Proof of the power of vaccination

So she isn’t constrained in any way and can voice her personal opinion and use an element of common sense without having hard facts. Because in a pandemic there isn’t always time to wait for hard facts and peer reviewed evidence.

Baggs

As for long covid, having symptoms that hang on for ages after virus infections is not uncommon. If every virus infection that has long term effects was given a long-something name, we'd run out of space (I exaggerate, of course).

I think the focus on long covid is because this understanding of virus effects is fairly recent. I'm not saying it doesn't matter, just that it's not exclusive to covid.

Because the public has a right to know what's going on.

FWIW The biggest group with cases is now 11-19 year olds (ie secondary age children), but the government is insisting that masks are no longer worn in schools.

If I had a child at secondary school, I would be concerned, despite what the government is saying. Teenagers can have quite severe symptoms, although few have died, but the real danger here is that they could infect more vulnerable family members.

There are also some hotspots where infections have risen exponentially over the last week or so. They're hidden by averages, but we should have learnt by now that unless the outbreaks are contained, they could lead to more widespread infection.

Information is gold.

Baggs

As for long covid, having symptoms that hang on for ages after virus infections is not uncommon. If every virus infection that has long term effects was given a long-something name, we'd run out of space (I exaggerate, of course).

I think the focus on long covid is because this understanding of virus effects is fairly recent. I'm not saying it doesn't matter, just that it's not exclusive to covid.

But you are saying it's not important.

yes, growstuff, the people I know who have had it are pupils at secondary schools and their parents (unless either parent has been vaccinated) I must admit my eyebrows left my head when I read the email from school saying my son no longer had to wear a mask after a certain date. I'd prefer it if he did tbh. They all seem quite used to wearing them anyway (I'm not convinced there is ANY social distancing going on at all)

JaneJudge

yes, growstuff, the people I know who have had it are pupils at secondary schools and their parents (unless either parent has been vaccinated) I must admit my eyebrows left my head when I read the email from school saying my son no longer had to wear a mask after a certain date. I'd prefer it if he did tbh. They all seem quite used to wearing them anyway (I'm not convinced there is ANY social distancing going on at all)

'Had it' as having covid within the last month!

growstuff

Alegrias1

Prof Pagel is not a member of SAGE, and she is speaking in a personal capacity. Independent SAGE is not an advisor to the Government and are not accountable for the outcomes of their opinions.

Not saying she's wrong but this must be taken in context.

Are you implying her data is wrong and/or misleading?

I answered that question above - 9:41am

The answer is no BTW. And it's not her data. She is reviewing and analysing other people's data, which is perfectly valid, of course.

Baggs

As for long covid, having symptoms that hang on for ages after virus infections is not uncommon. If every virus infection that has long term effects was given a long-something name, we'd run out of space (I exaggerate, of course).

I think the focus on long covid is because this understanding of virus effects is fairly recent. I'm not saying it doesn't matter, just that it's not exclusive to covid.

I had a friend who suffered from ME and through him met many people who also suffered from it. They received very little help or recognition. Most were hard working high achievers who were very frustrated by their illness, some days hardly able to move. The author Jane Hillenbrand suffers from it and wrote her wpawad winning books from her bed, interviewing people by phone. Descriptions of long covid immediately made me liken it to ME and it wouldn’t surprise me if people suffering from it get receive as little help and understanding of it as ME sufferers. Shingles can leave people with depression etc.for a long time. We need to prevent as many people as possible suffering from long covid, especially as it seems to adversary affect younger people.

award winning....

Whitewavemark2

So as an example last week Scotland averaged between 0-1000 cases. Now large swathes of Scotland are averaging between 1000-2000 cases.

There are more areas in England and Wales that are increasing as well.

This is why I think the call to rethink the road map should be respected and perhaps rethought.

I've no idea where you're getting this idea that there are large swathes of Scotland averaging between 1000 and 2000 cases.

In the last week the government figures showed 1694 cases for the whole of Scotland. This is probably an underestimate, granted.

Is it the Zoe app that the numbers are from? I'm guessing it is because they use an interval or 1000-2000 per million. So the large swathe of Scotland that makes up the Highlands is showing 1000-2000 cases per million - which equates to 231 active cases. Or Stirling - 100 active cases. And yet Moray, which is a hotspot, is shown as 0-1000 cases per million,- 41 active cases. There have been 80 cases at one secondary school alone, so there's something wrong there.

I've been doing Zoe from the start. At low numbers of contributors and cases the algorithm is less accurate, Tim Spector has said that in his latest video and I don't think they have revised it yet.

I'm going into such detail because I think its important. Throwing around comments like "thousands of cases" is mis-representing the situation and doesn't help! Apologies if you are using a different source of stats. I'd like to see it, if so.

MayBee70

Alegrias1

Thanks Casdon for trying to present some good news. ?

The vaccine is working in the population to which it has been given. It works against the "Indian" variant. Yes, the virus might behave as no virus has even done before and magically morph into a vaccine-resistant variant overnight.

And we might get hit by a meteor.

Just because you added the word overnight doesn’t mean that you weren’t being dismissive of my request for caution. We’re just lucky, thus far, that the virus isn’t as transmissible as some viruses and doesn’t have a high death rate. But when you have huge outbreaks in countries such as India the virus seems to mutate very quickly. It’s not alive, doesn’t have a brain and it can only be spread via us so we need to be one step ahead of it. Thus far the whole world has been reactive and we need to be proactive.

