Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Zanza]

Drosten says the data from PHE/ONS is of exemplary quality not seen in other countries, so it allows such statements.

https://mobile.twitter.com/c_drosten?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[Richard Hakluyt]

Drosten says the data from PHE/ONS is of exemplary quality not seen in other countries, so it allows such statements.

https://mobile.twitter.com/c_drosten?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Thanks for that. The government routinely says Britain is best, often when clearly it is not, so it is good to get external validation.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Re : lockdowns; I think it is absolutely clear that we need to be very strict in the UK in the Jan-Mar 2021 period. I also suspect that the variant is already established on the continent so they would be well advised to adopt stricter measures too 

I hope the people producing the vaccine are working long hours and maximising production; it is going to be really difficult to get the R number below one at all with this very easily transmitted variant; the vaccine is the only acceptable way out.

[Sheilbh]

Drosten says the data from PHE/ONS is of exemplary quality not seen in other countries, so it allows such statements.

https://mobile.twitter.com/c_drosten?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Thanks for that. The government routinely says Britain is best, often when clearly it is not, so it is good to get external validation.

Fair. I basically think you can trust the professional bits (regulators, researchers etc) that are still just working as normal and safely ignore the political bits.

And on gene sequencing of covid there is a genuine UK advantage which has probably helped track this variant back, from the ECDC threat assessment report on this new variant:
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/SARS-CoV-2-variant-multiple-spike-protein-mutations-United-Kingdom.pdf

The UK   has an established SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing consortium called COG-UK. It consists of the national public  health  institutes,  National Health Service  organisations,  academic  institutions  and  the  Wellcome  Sanger  Institute [15]. They are working to keep sequencing coverage high and geographically representative and to keep turnaround times low. The consortium is by far the largest contributor to the GISAID EpiCov database in the world, with more than 120 000 of around 270 000 genomes published so far. This initiative increases the likelihood that emerging variants are identified and can be assessed in a timely fashion.

I think I've read the UK is very good for medical research (and probably this sort of thing) because the NHS is a single health service with a lot of electronic records, so there is a lot of data that you can interrogate. There are other issues with the NHS but from my understanding for this sort of things it's incredibly helpful.

Luckily and incredibly flukily this variant might be possible to track through normal tests. From my understanding (which is profoundly basic) it basically deletes a "spike" in covid and the PCR tests check three spikes (this is to because viruses mutate so there's always a risk that you miss it if you're just testing for one spike because it's actually mutant strain). One of the spikes the PCR test checks is the one that this variant deletes - so if you have a PCR test that is positive on the other two spikes but not this one, chances are it's the variant but you probably need to sequence it to confirm. Of course this also means the PCR test needs to be updated to monitor an additional "spike" to avoid accidentally missing cases.

The UK map have added a new colour (deep purple) on the cases, but the areas where this has been identified in the UK are deepest purple bits - Kent, London, the South-East and South Wales:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map

This is why I think we need to be trying to protect the rest of the country now, not waiting for this new variant to seed everywhere else too (and why the rest of the world should have very strict controls on travel from the UK).

[Sheilbh]

Re : lockdowns; I think it is absolutely clear that we need to be very strict in the UK in the Jan-Mar 2021 period. I also suspect that the variant is already established on the continent so they would be well advised to adopt stricter measures too 

I hope the people producing the vaccine are working long hours and maximising production; it is going to be really difficult to get the R number below one at all with this very easily transmitted variant; the vaccine is the only acceptable way out.

Totally agree. And hopefully we approve and purchase some of the Moderna vaccine too - and hopefully the AstraZeneca one sorts out its data issues (we know it's safe from the trials) in a way that makes it possible to approve it as well.

And there may be an acceptable level of risk socially quite quickly. In the UK over 80% of the fatalities because of covid have been in the over-75s and from my understanding that group should have been vaccinated by the end of January - on current trends and if (it's a big if) the government doesn't fuck this up in the meantime. I think there is probably then a debate to be had about what level of restrictions is appropriate (if any) while lower risk people are getting vaccinated, given the NHS won't collapse and there's not a significant number of deaths, but there are other risks such as long covid etc.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I find the long covid more disturbing than dying in many ways. Sure it sucks to die, but we all will someday; but the idea of my children or nieces getting their health screwed for the next 50 years is utterly horrific 

[Tamas]

Splendid!


As a daily reminder that it could be worse because at least we are not kept in the dark: there was a televised debate between a Fidesz spokesperson and an opposition guy in Hungary. Opposition guy wanted to know why is the R number kept as a secret. He was told the R number is known to the authorities and they are making decisions based on it, and opposition guy should stop fearmongering.

