Coronavirus

[scaramanga]

There is no definitive answer. How could there be given the virus has only been known to us for 9 months? There have certainly been people who have been infected twice and I’d be interested (and very very happy) to have the links to the science which is able to definitively state that we can reach herd immunity by letting the virus run.

It seems strange the story isn’t being trumpeted loudly by the serious media.

If herd immunity doesn't work then a vaccine won't work.

You can accept the fact that every credible and relevant person/body/company is working towards a vaccine as fair certainty that herd immunity works, because they're the same thing administered via a different method.

 

[tommysvr]

The numbers and importantly the trends don’t make good reading.

Is a normal flu season ~1500 hospital admissions per day?

 

[Baleforce]

They are trying to save Christmas.

Then why not act a month ago when they had the data and it would do more good?

 

[markysimmo]

Then why not act a month ago when they had the data and it would do more good?

Our Govt is so so so reactive it's unreal

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

I don’t understand the governments play here, how does this help the economy?

I guess you could make the argument that they are trying to save lives, but why start now?

Because we are ending up where we were in March. The economy matters but if things get to a certain level, it is trumped by the unforgivable look of people dying without optimal care.

 

[Mikey10]

Because we are ending up where we were in March. The economy matters but if things get to a certain level, it is trumped by the unforgivable look of people dying without optimal care.

Agreed.

I’d say there are two options being pursued by governments at the moment:

1. Lockdown hard and fast. Seal borders and have state-organised quarantine for returning citizens. Ramp up test and trace and enforce it rigidly. Enforce mask wearing. This has been practised in countries like South Korea, NZ, Taiwan and China. They have relatively low death rates; life within those countries now resembles something like normal; economic activity is still affected but at a relatively low rate.

2. Delay lockdowns until crisis point is reached and health services begin to buckle. Leave borders largely open, with no or limited testing on those entering the country. Death rates are relatively high. Economic activity is affected at a relatively high rate, as a cycle of opening up and lockdown is the only answer when health providers struggle to cope. This route has been pursued by much of Europe.

I’m not sure the U.K. government actively chose the latter option but their failure to develop a different plan sees us firmly in that category.

 

[scaramanga]

Will Sport stop again if we go into another ridiculous lockdown ??

Of course. The victims aren't winning right now, so no need to force it to continue.

 

[scaramanga]

Agreed.

I’d say there are two options being pursued by governments at the moment:

1. Lockdown hard and fast. Seal borders and have state-organised quarantine for returning citizens. Ramp up test and trace and enforce it rigidly. Enforce mask wearing. This has been practised in countries like South Korea, NZ, Taiwan and China. They have relatively low death rates; life within those countries now resembles something like normal; economic activity is still affected but at a relatively low rate.

2. Delay lockdowns until crisis point is reached and health services begin to buckle. Leave borders largely open, with no or limited testing on those entering the country. Death rates are relatively high. Economic activity is affected at a relatively high rate, as a cycle of opening up and lockdown is the only answer when health providers struggle to cope. This route has been pursued by much of Europe.

I’m not sure the U.K. government actively chose the latter option but their failure to develop a different plan sees us firmly in that category.

1 isn't an option and should never be.

There is no danger so great that we should render and government in charge of all aspects of our daily lives. The government works for us, at our behest and spends our money. Once we give absolute power then that dynamic changes.

Power is very easy to give away and all governments will take it just as easily - especially in times of crisis. Retrieving that power becomes far more difficult. Once we set that precedent that the government can do pretty much anything they want if the emergency is great enough, how can we ever successfully argue in future that we no longer want that to be the case?

 

[Glenda's Legs]

Then why not act a month ago when they had the data and it would do more good?

Well exactly. I suppose I can understand the wanting to keep things open as much as possible and to work with regional measures but even that has been handled badly.
I think there is panic now that things aren't working, more is needed and if there isn't a month or so lockdown now, we will end up locked down over Christmas, which the government doesn't want. So one month now, restrictions lifted early December, everyone goes just a little bit mad in the build up to and over Christmas, students come home after having their student parties, the virus starts to spread more widely again and by end of January we are back where we started, just as flu season is really kicking in.
The half-term holidays for a two week mini-lockdown, as was advised, was the obvious time to try to stem the rise in cases and hosptialisations.

