and, indeed, has a wider range of variance too).

Also, look at the graphic to note that - despite all the fuss and bother, with EU country bans and such over the AZ jab - the Pfizer jab and the AZ jab have largely comparable numbers. Like, the AZ might be very, very slightly more than Pfizer - though not in all categories of blood clot, as it beat Pfizer for some of them - but this the difference is tiny and, in my opinion, we're messing around in "margins of error" territory here. The numbers are so close to identical between the two, that if we redid this study again and again - having different random error - then they could so easily switch places.

That is, there's fuck all here to justify singling out the AZ jab over the Pfizer jab. So the nonsense of banning AZ, while not even mentioning Pfizer, was absolutely political.

Indeed, I was so suspicious of that, I even suggested Pfizer might be FUD'ing against AZ at the time. Then was told "don't be silly"... except that, later on, Pfizer were exactly caught paying "experts" to lie about the AZ jab. Caught in the act. Granted, in that particular case, this was to suggest that AZ might cause cancer - oh, yeah, it was that low of a blow - and nothing's been proved with the EU stuff.

But, come on, paying experts to suggest AZ might cause cancer... but then they were angelically perfect and nothing whatsoever to do with the hysteria about AZ (which all magically avoided Pfizer, with not a word of criticism uttered in their direction) in the EU, which, in hindsight, was complete bollocks, by the actual numbers? Remembering that the Pfizer jab was developed by BioNTech, who are a German company and it was Germany leading the EU hysteria about AZ. Against AstraZeneca, who're a part British company, whilst Brexit was still raging.

Totally political. Complete bollocks by the actual numbers, if you bother to review them.

None of the vaccines were "causing" blood clots. Immune reaction to the Covid-19 spike protein is what actually causes the blood clots... and the vaccines, while mitigating against that, can't do a perfect job of completely eliminating that risk, unfortunately.

And that's really what the newspaper headlines should have read. Because that's the actual truth of the matter.

Even then, all of these numbers were negligibly small, compared to the billions of jabs administered.

So, all in all, bearing in mind that reality is always Bayesian, then I think the study's conclusions were on the money. This is now one of the most tested medicines ever - more than ten billion jabs - and it has proved itself to be amongst the safest medicines out there. Because all medicines have their risks - even the humble aspirin can kill you in sufficient dose - and none of them are perfect.

Also, we have to bear in mind the big difference between "adverse reactions" that are actually threatening, and intense immune reactions which are not pleasant to experience, granted, but which is your own immune system - not the jab nor the virus - and is not actually a genuine medical threat to you.

Like having a fever and coughing and feeling drained, is the immune system doing its job and fighting off the vaccine, as if it were the virus. But the vaccine actually poses no genuine threat to you. If the immune system did nothing, the vaccine wouldn't actually do anything untoward to you at all. It's just a spike protein and nothing else. It's not trying to replicate or take over any cells or anything else. It's just posing as a threat to get the immune system going. But it literally does nothing.

So those kinds of reactions - while they're not at all nice to experience - that people had after their jabs are not, unto themselves, a true threat.

I'm no fan of Pfizer - I explicitly accused them of shafting AZ to make more profits, which actually proved to be true - but, in the end, my first two jabs were Pfizer (and then Moderna for the third) and I do actually trust that they work. They do have good scientists and do good science - it's the profiteering business end of things that I don't like nor trust.

We should question everything. We should practice "nullius in verba" and be sceptical. We even should - as I did - even accuse them when there's clearly politics and profiteering getting in the way of the medical good.

But, bottom line, the jabs were safe and the jabs worked.

I have my problems and my criticisms - mostly around stupid political policies and Pfizer's more dubious "sales techniques" - but that one's just fine and in the bag already.

[merman]

Stopping the funding for the ZOE app does not make sense financially or in terms of health outcomes.

Worrying to see case numbers and hospitalisations going up again. Opening up so much was reckless.

[Ollie]

Today's new ONS infection survey puts estimated prevalence at around 1 in 25 in England, up from 1 in 30 last week. N.B. The ONS survey is based on week-old data, so it could be even higher by now. Zoe's more up-to-date estimate of around 1 in 30 is for symptomatic infections only, whilst the ONS includes asymptomatic.

