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@ CLARK
You say “it spreads very fast due to being new and the population therefore having no acquired immunity to it”!
If it spreads fast then probably by now the whole population has had it and reached herd immunity, albeit exposure to SARS 1 will provide some immunity to SARS 2 and there already exist effective therapeutics, but suppressed to push experimental vaccines.
“In doing so the tobacco industry waged a campaign that “successfully delayed regulation and victim compensation for decades”.
And yet you support mass medication of millions of people with the drug cartels indemnified against harm. Odd!
@ SA
I agree the mortality rate is far higher for the elderly, as you have previously shown. These figures should trigger a proportionate health response. But if government policy is to vaccinate everyone, that means all those millions not at risk, then its reasonable to show the mortality rate for the entire population as that must be the guide for medicating everyone. In other words its not proportionate, in fact its a waste of resources, to vaccinate the vast majority of healthy people to, in theory, protect a vulnerable minority, when focused health care and therapeutics will be more effective.
Dave
“…..in fact its a waste of resources, to vaccinate the vast majority of healthy people to, in theory, protect a vulnerable minority, when focused health care and therapeutics will be more effective.”
How many times do I have to repeat this so that you can understand:
- You are vaccinating the majority in order to achieve herd immunity and to make the virus less prevalent for everybody.
- There is still a considerable mortality for anyone above 60 years and those with other illnesses but who are otherwise well.
For every person who dies of covid there are about 20 others who have very severe debilitating disease and who some of whom require support in intensive care. These are of any age above 20 years. - Many who recover have long term health problems related to this serious infection.
- There are no specific therapeutics for covid-19. Many agents have been tried including two antiviral agents, hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin and steroids. Steroids help some people but is not a magic cure. Nor are any of the other drugs known to have any major effect on the course of the disease.
So please Dave I have answered your questions. I don’t think I will answer them again and if you persist in saying the same things then it really doesn’t mean that they are true. You obviously have not seen anyone close who has Covid-19 and until you see it first hand, you will continue to deny its seriousness.
This Covid-20 and Covid-21 is simply nonsense, it is the same virus but with some different genetic makeup. It is as if you recategorize the human species according to differences such as the colour of their eyes or other features. They are all the same ‘species’.
Dave actually it depends how you frame a group most at risk.
The significance or the R number rises with the number of infected in the community. That is to say an R number of 2 in a population where 10,000 are infected is less of a threat to the whole population than if 10 million are infected.
The old and vulnerable are more at risk of serious illness and death from the disease than children and young people.
However it was realised very early on that children and young people were the greatest spreaders of the disease, numerous studies have confirmed this to be the case.
So the sensible option was to isolate the children and young until a vaccine was available and administered to that group first to control the infected population.
What the government did though was keep children and the young in school when they were restricting the adult population. Then the government went the precisely most hazardous route, they separated the kids into two groups and key workers children were permitted into schools but the other were not and restrictions were placed on them.
The key worker kids were able to mix and spread the virus, that was then taken home to the parents many of them working as health workers or nursing home staff with obvious results.
The super spreaders should have been targeted for restrictions and vaccine first rather than the vulnerable because many of those are near the end of life anyway and are in a minority.
The government failed to manage the risk to the whole population by focusing on protecting the vulnerable. Many of the vulnerable will tell you that they would rather be able to hold their loved ones and children / grandchildren than be protected by oppressive measures which severely reduces the quality of their remaining life, those measures are also shortening the remaining time for many.
The government’s strategies and policies have encouraged the virus, quite benign to many, to rip through the entire population eventually infecting the old and vulnerable.
Dave, 14:32:
– “you support mass medication of millions of people with the drug cartels indemnified against harm.”
No, I support stamping it out with five weeks of strict social restraint:
https://www.endcoronavirus.org/how-win
I’m not opposed to vaccination; other vaccination programmes have been cheap, safe and effective, but I do have some doubts – what if the immunity it confers fades, or new strains escape that immunity? Mass vaccination could fail, whereas China has already demonstrated that short, sharp social restrictions are supremely effective.
But if there are mass vaccination programmes, it would be right for the pharmaceutical companies to be indemnified. Governments have asked for and paid for these programmes, and governments are pressuring the population into participating, so governments should pay compensation in the unlikely event it is warranted. The pharmaceutical companies haven’t had time for the usual testing programmes; governments have asked them for an emergency response. Governments have the other option of brief, strong social restrictions and supporting the people and economy through them, but they have opted for rapid vaccine deployment instead.
