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The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

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Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#131

Post by jkhdigital »

doomrobo wrote: post #95
jkhdigital wrote: post #88

> thanks to widespread vaccination of the elderly, however fast this disease spreads it will ultimately inflict a much, much smaller death toll than earlier waves, because vaccination has probably eliminated 90 percent or more of the country’s total COVID-19 mortality risk. This claim does not appear to be grounded in any factual basis: A double-blind randomized trial for an mRNA vaccine with 44k participants showed…

Pasting the rebuttal to that point from the comments of the linked paper: Those are all-cause death. The number of covid-related deaths were 2 in the placebo and 1 in the vaccine arms. There simply weren't many covid deaths during this part of the trial (probably because most of the participants were <55 years old).

Median age was 51, so seems like there would have been at least a decently sized cohort over 55 (although I don't have to actual data to confirm).

But anyways, my original point was that the journalist is being dishonest by claiming that vaccination among the elderly is the reason mortality should drop by 90% compared to prior waves. This RCT certainly doesn't provide any evidence to support that statement, and it is the largest study of its kind so the only conclusion I can make is that the journalist is just projecting without facts.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#132

Post by throw_nbvc1234 »

bawolff wrote: post #108
arbuge wrote: post #90

Most news articles I see focus solely on the number of vaccinated people when estimating how far away countries are from herd immunity, which seems odd to me. Left out in the discussion seem to be the unvaccinated but already infected. As far as I know, prior infection confers at least some degree of immunity. It may also be the case that those inclined to be skeptical of vaccines were also the ones who exposed thems…

> Adding those two populations together would seem to indicate that most Western populations are already at herd immunity by this point That's assuming that nobody who got covid later got vaccinated (or got it before the vaccine kicked in). That seems like a very unrealistic assumption to me. On the other side, there are probably a lot more cases than are reported. You're right that it almost certainly matters for he…

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

CDC estimated that 1/4 covid infections had an associated positive test. I did the same kind of napkin math you're referring too for Floridia a few months back and they'd could have been at 80% of the population with some level of immunity.

But napkin math probably isn't a good way to run a pandemic response. Just like herd immunity doesn't really matter at an individual level.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#133

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

jkhdigital wrote: post #131
doomrobo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pasting the rebuttal to that point from the comments of the linked paper: Those are all-cause death. The number of covid-related deaths were 2 in the placebo and 1 in the vaccine arms. There simply weren't many covid deaths during this part of the trial (probably because most of the participants were <55 years old).

Median age was 51, so seems like there would have been at least a decently sized cohort over 55 (although I don't have to actual data to confirm). But anyways, my original point was that the journalist is being dishonest by claiming that vaccination among the elderly is the reason mortality should drop by 90% compared to prior waves. This RCT certainly doesn't provide any evidence to support that statement, and it is…

> vaccination among the elderly is the reason mortality should drop by 90% compared to prior waves.

What exactly do you mean "should" ? It has. It did.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#134

Post by nostrademons »

arbuge wrote: post #90

Most news articles I see focus solely on the number of vaccinated people when estimating how far away countries are from herd immunity, which seems odd to me. Left out in the discussion seem to be the unvaccinated but already infected. As far as I know, prior infection confers at least some degree of immunity. It may also be the case that those inclined to be skeptical of vaccines were also the ones who exposed thems…

The herd immunity threshold changed with Delta, which I've heard has an R0 of 8-10 (compare 3.5-4.5 for the UK Alpha variant, and about 2.5 for the original strain). Instead of 60% vaccination, you'd need 90%, and will likely overshoot that.

It wouldn't surprise me if the UK's cases are now dropping because they reached that threshold, but I doubt the US is there now. Probably Delta will blow through literally all the remaining unvaccinated people and that'll be the last surge, at least unless we get a vaccine-resistant strain.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#135

Post by walshemj »

timr wrote: post #76
anyonecancode wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine not too long after safe and effective vaccines are authorized for children under 12. At that point the majority of those who actively want protection will be able to get it. This is not the same as saying _all_ who want protection will get it, since no vaccine is 100% effective, and some people who would like to be vaccinated will not be able to because of health conditions or other circumstances, but I s…

> I'd imagine not too long after safe and effective vaccines are authorized for children under 12. Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid. It's time to stop with fear, uncertainty and doubt, and deal with facts. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w In the US, 340 children under 17 have died from Covid. Total. During the same period, 187 have died from the flu, and over 51,000 children have di…

You are aware in the past the kids at schools are a large vector for colds etc which they then give to their parents who infect their co workers

Why would covid 19 be any different.

And that's ignoring any potential long term organ damage.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#136

Post by BoxOfRain »

karol wrote: post #114
sprkwd wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, everybody I know has deleted the app from their phone so they can’t get pinged and live their life reasonably normally.

