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Dredd
Your position seems to be that shielding only the vulnerable is the best strategy, but it wouldn’t be fair to “to impose severe restrictions on them while the rest of society continued with their normal lives relatively unimpeded.” Well, why not make it voluntary? Why not let those vulnerable through age or underlying health conditions choose whether or not they are shielded? Without the devastation to our economy caused by total lockdown, our health and social services would be better able to look after them during AND after their isolation. Those same vulnerable people will die of other causes without a strong health care system.My friend who went to hospital – third paragraph, here – received her PCR test result yesterday; it was positive. Her initial low blood oxygen level, and an unusual lapse in her memory both suggest this is a true positive. The hospital staff tried reducing her oxygen support and her bloodstream oxygen level remained normal, so they discharged her to return home to her husband, who has not been tested – the hospital needed to do this as it is overwhelmed with cases and this disgusting government has consistently provided zero quarantine facilities. Both of them are considerably older than me so I’m very worried about them.
This is what they call “laying it on thick”. Just get the language in this article in the Heil:
- “Total national lockdown” is “inevitable”
- Boris “pins everything” on Oxford vaccine
- “worst daily death toll” since April
- “Boris Johnson voiced ‘bitter regret'”
- “brutal new coronavirus restrictions
- “Hancock tried to soften the blow”
- “AstraZeneca vaccine approval will end the crisis”
- “whole country will likely have to be plunged into Tier 4 or a national lockdown”
- “spiralling infection rates”
- “stark warning”
- “‘Cases are rising in a really concerning way”
- “a ramping-up even further of restrictions”
- “warned of a new ‘reality’ with mutant Covid rampant”
- “plunged virtually the whole of England into brutal lockdown”
- “vaccines now the only hope of escape”
- “devastating lockdown rules
- “escalated to Tier 3”
- “most pupils now shut out until at least January 18”
- “learn whether they must stay shut indefinitely”
- “the midst of their own clampdowns”
- “fears over the more infectious ‘mutant’ strain that is running riot”
- “hopes for a return to normality now hang on massively scaling up the vaccine rollout”
- “if the government manages to crank up vaccinations”
- “‘the virus is really surging'”
- “‘bitterly regretted’ the harsher restrictions”
- “virus was spiralling out of control”
- “two big things happening at once in our fight against Covid – one’s working for us and one’s working against us,’ he said. ‘On the plus side we have got two valid vaccines, and we’re racing to get them out – and on the bad side there is a new strain of the virus which is spreading much faster and surging across the country.'”
- “redouble our efforts to contain the virus”
- “‘No-one regrets these measures more bitterly than I do, but we must take firm action now.'”
- “the sheer pace of the spread of this new variant”
- “even tougher action in some areas”
- “‘Unfortunately it is a pretty grim and depressing picture at the moment.'”
- ‘The situation in the UK is precarious in many parts already, the South East and London,’ he said.
- “members of the public had ‘just got to play your part from bringing us back from this very dangerous situation’.”
- “Speculation is also growing about a ‘Tier 5’ crackdown that could include even harsher measures such as a curfew. “
- “24million people” “are already under the strictest stay-at-home orders”
- “increasing strains on services due to Covid-19 patient numbers, which have reached their highest levels during the pandemic.”