[KlaxonCow]

We now have "deltacron" emerging.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... variant-uk

What is the Deltacron variant of Covid and where has it been found?

Another new coronavirus variant has been identified, this one containing elements of Delta and Omicron
[...]
Gisaid says the variant has been identified in several regions of France and appears to have been circulating since the start of the year. “Genomes with a similar profile have been also identified in Denmark and the Netherlands,” Gisaid says.

There have also been reports of Deltacron being detected in the US, and about 30 cases have been detected in the UK, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). The i newspaper said the first cases of person-to-person transmission of Deltacron in the UK were expected to be confirmed this week.
[...]
With only a small number of cases of Deltacron so far identified, however, there is not yet enough data about the severity of the variant or how well vaccines protect against it.
[...]
Young agrees. “We need to keep an eye on the behaviour of this recombinant in terms of its transmissibility and its ability to escape vaccine-induced immune protection,” he says. “This also serves to reinforce the need to maintain genetic surveillance. As the virus continues to circulate, particularly in under-vaccinated populations and in people whose vaccine-induced immunity is decaying, we are very likely to see more variants including those generated through recombination.”

Currently, there are few cases - mostly in France - and it's not exhibiting concerning growth or severity.

But, like, these recombinants happen when you've got two variants going around at the same time and they end up infecting the same person at the same time, so they're both attacking the same cells and can get genetically mixed up together.

The initial worry was that the French "deltacron" was Delta at its base but having acquired the Omicron spike protein - which is, like, the combination that we really, really don't want, to have Omicron's transmissibility and Delta's severity - but genetics is complicated and it's not, thankfully, actually behaving as "Delta, but with Omicron's transmissibility and two-jabs-vaccine-escape characteristics".

Again, we appear to have luckily dodged a bullet. Omicron didn't want to kill, so it's explosive growth didn't end up being a catastrophic disaster. And, here, the French "Deltacron" - though it's Delta with Omicron's spike, is not actually behaving as that combination sounds like it should (usefully, genetics and chemistry is complicated, so adding one thing to another thing doesn't necessarily mean "twice the problem", as they can combine in a way that they actually counter or "cancel out" each other's worst bits a little).

And, yes, because we've had surges of Delta and of Omicron, hopefully this means that our current immunity remains reasonably good that this does not develop into a bigger problem. But, well, you know, this is early days with few cases, so we can't actually 100% be sure and confident that this won't go anywhere - but it currently doesn't seem to be "variant of concern" levels so far.

But this emphasises the stupidity of just dropping testing and ONS surveillance and so forth. Boris's broken binary logic - that either we've got a full-blown lockdown or we should have no rules or restrictions of any kind whatsoever. He just mentally refuses to accept the concept that you can, of course, do something perfectly reasonable in-between those two extremes.

And the most crucial thing is that we mustn't drop our surveillance. We do need to know what's going on. To keep an eye on surges and variants, on the off-chance that one of them might well explode in growth and actually be a "variant of concern".

Wonder if that's some undetected new variant or just how it is.

This is the problem.

If we're not testing, if the ONS is not doing surveillance, if the Zoe Covid app ain't getting funding, if genetic surveillance is stepped down... then who fucking knows?

With Boris's Trump-ian policy of "if we pretend it's not there, maybe it'll go away", we have no fucking clue. And we'll only find out, far too late, when the NHS is already collapsing. Because, if we're not looking out for it, then we won't see it coming, if it is coming.

Indeed, logic dictates that, really, if we're stepping down restrictions then we actually need to step up surveillance. So that we can allow everyone to enjoy their unrestricted freedoms again... as we're keeping an eye on the numbers to know that it's just fine and dandy to do so. And to check that this situation isn't changing - which, by the way, I optimistically hope is the case and we really are on a slow - but steady - path out of this (well, a path to "endemic", which doesn't mean it goes away but that it ceases to be a major problem and just joins the ranks of the other "mostly harmless" respiratory diseases that have always done the rounds).

To remove restrictions AND blind ourselves at the same time is madness.

And it's ideological. As I've been consistently saying, let the numbers tell us when we can step down restrictions. Let the numbers tell us when testing is no longer needed. Let the numbers - the reality - tell us how much shit we're in.

