Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[alfred russel]

lockdown measures work.

Okay but do they provide incremental benefits versus less extreme measures? And are those benefits worth the cost including loss of public tolerance for any measures?

You dismissed the journal article I referenced earlier, and here is another in Nature:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84092-1

A recent mathematical model has suggested that staying at home did not play a dominant role in reducing COVID-19 transmission. The second wave of cases in Europe, in regions that were considered as COVID-19 controlled, may raise some concerns. Our objective was to assess the association between staying at home (%) and the reduction/increase in the number of deaths due to COVID-19 in several regions in the world. In this ecological study, data from www.google.com/covid19/mobility/, ourworldindata.org and covid.saude.gov.br were combined. Countries with > 100 deaths and with a Healthcare Access and Quality Index of ≥ 67 were included. Data were preprocessed and analyzed using the difference between number of deaths/million between 2 regions and the difference between the percentage of staying at home. The analysis was performed using linear regression with special attention to residual analysis. After preprocessing the data, 87 regions around the world were included, yielding 3741 pairwise comparisons for linear regression analysis. Only 63 (1.6%) comparisons were significant. With our results, we were not able to explain if COVID-19 mortality is reduced by staying at home in ~ 98% of the comparisons after epidemiological weeks 9 to 34.

The WHO recommends against using lockdowns unless healthcare systems are being overwhelmed, which is not the case now.

At this point moving to a lockdown is going against WHO advice and imposing significant costs on the population when after a year whether there is an incremental benefit is debatable.

[alfred russel]

In countries with a more advanced vaccine rollout, I think we are to the point where we should be discussing whether covid restrictions should be in place at all (excluding simple stuff like masks).

At this point -- around here at least -- healthcare workers and the elderly have had the opportunity to get the vaccine. For those people that have access to the vaccine but are passing on it--I think we can all agree on the sentiment that we shouldn't hold up resuming normal lives because of them. Fuck those people.

The mortality among younger populations (without vaccine access) is in line with the entire population in bad flu years. What we can do in those years should be okay to do now.

[Razgovory]

Generally, it's a good idea to wait till the fire is out before you go back in your house, not when you first see the fire truck.

[Sheilbh]

Okay but do they provide incremental benefits versus less extreme measures? And are those benefits worth the cost including loss of public tolerance for any measures?

You dismissed the journal article I referenced earlier, and here is another in Nature:

I'm not saying lockdown measures are always right. I'm saying that despite the worst fears around B117 which is 50% more transmissible, they still work in reducing the R and stopping transmission. As I've said all along lockdown is a blunt policy that happens because your other policies failed and you're on the edge of catastrophe. Obviously it's entirely right that politicians should be looking at the wider context when they make their decisions - my point is simply it still works against B117. As ever the most important thing with lockdown is it buys you space and time - what you do with that is key.

You can see the effect of going back into national lockdown here - the November one was less strict but you can see London and the South-East ticking up at the end of November, that was B117 becoming dominant and the fear was we would just be in a race against it with vaccinations. But lockdown was working before there'd been many vaccinations - so they can buy space or time:


In terms of incremental impact I think the bigger impact than stay at home - which people already were - was closing schools for the first time since September because they seem to contribute more to B117 transmission and jumping from household-to-household. Schools have now reopened and testing has massively ramped up (to about 1.5 million a day) so every kid gets tested twice a week and speaking to people who've been home-schooling I think that'll probably contribute more to national joy and freedom than anything else

And the UK continues to have incredibly broad support for lockdown of 80%+. Also for the first time - I think because it's reasonable and because of vaccines (which again is now up to around 95% willingness to get a jab) - there is broad support for the government's plan and pace to relax lockdown measures. Which I agree are pretty sensible this time.

In other countries there may be a higher tolerance of deaths - which is normally when we shift from a pandemic being a crisis to an annual flu season - or lower tolerance of restriction. That tolerance could, in turn, be linked to economic support for businesses and individuals which has been pretty strong in the UK.

The WHO recommends against using lockdowns unless healthcare systems are being overwhelmed, which is not the case now.

At this point moving to a lockdown is going against WHO advice and imposing significant costs on the population when after a year whether there is an incremental benefit is debatable.

We were at the edge of healthcare systems being overwhelmed. From everything I've read we came closer to that this time than last spring. In mid-January we had about 40k people in hospital with covid which is double the spring peak (although there was lower testing in spring so we may have had similar figures but not be aware).

You can see this wave and the effect lockdown (and vaccines) have had:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

[Sheilbh]

In countries with a more advanced vaccine rollout, I think we are to the point where we should be discussing whether covid restrictions should be in place at all (excluding simple stuff like masks).

100%. If everything goes to plan the UK "roadmap" ends all covid restrictions by late June.

I'm not sure if we'll get there quite that quickly but I suspect they'll be over at some point this summer and I think we'll be surprised how quickly things change.

