The B1617 (Indian) variant does appear to be more transmissible than earlier variants, at least anecdotally from what is happening in Singapore. For context, we have largely contained the virus previously, with pretty low community cases per day (in the range of 0-3 or 4) for months. Over the last couple of weeks, the number of cases here have increased quite sharply, with two major clusters, one in a hospital and one in the airport. The B1617 appears to be the culprit in both clusters. This uptick in number of cases is despite our vaccination drive making pretty good progress over the past months. Several of the cases were fully vaccinated, as both the hospital and airport are considered frontlines and most employees there are fully vaccinated.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Bodies now found in rivers in 2 different states.
At this stage it does look like B1617 is going to be the next globally dominant variant. Remains to be seen how resistant it is to vaccines and to what extent. Based on the pre-clinical data vaccine resistance shouldn’t be a huge problem, considering how effective they seem to be against similarly resistant strains. Do you know if any of the vaccinated people who got sick ended up hospitalised/dead?
It is a concern, seems north west cases are slowly rising just like Kent or wherever it was was stubbornly high between October-November and that eventually lead to discovery of new variant.
I really don't want to go all doomsday....but what is the actual plan if a new variant emerges over next 12 months that nulifies vaccination? Is it so unthinkable the government will errrr get round to thinking up stuff when the time comes or did they announce a detailed plan on the quiet? So far it's just been that vaccination will solve everything and we'll be back to Jan 2020 very soon e.g. sometime in next 12 months and I obviously very much hope that will happen and it's working well so far so we have to be patient still.
Just curious as we obviously can't have the next 2-3 years disrupted like the last 14 months has been for all sorts of reasons.
The overall death rate in Singapore is very low (31 accumulated death in total), so I won't look at that as an indicator unless there is a huge spike now.
Just found this: 30 vaccinated people caught covid, 57 per cent of these cases were asymptomatic, and none were severe cases that require more intensive care.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bu...est-positive-for-covid-19-with-mild-to-no?amp
Small sample size. But does looks like vaccines help. In Singapore as of now we have been using Pfizer and Moderna
Interesting. Thank. Like you said, very small samples size but reassuring all the same.
One thing that I may be clueless about and may need educating on. But I always thought vaccines worked by giving you the tools to fight off an infection before it makes you actually sick, which surely would mean there’s a period where you are infected before your body drives it off? So surely you could be positive and vaccinated but don’t then get actually sick?
I'm not so worried about countries using Pfizer and Moderna, as they have ample clinical data and ongoing research to track the efficacy against newer strains. My biggest worry is on the vaccines which lack data on the original strain, let alone mutant strains. Many less developed countries are now using these unproven vaccines and they could become a perfect incubator for the virus.
Yes
Thread, patient-family-doctor dynamic. A very common scene as I'm hearing from doctors and other medical professionals.
Some vaccines are sterilising and prevent infection. These vaccines stimulate an immune response that deal with the virus before it gets into cells to multiply. I think Measles is an example of this. However, the majority aren't but usually prevent severe symptoms, often to the point of being asymptomatic. They almost always also hugely reduce the transmission of a virus by reducing viral load and the symptoms that promote transmission such as coughing and sneezing.
Thanks, so in this case I guess vaccinated people becoming infected isn’t necessarily something to worry about unless lots of people start actually becoming sick
38-40 year olds can now book their vaccinations - https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coron...rus-vaccination/book-coronavirus-vaccination/
edit: In the UK.
edit: In the UK.
Should have taken that appointment last night as it's 'you're in a queue' now! It will probably be hard to get an appointment for a week at least.
Should have taken that appointment last night as it's 'you're in a queue' now! It will probably be hard to get an appointment for a week at least.
Oof, i must have just snuck in and then immediately realised my first jab is booked for 2 days before I'm meant to be going to Manchester for the Crystal maze. Fingers crossed that I don't get the same side effects as my missus did, she was as sick as a dog for a couple of days, if I miss the first social event for over a year I will not be chuffed and neither will the friend who organised it and paid for my ticket as an early 40th present!
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Sterilising is ideal but we have virtually eliminated many diseases with non-sterilising vaccines. What we really need is getting to HIT which is likely 60-75% (likely the higher figure given the new variants) and if a vaccine isn't sterilising that doesn't necessarily directly equate to 60-75% of people having been given a vaccine. That might mean reaching HIT won't be possible especially when we are talking about the whole world needing to be vaccinated. That said we don't always get to HIT for a number of viruses and that doesn't mean that we don't control them hugely.
