Generic Virus Thread

[Chindie]

I've been alone for over a year.

[Genie]

There are strains in Europe, that early indications are that our vaccines are ineffective against.

7 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

That is not necessarily true; if most vulnerable people have been vaccinated, why does it matter if 5 thousand 5-15 year olds get COVID with no symptoms and none of them die? Their parents and grandparents will be very low risk of getting infected as they have been vaccinated and I can take a safe bet, no one is going around kissing their grandma in the next few months. 

Of course, it's not a good outcome, but I would argue a better one than thousands of people losing their livelihoods, businesses, marriages. 

My points are based around the fact that in the recent study on the SA strain 90% of vaccinated people still caught the virus.

If that is accurate then the “we’re vaccinated so let’s crack on” argument doesn’t work. It’s like a new pandemic bubbling away waiting to take hold.

If these strains die out, or we have really good border controls then we’re also good to go, with restrictions.

[StefanAVFC]

 

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

My points are based around the fact that in the recent study on the SA strain 90% of vaccinated people still caught the virus.

 

Once they caught it, how ill did it make them? The vaccine has been proved to prevent severe symptoms.

As has been repeated over and over again, there is no sense to be locked down when people are catching it, but not dying of it. That's just the normal risk of living with diseases

Otherwise you may as well live in a protective bubble inside your own house, in fear of everything.

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, Genie said:

My points are based around the fact that in the recent study on the SA strain 90% of vaccinated people still caught the virus.

How many were hospitalized and / or died?

As far as my understanding goes, no vaccine stops you from "getting" the virus. They increase your bodies immune system responses to the virus and vastly reduce it's effects on the body

 

[Genie]

2 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

 

 

Once they caught it, how ill did it make them? The vaccine has been proved to prevent severe symptoms.

As has been repeated over and over again, there is no sense to be locked down when people are catching it, but not dying of it. That's just the normal risk of living with diseases

Otherwise you may as well live in a protective bubble inside your own house, in fear of everything.

 

Just now, bickster said:

How many were hospitalized and / or died?

As far as my understanding goes, no vaccine stops you from "getting" the virus. They increase your bodies immune system responses to the virus and vastly reduce it's effects on the body

This is the bit that is unclear. 
Average age of those in the study was 31, so it is unsurprising that nobody died.

Does it mean that the vaccine is stopping fatalities? Maybe, not certainly.

[StefanAVFC]

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

How many were hospitalized and / or died?

As far as my understanding goes, no vaccine stops you from "getting" the virus. They increase your bodies immune system responses to the virus and vastly reduce it's effects on the body

 

Exactly. Nothing stops you getting anything. A vaccine provides you with the antibodies so your body knows what to do and doesn't start destroying itself.

 

This is a good explainer on how the virus actually affects you.

[bickster]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

Average age of those in the study was 31

That "fact" on it's own is particularly meaningless, which measure of "average" is being stated, how wide is the distribution of subject ages etc. Even how large the subject group is, will all have an effect on this

[HanoiVillan]

8 minutes ago, Genie said:

 

This is the bit that is unclear. 
Average age of those in the study was 31, so it is unsurprising that nobody died.

Does it mean that the vaccine is stopping fatalities? Maybe, not certainly.

I sometimes think you would only regard that study as valid if more people had died  

[Jareth]

Well if it cheers anyone up Wales is pretty much unlocked as of tomorrow. Though only for Welshies. 

[darrenm]

12 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Well if it cheers anyone up Wales is pretty much unlocked as of tomorrow. Though only for Welshies. 

Prynhawn da. Darren dw i

[Genie]

36 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I sometimes think you would only regard that study as valid if more people had died  

Err, sorry, that doesn’t make sense.

This is the only study of AZ on SA variant that I am aware of.

It was “young & healthy” people with an average age of 31, but no more detail of the demographic of those included has been shared as far as I am aware.

Even if they were not vaccinated you wouldn’t expect fatalities in that kind of group. It’s for that reason you can’t certainly make the link that the vaccine is stopping fatalities. 
It might be, but you can’t conclude that from that study. 
 

[Seat68]

For those wanting a slightly broader picture it was a study with 2000 volunteers and the median age was 31.  

