Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Maladict]

Nearly all countries fucked up at least once by now, no shame in that. 

[Threviel]

Yeah, if that was his argument and he would be correct. But he claimed that Tegnell's response was based on herd immunity. Herd immunity has been discussed and debated and talked about, but it was never the strategy of Tegnell. And that is something a professional ought to know.

[celedhring]

Interesting conundrum regarding some local politicians jumping the queue for vaccinations. They have been barred from receiving the second dosage until their are entitled to under our vaccination strategy. However, the head of our CDC has recommended it be given to them, otherwise the vaccines they used - even if deceitfully - would be wasted.

[Maladict]

Yeah, if that was his argument and he would be correct. But he claimed that Tegnell's response was based on herd immunity. Herd immunity has been discussed and debated and talked about, but it was never the strategy of Tegnell. And that is something a professional ought to know.

But teh emails!!!

[Sheilbh]

Counterfactual modelled (I think based on cases and vaccine numbers) that suggests vaccination campaigns are already reducing hospital admissions:


And that gap will mean fewer deaths a few weeks after the potential admission.

[The Larch]

Interesting conundrum regarding some local politicians jumping the queue for vaccinations. They have been barred from receiving the second dosage until their are entitled to under our vaccination strategy. However, the head of our CDC has recommended it be given to them, otherwise the vaccines they used - even if deceitfully - would be wasted.

Yeah, you either give them the 2nd dose in the scheduled calendar (effectively rewarding their queue-jumping) or you act as if they weren't given any and give them another one when they'd be supposed to get it and the follow-up as scheduled (pretending the queue-jumping didn't happen). Don't know if they've studied what happens to people who receive 3 doses. 

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, you either give them the 2nd dose in the scheduled calendar (effectively rewarding their queue-jumping) or you act as if they weren't given any and give them another one when they'd be supposed to get it and the follow-up as scheduled (pretending the queue-jumping didn't happen). Don't know if they've studied what happens to people who receive 3 doses. 

It doesn't matter. There's been loads of cases in Israel where the patient accidentally got 5 doses (at once)

Apparently there's no impact noticed yet.

[The Larch]

Yeah, you either give them the 2nd dose in the scheduled calendar (effectively rewarding their queue-jumping) or you act as if they weren't given any and give them another one when they'd be supposed to get it and the follow-up as scheduled (pretending the queue-jumping didn't happen). Don't know if they've studied what happens to people who receive 3 doses. 

It doesn't matter. There's been loads of cases in Israel where the patient accidentally got 5 doses (at once)

Apparently there's no impact noticed yet.

5 doses? That should be enough to develop superpowers. 

[Sheilbh]

It's still early days.

I think the bottle is meant to contain 5 doses (but actually contains 6) so I assume some Israeli nurses/doctors didn't read the instructions and were just giving people an entire bottle's worth

Still at least we know it's not dangerous...yet.

[The Larch]

It's still early days.

I think the bottle is meant to contain 5 doses (but actually contains 6) so I assume some Israeli nurses/doctors didn't read the instructions and were just giving people an entire bottle's worth

Still at least we know it's not dangerous...yet.

Yeah, apparently a Pfizer vial intended for 5 doses can be stretched to 6 doses, but you need to employ a particular kind of needle for that. We're having a minor controversy here, as some regions didn't stockpile the correct kind of needle for this (apparently they were warned about it back in the summer) and are effectively wasting this "6th" dose in each vial, which scales up to thousands and thousands of wasted doses.

[Josquius]

Counterfactual modelled (I think based on cases and vaccine numbers) that suggests vaccination campaigns are already reducing hospital admissions:
And that gap will mean fewer deaths a few weeks after the potential admission.

To put a weird spin on it, I wonder how much is the actual effect of the vaccinations themselves and how much is people behaving themselves more with the actual end now being in sight, the advertising campaign about protecting the NHS to get through this last lock down, etc...

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, apparently a Pfizer vial intended for 5 doses can be stretched to 6 doses, but you need to employ a particular kind of needle for that. We're having a minor controversy here, as some regions didn't stockpile the correct kind of needle for this (apparently they were warned about it back in the summer) and are effectively wasting this "6th" dose in each vial, which scales up to thousands and thousands of wasted doses.

Yeah - from what I read (which was from the US) you don't need a specific type of needle but it's just far more efficient at extracting the 6th dose so some hospitals have been able to take full advantage and others haven't. But I think Pfizer have reduced their deliveries to take account of the 6th dose which is affecting supply in some places.

To put a weird spin on it, I wonder how much is the actual effect of the vaccinations themselves and how much is people behaving themselves more with the actual end now being in sight, the advertising campaign about protecting the NHS to get through this last lock down, etc...

I think the overall trend is because of what people are doing/lockdown, but can believe that little counterfactual gap is down to vaccines.

[Sheilbh]

Slightly alarming information on the new variant (this is limited by the amount of sequencing done) but it seems like this new variant may be slightly more lethal than other variants. Asked about it by a journalist Professor Neil Ferguson gave this explanation: "it is a realistic possibility that the new UK variant increases the risk of death, but there is considerable remaining uncertainty. Four groups - Imperial, LSHTM, PHE and Exeter - have looked at the relationship between people testing positive for the variant vs old strains and the risk of death. That suggests a 1.3-fold increased risk of death. So for 60 year-olds, 13 in 1000 might die compared with 10 in 1000 for old strains. The big caveat is that we only know which strain people were infected with for about 8% of deaths. Only about 25% of people who eventually die from COVID get a pillar 2 test before they are hospitalised (at which point they get a pillar 1 test, but pillar 1 tests don't tell us which strain they were infected with). And we can only distinguish the new variant from the old variant for about 1/3 of pillar 2 tests. All that said, the signal is there and is consistent across different age groups, regions and ethnicities."

On the other hand new data in the UK and Denmark seems to suggest it's less transmissible than first feared - only around 35% more transmissible rather than 50-70%. Which, as the UK case numbers suggest, means lockdowns work. And there is still no sign that the vaccine doesn't work.

Denmark is still doing a lot of sequencing - while their cases are falling because they are locked down the share of positive cases that are the new variant has grown from 0.2% to 7% in seven weeks.

[celedhring]

Freshest data of prevalency of the new variant in Spain is 9% of the cases sequenced in the Madrid region (again, we're not sequencing much). It is expected to become the predominant variant by March.

Regarding vaccination, as of today we used 87% of the stockpile and several centers have had to shut down due to lack of vaccines. Also, AstroZeneca has said that they won't be able to fulfill the contract with the EU as planned...

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - are there any details on the AstraZeneca issue? All I've seen is that they have a glitch in some production in their European supply chain but I'm not sure what or where there's an issue or how big a deal it will be.