Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[alfred russel]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/05/texas-gop-leader-antimask-antivax-dies-covid/

A Texas GOP leader railed against vaccines and masks. Then he died of covid.

He was 45.

Stories like this make me waver on the idea of vaccine mandates. Maybe nature has the situation under control and this will resolve itself naturally, and it would be a mistake to interfere with that process.

[FunkMonk]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/05/texas-gop-leader-antimask-antivax-dies-covid/

A Texas GOP leader railed against vaccines and masks. Then he died of covid.

He was 45.

Stories like this make me waver on the idea of vaccine mandates. Maybe nature has the situation under control and this will resolve itself naturally, and it would be a mistake to interfere with that process.

Killing themselves to own the libs.

[Valmy]

Well consider me owned Mr. Apley.

[Syt]

For those so inclined, you can contribute to the family's GoFundMe for the medical and funeral costs etc.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-scott-and-melissa-apley-with-medical-bills

[Valmy]

For those so inclined, you can contribute to the family's GoFundMe for the medical and funeral costs etc.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-scott-and-melissa-apley-with-medical-bills

Well that is just terrible. I hope his wife pulls through.

Try to own me in less tragic ways in the future.

[Neil]

Stories like this make me waver on the idea of vaccine mandates. Maybe nature has the situation under control and this will resolve itself naturally, and it would be a mistake to interfere with that process.

The problem is that good-hearted people can get caught in the crossfire. 

[The Brain]

Can US employers order employees to have medical procedures that go beyond testing?

Of course not.

But they can certainly require employees to be vaccinated if they want to work for them.

So this Jim Benemann dude is wrong here?

The Denver PD cannot force their police officers to get vaccinated. If he says they are forcing them to get vaccinated, he is wrong. And obviously so.

What is your actual question here?

It wasn't obvious to me that the mayor could order city workers to get vaccinated, and such an order was claimed to exist and it wasn't called illegal. Hence the question for clarification.

[mongers]

Stories like this make me waver on the idea of vaccine mandates. Maybe nature has the situation under control and this will resolve itself naturally, and it would be a mistake to interfere with that process.

The problem is that good-hearted people can get caught in the crossfire.

Neil! 

[jimmy olsen]

Can US employers order employees to have medical procedures that go beyond testing?

Of course not.

But they can certainly require employees to be vaccinated if they want to work for them.

So this Jim Benemann dude is wrong here?

The Denver PD cannot force their police officers to get vaccinated. If he says they are forcing them to get vaccinated, he is wrong. And obviously so.

What is your actual question here?

It wasn't obvious to me that the mayor could order city workers to get vaccinated, and such an order was claimed to exist and it wasn't called illegal. Hence the question for clarification.

The government or a private enterprise can require vaccination as a condition for future employment.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting - first time I've seen this tension between the JCVI (Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation) and the Chief Medical Officers and government:

JCVI 'largely opposed' to Covid vaccination for children under 16
Exclusive: Members of government's expert committee disagree with politicians and Jonathan Van-Tam
Rowena Mason and Jessica Elgot
Sat 7 Aug 2021 07.00 BST

Members of the government's expert committee on vaccination remain largely opposed to extending Covid jabs to younger teenagers, despite politicians having signalled they would like to see a shift in the guidance, the Guardian has been told.

Several members of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said the mainstream sentiment on the body is still extremely cautious about expanding the programme to 12- to 15-year-olds, even though a deputy chief medical officer has suggested that outcome is high probable and politicians have said they would like the issue to remain under review.

The JCVI recommended on Wednesday that all over-16s be offered jabs, just two weeks after saying children should not routinely be given Covid vaccinations. The U-turn provoked alarm at what was described as a "shambolic" vaccine rollout for older teenagers, with doctors saying they were being "left in the dark" about the details of the rollout to younger people.

The JCVI has moved to "refresh" the membership of its Covid subcommittee in recent weeks, with one prominent critic of Covid jabs for children, Prof Robert Dingwall, leaving the body.

Dingwall and others on the committee said his views were not the reason for the shake-up, and that sentiment on the body is still that the risks outweigh the benefits for 12- to 15-year-olds. Three other members – Prof Lucy Yardley, Prof Liz Miller and Prof Bryan Charleston – also left at a similar time.

Jonathan Van-Tam, a deputy chief medical officer, has said it was "more likely than less likely" that the list of eligible children would be broadened.

However, one expert who remains a member of the JCVI said the overriding opinion of the body was still against expanding vaccinations to 12- to 15-year-olds and argued that the committee was more likely to recommend removing categories of vulnerable children who are currently offered vaccines.

Committee members said they had not felt political pressure to change their views when it came to changing its advice on 16- and 17-year-olds. However, two members on the committee said there had been a fear that Scotland could go its own way on vaccinating older teenagers, even though the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has consistently said her government will follow JCVI advice.

Dingwall, professor of sociology at Nottingham Trent University, told the Guardian that his leaving the JCVI subcommittee on Covid was nothing to do with his views about vaccinating teenagers. "People are seeing a conspiracy where none exists. This is something that has been prefigured for several weeks and it's entirely coincidental that it happens to be at the same time as the review on vaccination for 16- and 17-year-olds.

"I am being portrayed as some kind of lone voice critic of vaccination for [teenagers] but at no point have my views been any different from the broad consensus on JCVI. This idea I've been a single roadblock is just nonsense," he said. "I don't feel that my absence is a great loss to JCVI and I have every respect for the integrity of colleagues."

