Coronavirus - how is it/has it affected you?

[Leftitshort]

Well, PNW proposed herd immunity was the answer to Covid, part of the learn to live with it delusion.

I was interested to know what he thinks that actually means.

I am fairly sure it does not mean what he thinks it does.

Interested then in what your proposal would be? Not to rubbish it, far from it. can’t mention politics, but the current approach seems populist

 

[Jamesbrown]

Can you explain to me what you think herd immunity is?

What definition does he need to supply? The pre or post 2020 version?

 

[PNWokingham]

Well, PNW proposed herd immunity was the answer to Covid, part of the learn to live with it delusion.

I was interested to know what he thinks that actually means.

I am fairly sure it does not mean what he thinks it does.

To quote the WHO:

To safely achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, a substantial proportion of a population would need to be vaccinated, lowering the overall amount of virus able to spread in the whole population.

The proportion of the population that must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to begin inducing herd immunity is not known. This is an important area of research and will likely vary according to the community, the vaccine, the populations prioritized for vaccination, and other factors.

 

[Ethan]

Interested then in what your proposal would be? Not to rubbish it, far from it. can’t mention politics, but the current approach seems populist

It is a bit late now, but this evenings NYE celebrations in poorly ventilated pubs and clubs is only going to send the numbers one way. As SAGE and others advised, we needed a circuit breaker before Christmas, failing that between Christmas and New Year, so missed the boat on those, so a circuit breaker asafp is now needed. Scrap the stupid idea for Nightingale hospitals, they can't be staffed, we will be lucky if existing NHS services can be staffed.

Impress on people that although it is true that Omicron is, on average, milder than Delta, we don't know if that is also true of longer term effects yet, and it doesn't mean that it is not serious. Omicron has very high transmissibility so a lot more people are affected. That dilutes the case fatality rate and hospitalisation rate, but because there are so many more poplin the denominator, it still results in a lot of cases in hospital.

On the herd immunity question, since Paul appears to be busy googling, it is a mathematical concept based on the R-value which estimates the proportion of the population that needs to be immune in order that a pandemic cannot propagate (i.e. grow).

Initial estimates for Alpha and Beta were an R around 3, so in that case then everybody who gets the infection gives it to 3 others and it propagates. But if 2 out of 3 people were immune, then 1 case would typically only give it to 1 other, and the case numbers wouldn't grow. So the HI threshold is calculated as 1-1/R, so if R is 3, HI is 66%.

The complications arise when R is either much higher, vaccine effectiveness is less than 100% or immunity levels are varying (vaccine effectiveness waning). The immunity threshold needs to take these into account.

It is estimated that R for Omicron is approximately 10 (Alpha and beta were about 3, Delta about 5). Lets say vaccine effectiveness is about 80% for boosted people. So 1-1/10 is 90%, but that has to be divided to take into account the relative vaccine effectiveness, so the herd immunity threshold is now (1-1/10)/0.8, i.e 1.125 or 112.5%, so HI cannot be achieved with Omicron even if every man, woman and child was triple vacced.

Waning immunity also affects the estimates, in a bad way.

 

[Ethan]

To quote the WHO:

To safely achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, a substantial proportion of a population would need to be vaccinated, lowering the overall amount of virus able to spread in the whole population.

The proportion of the population that must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to begin inducing herd immunity is not known. This is an important area of research and will likely vary according to the community, the vaccine, the populations prioritized for vaccination, and other factors.

Like I said .....

 

[Tashyboy]

I’m not even touching this reply,had enough infractions this year ?

Bad man ?

 

[Ethan]

What definition does he need to supply? The pre or post 2020 version?

I wanted him to tell me what he thought it meant.

 

[Foxholer]

An ex-colleague has Covid for the third time. The joys of working in the NHS?

So much for immunity!
Hope it's not severe!

 

[PNWokingham]

I wanted him to tell me what he thought it meant.

i told you what i meant with the words of WHO, which is exactly as i see it. If in your superior understanding the concept is now deemdd impossible so be it - we can substiture "living with it is an endemic disease in an open un-locked-down society as we do with seasonal flu"

 

[hovis]

People have had 3 jabs in the last year and we're still being told (by some) that we need a lockdown/circuit breaker or restrictions. So is this life? A lockdown each time a varient comes along? Or do we trust the vacines and crack on? It's hard to get good figures as to how many vacinated people are dieing from Covid. Can anyone post a link maybe?

