lane
Veteran
As I read today "weakened" not broken so the number of cases is still relevant and of concern. Half of adults in the UK have either no or limited protection against the Indian variant.
Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
As I read today "weakened" not broken so the number of cases is still relevant and of concern. Half of adults in the UK have either no or limited protection against the Indian variant.
midlife
Guru
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Latest technical briefing on VoC:
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ariants_of_Concern_VOC_Technical_Briefing.pdf
Key findings
"Delta is predominant and all analyses find that it has a very substantial growth advantage.The observed high growth rate is likely to be due to a combination of transmissibility and immune escape; there is still geographic heterogeneity and a probable contribution from place-based context. Iterated analyses this week continue to support our previous estimates of vaccine effectiveness and hospitalisation risk. The priority investigations are vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation and death, further investigations of secondary attack rates, characterisation of the generation time, viral load and period of infectivity, and epidemiological studies of reinfections."
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ariants_of_Concern_VOC_Technical_Briefing.pdf
Key findings
- data show 74% of sequenced cases and 96% of sequenced and genotyped cases are Delta
- the 28-day case fatality rate for Delta remains low (0.1%), though mortality is a lagged indicator and the vast majority of cases are still within the 28 days of follow-up required
- secondary attack rates have been iterated and remain higher for Delta than Alpha amongst both household and non-household contacts
- increased risk of hospitalisation with Delta compared to Alpha
"Delta is predominant and all analyses find that it has a very substantial growth advantage.The observed high growth rate is likely to be due to a combination of transmissibility and immune escape; there is still geographic heterogeneity and a probable contribution from place-based context. Iterated analyses this week continue to support our previous estimates of vaccine effectiveness and hospitalisation risk. The priority investigations are vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation and death, further investigations of secondary attack rates, characterisation of the generation time, viral load and period of infectivity, and epidemiological studies of reinfections."
Craig the cyclist
Über Member
Why is it being described as u turn over and over? The message has always been 'not before the .......' Changing it isn't a u turn, it'sjust doing exactly what they said they would
Bromptonaut
Rohan Man
- Location
- Bugbrooke UK
The test is whether government do delay, which seems to be where the evidence is going, or whether they cave to backbench pressure to ease anyway. The latter risks repeating last summer's mistakes.
Joey Shabadoo
My pronouns are "He", "Him" and "buggerlugs"
Had a really awkward moment yesterday when one of the company directors stuck his hand out for a handshake.
And I looked at it.
And I looked at him
And I looked at it.
And he said "Well don't leave me hanging fella"
And I said "I absolutely will. Nobody does that any more"
And he took offence and stomped off.
Thing is, he's never stopped shaking hands. He worked straight through Covid when everyone was on furlough, travelling the country, meeting customers, shaking their hands.
Now I'm the weirdo
And I looked at it.
And I looked at him
And I looked at it.
And he said "Well don't leave me hanging fella"
And I said "I absolutely will. Nobody does that any more"
And he took offence and stomped off.
Thing is, he's never stopped shaking hands. He worked straight through Covid when everyone was on furlough, travelling the country, meeting customers, shaking their hands.
Now I'm the weirdo
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Agreed: weakened (thank goodness). I think @PK99 saying "broken" overstates it. 90+% of those ending up in hospital in the first 9 months were 70yo+. All (well 95+%) of those are fully vaccinated. That will give them 81% protection against symptomatic disease (Delta VoC) (and rather more against hospitalisation).
The "half of adults in the UK" you mention are vast majority under 60s or people who've chosen not to get vaccinated, or delayed getting their second jab when offered (see figures below). The odds ratio of them ending up in hospital is much lower than the older cohort hospitalised in the second wave (pre-vaccination programme effect).
Vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease (presumably an average for all vaccines given, may vary with age): Alpha 1 dose 50%, 2 doses 88%; Delta 33% and 81% (p51).
By 21 Jun, 40.6M will have had first dose at least 14 days ago (roughly over 35).
Of those, 28.2M will have had second dose at least 14 days ago (roughly over 55).
