Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Tamas]

In Poland my wife's family just ignores covid altogether in interactions but to be fair to them they have done so through most of the pandemic. :p at least most of them are vaccinated by now.

[Sheilbh]

These are no daredevils, just regular tourists. Upscale even because we do our level best to prize out the Ryanair stag parties market segment through extortionate pricing. The climate does the rest. They're catching this in the airports and planes while in transit since it's airborne and extremely contagious. They test negative on arrival and since they no longer have to quarantine they're out and about. Israel is airlifting over 30 of their nationals from a tour group that had a large cluster of infections. All were fully vaccinated and suddenly several fell ill and a few had to be hospitalized.

I seem to remember an article by a scientist about travel and they basically said they would take a long-haul flight because the air is clean and regularly refreshed and it's basically a similar risk as a train. But they wouldn't do long-haul (or if the needed to transfer) because the thing that's most likely to spread transmission is everyone getting up at least once on the flight to go to the loo and walking back and forth. I wonder if that's also a factor given that I think for most of the world Iceland is pretty far away.

I've heard of a couple of horror stories in flights to Australia where the entire plane got infected because, of course it did if you're all sat together for hours and hours.

[viper37]

Still recommended by the NHS during winter here because we don't get enough sunlight to keep up our vitamin D. Though I take the capsules not the raw oil

we've had vitamin D added to milk for a while, so many people over here it's not really a problem.  Thinking of it, I guess that coincides with the reduce usage of cod liver oil
What I sometimes take are omega 3 supplements as I don't eat that much fish.

[viper37]

A study out today shows that about 4% of the population does not respond to the vaccine at all. They are mainly people in the higher risk groups, too. Apparently if you had a kidney transplant the vaccines probably won't work.

These people are bound to get covid eventually, unless they lock themselves away from society.

if 96% of the population was vaccinated, it wouldn't be a problem

I hope that we can find a remedy, it's likely these people's only chance.

[viper37]

The climate does the rest.

The climate is fine.  I've always wanted to visit nordic countries.  It's a marketing problem.  With a name like "Ice"land, not many people dream about it.  Take a hint from Greenland, best marketing setup ever

[Berkut]

I was invited to take part in a study of the efficacy of a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine

[Admiral Yi]

Heard on NPR that booster shots will be available in the US starting September 20th.

[Sheilbh]

UK study confirming the initial Israeli data that the Pfizer vaccine does seem to have waning effectiveness against Delta after a couple of months - unclear of the impart of the delayed second but presumably it would delay when the waning starts. What's been observed in the UK, from what I understand, tracks what Israelis were seeing. There was initially a huge gap between the PHE and Israeli stats on the effectiveness of Pfizer v Delta. It no looks like that reflects the dosing schedule - so Israeli stats were people at 3-4 months after their second dose, while the UK was only 1-2 months aay.

AZ has lower effectiveness but seems to decline far more slowly. Moderna isn't included because I think we've only been using that since April/May (and at quite low volume) so it's not clear if this is an mRNA thing or a Pfizer thing. This probably increases the case for some booster shots - possibly as a mix-and-match.

This is only about infection (and possibly transmission) not serious illness or hospitalisation - my understanding is the evidence so far shows that is high (in the 80s) for all vaccines and stays high but that should be monitored. And basically, all the vaccines, are still very good but this, combined with the Israeli data does seem to slightly shift the need for a booster shot campaign and should probably feed into decision making this autumn/winter.

FT chart:

Pfizer vaccine effectiveness declines faster than AstraZeneca – study
But scientists said that the level of protection offered by both vaccines was similar after four to five months.
By Nilima Marshall
15 hours ago

Two doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine appears to have greater effectiveness initially against new Covid-19 infections associated with the Delta variant when compared to the Oxford AstraZeneca jab, but its efficacy also declines faster, preliminary research suggests.

Scientists from the University of Oxford have said that after four to five months, the level of protection offered by both vaccines is similar, with the AstraZeneca jab maintaining its effectiveness throughout the duration.

The findings, which have not yet been peer reviewed, also suggest that those infected with the Delta variant after their second jab had similar peak levels of virus to unvaccinated people.

Based on their work, the researchers said that although jabs did not eliminate chances of getting Covid-19, they did reduce the risk and remained the most effective way to ensure protection against the Delta variant – which has become dominant in the UK.

Sarah Walker, professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at the University of Oxford, said: "We don't yet know how much transmission can happen from people who get Covid-19 after being vaccinated – for example, they may have high levels of virus for shorter periods of time.

"But the fact that they can have high levels of virus suggests that people who aren't yet vaccinated may not be as protected from the Delta variant as we hoped.

"This means it is essential for as many people as possible to get vaccinated – both in the UK and worldwide."

The study, conducted in partnership with the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), looked at data between December 2020 and August 2021 from the Covid-19 Infection Survey.

Swab tests from more than 700,000 participants were analysed from before and after May 17 2021, when Delta became the main variant in the UK.