When Government Guy was asked how many ICU nurses are there per patient, he gave the reply that this what was wrong the whole year: the opposition sowing discontent instead of working together with everyone.

Opposition Guy also tried to get some reply on photographs allegedly showing dead bodies lying on the floor of hospital morgues as there was no more room left, but of course just got the above "arguments".

While they were doing this, even by official statistics a person died of covid every 8 minutes.

[Tamas]

I find the long covid more disturbing than dying in many ways. Sure it sucks to die, but we all will someday; but the idea of my children or nieces getting their health screwed for the next 50 years is utterly horrific 

Yeah do we know if it is still reasonable to hope it is just something like a long term shock that will fade?

[Richard Hakluyt]

I think most people do slowly recover so hopefully I'm being too pessimistic.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Splendid!


As a daily reminder that it could be worse because at least we are not kept in the dark: there was a televised debate between a Fidesz spokesperson and an opposition guy in Hungary. Opposition guy wanted to know why is the R number kept as a secret. He was told the R number is known to the authorities and they are making decisions based on it, and opposition guy should stop fearmongering.

When Government Guy was asked how many ICU nurses are there per patient, he gave the reply that this what was wrong the whole year: the opposition sowing discontent instead of working together with everyone.

Opposition Guy also tried to get some reply on photographs allegedly showing dead bodies lying on the floor of hospital morgues as there was no more room left, but of course just got the above "arguments".

While they were doing this, even by official statistics a person died of covid every 8 minutes.

Looking on the bright side the government in Hungary is sufficiently crap for your move to the UK, despite Johnson and his crew, to still make sense 

[Agelastus]

In the UK over 80% of the fatalities because of covid have been in the over-75s and from my understanding that group should have been vaccinated by the end of January - on current trends and if (it's a big if) the government doesn't fuck this up in the meantime.

Well, we'll have to see - my Aunt and Uncle's first vaccine injection was supposed to be last week but now won't be until January.

The local Surgery did not store the vaccine overnight at a low enough temperature.

I doubt this is the only incident of its type in the country.

If I have my timings and understanding right, it's a 2 jab process and this means they won't get the second one until February, past your time-frame.

[Tamas]

That's a good way to look at it RH 

[Zoupa]

Bill has 300 billion for small businesses too.  Didn't see that first time.

And 700 billion for the Pentagon. Priorities.

[Sheilbh]

I find the long covid more disturbing than dying in many ways. Sure it sucks to die, but we all will someday; but the idea of my children or nieces getting their health screwed for the next 50 years is utterly horrific 

Yeah - the long covid stuff is still a bit unknown at the minute and it is possible that we'll develop treatments or therapeutics that actually deal with it. But it just seems a bit mysterious at the minute - it's not clear to me who it impacts or why (there are currently two Newcastle players dealing with long-term effects from covid in the news) or even how. I've seen loads of different examples of it.

But I do think we'll probably need to keep being sensible (wearing masks, washing hands etc), but if the most at risk are safe because of vaccinations then I feel like there's going to be a pretty strong argument to go back to some type of normal this spring.

I'm someone with a couple of chronic conditions that I manage so I am more sanguine than average about chronic illnesses

Well, we'll have to see - my Aunt and Uncle's first vaccine injection was supposed to be last week but now won't be until January.

The local Surgery did not store the vaccine overnight at a low enough temperature.

I doubt this is the only incident of its type in the country.

Yeah - hopefully those are limited. And this vaccine also doesn't like being moved around too much which is challenging when it's being distributed across the country

Speaking to my dad (and a friend in the NHS) I think the focus is still in-hospital vaccinations (where they have more cold storage space) and of people who are under hospital care as in or out patients. The GP stream, which my dad'll get, isn't ramping up properly until January. Presumably the hospital focus is because it's easier to roll out but also I imagine within the 80+ age range that will be a lot of people and probably the more vulnerable ones?

I wonder if they also just have issues monitoring the elderly and keeping track of everyone, given that everyone's an adult - I imagine rolling out a new vaccine on kids would be far easier logistically because we have loads of vaccines that kids get

If I have my timings and understanding right, it's a 2 jab process and this means they won't get the second one until February, past your time-frame.

My understanding is they are 90% effective 14 days after the first vaccine (no clinical effect in the first 14 days), but get a second dose 8-10 weeks later. Keith Klugman who is with the Gates Foundation and is a global expert on vaccines actually says the data is that people are safe 14 days after the first vaccine and has said that it might be worth only giving the second dose when effectiveness wanes or supply improves. The second dose isn't necessary for the vaccine to work.

[Sheilbh]

On need for national lockdown and failing to protect the rest of the country - Liverpool and the North-West had done very well in reducing infections across the last few months. It's now starting to rise again and about 20% of positive cases are from this new strain