Didn't the government concede that anything like a national lockdown would need to be debated and voted in parliament? Obviously it won't get rejected, but at least with debate some alternative points of view can be more readily heard.

 

[Baleforce]

Because we are ending up where we were in March. The economy matters but if things get to a certain level, it is trumped by the unforgivable look of people dying without optimal care.

if they cared about that, they'd have done pretty much everything differently since March, we'd have working test and trace, shielding, managed bubbles, targeted financial support, adequate PPE, education plans and a thousand other things

 

[Legohamster]

Well exactly. I suppose I can understand the wanting to keep things open as much as possible and to work with regional measures but even that has been handled badly.
I think there is panic now that things aren't working, more is needed and if there isn't a month or so lockdown now, we will end up locked down over Christmas, which the government doesn't want. So one month now, restrictions lifted early December, everyone goes just a little bit mad in the build up to and over Christmas, students come home after having their student parties, the virus starts to spread more widely again and by end of January we are back where we started, just as flu season is really kicking in.
The half-term holidays for a two week mini-lockdown, as was advised, was the obvious time to try to stem the rise in cases and hosptialisations.

Didn't the government concede that anything like a national lockdown would need to be debated and voted in parliament? Obviously it won't get rejected, but at least with debate some alternative points of view can be more readily heard.

This is a very good point, I expect Hanrooster not to allow

 

[LutonSpurs]

If herd immunity doesn't work then a vaccine won't work.

You can accept the fact that every credible and relevant person/body/company is working towards a vaccine as fair certainty that herd immunity works, because they're the same thing administered via a different method.

Herd immunity without unnecessary and premature death is achieved by vaccines. Herd immunity without a vaccine comes at the cost of life.

 

[Robspur12]

If herd immunity doesn't work then a vaccine won't work.

You can accept the fact that every credible and relevant person/body/company is working towards a vaccine as fair certainty that herd immunity works, because they're the same thing administered via a different method.

"Herd immunity" by letting the virus spread unchecked in the community is not the same as establishing herd immunity through a vaccine. There are too many variables. The body seems unable to illicit immunity from the circulating virus unless the individual suffers the fulminant illness. Probably because in mild cases there is not enough virus protein to produce antibodies in sufficient quantity. The vaccinators are trying to amplify the immune response to the naturally circulating virus by first engineering the virus or its proteins etc in a safe form.

Also trying to achieve herd immunity without an effective treatment is essentially signing the death warrant for many in society. It is also politically untenable.

 

[scaramanga]

Herd immunity without unnecessary and premature death is achieved by vaccines. Herd immunity without a vaccine comes at the cost of life.

If we had a viable vaccine now that would be the obvious answer - I'm not an anti-vaxxer nutjob.

When the choice is about stopping life for an indefinite time, in case we might find a vaccine that works, then the case for continuing life becomes stronger.

 

[scaramanga]

"Herd immunity" by letting the virus spread unchecked in the community is not the same as establishing herd immunity through a vaccine. There are too many variables. The body seems unable to illicit immunity from the circulating virus unless the individual suffers the fulminant illness. Probably because in mild cases there is not enough virus protein to produce antibodies in sufficient quantity. The vaccinators are trying to amplify the immune response to the naturally circulating virus by first engineering the virus or its proteins etc in a safe form.

Also trying to achieve herd immunity without an effective treatment is essentially signing the death warrant for many in society. It is also politically untenable.

That's not the route most vaccine creators are aiming for - at least not the ones furthest along in development. They are replicating the immune response that the body has to both SARS (the original) and the COVID-19 version.

I haven't seen anything credible that suggests a stronger level of disease response is required to form immunity - in fact there's plenty of cases of people with immunity that were so asymptomatic they didn't even notice they'd contracted it.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

if they cared about that, they'd have done pretty much everything differently since March, we'd have working test and trace, shielding, managed bubbles, targeted financial support, adequate PPE, education plans and a thousand other things

Im talking about frontline care at the point of entering hospital. That being surpassed is a red line (sorry to use a Brexit term). All the things you suggest keep infection under control and even making a dog's dinner of it hasn't caused a breach of that red line. Simply, they're worried now that the numbers are indicating that that red line could be breached.