[a m ole]

If the vaccine isn’t working then what’s the solution?

How long do we keep calm and carry on?

[HanoiVillan]

5 minutes ago, Genie said:

Err, sorry, that doesn’t make sense.

This is the only study of AZ on SA variant that I am aware of.

It was “young & healthy” people with an average age of 31, but no more detail of the demographic of those included has been shared as far as I am aware.

Even if they were not vaccinated you wouldn’t expect fatalities in that kind of group. It’s for that reason you can’t certainly make the link that the vaccine is stopping fatalities. 
It might be, but you can’t conclude that from that study. 
 

I'm teasing you, because you seem desperate for terrible news.

Look, at the end of the day it's one study, and as you say, you probably would not have expected lots of serious illness and death in the group. There is more research being done on this as we speak, so we will have a better picture soon enough. *However*, just as it is not possible to conclude that the vaccine is fully effective against serious illness and death in much older patients from this one study, we *also* cannot conclude the opposite, which is the point of my joke. The absence of serious illness or death amongst this group is not a sign that it would therefore necessarily happen amongst older groups.

Some more good news for you: AstraZeneca are working on an updated vaccine which will provide protection against all the current variants. Because it is easier to produce an update than an original, they expect it to be available some time towards the end of the year.

[HanoiVillan]

2 minutes ago, a m ole said:

If the vaccine isn’t working then what’s the solution?

How long do we keep calm and carry on?

It's really really important that we don't take away from posts on this forum the utterly incorrect conclusion that 'the vaccine isn't working', though I concede it's hard not to given the doomerism both on here and out there.

[Genie]

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I'm teasing you, because you seem desperate for terrible news.

This is completely wrong. All I am doing is tempering the argument that “if you’ve been vaccinated you’ve got nothing to worry about”.

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

*However*, just as it is not possible to conclude that the vaccine is fully effective against serious illness and death in much older patients from this one study, we *also* cannot conclude the opposite, which is the point of my joke.

There’s no need for the “joke”. I said several times that it could be that AZ is effective given more testing, just that from the 1 and only study it doesn’t confirm either way.

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Some more good news for you: AstraZeneca are working on an updated vaccine which will provide protection against all the current variants. Because it is easier to produce an update than an original, they expect it to be available some time towards the end of the year.

 You seem to have made an incorrect link that by having an opinion that we can’t assume we’re protected against everything without supporting evidence to someone who takes a weird pleasure at being locked down unnecessarily.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Genie

[a m ole]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

It's really really important that we don't take away from posts on this forum the utterly incorrect conclusion that 'the vaccine isn't working', though I concede it's hard not to given the doomerism both on here and out there.

I’m sure it is, just asking the hypothetical question as the line seems to suggest continued lockdown, restrictions as the response to it not working.

I’m asking, if it isn’t as effective as we hoped, and we’re stuck with this virus being say 5x or 10x more lethal than influenza forever, what’s the response to that?

[bannedfromHandV]

2 minutes ago, a m ole said:

I’m sure it is, just asking the hypothetical question as the line seems to suggest continued lockdown, restrictions as the response to it not working.

I’m asking, if it isn’t as effective as we hoped, and we’re stuck with this virus being say 5x or 10x more lethal than influenza forever, what’s the response to that?

To just crack on. There are too many humans on the planet already, the species will endure it.

[Genie]

1 minute ago, a m ole said:

I’m sure it is, just asking the hypothetical question as the line seems to suggest continued lockdown, restrictions as the response to it not working.

I’m asking, if it isn’t as effective as we hoped, and we’re stuck with this virus being say 5x or 10x more lethal than influenza forever, what’s the response to that?

In the short term I think the answer is very strict controls on international travel, which allows the UK to get back to a level of normal day-to-day lives.

This won’t be popular with the ex-pats who are desperate to come home for their own reasons but I think it’s the only realistic measure to remove restrictions.

In the mean time the boosters could come online in the Autumn to increase protection against emerging mutations.

[StefanAVFC]

I just can't agree. The world is too international. There are 3 million Brits living in the UK alone. That doesn't count the non-EU expats. So we displace those?