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

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#91

Post by colordrops » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 8:13 PM UTC

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…

I'm curious why this comment is being downvoted. Anyone wish to comment?

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#92

Post by colordrops » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 8:14 PM UTC

anyonecancode wrote: post #78

timr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

Could say the same about the flu, no? How do you think the flu got so deadly in 1918? Far more deadly than Covid by the way.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#93

Post by glorppe » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

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…

While this is a literal interpretation of all-cause mortality from the paper, I’m not sure this is the right take away.

There was such a dramatic reduction in overall cases in the vaccination group that deaths are probably more statistical noise in both groups than being tied to covid one way or another.

Currently deaths and cases have diverged dramatically in the population and this might be more indicative of the real world vaccine performance as it pertains to reducing death.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#94

Post by jkhdigital » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

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…

> This is less about what the children want, and more about anxious adults want, and that is unconscionable.

You could say that about basically the entire relationship that society has with children nowadays... tragically.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#95

Post by doomrobo » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 8:16 PM UTC

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).

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#96

Post by dragontamer » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 8:16 PM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #87

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…

What about pregnant females? Country I am in doesn't allow them to be vaccinated. Is this allowed in the US?

USA allows pregnant females to get the vaccine.

Our biggest remaining group is the 12-and-under population (which needed a new set of tests to figure out the new dosage. Young children weigh much less than an adult and therefore need much lower doses...). The current estimates are maybe October before this children are authorized.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#97

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 8:16 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #54

3dbrows wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s hope the peak just gone is the last big spike. In the final analysis I imagine the British public’s _willingness_ to get the jab will be seen as an enormous success factor, on top of the vaccine itself’s efficacy. This willingness merits study. High social trust of the NHS, historic common understanding of vaccines and everyone knowing someone affected by the virus all play their part. As an aside, I believe th…

The UK government definitely seems to consider the British public's willingness to get vaccinated to be one of the key parts of the success story, from what I've seen. I will also say that their handling of issues like the AstraZeneca blood clotting issue has been really good compared to the shitshows elsewhere - careful, measured, with really clear communication about what they know and why it justifies the decision…

[deleted]

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#98

Post by neves » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 8:16 PM UTC

danenania wrote: post #80

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #2

Important and underexamined question. What happened in the UK?

Oh fun: the game where everyone puts their pet biases forward in an attempt to explain the behavior of a poorly understood complex system. It reminds me of the financial news. "Commodities markets are spooked as backlash to latest Justin Bieber video mounts!" In all seriousness, apart from the vaccination rate and strictly enforced lockdowns, I have yet to see an explanation for cases going up or down in a particular…

There's a lot of evidence about what worked what didn't work. Dozens of countries and well organized societies responded well to the pandemic.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#99

Post by ikawe » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

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…

> and it may also be the case that those who have a tendency to be skeptical of vaccines also were the ones most out and about and exposing themselves during the pandemic, i.e. the ones with the highest chance of being infected.

Sure, _maybe_.

> [...] would seem to indicate that most Western populations are already at herd imnmunity by this point

Given that infections are still rising pretty hard, what indicates to you that we are _at_ this point, and not, say, 6 months out?

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#100

Post by mattlondon » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #2

Important and underexamined question. What happened in the UK?

IMO it was most likely the Euros football/soccer championship leading to a lot of mixing in crowded spaces among younger men who maybe didn't yet have the vaccine or we're from backrounds that are the sort that typically ignore this sort of thing.