- “hard-hit Tier 4 areas”
- “Professor Jonathan Van-Tam has warned people getting vaccinated against Covid-19 to keep following social distancing rules because there’s no proof the jab stops people transmitting the virus”
- “An intensive care doctor has blamed ‘badly behaved’ members of the public who refuse to wear masks and wash their hands for the resurgence of the coronavirus”
- “Critically ill hospital patients in London are being ‘evacuated’ to different parts of the country to free up bed space”
SUMMARY
1) the vaccine is good, our holy Deliverer, the only hope, God in a needle, “Hey Jude”, “Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water”
2) don’t expect freedom: authority figures (“experts”) tell you to stay isolated after you’ve had the vaccine
3) do what you’re told or it’s DEATH DEATH DEATH, and don’t expect anything else ever
4) there are bad antisocial types about, types who REFUSE TO WASH THEIR HANDS (there is the whole of Daily Heilism in a single image)
5) STRICTEST, HARSH, HARD-HIT, RAMPING UP, CRANKING UP, BITTER REGRET, SPIRALLING, SURGING, DEVASTATING, MASSIVE, RUNNING RIOT, PLUNGED, CRISIS, BITTER, VERY DANGEROUS, EVACUATION
6) for middle class administrator sheep-herding types there are other words too, such as “tier”, “exponential”, “restriction”, “members of the public”)
7) you will note there is no promise of peace, tranquillity, good health, sunshine, normality, loveliness, post-war reconstruction, families reunited in a country fit for vaccinated heroes
– “Without the devastation to our economy…”
And this is always the problem; the right always prioritise “the economy” – meaning the current economic regime – above everything else, even to the point of denying reality.
For World War Two, the economy was extensively reconfigured to cope with altered circumstances. This government’s approach would have been disastrous then, it’s disastrous now, and it’s hurtling us towards climate and ecological catastrophe. We need to change the economy.
N_, if you will read the Daily Mail (and I note from the links in this thread that it seems very popular with the trivialisers, minimisers and conspiracy theorists), that’s the sort of language you’ll inevitably encounter – and not just about covid-19; about everything. The Mail has also been the foremost health-scare rag for decades; just try a site-specific search on “cancer”.
Yes, the Mail is milking this crisis for all it’s got, spinning like a top, but your quotes aren’t essentially wrong; the death rate is rocketing, hospitals are beyond capacity, the new strain is displacing the others because it’s more infectious.
What the Mail won’t say is that the government acted too late. Again. And that’s why all hopes are now pinned on the vaccines.
Node – “…shielding only the vulnerable is the best strategy”
No, stamping it out is the best policy, and many nations and islands have succeeded; Scotland’s restrictions drove two strains to extinction there. Wiping out the virus can be done in a few weeks, and the sooner you act the quicker it can be done, and presto, restrictions are no longer necessary.
Pandemics happen. All this trouble has been caused by doggedly pursuing and attempting to preserve the neoliberal economic regime – at all costs, apparently. We daren’t even suspend it for two months while we wipe out a virus, it seems.
Dredd “…. In particular Lisa White, Professor of Modelling and Epidemiology at Oxford University, is very sharp, sincere and thorough.”
Not another epidemiologist!
Misrepresentation #1. Clark claims I prioritise the economy whereas I was explicitly describing the knock-on effects of lockdown destroying our health service.
Misrepresentation #2. Clark quotes me as saying “…shielding only the vulnerable is the best strategy” whereas I was explicitly using those words to summarise someone else’s position.
@ Clark
“So anything that supports their story these denialists call “the truth”, and anything that contradicts it they dismiss as “the official narrative” – and that’s how conspiracy theory works”!
No, the Daily Mail dutifully reports the government press conference and reports what is said (the official narrative) but then also publishes an article debunking it and shows graphs putting figures into context. Letting the readers decide.
@node
“Your position seems to be that shielding only the vulnerable is the best strategy, but it wouldn’t be fair to “to impose severe restrictions on them while the rest of society continued with their normal lives relatively unimpeded.” Well, why not make it voluntary? Why not let those vulnerable through age or underlying health conditions choose whether or not they are shielded?”
Well, yes, that’s one of the things that need to be thought through more carefully.
Letting the virus spread through the population naturally would massively increase its prevalence, making it much harder to avoid. Unless the elderly and vulnerable have an isolation booth at home (like ‘the Boy in the Plastic Bubble‘) attended by people trained in clinical procedures for infection control, it wouldn’t be feasible for them to effectively evade the highly prevalent virus. The predictable result of such a scheme would be a huge increase in hospital admissions, ICU referrals and mortuary demand.