Don't just throw everything on the bonfire because "Freeeeedom!!".

There will be variants. That's inevitable fact. With variants clashing, we can have "recombinants" of those variants too.

Now, I hope - and actually expect - that we have passed through the worst of it and things are slowly on the mend. But that is just a hope. There's no actual data to support that and there's plenty of known ways that this shit can go wrong.

That military mantra: "hope for the best, but prepare for the worst". Keep an eye on the numbers and keep collecting those numbers. Hopefully, all they do is just confirm that all is well and we can carry on. But we need the numbers - the evidence - to know that's the case.

[tufty]

So masks are no longer required over here, so nobody is wearing a mask at all. Saw two people arguing about being required to wear masks in a shop today. I don't do this often, but

[Little stoned kiwi]

New Zealand is clearing 20000 new cases a day. Supply chains are breaking all over the place as positives and their close contacts isolate.
We even had our own Convoy protest that turned into an occupation of parliament grounds for a few weeks.

[Foozwah]

New Zealand is clearing 20000 new cases a day. Supply chains are breaking all over the place as positives and their close contacts isolate.
We even had our own Convoy protest that turned into an occupation of parliament grounds for a few weeks.

The stupid is everywhere. Sigh.

[KlaxonCow]

New Zealand is clearing 20000 new cases a day.

But, looking at the graphs, New Zealand's highest daily death count, for the entire pandemic, is just 10.

Two things from that.

First, proof positive that the vaccines absolutely do work.

Because New Zealand's managed to keep cases at (more or less) zero throughout this, until the start of February, when Omicron hit. So there is basically zero immunity from natural infection there.

So, the distinct lack of hospitalisations and deaths - now that, sadly, Omicron has hit (because it is so transmissible and though the vaccines have broken the link to hospitalisations and deaths, they don't really stop Omicron being symptomatic, as we've seen around the world) - can essentially only be down to the vaccines (and, as I've been saying, the "saving grace" that Omicron really isn't going for the kill, as previous variants did).

Second, that this proves that, yeah, there was no useful purpose whatsoever in pursuing "wild herd immunity". None whatsoever.

Because New Zealand pursued the complete opposite - total suppression, relying solely on the vaccines for immunity - and the numbers don't show any significant differences for pursuing this strategy. They're in the same place (actually, slightly better, as 10 deaths from ~20K cases is something I think a lot of countries, including the UK, would love to be seeing on their own graphs), whilst having essentially no immunity from natural infection at all and relying 100% on vaccine immunity alone.

And it worked. No worse than any other country for doing so, by the numbers. Actually, arguably much better than most.

Which I'm afraid to say proves the point: Boris let people thousands of people die, and risked the health of many more, for absolutely no immunity advantage whatsoever. Not a single shred of advantage at all. By the numbers, we're much worse off.

New Zealand's numbers now prove it. It was all completely and utterly unnecessary.

(And we were right to praise Ardern, as she made all the right calls. This is the graph that every country is envious of. I hope, with Omicron hitting, she doesn't wrongly get blamed for this - if you've seen the world's overall numbers, keeping Omicron out was always going to be impossible. Even China - with its extreme authoritarian approach - couldn't keep Omicron out either. Like, at some point, as this is endemic, New Zealand would have to face it at some point. But the vaccines worked and Omicron is, so far, the one you want to face, as it traded off lethality for transmissibility.)

[merman]

Scotland taking a sensible approach and keeping masks into April.
England learnt nothing from letting the Cheltenham Festival 2020 go ahead.

[Mat]

Well, I'm surprised I managed to dodge it for this long, what with working in London ever day since March last year, and taking public transport every day.
But it finally caught up with me.
I've had a cough for a couple of days, but the tests came back negative.
Took the day off work today because I feel really bad, and finally tested positive.

Weirdly, I'm glad it's confirmed. But I'm also a bit worried due to pre-existing conditions.

I can only hope that being triple-jabbed helps fight it off, but I feel like shit. Constant coughing, hot and sweaty, aching joints all over and irritable.

This sucks >:E

Edit:
Oh, and it also got me thinking about how bad the bounceback to "normality" could be.
I can very well see it becoming culturally unacceptable to take time off for anything less than Covid, especially given the government's gung-ho "Get back to work" messaging.