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The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

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Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#141

Post by svara »

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…

Interestingly, you can get multiple-wave dynamics even when very far from population-level herd immunity, and even without taking into account changes in behavior (for example, [1]). That's because of stochasticity in the process due to the fact that (1) most people infect no one, but some people infect many ("overdispersion") and (2) the population is not well mixed.

In practice, of course, people respond to news about Covid waves and that contributes to the wave-like dynamics. Furthermore, new variants of the virus will be able to reach people that were "cautious enough" for a previous variant. That alone would also give you wave-like dynamics, basically every new variant would affect increasingly harder to reach people.

Anyway, the point is, seeing these waves is super natural and expected and we can't deduce anything about population-level immunity from them without looking really really closely.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4526984/

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#142

Post by jkhdigital »

dtech wrote: post #127
jkhdigital wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this study the vaccine reduced Covid-19 infection rates by like 90%, and essentially eliminated severe cases. This is great! But the same number of people died in each group. So vaccines do not reduce Covid-19 mortality, period. Does this mean vaccines are a waste of time? No, of course not! It just means we should be precise and correct in the claims we make based on statistics, and not fudge them to say things t…

2 people in the placebo group died with a covid infection and 1 in the vaccinated group. That is way to little data to even remotely make such a bold claim. Or, if I follow your flawed logic, Covid vaccines reduce mortality by 50%!

The bold claim is the journalist in this article who said that vaccines are the reason we should see a 90% reduction in mortality. That is an optimistic projection, not a fact-based statement. That's all. Christ, people think I'm anti-vaccine just for being pedantic about science reporting...

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#143

Post by sharken »

I have lost count of statements from epidemiologists who have grossly overestimated infection rates.

Predicting the future is hard and if you're obviously not good at it, you should stop doing it.

The bit about vaccinated being eight times less likely to get infected, should make those who are still unsure think again.

And on the other hand it should give pause to those thinking about enforcing vaccine mandates.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#144

Post by nradov »

anyonecancode wrote: post #60
goalieca wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Starting 2 weeks from now, you won't even have to self-isolate if you test positive for COVID-19. This is a loaded question, but since covid is and will be endemic, when do we get on with our lives and start facing the mountains of other public health issues? It seems like our vaccination effort was extremely successful and had an amazing effect and there isn’t likely to be any radical new intervention for years to…

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…

A recent Johns Hopkins study found a COVID-19 mortality rate of 0 for children without serious co-morbid conditions.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cdc-covid-19-coronavirus-vaccin...

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#145

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

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…

> A double-blind randomized trial for an mRNA vaccine

Sorry, what is the relevance of this trial to the parent story about the UK?

The vast majority of the UK's elderly and at-risk people got the first vaccines available there - the AstraZeneca jab, which is not a mRNA vaccine.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#146

Post by bawolff »

throw_nbvc1234 wrote: post #132
bawolff wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm also not sure how much the usa experience applies to other countries. They seem to have not liked lockdowns and masks very much.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#147

Post by jl6 »

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #2

Important and underexamined question. What happened in the UK?

The UK had a perfect storm of factors contributing to the severity of the Covid pandemic in that country: highly internationally mobile population, highly internally mobile population, a global travel hub, high population density, culture of close social mixing, no culture of mask wearing, colder climate leading to more indoor living, higher than average levels of elderly people, obese people, and of the ethnic groups most impacted by the virus, low appetite for strict enforcement of lockdowns, and low levels of government control over everyday living.

Other countries had some of these factors. Few if any had all of these factors.

What happened next? The vaccines turned out to be really effective.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#148

Post by merpnderp »

nawgz wrote: post #86
merpnderp wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your political prejudices are causing you to grasp at conspiracy theories? This is umpossible on the internet!

Actually, it's not really my political leanings that are causing this, it's my observation of a complete Republican disregard for any COVID measures whatsoever that is leading me to this next thought. Anti-mask, anti-vax, anti-social-distancing policies are generally Republican. Accordingly, with their complete disregard for the virus / vaccine and what I view as facts about it, I find it to be a small leap to imagin…

Okay Mr. Facts, show me the breakdown of vaccine rates by different groups. And then tell me about how all those groups lean Republican. Because in my state it is groups who overwhelmingly vote democrat who make up the vast majority of unvaccinated. But I have a feeling that bashing Republicans for not getting vaccinated is a lot like publicly pronouncing your hatred of pineapple pizza. Just something the cool kids do.

And when you say complete disregard for the virus/vaccine, show me some facts that back it up. Like "complete disregard" means no republicans got vaccinated? None of them said vaccines work and to please get vaccinated? Like share some of these facts that you base this on and show me it isn't your political bias.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#149

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

jkhdigital wrote: post #142
dtech wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 people in the placebo group died with a covid infection and 1 in the vaccinated group. That is way to little data to even remotely make such a bold claim. Or, if I follow your flawed logic, Covid vaccines reduce mortality by 50%!

The bold claim is the journalist in this article who said that vaccines are the reason we should see a 90% reduction in mortality. That is an optimistic projection, not a fact-based statement. That's all. Christ, people think I'm anti-vaccine just for being pedantic about science reporting...

So, now that we have seen a 90% reduction in mortality ... ?

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#150

Post by sgt101 »

Imnimo wrote: post #42
tsywke44 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 70% of your population is vaccinated, it doesnt mean the virus spreads 70% slower. It instead means that there are 20 million potential virus hosts in the UK instead of 67m. Way more than the population of lots of EU countries.

I think it does mean that the virus spreads slower (although the exact amount will also depend on factors like how vaccinated people are distributed among the population). Whereas in an unvaccinated population, each infected person might spread the virus to (say) five others, in a 70% vaccinated population, on average 3.5 of those others would be vaccinated, so the virus would only spread to 1.5 others. This gives a…

I think that the question isn't slow or fast, it's exponential or not exponential. If you are getting 9 infections for every infection then that's a bit exponent. But, 2 for every infection is also an exponent - just a smaller one. Once you get below 2 for every infection then you are in the territory of slow growth - but not for long and not everywhere. The UK had a patchy delta wave, my guess is that when the non herd immune demographics and areas started to get herd immunity (drop below 2) then the breaks really slammed on.
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