Gross negligence such as contaminated batches is a different matter; in such cases, the governments should compensate those people affected, and the governments should also sue the pharmaceutical companies. Remember, governments are supposed to serve the people.
– “If it spreads fast then probably by now the whole population has had it and reached herd immunity…”
Two points here.
(1) The UK population can’t be approaching herd immunity or infections couldn’t have risen as fast as they did, from mid December 2020 to the first week of January 2021. This rise in the infection rate was confirmed by the matching rise in the death rate, with the characteristic two week lag.
Widespread immunity would slow the infection rate down because the virus particles are more likely to encounter an immune person than a suitable host*. But look at the December/January curve; it actually gets steeper until the lockdown restrictions suddenly arrest it, giving a sharply pointed peak; no sign of it plateauing before lockdown kicks in.
(* This is exactly the same as in secondary school chemistry; dilute solutions react much slower than concentrated ones, because the reactive molecules are more likely to encounter inert solvent molecules, and less likely to encounter the molecule they’d react with.)
(2) It’s looking less and less likely that widespread infection leads to herd immunity – this was just an assumption by the government back in February and early March, 2020 – probably wishful thinking. Look at Manaus. In tests after their first wave 66% of the population had antibodies, and it was estimated 76% of the population must have been infected at some time by the end of summer, and that’s about the herd immunity threshold.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.16.20194787v1
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.25.20201939v3
But the second wave in Manaus is even bigger than the first, and many people are now known to have had covid at least twice.
This also has implications for mass vaccination programmes. If infection doesn’t confer lasting immunity, vaccines, which mimic parts of the virus, might not either. It troubles me that mass vaccination just before spring and summer might be mistimed, especially if everyone is being only one shot. It might be better to build up a big stock of vaccines, and administer two shots next autumn, or we might be in just as bad a situation next winter.
Clark
Delay would mean
1. Even partial effectiveness may help slow down the spread
2. Mass build up of vaccine May end up being a waste if the virus mutates and becomes resistant to vaccine.SA, yes, a partially effective vaccine would slow down the spread.
But regarding mutation, already being vaccinated doesn’t help against a new strain; it makes no difference which order it happens in.
What can make a difference is that by slowing down the spread, opportunity for mutation may be reduced. But many virologists have complained about the UK policy of giving only one shot, because it’s less effective but applies selection pressure to the virus, favouring strains that escape the vaccine.
Too many variables for my liking. We know that social restrictions with quarantine works; it has been the tried and trusted method for centuries. And it stops the target from moving for vaccines, too.
Dave’s somewhat right, but for entirely the wrong reasons. Western governments are desperately pushing vaccines because they’re unwilling to use social restrictions, and it’s a massive gamble. They won’t pause the economy for just five weeks, not even to save the economy; steam is coming out of the radiator but they won’t stop the car! It’s been “government interference is bad” and “leave it to the markets” for so many decades that governments have forgotten how to govern; they’ve forgotten that it’s their job to govern, and to lead. Can you imagine what Churchill, the War Cabinet and the National Government would have made of this year of débâcle?
The delay in the second dose was pragmatic.It is better to get 30 million with partial immunity than 15 with more immunity as it will also dilute out virus targets. Not ideal but the better of two choices. I have started discussing the matter of lockdown in another forum. Partial lockdown ala U.K. is probably worse than no lockdown in the long term.
SA, it may be better; it’s another gamble. If it brings about a vaccine resistant strain it’s definitely worse, because no matter how high the proportion vaccinated, it’s useless.
There’s only one course that isn’t a gamble and it’s what you’ve been advocating all along. Quarantine.
– Leviticus 13:4-5
– If the shiny spot on the skin is white but does not appear to be more than skin deep and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest is to isolate the affected person for seven days. On the seventh day the priest is to examine them, and if he sees that the sore is unchanged and has not spread in the skin, he is to isolate them for another seven days.
I am inclined to agree that the dosing strategy, whilst good intentioned, may turn out to have been the wrong call. Especially now with the manufacturing delays. In my opinion it would have been better to have 15 million properly vaccinated than 30 million we are unsure about. The Israeli experience is telling. They gambled on two variables being right and it seems both have not paid off in full. However, we shall wait and see.
