Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Germany expects 1.3 million doses from Biontech in December and 10 million more in January. Another 1.5 million Moderna doses in January. Until "summer 2021" all Germans who want to should be vaccinated. Let's see.

I think Moderna is the one big vaccine project the UK didn't pre-order so I don't know if we'll be getting much of that.

Interestingly David Salisbury who's a professor of epidemiology and was head of vaccinations for the NHS (as well as on international projects) has come out and basically agreed with Blair. He says the evidence on the Pfizer is that you lose about 10% of efficacy if you only give one dose but, especially in the context of a new, more infectious variant, the government should consider trying to get everyone vaccinated with at least one dose ASAP.

[Barrister]

Germany expects 1.3 million doses from Biontech in December and 10 million more in January. Another 1.5 million Moderna doses in January. Until "summer 2021" all Germans who want to should be vaccinated. Let's see.

I think Moderna is the one big vaccine project the UK didn't pre-order so I don't know if we'll be getting much of that.

I think Moderna was one we were counting on: we've ordered 40 million doses (so enough for 20 million Canuckleheads).  The ultra-low storage requirements for Pfizer (20 million doses ordered) make it a non-starter in remote and northern areas.

It's strange though - Canada has ordered more doses per capita than any other country (almost 9 doses per person) but we're still on a Q3 timeline for vaccinations.

[alfred russel]

Also while I think it makes a lot of sense for countries to close their borders, I wonder if, in retrospect, it will be a mistake making thousands of truckers linger in Kent before crossing to the continent?

Closing borders between areas that already have a bunch of infections is pointless. A new variant detected in the UK (no proof that it originated there) doesn't change this because it is certainly in North America and Europe by now.

[Sheilbh]

I think Moderna was one we were counting on: we've ordered 40 million doses (so enough for 20 million Canuckleheads).  The ultra-low storage requirements for Pfizer (20 million doses ordered) make it a non-starter in remote and northern areas.

It's strange though - Canada has ordered more doses per capita than any other country (almost 9 doses per person) but we're still on a Q3 timeline for vaccinations.

Yeah it's weird:


My only assumption is possibly there's expected to be less supply/manufacture than with other vaccines so it will possibly arrive later? Or possibly it's manufactured outside of Canada and they have to honour deals with their home/host country first?

Edit: Incidentally baffled by Switzerland - not for the first time in this crisis.

[Zanza]

Germany gets its share of doses via the EU and on top ordered more. One article says that we will get 136 million doses from Pfizer/Biontech and 50 million from Moderns. That's sufficient for all Germans. But I fear that a lot of people will not want to get vaccinated. That will be a problem as others rely on herd immunity, e.g. pregnant women or people with various illnesses that do not allow vaccination...

[Sheilbh]

Not peer reviewed but the modellers have had a look at the new variant - and it's not great:
https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/uk-novel-variant.html

It's not great. Key point is the burden in the first six months of 2021 may be worse than in 2020. 200k vaccines a week doesn't make an impact, 2 million does. I know I'm a stuck record but I feel like anything less than full lockdown like last spring plus full national effort/mobilisation to roll out the vaccine is just going to be pissing in the wind at this stage.

[mongers]

Not peer reviewed but the modellers have had a look at the new variant - and it's not great:
https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/uk-novel-variant.html

It's not great. Key point is the burden in the first six months of 2021 may be worse than in 2020. 200k vaccines a week doesn't make an impact, 2 million does. I know I'm a stuck record but I feel like anything less than full lockdown like last spring plus full national effort/mobilisation to roll out the vaccine is just going to be pissing in the wind at this stage.

Maybe it just looks really bad because it comes atop all the silly stuff about getting back to normal by Xmas (troops home by Christmas), it was always very likely that the 2nd wave would be worse than the first in Spring, especially as we have to get through 4 dark months of Autumn/Winter and not two remarkably dry and quite warm spring months.

[Josquius]

The south African varient looks scariest. Seems to be leading to more serious cases in young healthy people.

[Sheilbh]

Maybe it just looks really bad because it comes atop all the silly stuff about getting back to normal by Xmas (troops home by Christmas), it was always very likely that the 2nd wave would be worse than the first in Spring, especially as we have to get through 4 dark months of Autumn/Winter and not two remarkably dry and quite warm spring months.

I think that lockdown was lifted too early - but I think this is something more than bad policy.

