[COVID-19] General Discussion

[ncurd]

Just reported on sky news 900k plus in last 2 days .
Everything else is as I said my guess work.
I know you only see everything as a glass half empty but why support good stuff in bad times.
Heyho as always your choice to see it as you see it.

So 900k in two days plus pulling a number out your arse.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

To be fair they do release the stats daily on the NHS website:

21st: 4,740,578
22nd: 5,100,475 (+359,897)
23rd: 5,526,071 (+425,596)
24th: 5,970,175 (+444,104)

That's cumulative doses, of which 441,074 are 2nd doses (they've really slowed on giving those out now, though - averaging about 1,000 a day over the above time period)

Not quite a million per 2days, but very close
Numbers are consistently rising and we're quickly closing in on 10% of the country vaccinated (Tuesday, at this rate), which is a big deal

 

[duncanb]

No sky news reporting the number take a look , I have no need to stoop your levels of abuse.
It's a simple maths sum of 60 million and how long it takes that's my guess.
You refuse to except nearly a million jabs in a day.
For whatever reason, please enlightened us all why ?

 

[ncurd]

To be fair they do release the stats daily on the NHS website:

21st: 4,740,578
22nd: 5,100,475 (+359,897)
23rd: 5,526,071 (+425,596)
24th: 5,970,175 (+444,104)

Not quite a million per 2days, but really that's splitting hairs - numbers are consistently rising and we're very quickly closing in on 10% of the country vaccinated (Tuesday, at this rate), which is a big deal

Fair enough apologies to @duncanb for being an arse. For some reason I thought he said 2 million originally on my second reply.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I've just realised that the above stats are from NHS England and it's only data of vaccinations in England - throw in Wales, Scotland and NI and we'll be well over 10% of the population having received their first dose.


Edit: Apparently we'd done 6.33m by Friday, UK wide, so throw in another 1m over the weekend (conservative estimate, considering England alone did 960k) and that's over 10%

 

[ncurd]

It'll be interesting to see what happens when it's the more general populace in terms of if they'll be a slow down or speed up. The difference being travelling to get people jabbed (occuring now) to people tarvelling to get jabbed.

We simply don't know how much low hanging fruit there is and if the program is targeting that now.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Quick Maffs

 

[Reiser99]

It is good news, though there is a lot of talk about production of vaccines not being able to meet demand and slowing down. While it is good news, I would hesitate before trying to estimate how long it will take to vaccinate.

There is also reports of people in care homes dying of covid even after having the first dose but waiting for the second. On top even if you are vaccinated you're told to assume you can still spread it. All this means that just vaccinating the most vulnerable is not likely to end the lockdown. Still a long way to go.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Takes 21-28days for the vaccine to properly take hold so that makes sense - a lot of people think it's some sort of miracle drug that instantly makes you immune.
That's where that BS article about it only having 33% efficiency came from (it was 33% at 14days, which is about right because it takes about 14days to start working and then increases for another two weeks). It's the equivalent of saying "VACCINE HAS 0% SUCCESS RATE*

*90mins after injection"



There are, apparently, two more vaccines close to approval (including the single dose J&J one) so hopefully that'll ease things supply side

 

[Gavin]

It is good news, though there is a lot of talk about production of vaccines not being able to meet demand and slowing down. While it is good news, I would hesitate before trying to estimate how long it will take to vaccinate.

There is also reports of people in care homes dying of covid even after having the first dose but waiting for the second. On top even if you are vaccinated you're told to assume you can still spread it. All this means that just vaccinating the most vulnerable is not likely to end the lockdown. Still a long way to go.

I have a friend who works for the ambulance service and they received their vaccine in early January. They were told that they are virtually immune to the low and medium strands of the virus but the higher strand would still give them flu-like symptoms. They were also told that they cannot spread it because the vaccine means that the 'viral load' does not get to such a point which it becomes transmissible.

 

[Al Bangor]

Nine active cases of COVID-19 in Australian Open quarantine - officials

One case of COVID-19 among those in quarantine ahead of the Australian Open has been reclassified, local health officials said on Sunday, leaving nine active cases in the group of players and support staff isolating in Melbourne hotels.

www.reuters.com

 

[Reiser99]

I have a friend who works for the ambulance service and they received their vaccine in early January. They were told that they are virtually immune to the low and medium strands of the virus but the higher strand would still give them flu-like symptoms. They were also told that they cannot spread it because the vaccine means that the 'viral load' does not get to such a point which it becomes transmissible.

Not disagreeing, but then we have Jonathan Van Tam saying people could spread and act like they can. This is one criticism the government and it's experts are guilty of. Just provide clarity.

 

[ncurd]

They were also told that they cannot spread it because the vaccine means that the 'viral load' does not get to such a point which it becomes transmissible.

