Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Duque de Bragança]

British-made vaccine not that popular in France and Germany. 

I feel like the French should've had their own vaccine out by now. The Brits, Yanks, Chinese and Russians all have theirs up and running. Isn't Sanofi nominally French?

Sanofi-Aventis, following mergers and acquisitions, so not just French.
Sanofi's vaccine is late and won't be available until the end of the year (2021 before you ask), third quarter at best.
"Despite" their ™Big Pharma™ status, they also produce hydroxychloroquin. 

[Sheilbh]

Latest UK numbers still high so it definitely does seem like the slow-down from Saturday-Tuesday is some sort of weekend issue. We have now had over 2 million vaccines distributed in the last week (which includes a weekend slow-down) which was the government target for the end of the month.

Again there's lots that could go wrong (I see Gavin Williamson was doing interviews this morning ) but at this stage in relation to the vaccine roll-out the government is under-promising and over-delivering.

They've released the weekly data which does an age breakdown but I'd be really interested to know proportions - what proportion of over 80s and care home residents have now had their vaccine?

Edit: Also I see that Hungary has now approved the Sputnik vaccine which I didn't know was being tested for Europe

Edit: A tweet from the Chief Scientific Advisor - most positively, Matt Hancock wasn't on the call so we still have a chase:

Sir Patrick Vallance
@uksciencechief
"Very helpful discussion with @CMO_England and colleagues from @IsraelMOH today to share information and lessons on the science behind the UK and Israel's Covid-19 vaccination programmes." - PV

[Sheilbh]

Cases are now falling quite rapidly in the UK but hospital admissions have only just started declining, so it feels like we've probably not seen the worst in new deaths and that they'll keep growing for another week.

And, despite this being a big issue in the first wave, we have learned nothing about protecting care homes because there's some awful stories there. I saw one about a care home in Lincolnshire where 2/3s of the residents have died in recent weeks - which is just unimaginable for the other residents or the staff.

[Josquius]

OK. So this pisses me off

https://www.hsj.co.uk/primary-care/exclusive-leading-regions-vaccine-supply-to-be-halved-so-others-can-catch-up/7029342.article

The North East and Yorkshire region has been told its covid-19 vaccine supply via primary care will be halved next week, largely because it is ahead of other areas in vaccinating its eligible population, HSJ has learned.

The planned reduction in deliveries to the region also suggests national supply from manufacturers will remain heavily constrained next week, contrary to hopes it will ramp up substantially to allow more than two million doses to be given each week.

Well-placed sources said the North East and Yorkshire, one of seven English NHS regions, had been told there would be around 100,000 doses available next week for its centres run by GP practices, which make up the large majority of current vaccinations. This will be down from about 200,000 this week.

They have been told the main reason is that large parts of the North East and Yorkshire have vaccinated a greater percentage of their population than other regions, including very many of the over 80s, meaning they are more quickly moving on to groups under 80.

Sources said it was a major frustration in the area, especially in primary care, because they had set up the capacity to administer tens of thousands more than they would be able to.


One said: "It's a sensible policy if you have limited vaccine supply, which is clearly the case [but], given the demography, deprivation, and ethnicity in parts of the region, it's not great."

It is not clear what supply will be available to hospital vaccination sites in the region — known as "hubs" — or to mass vaccination sites, next week, but the primary-care led sites make up the large majority of vaccines being given.

Data published a week indicated 46 per cent of over 80s had received a first dose, compared to 29 per cent in the East of England and 31 per cent in London. New data is due today.

Another senior NHS source in the region said that while it was getting less than hoped, it was now receiving more advanced notice of volumes, and expected to have enough to meet the target of offering slots to all the top four priority groups by mid February.

One GP in Northumberland yesterday tweeted: "Sadly no #CovidVaccine clinics next week (w/c 25th Jan) as no vaccine being supplied. We hope to be able to run clinics w/c 1st Feb."

Responding to that GP, NHSE primary care director Nikki Kanani, said: "Congratulations - this means you've made great progress on your most vulnerable to covid/priority cohorts. We are making sure that this opportunity is afforded to all across the country at similar rates."

An NHS England spokesman said: "Vaccine allocations have prioritised areas for supply depending on the number of unvaccinated people in priority cohorts. This ensures we reach those most at risk across the country as far as possible, following advice from the [Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation]."

Tldr:the north is doing too well with vaccinations.
Can't be having that. The poor must know their place.
Take their vaccines and give them to the south.

[Sheilbh]

Although isn't that right while we're doing it based on risk groups - we should get all the over-80s and care home residents done first, no?

As long as the issue is supply not distribution at least - if it's just that all regions have enough vaccine to immunise their highest risk groups and some are quicker than others that's fine, but if there's still limited supply then shouldn't we prioritise the highest risk groups everywhere?