But again this is from a pre-print  so hasn't been peer-reviewed. This is the increase in proportion of cases because of this variant (the grey period is lockdown):


And here's mobility data (left) and average contacts (right) in the same period - London and the South-East isn't that different:


They looked at three models for why this might be: higher infectiousness, immune escape or increased susceptibility of children and young people. The best fit is higher infectiousness (which is arguably good news because that means it's more likely vaccines are still effective):


And the context matters. This variant increasing as a proportion of positive cases is happening at a time when there are lots of cases. My understanding is that's more likely to happen (like the Spanish strain in the summer) when there are fewer cases, when there's high prevalence there's normally lots of strains so one will only be winning out like this if it's got some sort of advantage. It's outcompeting lots of other strains - so 85% of positive tests in Kent have this strain and it's about 80% in Sussex; London, Surrey and Essex are all around 65%. For a strain that only emerged in September and at a time with quite a lot of cases that's pretty impressive/scary.

The other point to remember is it is possible this didn't start in the UK. The UK does the second most sequencing per case in Europe (after Denmark) so it is possible that we've just caught it - hopefully we are the source as well so border closures etc can have an effect. But that's not necessarily the case. The other point is, from what I understand, we still don't know how or why it's more infectious. The main theory I've seen is that it might be slightly better at fighting off antibodies so it basically lingers around for another 7-10 days.

Also interesting (to me at least) is the main theory of how this variant developed is that it probably mutated in one patient - probably someone who was immunosuppressed and had chronic covid. That's how it was able to mutate so much in one leap.

[Tamas]

This is starting to feel like a lazily scripted TV series. A year of pandemic seems to be drawing to a slow close as vaccinations begin to roll out. Oh no but wait! A new, even more infectious strain appears that prompts even more severe restrictions during Christmas and it might dilute the positive effect of vaccination programs!

I really hope the 2021 season will quickly resolve this cliffhanger and switch over to some positive developments because I am starting to get exhausted.

[Sheilbh]

This is starting to feel like a lazily scripted TV series. A year of pandemic seems to be drawing to a slow close as vaccinations begin to roll out. Oh no but wait! A new, even more infectious strain appears that prompts even more severe restrictions during Christmas and it might dilute the positive effect of vaccination programs!

I really hope the 2021 season will quickly resolve this cliffhanger and switch over to some positive developments because I am starting to get exhausted.

Yeah it really does have a season ending feeling to it

But I am still optimistic about the vaccine - there's no reason to believe they won't work. If we get a big order of Moderna as well as Pfizer or if we approve AstraZeneca as well as Pfizer then 2021 should start fine in spite of this. But it feels like we are in a race against time now which is alarming

And I hope Europe is able to stop this but I saw a Swiss scientist talking about the risks from a Swiss perspective and in the week up to December 14th 10,000 people travelled from the UK to Switzerland (many to go skiing) so I can forgive Europeans travelling home but I can't believe people travelling to go skiing this year

Edit: Incidentally the Transport Commissioner is not happy with France stopping trucks:

Adina Valean
@AdinaValean
Around 10.000 truck drivers are seeking to get back in the EU. Other thousands are already in the Dover area in their vehicles.
We worked hard these days to unblock a crisis between two European countries, France and the UK.
We issued a communication appealing for proportional, non-discriminatory measures and the lift of any restrictions for transport workers.
I am pleased that at this moment, we have trucks slowly crossing the channel, and I want to thank UK authorities that they started testing the drivers at a capacity of 300 tests per hour.
I deplore that France went against our recommendations and brought us back to the situation we were in in March when the supply chains were interrupted.
I hope that the Member States respond quickly to our request to relax the driving and rest times rules and, specifically, not to apply holiday driving bans, to allow drivers to get back to their families for Christmas.

I wonder if there's a bit of difference in how this impacts different bits of Europe because I understand a lot of the truckers are Eastern European (and the Commissioner is Romanian) and there's been absolute fury from what I've seen that the French allowed French citizens to cross the border but not other EU citizens.

[Tamas]

Can they even stop their own citizens from entering? Even in Hungary thats an absolute no-no. They force you to self isolate on entry but they won't prevent you from entering your own country.

[Sheilbh]

Can they even stop their own citizens from entering? Even in Hungary thats an absolute no-no. They force you to self isolate on entry but they won't prevent you from entering your own country.

The UK isn't in Schengen and it's a sea border so it's a bit easier?

[Tamas]

I mean legally speaking if you have a French passport surely it is far from easy legally to prevent your reentry to France? While preventing people with no  French passport to pass into France is trivial in comparison.

[Sheilbh]

I mean legally speaking if you have a French passport surely it is far from easy legally to prevent your reentry to France? While preventing people with no  French passport to pass into France is trivial in comparison.

Maybe. But it's a sea border. So it's not like they're at the frontier, they're in the British port. It's a bit more like suspending flights from a certain country for whatever reason.