Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

EU commission and EMA still considers it safe, but national regulators of British-friendly, non-EU countries like Norway or Switzerland or e.g. Thailand have also suspended usage for now, not just EU countries. United States did not even approve yet...

Yeah - and maybe regulators are seeing something that we don't know and it's entirely fair for regulators to take different approaches around risk etc. I think even if there were a small new risk I don't really think it would change the picture though - you know if it increases the risk of blood clots by, say one in a million, would that be enough to consider it unsafe? I feel like given the numbers involved - from what I've seen so far and the EMA's comments - it would make more sense to keep going while investigating.

And my view is shaped by the situation in the UK. We don't have control of the pandemic, we have a new variant that is really bad once it gets going and I always thought supply would be tight/difficult until the summer. So given that situation, I think the UK regulators made the right calls on prioritising people by age, focusing on speed and delaying the second dose. I think that's what the Belgians have said today that it would be irresponsible, given their case numbers, to stop using all the vaccines they have - and he noted that there's no difference in Belgium in the numbers of blood clots from people who've had AZ v Pfizer. It's probably not the ideal strategy - but we're not starting from a great place in the UK. It may be different in other European countries.

[Legbiter]

If the European nations were practically drowning in different types of vaccines and the epidemic was not showing alarming trends in some countries I'd be very blasé about any vaccine snobbery. But this isn't unexpected either, once you start vaccinating millions of people simultaneously you're going to get people coming down with regular illnesses shortly after getting jabbed. Just hope this caution doesn't further screw up the effort.

[Zanza]

Many problems of the modern world exists because voters and politicians do not understand statistics and probabilities. We should really invest in better math education.

[DGuller]

Many problems of the modern world exists because voters and politicians do not understand statistics and probabilities. We should really invest in better math education.

Knowing and understanding probability and statistics is a Cassandra curse, because you realize how many really bad decisions affecting everyone are made by those who don't.

[Josquius]

The Doning Kruger is effect is always a risk that leaves people more susceptible to dodgy statistics, for instance the nonsense about white working class boys being the most disadvantaged group that you get flying around in the UK these days.
But when people don't even grasp the difference in scale between millions and billions....

[The Brain]

Many problems of the modern world exists because voters and politicians do not understand statistics and probabilities. We should really invest in better math education.

Knowing and understanding probability and statistics is a Cassandra curse, because you realize how many really bad decisions affecting everyone are made by those who don't.

Numbers are soulless, uncaring. Opinion is boundless and full of life. Choose life.

[Sheilbh]

As it's basically one year on from lockdown there's lots of replays of the press conference announcing it - I just had a week email about lockdown one year on.

It's giving me that very weird covid sense of time moving very slow and very fast at the same time. Like the last year feels like it's been several years long, but seeing the press conference re-plays it feels like a month ago when I watched all of them

[celedhring]

I look back at that year and it's been one of the longest in my memory, yet it's like it didn't even exist. Nothing happened in my life except being locked up. All the life projects I had by early 2020 seem to slowly be getting back in motion now. Such a weird feeling.

[Sheilbh]

Many problems of the modern world exists because voters and politicians do not understand statistics and probabilities. We should really invest in better math education.

Sort of unrelated but the David Spiegelhalter podcast Risky talk is quite interesting.

[mongers]

Many problems of the modern world exists because voters and politicians do not understand statistics and probabilities. We should really invest in better math education.

Sort of unrelated but the David Spiegelhalter podcast Risky talk is quite interesting.

Oh thanks for that Shelf, he's a great communicator so I'll check it.

[Legbiter]

Many problems of the modern world exists because voters and politicians do not understand statistics and probabilities. We should really invest in better math education.

5 million have been vaccinated in Europe with this vaccine, the general incidence of deep-vein thrombosis is 1 in 1000 people per year, probably higher in the priority groups vaccinated thus far and we pause it because of 30 reports?

Statistically you can expect that at least 5000 of those 5 million people will spontaneously develop the condition in the next year, irrespective of the vaccination.

[Sheilbh]

Oh thanks for that Shelf, he's a great communicator so I'll check it.

He's great - I've found his pieces in the Guardian really helpful, including the latest on the AZ vaccine scare. They've done episodes on coronavirus numbers, how to talk about vaccines, health results in genetic testing etc. And wider issues like how to communicate risk around climate change.

Edit: Also this Laura Kuenssberg pece on the decisions in the last year is superb, really well reported and quietly devastating:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56361599
The stuff about the autumn re-opening especially confirms everyone's worst suspicions.

[Legbiter]

Numbers are soulless, uncaring. Opinion is boundless and full of life. Choose life.

At this rate the best and safest holiday destination for vacation-starved Europeans will be Britain. Free-ride off of their herd immunity.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Many problems of the modern world exists because voters and politicians do not understand statistics and probabilities. We should really invest in better math education.

5 million have been vaccinated in Europe with this vaccine, the general incidence of deep-vein thrombosis is 1 in 1000 people per year, probably higher in the priority groups vaccinated thus far and we pause it because of 30 reports?

Statistically you can expect that at least 5000 of those 5 million people will spontaneously develop the condition in the next year, irrespective of the vaccination.

We have vaccinated nearly all of our oldies in the past 10 weeks....meanwhile the old folk die at the rate of roughly 10,000 per week....this means that tens of thousands of Brits died shortly after having their vaccination. Now, what is an innumerate moron to make of these facts? Stop the vaccine now !!! 

[Sheilbh]

Interesting report last week on a rare blood clot condition reports in the US (so Pfizer and Moderna vaccines) - and it could well be there's something to look at with all the current vaccines. But there's a huge difference in how this has been reported, which I think is more responsible:
https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/rare-blood-disorder-covid-vaccine-thrombocytopenia

Again no-one's been able to establish a causal connection but interesting nontheless.