Yes and no from my understanding. The vaccine is not transmissible but if you get COVID (and it's not 100% effective) you can still essentially pass it on because we all know you can asymptomatic. On top of that lets remember why we are told to wash our hand etc. You can still be a vector for the virus and pass it along whilst not actually having it yourself.

Anyone being told they can't pass it on is being given very bad advice.

 

[McTallshort]

Quick Maffs

Even the comments section looked slightly positive!

 

[Gavin]

Yes and no from my understanding. The vaccine is not transmissible but if you get COVID (and it's not 100% effective) you can still essentially pass it on because we all know you can asymptomatic. On top of that lets remember why we are told to wash our hand etc. You can still be a vector for the virus and pass it along whilst not actually having it yourself.

Anyone being told they can't pass it on is being given very bad advice.

I thought it confusing but that was advice from the NHS ambulance service.

They whole viral load is interesting though. My uncle, aunt and cousin tested positive for the virus (live in the same household) then self-isolated. My other cousin was put on furlough so moved back in with them to save on rent a few days after their positive tests but always tested negative. It was my understanding that at the point they moved back in the viral load of the others had reduced so much that it couldn't be passed on, even though they were still dealing with symptoms.

 

[ncurd]

I thought it confusing but that was advice from the NHS ambulance service.

They whole viral load is interesting though. My uncle, aunt and cousin tested positive for the virus (live in the same household) then self-isolated. My other cousin was put on furlough so moved back in with them to save on rent a few days after their positive tests but always tested negative. It was my understanding that at the point they moved back in the viral load of the others had reduced so much that it couldn't be passed on, even though they were still dealing with symptoms.

It's one of those things you have to question who was giving the advice. My father-in-law retired from the ambulance service as the longest serving front line member at the time (essentially from birth within the NHS until his retirement). But whilst he'd be quite handy admistering jabs (and way more technical stuff from acute and trauma perspectives he's a smart bloke in this regard) his understanding of transmission wouldn't be that high it's just not an area he's an expert in.

It's important to remember the people giving the jabs aren't your normal nurses and nurse practitioners either. I was contacted to learn to administer them and all I am is a qualified first aider with a degree so am considered smart enough to learn how to give them. Doesn't mean anything I say or write about should be taken a truth.


Plus as pointed out Van Tam today was saying you can still spread it even with the vaccine. I assume unless Witty or Vallance says otherwise it's probably the correct (possibly moreso as he's been a tad more outspoken on advice). Which is all I'm really going on and I don't think they'd say it without it being important to stress.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Has there been any reports in your countries about the use of Ivermectin as a preventative drug for Covid?

Over here in SA there are widespread reports that Ivermectin can be used to prevent you from being infected with the virus.

Gout drug colcichine could cut Covid hospital admissions by 25%

Gout drug colcichine could cut Covid hospital admissions by 25%

Pill that treats gout could cut risk of hospital admission for coronavirus patients

www.thetimes.co.uk

This article reporting a drug used to treat Gout showing promising results.

 

[Which Tyler]

I have a friend who works for the ambulance service and they received their vaccine in early January. They were told that they are virtually immune to the low and medium strands of the virus but the higher strand would still give them flu-like symptoms. They were also told that they cannot spread it because the vaccine means that the 'viral load' does not get to such a point which it becomes transmissible.

They were told wrong - probably for reasons of morale than anything else.

The vaccine doesn't make you immune, it starts building an immune responce - which doesn't really start for a couple of weeks. After 3 week you'd be about 50% less likely to fight off covid without becoming symptommatic. No-one knows the implications for shedding at this point. It's thought that the AZ vaccine does reduce your chances of shedding virus and infecting others - once you're at the stage of 2-3 weeks after the second jab. To my kowledge, that research hasn't been done for Pfizer

 

[Which Tyler]

Good news guys - looks like hospital bed occupancy has reached its post-christmas peak. Not dropping off again yet, but plateaud.
These are my local figures - so only of any interest to @ncurd but the dotted line is the national figure (divided by 120 in order to fit nicely on the same scale).

New infection numbers have dropped by about a third from their peak 2 weeks ago.

 

[ncurd]

Good news guys - looks like hospital bed occupancy has reached its post-christmas peak. Not dropping off again yet, but plateaud.
These are my local figures - so only of any interest to @ncurd but the dotted line is the national figure (divided by 120 in order to fit nicely on the same scale)
View attachment 9174

Good news sadly I've seen reports of Johnson wanted to open things back up mid-Feb which sounds great to some extent as I'm having a bad day in terms of dealing with being lockdown but it feels like taking our foot off the gas and setting ourselves up to fail....for a 4th time.