Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Bloody hell - ONS interim update based on their survey (next release is due on Friday) estimate that 2% of the country had covid between 27 December and 2 January

I'm not even sure if the survey data would necessarily pick up on the effects of the Christmas mixing (doesn't it take 3-5 days from infection before you actually have a positive result).

[celedhring]

That fucking variant scares the hell out of me.

UK, plaguing the world since 28 Days Later.

[Barrister]

Bloody hell - ONS interim update based on their survey (next release is due on Friday) estimate that 2% of the country had covid between 27 December and 2 January

Last time I looked at those serological surveys is that they had a 2% false positive rate.

[Sheilbh]

Last time I looked at those serological surveys is that they had a 2% false positive rate.

Yeah I'm not sure how it works technically.

The ONS have been doing a survey every week since about April. This is only an interim result but from the slide just used on the press conference:


Edit: And from Ed Conway of Sky who's looked at the data - over half of this growth in recent weeks has been this new variant:


Edit: On the upside 1.3 million people vaccinated this week will be little bit slow, but target of 2 million per week starting next week with daily updates on the stats. But the people vaccinated so far include 20% of the over 80s which is a start in reducing the risk.

[Zanza]

More than half German victims were in December. We had it easy so far, but now it is hitting us as bad as other countries.

[viper37]

The Premier should announce a hard lockdown this afternoon, after consulting with the opposition parties.

Construction will be shutdown, manufacturing sector, schools too.  Estimates are 3-4 weeks. Also, a curfew, 20h-21h, tbd.

Ah, hell.

[Sheilbh]

We really need to break down bureaucracy (I know this is very red-tape/Daily Mail of me) and business as usual with the vaccination program. Not sure about other countries but NHS Trusts have been told that Public Health England will not deliver vaccines on Sundays or after certain points in the afternoon even if supplies are running low (and PHE has stock). It sort of feels like we need to probably do better than that on logistics.

[celedhring]

Yeah, we've had a big controversy around here because of vaccination being interrupted during the holidays. Some nursing associations said it would've been possible to keep going with better shift flexibility and such.

[The Larch]

Yeah, we've had a big controversy around here because of vaccination being interrupted during the holidays. Some nursing associations said it would've been possible to keep going with better shift flexibility and such.

Not every region did the same, though. I believe Asturias, which AFAIK is the only region to have used its full stock of vaccines at this point, didn't stop for the holidays.

The worrying stuff is how many regions, holidays notwithstanding, have quite pitiful vaccination rates at this point. Most have not even used 10% of the doses supplied. As usual, preparations have been quite uneven.

[Sheilbh]

EMA approved Moderna vaccine

[Tamas]

On the British decision to know better how long a single shot of mRNA vaccine is effective for, the WHO stated they cannot recommend diverging from the tested schedule, but they understand if a desperate country like the UK decides to risk it.

[Sheilbh]

On the British decision to know better how long a single shot of mRNA vaccine is effective for, the WHO stated they cannot recommend diverging from the tested schedule, but they understand if a desperate country like the UK decides to risk it.

Yeah - my guess is that most places will end up doing this. Because it's a virus that's spreading (and does seem somewhat seasonal - we've got the worst months to come), there's a more transmissible variant out there and there are severe supply constraints on the vaccine - in that context 0.8*2 is better than 0.95 (and it gets to herd immunity quicker). To me that feels like a simple, classic public health decision (which is different than what an individual doctor might want to do for their specific patients).

It reminds me of the vaccine authorisation where the UK authorised Pfizer first and you then had Fauci and the EMA (and still have the Belgian PM and deputy PM say Israel and the UK are using less safe vaccines and treating their population as guinea pigs) criticise the decision as unsafe or say the MHRA hadn't done enough trials. Only to make the exact same authorisation a few weeks down the line. All it does is reduce trust in the vaccination in the UK and their home countries when they make similar decisions. I remember at the time thinking it was bizarre to brief against it because from everything I'd read the FDA and EMA were going to authorise the Pfizer vaccine it would just take a little longer and it felt like it would be difficult to say that an extra couple of weeks made a huge difference to the risk/safety profile so you'd just feed the frenzy of anti-vaxxers.

It is also worth remembering there's no scientific basis for Pfizer and Moderna giving the booster in 3 or 4 weeks. From my understanding those timelines were chosen for speed (rightly) of getting the data and doing the trials. You need a booster shot, it needs to be after you've had the first one so have some immune response - that means it has to be after two weeks. Three or four weeks later is about as close to that as you can do which means you can do the trial quickly. Again from what I've read there are loads of vaccines out there that need a booster shot, but I don't think any need a booster that quickly. Of course there's a risk that these vaccines are different and do need the booster that quickly - if that happens then we should change course.

[garbon]

Well yes mRNA vaccines are a new type.

[Sheilbh]

Well yes mRNA vaccines are a new type.

I get that - but do we really expect them to behave wildly differently than other vaccines?

[Tamas]

Well yes mRNA vaccines are a new type.

I get that - but do we really expect them to behave wildly differently than other vaccines?

I think the key thing here is that for people who have not worked on/with such vaccines before, it can only be an assumption, and the debate is whether such an assumption is justified given the circumstances.

Because the very same British authority/persons in charge of policy held out record-long back in the Spring clinging to their 2011 spreadsheets while this thing engulfed the continent in a very not-usual-flu manner, I can't help being skeptical when they come out and say "yeah well this is a brand new thing but the old thing could totally be delayed so obvs. this can be delayed as well even though the very people who invented it say it shouldn't".