Anecdotally, I never installed it for the same reason.

I wonder how much is post-Snowden distrust of government software and how much is simply not wanting to be pinged?

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#137

Post by billiam »

arbuge wrote: post #90

Most news articles I see focus solely on the number of vaccinated people when estimating how far away countries are from herd immunity, which seems odd to me. Left out in the discussion seem to be the unvaccinated but already infected. As far as I know, prior infection confers at least some degree of immunity. It may also be the case that those inclined to be skeptical of vaccines were also the ones who exposed thems…

I don't know what the point of such conjecture is. Of course we don't know how much immunity comes from infection, and it is quite clear from the spread of delta that we are nowhere near herd immunity in the developed world, even in places like Israel. I had a coronavirus called a cold last year; does that mean I'm immune this year? Unlikely in the long term with COVID. The entire concept of herd immunity may be a mirage: if the (rare) breakthrough infections in vaccinated people like me spread just as much virus as unvaccinated, then there may be a huge potential for incubating new strains among the mRNA-ed that may elude all our current vaccines. And unlike a lot of viruses, the latest variants may be just as lethal as the earlier ones. Usually viruses become more transmissible and less lethal in response to rational behavior in their hosts--but humans are proving we're not rational.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#138

Post by munificent »

timr wrote: post #76
anyonecancode wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine not too long after safe and effective vaccines are authorized for children under 12. At that point the majority of those who actively want protection will be able to get it. This is not the same as saying _all_ who want protection will get it, since no vaccine is 100% effective, and some people who would like to be vaccinated will not be able to because of health conditions or other circumstances, but I s…

> I'd imagine not too long after safe and effective vaccines are authorized for children under 12. Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid. It's time to stop with fear, uncertainty and doubt, and deal with facts. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w In the US, 340 children under 17 have died from Covid. Total. During the same period, 187 have died from the flu, and over 51,000 children have di…

From the Nature article you linked to:

> The studies did not evaluate rates of less-severe illness or debilitating ‘long COVID’ symptoms that can linger months after the acute phase of the infection has past. “The low rate of severe acute disease is important news, but this does not have to mean that COVID does not matter to children,” says paediatrician Danilo Buonsenso at the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome. “Please, let’s keep attention — as much as is feasible — on immunization.”

Death is not the only bad outcome to be avoided.

> The reason the vaccines aren't being approved for children is that there is compelling evidence that children are at greater risk from the vaccines than the virus.

A Nature article [0] says:

> Most of those affected have recovered, and the data suggest that the risk of these conditions is “extremely low”, says paediatrician David Pace at the University of Malta in Msida — about 67 cases per million second doses in adolescent males aged 12–17, and 9 per million in adolescent females in the same age group.

There are ~48 million kids under 12 in the US. Assuming they are evenly split between male and female, that would mean 1,824 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis if 100% of them were vaccinated. Given that nowhere near 100% of children have been exposed to COVID and yet 340 have died, I don't see clear evidence here that the vaccine is more risky than not being vaccinated.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01898-9

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#139

Post by anyonecancode »

timr wrote: post #81
anyonecancode wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid. Let's hope the die keep rolling up to that result with each succeeding variant!

This is a perfect illustration of the point. In the face of ample documented evidence of the actual risk, your response is to speculate wildly about future events that are completely inconsistent with what we know.

First, I'll note that my initial comment was in the context of "when do we get on with our lives", which I took as a different question from "when _should_ we get on with our lives." What I think we _should_ do is not the same as what I think we _will_ do. Plenty of debate to be had around the "should" question of course, but it is a different question.

That noted, and since I did engage in your comment on the risk to children, I am curious about your statement that my response is inconsistent with what we know. As I understand it, we don't actually know why children have been less susceptible to illness so far, do we? I've seen plenty of theorizing, but I haven't seen any reporting indicating these are more than theories so far. If there's some reliable reporting on this topic I missed, I'd definitely be happy to see it!

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#140

Post by genericuser314 »

basch wrote: post #101
arbuge wrote: post #90

Most news articles I see focus solely on the number of vaccinated people when estimating how far away countries are from herd immunity, which seems odd to me. Left out in the discussion seem to be the unvaccinated but already infected. As far as I know, prior infection confers at least some degree of immunity. It may also be the case that those inclined to be skeptical of vaccines were also the ones who exposed thems…

Not as sensationally reported is that, fatality rate (the proportion of people who die of those who tested positive) appears to be falling slightly, and is at its lowest in 2+ months. https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/map

I think that's because of different vaccine uptake by age cohort. People 65+ have always been most likely to require intervention and they are also the most vaccinated age cohort - ~80% vaccinated in the US. [0]

[0]: https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-trac...

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