[Josquius]

It's assuming everything working too perfectly. That you can just shift supply from one area to somewhere that is running slow and get the same total effectiveness only with the most at risk group done quicker.
Instead they'll be sacrificing the efficiency of the north managing to get ahead of schedule for a significantly smaller gain in the south to what's lost.
We are aiming to get everyone done eventually so it makes sense to stick to the plan and not change it at short notice. If a region gets ahead of things then that's good.
You just know if the shoe was on the other foot and it was London pulling ahead they wouldn't be doing this. There'd be no doubt that getting London open ASAP is important.

[mongers]

Meanwhile it's not at all clear that the new 'soft' national lockdown is having much effect on the virus levels within the population, as the new ONS (Imperial?) report sets out.

I think we're entering still more dangerous territory where increasing numbers of people don't follow the restrictions, in part because the 'cure' the vaccines are going into masses of the population.

So whilst many of the more vulnerable are getting some protection, many of them will still be at risk as they leave shielding with their newly gained 'immunity' and go out into a wider community that still has masses of infected people.

My Daily Mail* style rant of the day : Why on earth are people being allowed to travel hundreds of miles across the country to go with estate agents to view properties?

* an ironic one since the DM worships rising house prices.

[Josquius]

Yeah, I've heard mutterings people are exploiting that to go on holiday.

[Sheilbh]

Maybe - as I say London got fewer vaccines than it should have because of an excel fuck-up. They were counting GPs but not taking into account how many patients GPs have and obviously urban areas have fewer GPs with more patients than rural/suburban areas and London's mostly urban and suburban so particularly affected by that. My understanding is that was just an innocent mistake/fuck-up rather than anything untoward.

But I'm not sure that it's impossible to redistribute supply with the next deliveries whenever they are. And I don't see why it would impact efficiency in the North-East and Yorkshire because, as I say, from what I understand the limiting factor at this stage is supply of vaccines not the speed they can be delivered.

I get that we want to get everyone done but the risk is just so much higher or the over 80s and especially care homes (where the estimates are one death is prevented by every 20 vaccines). If everyone had enough vaccines to immunise that group and the North-East and Yorkshire were just more efficient then they should absolutely be able to crack on, but if we don't have enough vaccine then I think it makes sense to prioritise to the most at risk.

[Sheilbh]

Meanwhile it's not at all clear that the new 'soft' national lockdown is having much effect on the virus levels within the population, as the new ONS (Imperial?) report sets out.

It's the REACT survey - which is really good but is being reported really badly. John Burn-Murdoch the data visualisation guy at the FT had a bit of a moan about this and the way it's being reported. The survey is run weeks apart and they didn't collect data in December. So it has a set of results saying there's moderately high prevalence in mid November and higher prevalence in mid January and draws a smooth trend line that shows consistent growth. We know that there were a lot of cases in December - but they don't have data for that period.

If you look at the weekly ONS data (which John Burn-Murdoch did below also with a trend line of if you just look at those points) it is probably more likely that you had a peak in late December and is now falling, but is still higher than in November:


And it is clear that the lockdown is having an effect - case numbers are down, hospitalisations rates are finally starting to fall (which is a lagging indicator - so cases probably started falling a week or two ago). Again that's consistent with the ONS data too.

I think we're entering still more dangerous territory where increasing numbers of people don't follow the restrictions, in part because the 'cure' the vaccines are going into masses of the population.

So whilst many of the more vulnerable are getting some protection, many of them will still be at risk as they leave shielding with their newly gained 'immunity' and go out into a wider community that still has masses of infected people.

My Daily Mail* style rant of the day : Why on earth are people being allowed to travel hundreds of miles across the country to go with estate agents to view properties?

* an ironic one since the DM worships rising house prices.

Yeah I mean I really worry about how clear we make it that after you've vaccinated you need at least two weeks to have any immune effect - there have been a number of cases in Israel of people dying who were infected after they were vaccinated. Arguably you need to self-isolate more than over for those few weeks.

I'm not so sure that people are breaking the rules on a big scale. I think as ever most people are trying their best and generally doing what they should do/what they've been told to do.

Having said all that it is an absolute disgrace that estate agents haven't been shut down - I'm not convinced they provide an essential service at the best of times and they certainly don't now. Estate agents and ventilation are my hobby-horses

[Threviel]

Apparently Biden's chief Corona advisor is ignorant and mis-informed.

https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1334295291223179264

[The Brain]

Apparently Biden's chief Corona advisor is ignorant and mis-informed.

https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1334295291223179264

He doesn't appear to have the emotional stability you'd like in a person dealing with an emergency.

[Threviel]

Apparently Biden's chief Corona advisor is ignorant and mis-informed.

https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1334295291223179264

He doesn't appear to have the emotional stability you'd like in a person dealing with an emergency.

Nope, that was something of a breakdown. Glhf US.

[Maladict]

I don't see the problem. And he wasn't Biden's advisor when he wrote that.
It's a bit over the top, sure, but not excessively so given the circumstances.

[Threviel]

He's wrong and makes a strong statement with hard words based on mis-information about a health care official in another country. I would think that there should be hundreds of better qualified professionals in the US that does not do that.

In general I would hope that a high official with an important role to play in combating a pandemic would not be prone to hysterical hissy-fits.