His departure was reported by the Spectator on Thursday and sparked outrage in some quarters of social media, but Dingwall said his departure was to do with pulling more work back into the main JCVI committee.

Dingwall was co-opted to the JCVI's Covid-19 committee from the chief medical officer's Moral and Ethical Advisory Group, of which he remains a member.

He has previously expressed scepticism about vaccinating children, saying they were at "low risk for Covid" and suggested they might have been better protected by simply catching the virus. He has also written previously in favour of lifting Covid restrictions once the population is mostly vaccinated.

A JCVI spokesperson said: 'The JCVI is a group of independent experts who discuss the latest available evidence to reach decisions on how to best use Covid-19 vaccines to protect the public. The main JCVI committee has provided all advice and recommendations to ministers on Covid-19 vaccines. The committee is united in its efforts to reach a consensus in order to provide robust advice to ministers on how best to continue preventing hospitalisation and deaths from Covid-19."

Asked about Scotland's role in the process, a Scottish government spokesman said: "The CMO [chief medical officer] wrote to the JCVI last week noting they faced 'challenging decisions, often based on newly emerging or limited clinical data' and thanked them for their endeavours to date. He outlined that he understood that the JCVI was this week set to consider further data on the issue. Dr [Gregor] Smith outlined that there was an urgency to these considerations 'given the early return of schools in Scotland in mid-August'."

The spokesperson said Smith hoped the JCVI would say more about their consideration of the impact of Covid on the long-term health of young people.

I'm still more cautious than not personally. The direct risk of covid is very low and even long covid is a low risk (because this seems to be linked to symptomatic and serious cases, which affect children less), while there are known risks to the vaccines (including the heart issues that seem to be more common in young men with the mRNA). So as the balance of direct risks isn't clear - as it is for older groups - I feel like the indirect benefit has to be big and, from my understanding, there's evidence schools/kids help transmission leap households but they're not major contributors to R.

Maybe things will change but I'm not really seeing a great case for vaccinating young people yet.

I like him but I don't think the chair, Professor Wei Shen Lim, did a great job in explaining the basis for vaccinating kids who are 16-17 but it seemed to be based on growing certainty around the numbers and risks. From my eye-balling of the numbers they also seem like the one group of young people who may be driving transmission.

Edit: Also - I'm getting more optimistic as experts I started following/reading/paying attention to in the first wave like Neil Ferguson and Francois Balloux are starting to sound pretty hopeful

[ulmont]

Just had my first test.

I had tests 4 and 5 on Thursday (one rapid, one slower).  They've made them less painful than 6 months ago.

[Tamas]

If children (teens) are driving infections but it is largely the un-vaccinated 20+ aged who are getting hospitalised, then what is being proposed is that in order to protect stupid & irresponsible adults we should risk the health of children?

I get that that serious side effect of vaccines are extremely rare but they exist so why do this?

[Sheilbh]

If children (teens) are driving infections but it is largely the un-vaccinated 20+ aged who are getting hospitalised, then what is being proposed is that in order to protect stupid & irresponsible adults we should risk the health of children?

I get that that serious side effect of vaccines are extremely rare but they exist so why do this?

Proposed by who?

The Chief Medical Officers and UK politicians seem to want to start vaccinating teens - this would bring us in line with the rest of the world. From a regulatory/safety perspective the MHRA have authorised at least Pfizer for over 12s (maybe other vaccines too - I'm not sure) - so it's safe. But the JCVI which makes recommendations on how to use vaccines - including from a medical ethical perspective - are less convinced and apparently reluctant. They've authorised for kids with comorbidities (because they are at direct risk) and 16-17 year olds (because there's evidence they do help drive transmission), but for under 16s in general their view broadly seems to be that they don't drive infections and the direct risk to them from covid is lower than the risks of side effects.

As I say, I think it's very nuanced and difficult. My default is that if the rest of the world is doing it we probably should too - on the other hand the analysis released by the JCVI seems pretty persuasive to me (though not all the evidence they've used in their analysis has been released because they get access to early data/pre-prints etc).

My sense is that it's probably a little bit of a distraction. The big issue is driving up vaccinations in younger age groups. People in the 20s are plateauing at about 70%, every other group is over 80%. Though people in their 30s are in the low 80s. I feel like we really need to get those figures up closer to the 90% of other age groups - I don't fully know how you do that. More community outreach, more easy vaccinations (not through the central NHS or GPs) - I sort of feel like while the NHS model worked incredibly well for older groups (and would work incredibly well for kids) for the young adults who are healthy it's probably not going to work and we need to embrace chaos. But I don't know, that's just my suspicion.

The government or a private enterprise can require vaccination as a condition for future employment.

Yeah in the UK and most of Europe I imagine that's not possible - I think it's a very different situation in the US where employers can require drug tests for example. Here I think you'd need to mandate that requirement in law (so in the UK it has been mandated for employees in the care sector).

[celedhring]

Yeah, demanding vaccination as condition for employment or firing people for not being vaccinated would be very illegal over here.

[Sheilbh]

Extraordinary SAGE/PHE stat: even though all restrictions have been lifted face-to-face contacts are still lower than last summer and less than a quarter of pre-pandemic contacts.

I assume a lot of that is work contacts, but I really hope that doesn't become a lasting change from this pandemic