The social implications of isolating the vulnerable at home would be far-reaching. An elderly gent with a heart condition near me was so terrified of contracting the virus that he insisted on everyone else in his social bubble taking extra precautions: no shopping, no entering other buildings (even to pick up prescriptions), no meeting other people indoors or outdoors. Delivered packages had to be sprayed and left untouched for 48–72 hours. He didn’t allow anyone in his household to go back to work after furlough. It put a lot of emotional pressure on his family (on whom he is partially dependent). Ultimately anyone who declined would have to move out, because he owns the family home. So his extended family had to comply with much stricter rules than required by law in order to keep him effectively shielded. It caused a lot of strife, with a son trying unsuccessfully to make arrangements to move out. That’s the kind of social upheaval that would arise throughout the country with a voluntary “focused protection” scheme.
Perhaps, as some have suggested, old and clinically vulnerable people should be encouraged to move into sheltered housing and gated communities, out of the way of society? That kind of social segregation scheme has rarely turned out well. Should BAME people (who are at a significantly higher risk) also be encouraged to segregate too? And what if the virus breached the barriers: we’ve seen the carnage in care homes.
As noted before, we don’t yet know how effective the strategy of acquired herd immunity would be in any case. There’s no data on the duration of persistence of antibodies. And the “healthy” working age population would hardly escape unscathed. People with undiagnosed conditions would be very susceptible to serious complications. And we’re still documenting and monitoring the emergence of ‘Long Covid’, which seems to be much more common than first thought.
That’s just a quick glance at the problems with the Great Barrington Declaration. Here are some other expert opinions: https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-barrington-declaration-an-open-letter-arguing-against-lockdown-policies-and-for-focused-protection/
If you know of a workable scheme to isolate the entire population of elderly and vulnerable people effectively, with the level of protection required for highly infectious diseases, then please elaborate.
Dredd
“As noted before, we don’t yet know how effective the strategy of acquired herd immunity would be in any case.”
Yet that is the strategy we are forcing through – herd immunity achieved through vaccines.
“If you know of a workable scheme to isolate elderly and vulnerable people effectively, with the level of protection required for highly infectious diseases, then please elaborate”
No I don’t, but then again the present scheme to lock down everybody, vulnerable and strong alike, isn’t workable either (in the sense that it causes more harm than good in the long run). The most workable scheme I can think of is the one I described – give the vulnerable a choice and concentrate our support services on those who choose to be isolated. The non-vulnerable keep the country running and build up herd immunity.
I suggest that building herd immunity the natural way is less risky than doing it with poorly tested vaccines.
node
“I suggest that building herd immunity the natural way is less risky than doing it with poorly tested vaccines.”
I duly acknowledge your suggestion but politely disagree. Vaccines are designed to achieve immunity in individuals without making the vaccinated person critically ill, which would seem to be a major advantage over natural infections which tend to do that in the elderly and otherwise clinically vulnerable.
You say the vaccine is “poorly tested” but the MHRA (which is responsible for scrutinising the studies and approving it) politely disagrees. Whom to believe? Hmmm.
In the end we seem to have conflicting opinions on how to proceed. It’s a complex practical decision necessitating a balance of projected benefits and risks. For the moment, I’m inclined to favour the decision of the relevant experts and officials, at least until contrary evidence emerges. You may disagree, for personal reasons. That’s your choice. You may be relieved that the vaccine isn’t going to be mandatory.
Dredd
“You may be relieved that the vaccine isn’t going to be mandatory.”
Those who refuse it will be portrayed as reckless fools who endanger the sensible majority with their crazy selfish beliefs. The media will share stories of other countries who use “health passports” to distinguish the ‘dangerous nutters’ from the rest. The British public will blame their politicians for not following suit and demand we too have to carry proof of up-to-date vaccinations, and that shops, restaurants, football grounds, everywhere outside the home, refuse entry to those who don’t carry one.