The learning curve during this pandemic has been tinkle poor, but there are two sides wanting different things, within the government itself, the general public and ,of course, the GG forum. This basically adds up to a lot of noise, blame and moaning.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

That's not the route most vaccine creators are aiming for - at least not the ones furthest along in development. They are replicating the immune response that the body has to both SARS (the original) and the COVID-19 version.

I haven't seen anything credible that suggests a stronger level of disease response is required to form immunity - in fact there's plenty of cases of people with immunity that were so asymptomatic they didn't even notice they'd contracted it.

Has there been no case studies into the asymptomatic people?

As I said the other day, the reaction spectrum to catching this varies from horrible death to no symptoms whatsoever. Are the asymptomatic people as such because the viral load they received minimal or are they pre-loaded with immunity (t-cells not antibodies) from previous coronavirus infections of different strains?

Edit: this is interesting
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563

I do think the science has been slow (almost a let down) in certain areas during this pandemic.

 

[Robspur12]

That's not the route most vaccine creators are aiming for - at least not the ones furthest along in development. They are replicating the immune response that the body has to both SARS (the original) and the COVID-19 version.

Taken from the WHO site on vaccine development for Covid 19

• Inactivated or weakened virus vaccines, which use a form of the virus that has been inactivated or weakened so it doesn’t cause disease, but still generates an immune response.
  
• Protein-based vaccines, which use harmless fragments of proteins or protein shells that mimic the COVID-19 virus to safely generate an immune response.
• Viral vector vaccines, which use a virus that has been genetically engineered so that it can’t cause disease, but produces coronavirus proteins to safely generate an immune response.
• RNA and DNA vaccines, a cutting-edge approach that uses genetically engineered RNA or DNA to generate a protein that itself safely prompts an immune response.

That is not letting the unaltered virus spread uncontrollably through the community.

I haven't seen anything credible that suggests a stronger level of disease response is required to form immunity - in fact there's plenty of cases of people with immunity that were so asymptomatic they didn't even notice they'd contracted it.

I am not an immunologist, but from what I have read recently immunity in mild cases of infection lasts no more than 3 months. That makes sense to me. Take another viral infection namely chicken pox. In very young infants it can affect them very mildly because of some residual immunity from mum. However the same infant can then get a second infection later in life. Whereas a more serious infection generally confers life long immunity.

 

[elyid]

The numbers and importantly the trends don’t make good reading.

Is a normal flu season ~1500 hospital admissions per day?

The thing is though we don't really know the *real* figures.

I know someone who went into hospital after having a stroke (it was fairly mild but they stayed in to recover) caught Corona in hospital and are now a hospital admission stat.

I just don't understand why:

1) Admissions with CV19 on arrival aren't separated from those who caught in at hospital. Also care home admissions should be separated too.
2) All deaths aren't evaluated to get a rough idea of those who "on balance probably died because of covid", rather than caught it in hospital.

These things seem obvious to me, yet all the stats provided by the government are muddled and don't give as clear a picture as they could. In my mind it's near impossible to infer anything from "died 28 days after a + covid test". i.e. *everyone* who caught it in hospital and then died is a covid death, that's just inaccurate.

 

[scaramanga]

Has there been no case studies into the asymptomatic people?

As I said the other day, the reaction spectrum to catching this varies from horrible death to no symptoms whatsoever. Are the asymptomatic people as such because the viral load they received minimal or are they pre-loaded with immunity (t-cells not antibodies) from previous coronavirus infections of different strains?

Edit: this is interesting
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563

I do think the science has been slow (almost a let down) in certain areas during this pandemic.

The problem is that without prior testing (which we obv didn't know to do), how do we know if they're asymptomatic because they're immune or immune because they've contracted it.

The sheer numbers of asymptomatic cases strongly suggests the latter. It would have been very difficult for the virus to have spread as it has if those numbers already had immunity.

As it stands, the best we can do is test for immunity and use self reporting to answer whether or not they've had it or not. That's obviously full of all the errors one would expect.