Analysis revealed that for infections with a high viral load, protection a month after the second Pfizer dose was 90% greater than an unvaccinated individual, reducing to 85% after two months and 78% after three.

For AstraZeneca, the equivalent protection was 67%, 65% and 61%, the researchers said.

Dr Koen Pouwels, senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Nuffield Department of Population Health, said that the team "can be confident" that the numbers "really represent a decline" for the Pfizer vaccine, whereas for AstraZeneca "the differences are compatible with chance, that is there could be no change at all in the protection from AZ".

But he added: "Even with these slight declines in protection against all infections and infections with high viral burden, it's important to note that overall effectiveness is still very high because we were starting at such a high level of protection.

"It is also worth highlighting that these data here do not tell us about protection levels against severe disease and hospitalisation, which are two very important factors when looking at how well the vaccines are working."

The scientists also found that a single dose of the Moderna vaccine had similar or greater effectiveness against the Delta variant as single doses of the other vaccines, but the researchers added that they did not yet have any data on second doses of the US-made jab.

The study also suggested that the time between doses did not affect effectiveness in preventing new infections, and that younger people (aged 18-34) had more protection from vaccination than older age groups (35 to 64-year-olds).

The academics said they could not comment on what the study might mean for the potential autumn booster campaign, but said that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) would be considering the data while making its decision.

NHS officials have geared up to start offering a third coronavirus jab from early September, but are yet to be given the green light to press ahead from the JCVI.

Commenting on the research, Dr Alexander Edwards, associate professor in Biomedical Technology at the University of Reading, who was not involved in the study, said: "Overall this study is excellent as it shows that although Delta is better at infecting vaccinated people than previous variants, the vaccines still work remarkably well.

"There are subtle differences – between different vaccine types, and some changes over time – but they all work brilliantly."

Pre-print here - for people who are scientific enough to understand it (which I'm not ):
https://www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/files/coronavirus/covid-19-infection-survey/finalfinalcombinedve20210816.pdf

Edit: Thinking about Pfizer in the UK it was used a lot at the start of the roll-out, so for the highest risk groups. I feel like there might be an argument for giving them a booster shot (ideally - as I know they are being developed) a Delta-specific shot. But I wonder if you don't for lower-risk groups? Or if you ust focus on the still very good data on hospitalisation and illness?

Also it makes me think that we're not even at the stage of having vaccinated the world but need to be thinking about how we will do that on a regular basis if/as booster shots are required.

[DGuller]

I wonder how the US came to a figure of 8 month wait for a booster shot.  If supply is not an issue, why not give booster shots earlier, and maybe again and again?  I also wonder at what point we consider the risk of premature vaccination of children to be smaller than the risk of having entire schools being infected with Covid.

[Sheilbh]

I wonder how the US came to a figure of 8 month wait for a booster shot.  If supply is not an issue, why not give booster shots earlier, and maybe again and again?  I also wonder at what point we consider the risk of premature vaccination of children to be smaller than the risk of having entire schools being infected with Covid.

The kids vaccine thing is something I worry about because the UK is increasingly an absolute outlier on this in not vaccinating the under 16s (unless they have a comorbidity). On the one hand I'm not particularly comfortable with being an outlier like that, on the other I'm really reluctant to say that the regulators who've made the decision ar wrong and their arguments seem reasonable to me on this.

It is an odd issue because other medical authorities in the UK and politicians in all four nations seem quite open/keen to vaccinate under-16s but the vaccine body are sticking to their recommendations.

Separately I wonder what happened to the nasal spray delivery vaccines that were being worked on because I think there probably is a needle-phobic rump in people not getting vaccinated There is one MP who actually spoke about this because he has OCD and a number of serious phobias including needles - it was really interesting because the interview transformed from quite confrontational "why won't you get vaccinated?" to him explaining his mental health and issues he has from OCD and his phobias. But I feel like even people without a "phobia" who are low risk might be more likely to get the vaccine if it was available easily as a nasal spray?

[Legbiter]

Also it makes me think that we're not even at the stage of having vaccinated the world but need to be thinking about how we will do that on a regular basis if/as booster shots are required.

Yeah vaccinating all of humanity twice is already a gigantic challenge, toss in regular booster shots and it's clear we will not get herd immunity with vaccines like we did with polio and smallpox. It's here to stay and will circulate, becoming less and less lethal until it just fades into the background. We'll need to give boosters to oldies and the immunocompromised but the rest of us will get our immunity the good old way.

[Jacob]

So apparently Alabama has no more available ICU beds.

[viper37]

So apparently Alabama has no more available ICU beds.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/18/alabama-doctor-unvaccinated-patients-valentine/

[DGuller]

In other news, three US senators in one day are positive for Covid.  All of them vaccinated.  After all this time we still haven't learned how to protect our nursing homes from Covid. 

[viper37]

It's a nice story, in a way, but the lady was unvaccinated by choice, still.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/smart-living/family-feared-worst-alberta-woman-beats-death-after-device-removed-covid-blood-clot/ar-AANvRj2?li=AAggNb9