So no, it won’t be mandatory … as long as you never want to leave your home again.
Node – “I suggest that building herd immunity the natural way is less risky than doing it with poorly tested vaccines”
What? You’re comparing an infection that is known to have killed millions of people, and is known to leave several times as many incompletely recovered, is known to continue reproducing in neurons and intestinal cells, is known to infect and reproduce in cells of the immune system… You’re comparing that with vaccines that exclude the reproductive viral components, and have been tested on thousands of people without killing any of them… And you reckon the vaccines are more dangerous?
This sort of thinking is the very definition of ‘irrational’.
Re. your 13:35 comment, instead of getting all personal, you could engage with my point about neoliberal economics. But then maybe you don’t like to criticise that. Maybe you’re with those that prefer millions to die rather than change economic conditions.
– “the present scheme to lock down everybody […] causes more harm than good in the long run”
That is a very bold claim that flies in the face of the evidence. You need to assume that infections would have stopped rising without the lockdown, yet in place after place all over the world we’ve seen that infection prevalence falls when social restrictions are strong enough, and rises when they’re relaxed. In the UK we’ve just had a very clear demonstration of the effect with the November restrictions.
I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and in principle I do, but under current circumstances it seems a rather unrealistic wish.
Prepare for even colder weather. The current cold spell seems set to continue, but a sudden stratospheric warming event also seems likely, in which case the UK has about a 40% chance of bitterly cold easterly winds. And if that happens we’re almost guaranteed to suffer a shortage of gas, the UK’s former long-term storage facility being defunct, which will be dealt with by rolling electricity blackouts. And presumably from today onwards we can no longer call on our former EU partner nations to supplement our gas supply.
The above would of course make the ongoing health crisis even worse.
At least my two friends haven’t suffered any worsening of symptoms.
The problem with the Great Barrington declaration is that it is unrealistic and unimplementable. Society is not made up of discrete age and morbidity defined isolatable sections, whose path is distinct from that of schoolchildren and workers. Society is a mixture of all those people and there is no neat division. The support systems are highly interdependent. Also how should ‘vulnerable’ groups be defined and what proportion of the population will that be? If you add up those above 60 years old, those with diabetes, heart disease, blood pressure and obesity you will end up with about at least a quarter of the population.
The problem as I see it, for what it is worth, is that the approach taken, even by the so called scientific community, has given prominence to theoreticians, which to a great extent the prominent voices in SAGE are, mathematical modelers and not jobbing public health specialists who are in touch with the real world. The problem of disease modeling is that it depends so much on the robustness of data, something which was lacking at the outset of this pandemic. The old school of dealing with pandemics was a set of rules where the sources of infection were strictly isolated by all means. This means, closure of the borders, and proper isolation of all those infected, even if they were asymptomatic. The approach of this government and of many western governments was to discard the tried and tested methods for a much less ‘repressive approach, whereas other countries relied on traditional public health measures, notably China, South Korea and Singapore.
In the West, public health does not receive the prominence it should and is a Cinderella specialism. THe present mess should alert the authorities to reverse this trend.I too would like to wish everyone a happy new year. I hope that the various vaccines will be rolled out and will indeed produce much more of a much less dangerous ‘herd immunity’ than mass exposure of the population to a dangerous virus.
THe Pfizer vaccine is cumbersome in it’s requirement of a cold chain which is difficult to achieve, and the Oxford-Astra Zeneca low cost and non-profit vaccine is a more practical one.Any and all vaccines for this virus should be non-profit. Make any patents publically owned (by legislation if necessary) and let every facility on the planet that has the manufacturing capability to make them do so and as quickly as that can be made to happen.