About half of 16-34 age group (so about 8M) have antibodies as per ONS data (mostly previous infection rather than vaccination) and antibodies in a previously positive individual is pretty much equivalent to full vaccination?
Adult population of UK is 53M.
[From USA CDC data - mainly Alpha VoC)
Last edited:
Good on you for standing your ground and doing what makes you feel safe.
Once again, it is clearly worth repeating:
What are the four tests?
- The vaccine deployment programme continues successfully
- Evidence shows vaccines are sufficiently effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths in those vaccinated
- Infection rates do not risk a surge in hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS
- The assessment of the risks is not fundamentally changed by new variants of concern.
Step 4
At least five weeks after Step 3, no earlier than 21 June. By Step 4, the Government hopes to be able to introduce the following (subject to review):
Pale Rider
Legendary Member
The latter risks yet more critics using nothing other than hindsight.
Rocky
Hello decadence
There'll always be critics. But some critics are better informed than others. Evidence from the autumn suggests that it was not just hindsight that tells us the lockdown was too late.
Forecasting science is predicated on learning from mistakes and improving the prediction model. That is the same for policy making. The first stage in that is admitting when mistakes were made and not blaming 'the scientists'.
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Perhaps someone would like to comment giving us a considered, articulated assessment of the extent to which the dominance of the Delta VoC, its additional transmissibility, the reduced protection one dose of vaccine offers against it, fundamentally changes the risks? Those risks include:
- the risk of level of hospitalisations rising to an extent which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS (and NB all the NHS's vital non-Covid activities)
- the risk that a further mutation of the Delta VoC giving a further advantage emerges (Delta.AY1 with the spike protein mutation K417N seems to be getting suitable scrutiny).
As an aside, other nations are only just managing to keep their case levels down against the Alpha variant, with a much lower population vaccination status. The Delta VoC will, regrettably, reach them, just as the Alpha one did with the UK having to grapple with it from December onwards, and then slowly seeped out. Increasing dominance of Delta over Alpha lifts the effective R number by 60% which will tip most nations above 1 and cases will rise exponentially (I use that in its proper sense). The rate of vaccination and its further progress in UK means that vaccination is shrinking the susceptible cohort (and they're much younger) so there's potential to 'win' the 'race': others do not have that advantage.
Last edited:
Craig the cyclist
Über Member
The problem here is who gets to decide if the advice was ok at the time?
You will never, in a million years, ever believe that Matt Hancock did the best he could considering the pressure, time, demands and new knowledge appearing every day, you will always say he gave dodgy contracts and is responsible for everyone who died.
During Covid 1 I had a conversation, in a small room with no masks, with three very senior clinicians trying to decide where the upper respiratory tract started, and what was an AGP and what wasn't, and whether an oral cavity AGP was less risky than a lower respiratory tract AGP. A decision was made, and it was different to the one that subsequently came out from the DoH about 4 weeks later. As there were no evolutionary changes in the time between the two, should we be held accountable for having a different definition of the upper respiratory tract?
Think back to HIV, in the early days the advice was be careful with shared facilities, always wear gloves, unprotected oral sex was ok, find out the facts, don't die of ignorance. Then Lady Di touched a patient and didn't die! Actually that was against the advice at the time, but showed a huge degree of human compassion and kindness. When Boris did the same with the Covid patient, he followed the advice of wash your hands etc, at the time he did that we were working on our Trusts Covid response in a tiny office with 4 of us! Now both things seem utterly and unbelievably ludicrous that we ever did that!
This whole thing has been so unbelievably fast paced, that to now put the sword of Damocles over the heads of people with 'if we find out you got it wrong in a years time you will be held accountable' is outrageous. This hasn't been a learning curve, it's been a learning vertical wall, and we are still trying to climb it.
Thank you.
One of the best and most balanced opinion posts I have read for a long time.
kingrollo
Guru
But some countries have fared better than others.
Australia for example lock down whole cities on half a dozen cases. Boris and chubby mates look a million miles from learning that lesson.