My mother died yesterday evening, relatively peacefully. It was 14 days after testing positive. None of us who live in Great Britain were able to be there nor are able to travel home for the funeral which itself is limited to 10 people. Strange times.
ET
My condolences to you. It is very sad to lose one’s mother and it is also very sad not to be able to pay the last tributes. I hope the remainder of your family are safe.
A close friend heard that her brother, wife and two children in their late teen or early twenties, in NI all had covid-19. They are all recovering now. Also two of their cousins and one of the husbands had covid-19 and the husband had to be admitted for oxygen but did not need ventilation. It is all very difficult when whole families are struck at the same time. Strange times indeed.ET, my condolences too.
My friend who works at a care home; he’s recovering well so far. However, one of his colleagues needed intensive care, and has died.
Condolences to ET. [ … ]
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[ Mod: The rest of the comment has been snipped, as this is yet another anonymous proxy visitor. ]Condolences ET
Sorry to hear of your bereavement, ET. I haven’t experienced a loss as close as that, but I’ve witnessed it happen to others. A childhood neighbour – a very pretty girl, I recall, who was a close friend of my sister – passed away 2 weeks ago with Covid-19. I hadn’t seen her since my university days, but I remembered her fondly. She was a community nurse in SE England and last year she helped elderly people struggling with isolation … which is how she caught the virus and finally succumbed to it in ICU. She had no underlying complications. Within a few years she could have been a wonderful grandmother – if she’d had the chance. Her immediate family were unable to attend her funeral due to travel restrictions.
If she’d been vaccinated, she might have had the chance to be that wonderful grandmother. But she was in a low priority group. About 3 weeks earlier, before she was hospitalised, her mother died in a care home in Scotland with the same condition. As you can imagine, the family is utterly devastated.
The sooner we get people vaccinated the better, so we can avoid tragedies like this.
These are indeed strange times. More and more accounts of people’s personal losses and illnesses, yet clawing madly at the door are those who would insist that it is all just a hoax; a minor matter blown out of proportion. They even don disguises in the hope of repeating their same few endlessly recycled quotes from barely a handful of cherry-picked experts, they concoct statistics that wouldn’t fool a numerate teenager, and encourage us to take vitamin pills. Yet they insist that only they can face the terrible truth, and everyone else is clinging desperately to faith in government and “the MSM”, and whine about being censored! It is surreal.
Very good post. In principle I am against censorship but when people ignore facts and keep going with same disproved arguments drives me crazy. Opinions are debatable but facts are not!
Misrepresentation is another thing that drives me crazy
I can go onCondolences to you, ET – very sorry for your loss. Sorry too that you could not attend, I lost an aunt earlier this month and also could not go because of restrictions. Very trying times indeed.
Pigeon English: “In principle I am against censorship but when people ignore facts and keep going with same disproved arguments drives me crazy.”
You should love our resident repeat-bot denialist Dave, in that case! One of his favourites is to pretend the death rate from Covid equals fatalities divided by the entire population. It has been repeatedly pointed out that this number is totally false – it should be fatalities divided by those infected. But Dave likes his version, because it makes the fatality rate appear much smaller. That allows him to be dismissive of the danger this virus causes.
Another thing denialist Dave likes to do is talk about vitamins and “therapeutics” – as an alternative to lock-downs and hospitalisation! No, seriously. He thinks “therapeutics” have never occurred to medics, and that all governments world-wide are damaging their economies with restrictions for a laugh.
There are plenty more examples, if you stick around you’ll see them again and again, because denialists apparently have zero shame. They have their weak, unsupported assertions comprehensively dealt with, then they just bring them back as if we would have no recollection of that fact.
I have been around and your description, few days ago,of modus operandi was best description I have encountered.
My late ,old dad (bless him) was like that lately. My wife could not understand that he can drive me so crazy.There is no community transmission of COVID-19 here. Social distancing measures have been lifted and face coverings are no longer required/recommended. Pubs are open again.
I should say, all businesses not just the pubs. Clearly giving away where my priorities lie. 😀
I haven’t seen Bill Gates either. He must be terribly disapponted.ET, congrats on re-establishing your Green Zone status.
This reaffirms that it can be done by social measures, and done humanely.
Vaccines should be considered the second line in covid management, because we don’t yet know how well they’ll work.
It can be done. Relatively easily and without much inconvenience.
Dave, and others, what is it that you want? A festering problem or a solution?
Or perhaps a reason to sow discord where it has no function?
