The UK’s delta surge is collapsing • Hacker News Board

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#201

Post by manwe150 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

timr wrote: post #162

munificent wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. “P…

> Death is not the only bad outcome to be avoided. And this is yet another illustration of the point I was making about fear, uncertainty and doubt: the Nature article didn't say that there is proof that children will have "long Covid"...it says that these particular studies didn't address the question . By this standard, anyone can make up any speculation of something that might happen to children someday, and we'll…

I agree there is a lot of hysterical speculation, around everything from the initial high death rates to the supposed benefits of HCQ. And slowly we have need to attempt to re-evaluate the data, when it is possible. I really wonder how we could get that data more accurately in the future, without all of the inherent privacy implications and dangers from collecting it.

The article also mentions that most of those myocarditis have already recovered while none of those dead came back to life (I am assuming so anyways). Since I see you post to COVID questions often, what would you consider to be "more risky?" It is clear teens are on the low end of personal risk from COVID, but they also put others at increased risk of complications, such as their parents, in addition to their own mild risks.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#202

Post by nradov » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #103

neither_color wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is Texas a pejorative? By itself it would be a world top-15 economy, and its pandemic performance was not an outlier or exceptional. If anything it, along with Florida, demonstrated that extremely strict lockdowns don't correlate to better outcomes. Nothing like Alberta.

The numbers I've seen are that death rate per capita has been lowering California than Florida so far, so while I think investigation should be done about about "were the outcomes so much better to justify whatever additional cost[0]" I haven't seen anything suggesting that public health measures haven't had any effect. We should, of course, also wait until things have actually settled down and we don't keep having m…

Florida also has a lot more residents in the vulnerable 65+ age group. So all else being equal we would expect Florida to have a much higher death rate.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#203

Post by mellosouls » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

Full Title:

The U.K.’s Delta Surge Is Collapsing. Will Ours?

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#204

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #187

nostrademons wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> 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. Given the enormous US Covid outbreak, the US is likely not far away. We're at 70% adult vaccination and had a minimum of 100 million prior Covid infections. Also throw in tens of millions of people that likely have natural immunity to Covid. The biggest question with Delta is going to be…

If the forever-COVID reality for 95+% of the population is "you really, really ought to get that annual booster shot" (instead of "get the flu shot iff it's convenient"), that's not actually so terrible.

If it becomes century-long endemic in the population, kids are exposed to it, likely creating a productive exposure-related immune reaction until they're old enough to get an mRNA vaccine.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#205

Post by glorppe » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

jkhdigital wrote: post #151

glorppe wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t follow the logical leap. It’s clear the paper doesn’t demonstrate a difference, you’re right. I do think it’s disingenuous to say that the vaccine categorically doesn’t prevent deaths, if it can prevent infections that would lead to deaths, that’s a good outcome. Additionally, the real world performance in the general population is showing a massive divergence in deaths and cases in elderly populations after…

Did I categorically say that the vaccine doesn't prevent deaths? I simply cited a study which shows no effect, and scolded the journalist for making a claim that doesn't seem to have solid scientific support. I'm not making a statement about vaccines, I'm making a statement about journalists playing fast and loose with science. > That may be from some other variable and not vaccines, but I’m not sure that I would be…

You did categorically state it: “So vaccines do not reduce Covid-19 mortality, period.”

You also missed my nuance, but that’s not surprising at this point.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#206

Post by eloff » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #134

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 th…

> 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.

I think you're right, but that will still happen over years in multiple waves. Barring some sudden uptick in people changing their mind about vaccination.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#207

Post by nicoburns » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

frumper wrote: post #157

mint2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it standard practice to set isolate if one has any highly contagious disease? Like the actual flu? Maybe it’s not a law but it sure is a sensical cultural norm and is just the polite thing to do as well.

Some kids NEVER miss a day of school. I've known many people proud of that. I've seen that attitude in adults as well.

My school actually used to give out awards for it, which always used to annoy me as I generally had 100% attendance excepting 1 or 2 days off for illness each year.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#208

Post by CraigJPerry » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

rajin444 wrote: post #171

billiam wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mi…

> Usually viruses become more transmissible and less lethal in response to rational behavior in their hosts--but humans are proving we're not rational. I was under the impression viruses became less lethal because if they became more, they'd kill off their hosts and be less likely to spread. There's a chance you get some super virus that becomes both more transmissible and lethal, but that is very rare (from what I c…

Does that not assume that you’re symptomatic at the same time you’re spreading the virus? With covid you appear to be able to spread before you know you have it. Given that, what force would cause the virus to be selected for less lethality?

With a different presentation of disease where symptoms and spread occur concurrently then there would be a pressure on the virus selecting for strains that arent so lethal a carrier has no chance to spread. In covid’s case, that pressure doesn’t exist as far as i can see?

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#209

Post by timr » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

ericb wrote: post #178

timr wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From delta, we clearly have evidence that on a short timeframe a version with _wildly_ enhanced transmissibility has evolved. So speculating that changes will continue is reasonable. Additionally, we know that leaky vaccines and continued spread may cause greater pathogenicity. > https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou... So that's not wild speculation, it's a well-educated concern.

> we clearly have evidence that on a short timeframe a version with _wildly_ enhanced transmissibility has evolved. So speculating that changes will continue is reasonable.

So let's be clear: the claim is that the virus can mutate, therefore, any particular outcome is equally likely?

If I speculate that the virus will mutate into a hemorrhagic fever, like marburg or ebola, is that reasonable?

If I speculate that the virus will lose its pathogenicity, is that reasonable?

(hint: all of our best data suggests that the IFR of the Delta strain is considerably lower than previous strains: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...)

There's obviously a limit to how much you can speculate about "continued change". At some point, it just becomes a scary story.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#210

Post by lamontcg » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

samizdat311 wrote: post #180

nostrademons wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

These are very good points. I'd add that herd immunity isn't a clearly defined threshold, either. It's the point at which the effective R in a population is much below 1 you get, exponential decay might take a few months or even a few years to get down to elimination. The current dip in the UK is trending toward the former. But it's further complicated by the fact that levels of immunity in the population will contin…

> But everything we know about existing respiratory viruses (and indications so far this year) suggest antibodies will wane.

Not necessarily the case. Infections with HCoV-229E produces durable immunity and reinfection is due to antigenic drift:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.17.423313v1

That it at odds with prior studies that found ~12 month reinfections with coronaviruses, but it is with considerably better methodology.

And it is simultaneously: not clear that vaccines produce sterilizing immunity, not clear it is necessary to do that at all, and not clear if how much measurements of NAbs correlates with sterilizing immunity.

I can tell you a story about how delta reaches 90-100% thresholds of herd immunity in this wave and burns itself out and we don't see it much again for 3-5 years in countries like the US/UK. Or I can tell you a story about how it keeps coming back every year with 2 or 3 waves. Anyone who tells you they know which of those outcomes must be correct probably knows a lot less about virology than they think they do (even if they have a degree). I'm reasonably hopeful its the former, but I never predicted delta and thought we'd be virus-free this summer and was wrong.

Even in the worst case though the vaccinated/recovered are never going back to 2019 levels of susceptibility to severe outcomes, so we're looking at a steady drip-drip-drip of people killing themselves to avoid vaccination up until we get bored with that and they pretty much disappear (that's where T-cells and B-cells and cross reactive partial immunity to all future variants comes in).