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

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#351

Post by kkvcdyh » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:20 AM 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…

Where did you "hear" it has an R0 of 8-10? It's not time to be imprecise.

If you're referencing the CDC's case study from Provincetown, I think it's important to point out that the R value cited is the R value during Bear Week, not on average.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#352

Post by moistly » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:21 AM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #63

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.

> Maybe it’s not a law but it sure is a sensical cultural norm and is just the polite thing to do as well. OP is clearly talking about Alberta changing the laws about self-isolation. At some point, we are going to have to transition to using the same 'cultural norm' framework in dealing with Covid that we do with the flu.

> At some point, we are going to have to transition to using the same 'cultural norm' framework in dealing with Covid that we do with the flu.

Or we could do much better and transition to the Asian cultural norm and wear a g.d. mask when sick, and preferentially stay t.f. home when ill.

Spreading disease is a stupid, stupid norm in our culture.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#353

Post by neilknowsbest » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #249

adventured wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Where are you getting 100M confirmed infections?

I can't speak to what the parent comment might have been referencing, but the CDC estimates 120MM infections through May 2021.

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

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#354

Post by biztos » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

dmje wrote: post #223

UK citizen here. I just don't think this "collapse" is the case. My gut feel is that everyone has stopped doing lateral flow tests and reporting those tests: noone wants to be isolating now the summer holidays have started, and many people are now ignoring track and trace because they're scared of the possible "pingdemic". I know many people who have stopped scanning in to venues. I reckon many suspect they may have…

A UK person I know said they won’t install the “pingdemic” app because they would have to isolate every five minutes; instead they just use the camera app and pretend. And that’s a vaccinated person who’s pretty cautious. I would assume it’s a widespread sentiment,

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#355

Post by reducesuffering » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:34 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #288

hyperpallium2 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further, there was an argument way back, that the number infected but symptom-free was much higher than estimated. This would be enhanced by a hypothesised variant, that is more contagious, but less harmful - it would theoretically dominate, because its spread would be unimpeded. I don't know if these arguments have been tested; nor how to test them. Separately, the physical social graph is not uniform, but complex.…

> Further, there was an argument way back, that the number infected but symptom-free was much higher than estimated. This argument was made many, many times over the past year and a half by people insisting that . Inevitably, like clockwork, the wave of COVID that would follow would dwarf the previous one. The only thing that has broken this pattern has been mass vaccinations. It seems that high rate of antibody sero…

See North and South Dakota, who after initially receiving a first huge wave before there were vaccines, never encountered any significant second wave. They are the best candidates I've seen for a possible herd immunity all the way back to December.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/north-dakota/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/south-dakota/

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#356

Post by timr » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:39 AM UTC

anyonecancode wrote: post #332

timr wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'd find it helpful if you provided some thoughts on determining what's reasonable and what's not reasonable to expect from future variants. As I understand it, a virus dramatically changing its mode of transmission -- say going from respiratory to a hemorrhagic fever -- doesn't really happen. But we also have a decent understanding of how covid gets transmitted now, so have some way to anchor expectations. You're sa…

> You're saying it's not reasonable for covid to evolve to become more likely to cause illness in children. If that's true that's great news, but I really have no way to evaluate such a claim. Why is that unreasonable? Wouldn't we need more insight into why children are currently less affected to speculate on how reasonable it would be for that to change?

The short answer is that evolution is random. It isn't an intentional process. The virus isn't trying to become more infectious, or deadlier, or...anything, really. It's just a random process, filtered by some outside force(s). And in this case, the relevant outside forces acting on the virus are: 1) the human immune system's ability to see the virus, and 2) the virus' ability to bind to our cells.

If you're vaccinated (but not previously infected), your immune system can basically only efficiently recognize a bunch of little chunks of the spike protein of the virus -- the piece that allows the virus to bind to your cells. So any random mutations to that spike protein are potentially beneficial, in that they can maybe hide the virus from your immune system, or maybe increase how tightly the virus binds to your cells, or they can be potentially detrimental, in that they can maybe cause the virus to bind less tightly to your cells, or make the spike protein misshaped or something. Or they can do nothing at all.