The UK government decision to administer the two jabs twelve weeks apart is madness, and has many virologists alarmed:
Paul Bieniasz, @PaulBieniasz, 30 Dec 2020:
– I can’t be the only one who is unexcited by the prospect of a purportedly more transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variant, possibly with mutations conferring partial antibody resistance, propagating in a UK population that is ‘semi-immunized’ for 12 weeks. Experiments in viral evolution…– Precisely! When our goal is to select resistant viruses in laboratory experiments, we maximize viral population size and diversity, and then titrate in selection pressure. If I was designing a scenario to select vaccine-resistant SARS-CoV-2, I’d do what they are doing in the UK
Also, I think there are ethical considerations. The GMC ought to be stepping into this debate. Those already vaccinated gave their consent on the basis of 2 doses 3 weeks apart, that being the regimen that was shown to work. Those people who received the first dose on that basis should receive the second dose as planned. Anyone who is yet to have their first dose should be consented according to any new policy and the evidence for that should be discussed.
If there is good evidence to show it works well when given 12 weeks apart then make it public. This policy is a gamble. If there is a gap in manufacturing capacity for instance and they don’t have enough 2nd doses to go around. If it doesn’t work then they will have wasted all those first doses and have to do it again. I’d like to see the evidence for it.I think this was a pragmatic decision based on the fact that the quicker you get to achieving a herd immunity even if imperfect might reduce the transmission to a greater extent than achieving maximum immunity in half the number thereby not achieving a critical level of herd immunity.
Also I thought nobody has yet had the Astra Zeneca vaccine and if some had on the basis of having two shots then I can’t see why this couldn’t be honoured in this small initial cohort.About cost of vaccine, I believe the AZ one is available at $2-3 a shot because of low production and distribution costs.
This stupid bloody government just does everything wrong.
First they weren’t going to do anything except set up hospitals that couldn’t be staffed, and mass mortuaries – wrong as wrong can be. Then, too late, they did more than a U-turn; they did a fold-it-in-half-and-hammer-it-flat turn with their quarter-year “do not leave your home” order, while guaranteeing resentment by ensuring that it couldn’t be fully successful – open borders, no quarantine, no travel restrictions, no temporal segregation for essential shop workers – and by ensuring it would drive small businesses towards bankruptcy – no citizens’ basic income, no suspension of rent and other fixed costs. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
But covid-19 turned out to be seasonal so infection prevalence actually got pretty low, but at that critical point they turned down Google’s gratis offer of a track and trace system so they could hand a juicy contract to a known Mossad collaborator and surveillance wannabe – Gould! Well that’ll ensure poor take-up, won’t it? Then coronavirus season returned with Autumn, so they dithered again, insisted schools remain open as numbers rose. Another fold-it-in-half-and-hammer-it-flat turn about Christmas restrictions with their tier system, which predictably provoked a mass exodus from the most infected and most populous part of the country, spreading the new strain everywhere.
Not content with that they have now rewritten the vaccine manufacturers’ instructions in the worst way possible.
It’s hard to believe; could they have got it any more wrong if they’d been actually trying to?
It’s also remarkable that the conspiracy theorists see this as some sort of plan. It has all the planning of a bird dropping.
I hear that further papers are showing the new variant to be 50% to 70% more infectious, ie. its R-zero number is higher.
R-zero is the reproductive number for a strain of the virus, whereas the R that is in the news a lot is R-t, the reproductive number actually manifested in a specific population with specific behaviours. Social restraint reduces R-t; it does not affect R-zero. All else remaining the same however, increased R-zero does increase R-t.
The “news” was forever on about “getting R less than 1” so that infection prevalence would decrease, “R” meaning R-t for the old strain. But the new variant has a higher R-zero, so more social restraint will be needed to get it’s R-t below 1. If the new variant has 50% greater infectiousness, the R we’ve heard so much about will now have to be reduced below 0.67 for infection prevalence to go into decline.
During the spring/summer restrictions, R never fell below 0.67 in England. In Scotland, R may have been pushed as low as 0.5.
In short, the restrictions we had from spring onwards won’t work for this variant, at least not in England.
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