With the amount of non-vaxxers & people afraid of vaccines in the world you’d expect we aren’t gonna reach HIT anyway
Definitely not, zero COVID is a pipe dream for a long while yet.
I think there'll be a vaccine surplus towards the end of the year, and those of us who had one type could get another if we want (maybe the more knowledgeable can share if this can cause problems).
My neighbour got it after the 2nd jab, she had a snotty nose for 2 days then tested negative. The rest of the family had symptoms for 2 weeks.
There have been few anti-vaxxers in HK over the years, but the government politicalizes the issue and now many people become afraid of vaccines. Now we have ample vaccines but no one to take.
Is the vaccine hesitancy specific to certain brands or in general?
The political sitiation here has been very tense over the past two years, and Pfizer and CoronaVac somehow represent the US and China respectively.
When Pfizer was approved in the west, the pro-China campaign (the government included) kept defaming its safety and exaggerating its side effects (e.g. the Norway incident). This was because CoronaVac lacked data and showed poor efficacy, and this was their way to lure people to take the CoronaVac.
Unfortunately, this made people become overly worried about the adverse effects and things didn't go as they planned. Instead of taking the CoronaVac, people decide not to take any vaccine. As a healthcare professional I really hate to see this, but there's nothing I can do and this is the reality.
Plot twist in Ireland. Ransomware attack on health service IT systems has completely crippled them. What manner of Cnut does this during a pandemic?!
I know someone who consults in the HSE in their IT department and he says their software infrastructure is ancient and incredibly convoluted and all over the place, and any attempts to update it or modernise it have always been met with shitloads of budgetary opposition and endless pissing about and it never goes anywhere, so I'm not surprised. Absolute disaster for it to happen right now, though.
Sounds about right. When I was an intern we were paid half time per hour, then nothing above a certain weekly cap. So they figured they could save money by getting us interns to streak piss samples onto dozens of agar plates during 72 hour weekend on call shifts, as it would cost more to pay for a lab technician to do it instead. HSE management have always been a shower of useless, tight-fisted cnuts.
Jesus Christ
And here's poor Paul Reid only on his €400k a year!
Which is 50% more than his equivalent in the UK!
Any idea what the 5pm press conference is about? Makes me worry they'll announce a road map delay or something.
Delayed by half an hour.
I'm having my first jab of Pfizer tomorrow...I'm 34 and healthy
I'm having my first jab of Pfizer tomorrow...I'm 34 and healthy
With this government I think if that were the case it would have been leaked earlier today at the very least. Common sense says something needs to change with what's going on in Bolton but who knows.
Maybe a local lockdown there.
My take on what they said:
Indian Variant is on the up in the UK, especially some NW areas...at present, not enough to stop the May 17th step.
It seems possible that that the June 21st opening could be delayed...
12 weeks gap between doses cut to 8 weeks.
Indian Variant is on the up in the UK, especially some NW areas...at present, not enough to stop the May 17th step.
It seems possible that that the June 21st opening could be delayed...
12 weeks gap between doses cut to 8 weeks.
Does the decrease in time between 1st and 2nd jabs delay the under 40s getting their first one given there is only a finite supply?
By the time June 21st comes nobody will be paying attention to restrictions anyway so they are deluded if they think anyone would listen if they delay the grand reopening.
By the time June 21st comes nobody will be paying attention to restrictions anyway so they are deluded if they think anyone would listen if they delay the grand reopening.
Looking at the info I've seen (all from this thread in fairness, and the tone/whats being said today, I fully expect June 21st plans to be delayed by a month...masks and distancing will remain longer
It shouldn't have much impact because most over 50s had Astrazeneca for the first dose and the under 40s will be having Pfizer/Moderna.
I expect UK infection numbers to explode. You can’t tell me that families haven’t been getting together for Eid.
There’s no way he’s announced June could be delayed if June wasn’t going to be delayed. They already know it’s more transmissible in my opinion. Delaying India going on the red list because Boris still wanted to travel there for a trade deal was a shit idea - who could have known? You have to just hold your head in your hands as Glasgow bans people leaving the area to try and stop the spread yet we did feck all when it was 5000 miles away.
Pardon my ignorance but what is Eid ?
The Muslim religious festival for breaking fast.
I suspected originally that 21 June was never going to be full lifting of restrictions - he just said that to keep morale up with the elections coming - of course, he waited till after the elections to say this