These are essentially the only "forces" related to vaccines that are guiding the evolutionary process: forces that attempt to change the structure of the spike protein to either escape the immune system, increase cellular affinity, or decrease cellular affinity. The vaccines do nothing to influence anything else. All other dimensions are random, with respect to the vaccine.

Viruses are pretty stupid. If you want to imagine that the virus could become "more fatal" (somehow; it's not clear how this would happen), it has to be done within this framework. There was to be some process that is selecting for the viruses that are "more fatal", and that process needs to be somehow more efficient when only a fraction of the human population recognizes the little bits of the spike protein encoded by the vaccines.

Can this happen? Sure, anything is possible. Is it plausible? No, not really.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#357

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:43 AM UTC

newacct583 wrote: post #347

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relevant experts - virologists, epidemiologists, etc. - neither believed nor claimed that we were on a path to the elimination of the outbreak. They've consistently stated that the virus will be around for at least years, probably decades, possibly forever.

To be clear, I meant "elimination of the outbreak " in the sense of an endemic virus that produces a steady case rate. Clearly no, no one expected this disease to be eradicated.

Well, you and I didn't. I know quite a few people who've been talking since June about how they're comfortable doing suchandsuch "as soon as Covid is gone", and I'm not sure what they could mean by that other than eradication. It would seem to me that by an endemic standard, the Covid outbreak was gone from the US between May and July and has only just recently made a resurgence.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#358

Post by owenversteeg » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:45 AM UTC

reducesuffering wrote: post #355

vkou wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Further, there was an argument way back, that the number infected but symptom-free was much higher than estimated. This argument was made many, many times over the past year and a half by people insisting that . Inevitably, like clockwork, the wave of COVID that would follow would dwarf the previous one. The only thing that has broken this pattern has been mass vaccinations. It seems that high rate of antibody sero…

See North and South Dakota, who after initially receiving a first huge wave before there were vaccines, never encountered any significant second wave. They are the best candidates I've seen for a possible herd immunity all the way back to December. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/north-dakota/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/south-dakota/

Interesting! That does look promising. South Dakota has 762k people and 125k positive tests. The CDC assumes that 1 in 4.2 infections were reported, so that would be 525k people infected total. 52.8% of people got vaccinated. Assuming there's no correlation between getting vaccinated and getting infected (which I'd assume isn't 100% correct), you can assume that of the 295k uninfected, 156k got vaccinated. So that'd be a total of 525k infected+156k vaccinated and not infected = 681k = 89.4% immunity.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#359

Post by fortuna86 » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:54 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #349

fortuna86 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way of knowing this, considering the amount of asymptomatic cases that are never tested or recorded.

The UK is running human challenge trials to determine that. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/new-uk-challenge-trial-stud...

It's not if

https://www.fox10tv.com/news/coronavirus/getting-covid-19-tw...

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/on-air/one-mans-experience-abo...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/more-people-are-gett...

But how often and what are the consequences.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#360

Post by avs733 » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 2:56 AM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #248

nostromo wrote: post #237

I don't see why we should care about number of cases in countries with freely available vaccines. Disease (as reflected by hospital admissions) and death are what we care about. And those numbers are continuing to trend in the right direction. The US media is just addicted to fear at this point. With a more boring/traditional president in the office and the covid panic waning, there is a news vacuum. And the media is…

Deaths have absolutely plummeted, and correlations have very clearly broken from previous "waves". But in order to extract compliance from the population, there needs to be a call to action, so the goalposts were moved to infections, as opposed to hospitalizations/deaths.

This and similar arguments begin from an assumption of bad faith by scientists.

It’s unbecoming.

You should care about the number of cases because each case is a potential for a new mutation that could be the one that bypasses vaccines or becomes more deadly or …use your imagination.

Nobody cares about controlling you, and if they did they wouldn’t use facts covid they would just use tanks.