[Iormlund]

The entire vaccine row is getting silly.

Regardless of who's to blame, the EU should ban exports to any country that is either further along in vaccination efforts or resells vaccine to one of those. It makes zero sense to send vaccines so the UK can give them to healthy young people while there are still millions of vulnerable 70 year olds in the Union.

[Sheilbh]

The entire vaccine row is getting silly.

Regardless of who's to blame, the EU should ban exports to any country that is either further along in vaccination efforts or resells vaccine to one of those. It makes zero sense to send vaccines so the UK can give them to healthy young people while there are still millions of vulnerable 70 year olds in the Union.

But from what I understand the EU is only exporting Pfizer vaccines to the UK.

A key input into the Pfizer vaccine is only made in the UK and US. So the risk is the UK retaliates by banning the export of that vaccine input which would mean European factories can't manufacture any Pfizer vaccine for themselves or anyone else.

[Iormlund]

The entire vaccine row is getting silly.

Regardless of who's to blame, the EU should ban exports to any country that is either further along in vaccination efforts or resells vaccine to one of those. It makes zero sense to send vaccines so the UK can give them to healthy young people while there are still millions of vulnerable 70 year olds in the Union.

But from what I understand the EU is only exporting Pfizer vaccines to the UK.

A key input into the Pfizer vaccine is only made in the UK and US. So the risk is the UK retaliates by banning the export of that vaccine input which would mean European factories can't manufacture any Pfizer vaccine for themselves or anyone else.

If it's made in the US there shouldn't be a problem, since the US has its own (and exclusive) manufacturing pipeline for Pfizer.

Note that I'm not suggesting complete ban ala US. Just limited to those who are effectively out of the worst already and only while they are significantly ahead.

[Sheilbh]

I think it's only made in the UK and the US - the US is used in their supply chain and the UK is used in the European supply chain - but I could be wrong.

To be honest I think talking and diplomacy with the UK and Russia would be the best because they're the only other bits of Europe that are manufacturing anything - and the US is a lost cause. But I suppose my point is I think if the EU were just to announce restrictions unilaterally then the UK would probably retaliate (it would be very explosive domestically) on their bit of the Pfizer supply chain which could undermine what the EU was trying to achieve by reducing the number of Pfizer vaccines available. Similarly Curevac, Valneva and Novavax are all opening manufacturing sites in the UK and it could impact them once they're open and approved - I imagine there's separate continental European supply chains, especially as they're all European companies, but I'm not sure.

Totally unrelated but - one for Syt. Since the murder of Sarah Everard by a Met Police officer women decided to hold a reclaim the streets vigil tonight in Clapham Common. The Met banned it citing covid restrictions (Kate Middleton was filmed by an off-duty journalist making a private visit to the vigil site and leaving flowers - which is not the norm for royals when the police have banned an event) - but it went ahead:

The police are now dispersing it and making arrests which is great community policing and they seem to be far more worried about this vigil than they have been about football fans celebrating (Leeds, Liverpool especially) or anti-vax protests

Edit: Just seen some video and this is fucking disgraceful:
https://twitter.com/HannahAlOthman/status/1370832740703203328?s=20
I've no idea how they decided letting a peaceful vigil happen would be worse than this - especially given that the alleged killer was apparently accused by another woman of indecent exposure four days before Sara Everard was kidnapped. Reportedly the Met were not particularly robust in connection with that allegation which is why that man has only been charged with it now

Edit: For what it's worth - I'm not seeing a single person online supporting the Met's decision making approach here. Universal condemnation and quite a lot of anger/outrage from people on the left and the right in the UK. No statement so far from Sadiq Khan but hopefully it's coming soon. I don't think Cressida Dick should ever have been allowed to become Met Commissioner and I still don't - but this feels like something where people are asking if she should step down.

[Tamas]

This is ridiculous. As you said, I don't remember such footage of the police dispersing football fans. They seem far braver against women.

[Syt]

Totally unrelated but - one for Syt. Since the murder of Sarah Everard by a Met Police officer women decided to hold a reclaim the streets vigil tonight in Clapham Common. The Met banned it citing covid restrictions (Kate Middleton was filmed by an off-duty journalist making a private visit to the vigil site and leaving flowers - which is not the norm for royals when the police have banned an event) - but it went ahead:

The police are now dispersing it and making arrests which is great community policing and they seem to be far more worried about this vigil than they have been about football fans celebrating (Leeds, Liverpool especially) or anti-vax protests

It's always interesting to see who the police is forceful against, and against who they aren't.

[Eddie Teach]

"Off-duty journalist" is an interesting phrase.

[Sheilbh]

Yep - Rangers fans celebrating their first title in a decade last week

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yep - Rangers fans celebrating their first title in a decade last week

One also has to wonder what the response would have been like if it had been Celtic fans gathering 

[celedhring]

Today marks 1 years since the start of the Spanish lockdown. Happy covidversary to you all!