 

[IanM]

i told you what i meant with the words of WHO

Yeah, but Dr Who is rubbish these days!

 

[SteveW86]

He might want to have hold of something stiffer ?

I’m sure he would, but at his age that may not be as easy as it used to be.

 

[Foxholer]

Approximately 1 million now in isolation......that's a big chunk of the workforce.

Though not all of those will be part of (recognised) 'workforce'.

 

[Foxholer]

Yeah, but Dr Who is rubbish these days!

Why does the word 'Exterminate' spring to mind - for so many reasons?

 

[Imurg]

Though not all of those will be part of (recognised) 'workforce'.

Agreed but if you add in those who are off sick for non-covid reasons I bet it more than makes up for the difference..

 

[theoneandonly]

Can you explain to me what you think herd immunity is?

It's when all your cows are immune to a specific disease.

 

[Ethan]

i told you what i meant with the words of WHO, which is exactly as i see it. If in your superior understanding the concept is now deemdd impossible so be it - we can substiture "living with it is an endemic disease in an open un-locked-down society as we do with seasonal flu"

That wasn't a definition, by the way, more the WHO's way of saying "It's complicated" to the average citizen. Torygraph readers should be able to do better, surely.

Does WHO also regard it as akin to seasonal flu? I am sure you realise that the prevalence can rise again from the low "endemic" levels if you/we/they piss around too much with it, to put it technically? There is a weird sort of eugenics in that idea of "living with it", which means you will tolerate other people dying from it.

People have had 3 jabs in arms in the last year and we're still being told (by some) that we need a lockdown/circuit breaker or restrictions. So is this life? A lockdown each time a varient comes along? Or do we trust the vacines and crack on? It's hard to get good figures as to how many vacinated people are dieing from Covid. Can anyone post a link maybe?

Right from the start, immunologists said that it would take time to build up a flexible and adaptive immunity. That means that in the short term, we need boosters and to have an appropriate level of public health measures. But in time, most people will develop immunity that does away with the need for either to a large extent for most people, older people and others with weaker immunity, mainly.

Occasionally a bad variant will come along, like MERS or SARS v1.0, but mostly it will be OK.

One argument often made is that viruses tend to get weaker with evolution. This is not necessarily true. Viruses that transmit before they cause symptoms don't need to do this, there is no selective evolutionary pressure on them to do so, smallpox was an example of this, which stayed nasty with evolution.

 

[Foxholer]

i told you what i meant with the words of WHO, which is exactly as i see it. If in your superior understanding the concept is now deemdd impossible so be it - we can substiture "living with it is an endemic disease in an open un-locked-down society as we do with seasonal flu"

Surely/even ao, it's important the anti-social idiots (generalisation I know, but they can't ALL 'be allergic' to jabs), especially the ones in high density areas like London actually get vaccinated & boosted!

 

[Slime]

Dogs and bones spring to mind, not sure why?

 

[hovis]

Does WHO also regard it as akin to seasonal flu? I am sure you realise that the prevalence can rise again from the low "endemic" levels if you/we/they piss around too much with it, to put it technically? There is a weird sort of eugenics in that idea of "living with it", which means you will tolerate other people dying from it.



Right from the start, immunologists said that it would take time to build up a flexible and adaptive immunity. That means that in the short term, we need boosters and to have an appropriate level of public health measures. But in time, most people will develop immunity that does away with the need for either to a large extent for most people, older people and others with weaker immunity, mainly.

Occasionally a bad variant will come along, like MERS or SARS v1.0, but mostly it will be OK.

One argument often made is that viruses tend to get weaker with evolution. This is not necessarily true. Viruses that transmit before they cause symptoms don't need to do this, there is no selective evolutionary pressure on them to do so, smallpox was an example of this, which stayed nasty with evolution.

So at some point the risk has to be accepted. Mass testing stops and no isolation? I wonder what the criteria is for that. Number of daily deaths? Number of hospitalised people?