It only takes a variant that doesn’t respond to vaccination and we’re back to square one

I apologise that I came over as dismissive. The point I am making is that we can never know what's going to happen next. But we need to use what we know about how viruses behave to inform the decisions that are being made. The virus does not mutate to become vaccine resistant in short timescales that cannot be managed by tweaking vaccines, if necessary. I listen to Dr John but I also follow this scientist.

twitter.com/sailorrooscout?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Techie, but interesting.

No matter how you interpret the figures the fact is that they are increasing. Albeit from a low level, but they are going the wrong way.

All I am saying is that our behaviour must bear this in mind and we have a way to go.

Imo waiting until July when most of the adult population will have hopefully been vaccinated is no bad thing rather than opening everything up in June.

I await with interest for my work to be marked.

My problem is the WHO and some scientists are constantly waiting for hard evidence before acting in any way and we’re in an unprecedented situation. As Dr John has said, we’re lucky this isn’t Ebola. I’m usually the most pessimistic person in the world but even I thought last year that we’d have a few months of covid and then by the end of the year we’d find that lots of people had some sort of immunity and that it would weaken, given that it isn’t in the best interest of a virus to completely wipe out it’s host. But I was so wrong. I do think to experiments with rats where, when they live in overcrowded conditions they develop illnesses and die and I think the world as it is now has created a perfect storm for this virus and probably others to take hold and we must learn to adapt and live in different ways and question a lot of things about our way of life. Thanks for the link. I’ll check it out.

I don’t know whether we are just lucky in Wales, or if it’s because we’re ahead of the other UK nations with vaccination so there’s less transmission Whitewavemark2, but the case rate isn’t going up in Wales at present. Here’s today’s news which includes the rate.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56335555
What I’ve noticed is that the spread is reduced, ie less MSOAs are reporting any cases as the weeks go on, but that there are outbreaks, where the number of positives are high - just like in Bolton but not to the same degree so far - we’ve had one centred around a factory, and one in a high school this week.

WWM2 There's quite a difference between 100 and 2000 though.

Good effort, more attention to detail please.

MayBee70 The scientist on Twitter is a bit of an acquired taste but she is very informative.

Alegrias1

WWM2 There's quite a difference between 100 and 2000 though.

Good effort, more attention to detail please.

MayBee70 The scientist on Twitter is a bit of an acquired taste but she is very informative.

?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-57100228

Interesting article about how they plan to deal with a surge in Glasgow cases. Very similar to what you have been saying Casdon

What I have been troubled with are the flights coming in from the middle east. I live on the flightpath in (1 mile from Manchester Airport) I have seen the occassional Easy Jet, TUI and BA but everyday Ethihad, Emirates, Quatar, Turkey etc at their usual times. I can't understand why, when travel out is banned for us but travel in continues as usual. It doesn't make sense. The quarantine hotels must be doing very well!

And people were travelling back from India via Turkey.

We heard a plane above our house this morning. It is so rare as to be really noticeable. It was a small one, probably a Cessna on its way to Tasmania. It is such a different world here now. Some funny side effects like houses are shifting like there’s no tomorrow. For sale one day,sold the next. Bizarre.

For Goodness sake, why are they still letting folk in/out of our nation! The welsh had right idea- close their borders!And stupid Boris will STILL carry on with the slackening of rules/regs.The blokes a walking deathwish to all!??

They cant ALL just be returning- in order to RETURN they must have left at some point! So how can it be only folk coming in but not going out.Someone must be getting out to return.

Anything is possible, even that the corona virus will become much less virulent soon.

I have mentioned it before, but will gladly say it again. The Spanish flu swept through the world in 1918 and 1919, killing millions, literally more people than had died in the first World War, then it disappeared. The virus still exists, but has not caused outbreaks since 1919.

It is difficult to prove, historic sources being what they are, but syphilis seems to have reached epidemic proportions when introduced to Europe at the start of the 16th century then settled down as a nasty and contagious disease, but not an epidemic.

Similarly, Europe suffered various outbreaks of bubonic plague - the first one killing, as far as we know, an average of every third person in Europe. Subsequent outbreaks killed fewer, but still horrifying numbers. Since around 1700 there have been no large outbreaks recorded.

The sweating sickness (sudor angelicus) afflicted England and the geographic England only at regular intervals during the 1500s- Henry VIII would never have married Katherine of Aragon if the sweating sickness had not killed his brother. Anne Boleyn survived it - at the time many felt it would have been better if she hadn't, but try imagining history without Elizabeth Tudor! No-one has suffered the sweating sickness since somewhere around 1600 as it is not identical with any known strain of influenza.

So the corona virus may just disappear too.

Why are we still allowing people to travel to and from India? We’ve had enough of lockdown in this country - let’s not ruin it now.

Our neighbour ended up having to drive his ds, over from Europe on business then caught and unable to get back till now, to Heathrow instead of Port Talbot as all the trains were knocked out by this cracks in rolling stock issue, also from Bristol.
He told us that people from India were piling off planes without apparently being diverted to quarantine, having first travelled to Turkey. Don’t know where he got his information but he is generally reliable. Thought Turkey was in red zone too, actually

Does it work against the Indian variant ? There is proof it does .