Coronavirus Thread

[SpacedX]

8 hours ago, dsr-burnley said:

Surely the answer to whether lockdowns work or not, depends on what the question is?  If we want something to eliminate coronavirus, lockdowns don't work.  If we want something to delay coronavirus until we have some other way of stopping or mitigating coronavirus, they do work.  But of course we don't want either of those things.  What we want is a way of fighting off the effects of coronavirus while not allowing the negative effects of lockdown to exceed its benefits - and when that's the question, then in some circumstances they work, in others they don't, and in many, many more there are good arguments in both directions.

 

It's just like the question about vaccinations stopping the spread.  The answer is far too complex for a straight yes or no.

How odd. You've never felt the need to post this in response to the previous outright claims that "lockdown doesn't work" - but then as the most contrarian member of this forum that I've encountered, if someone suggested that the grass was green you'd no doubt contend that it was actually flaxen with a hint of sage. 

 

 

Edited 28 October 2021 by Line-X

[SpacedX]

8 hours ago, dsr-burnley said:

Surely the answer to whether lockdowns work or not, depends on what the question is?  If we want something to eliminate coronavirus, lockdowns don't work.  If we want something to delay coronavirus until we have some other way of stopping or mitigating coronavirus, they do work.  But of course we don't want either of those things.  What we want is a way of fighting off the effects of coronavirus while not allowing the negative effects of lockdown to exceed its benefits - and when that's the question, then in some circumstances they work, in others they don't, and in many, many more there are good arguments in both directions.

 

It's just like the question about vaccinations stopping the spread.  The answer is far too complex for a straight yes or no.

The individual made an outright claim that lockdowns don't work. Your comment is based on a false premise. The objectives of all three lockdowns actually were clearly stated - to flatten the steep line in cases, reduce the spread of infection and to relieve the clinical burden. All of which was successful. 

[Soup]

Regardless of what you think about lockdowns I think we can all agree that some good and bad has come out of them. There's a fascinating downside happening here in Spain. It's the "Botellones" phenomenon that's happening in cities.

 

When restrictions were 1st lifted but the night time industry stayed shut, young people took to the streets to meet, drink and party. Since then it's got bigger and bigger and now, even though nightlife is fully open it's still happening. It's mainly university neighborhoods but it's getting out of control. There's a neighborhood near where am that's in total despair, 5/6 nights a week hundreds and hundreds of folks gather until morning and the streets are littered like a war zone apparently. People are actually traveling from other cities to party but the locals are at their wits end. Locals are protesting to the Police and the council to do something about it, they even had a 5 hour sit down protest this week to try and make the authorities listen to them. Some are saying that it's impossible to now live in the neighborhood. Mad times

[dsr-burnley]

50 minutes ago, Line-X said:

The individual made an outright claim that lockdowns don't work. Your comment is based on a false premise. The objectives of all three lockdowns actually were clearly stated - to flatten the steep line in cases, reduce the spread of infection and to relieve the clinical burden. All of which was successful. 

Perhaps the best way of putting my opinion would be that in our present condition moving into the future, lockdowns would not work.  In the past, when coronavirus could not be controlled by vaccine, lockdowns were entirely judged by their effect on coronavirus, and their general effect on all other aspects of life were pretty much ignored - my belief is that they shouldn't have been.  But by the limited targets of the time, they succeeded.

[SpacedX]

12 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

Perhaps the best way of putting my opinion would be that in our present condition moving into the future, lockdowns would not work.  In the past, when coronavirus could not be controlled by vaccine, lockdowns were entirely judged by their effect on coronavirus, and their general effect on all other aspects of life were pretty much ignored - my belief is that they shouldn't have been.  But by the limited targets of the time, they succeeded.

That would, as you correctly state, simply be your opinion. Going forward, lockdowns would indeed work, if the objectives were the same. However, in the case of the current pandemic, unless there is a huge spike in infections or some significant mutation harbouring vaccine escape properties, we have only the remotest possibility of further lockdown being imposed either on the regional or national scale. As I said earlier this week, that is all this has been about to some. 

 

The context of the statement was the first lockdown and entering the second in November last year. The statement was incorrect. Hilarious that the person that posted it is now attempting to defend it because cases still remain. I'm not actually sure whether they are being serious or not. Internet opinion has become so absurd that it's difficult to differentiate between genuine stupidity or satire/Poe's law. 

 

Your initial response to this is rather like defending someone declaring that outright declares "car seatbelts don't work" by saying it depends on the question. Yes wearing a car seatbelt could exacerbate and does not eliminate the possibility of whiplash, but for the purpose that they are designed to serve, yes they absolutely do work. 

[Guest Col city fan]

Hospital admissions due to c19 highest since February

It ain’t going away folks 

[WigstonWanderer]

5 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Hospital admissions due to c19 highest since February

It ain’t going away folks 

Perhaps I’m being over optimistic, but the the actual rate of admissions (first chart below) seems to have peaked, though still a bit early to say. It is true that the total number of Covid patients in hospital is the highest since Feb (just). Either way, considering the degree to which the UK has opened up, there is nowhere near the problem there was last winter (so far).

 

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

 

Edited 28 October 2021 by WigstonWanderer

[Free Falling Foxes]

Double vaccinated can still spread virus

[Otis]

29 minutes ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

Double vaccinated can still spread virus

[Unabomber]

34 minutes ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

Double vaccinated can still spread virus

Are you being ironic? This is common knowledge surely? 

[Spudulike]

35 minutes ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

Double vaccinated can still spread virus

 

5 minutes ago, Otis said:

Which is even more concerning for the unvaccinated! 

[pazzerfox]

37 minutes ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

Double vaccinated can still spread virus

I didn't see that coming!

[jgtuk]

6 minutes ago, pazzerfox said:

I didn't see that coming!

What, something that has been in the public domain for months…

[Otis]

10 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

 

Which is even more concerning for the unvaccinated! 

Very true

[Otis]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59077036

• They also appear to be just as infectious

 

Yet when I wrote this I was accused of spreading mismisinformation. 

[jgtuk]

34 minutes ago, Otis said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59077036

• They also appear to be just as infectious

 

Yet when I wrote this I was accused of spreading mismisinformation. 

That’s because it’s not true. It’s specifically in household settings. Poor report from the BBC. 
The lancet paper it’s taken from:

Findings The SAR in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% (95% CI 18–33) for fully vaccinated individuals compared with 38% (24–53) in unvaccinated individuals. The median time between second vaccine dose and study recruitment in fully vaccinated contacts was longer for infected individuals (median 101 days [IQR 74–120]) than for uninfected individuals (64 days [32–97], p=0·001). SAR among household contacts exposed to fully vaccinated index cases was similar to household contacts exposed to unvaccinated index cases (25% [95% CI 15–35] for vaccinated vs 23% [15–31] for unvaccinated). 12 (39%) of 31 infections in fully vaccinated household contacts arose from fully vaccinated epidemiologically linked index cases, further confirmed by genomic and virological analysis in three index case–contact pairs. Although peak viral load did not differ by vaccination status or variant type, it increased modestly with age (difference of 0·39 [95% credible interval –0·03 to 0·79] in peak log10 viral load per mL between those aged 10 years and 50 years). Fully vaccinated individuals with delta variant infection had a faster (posterior probability >0·84) mean rate of viral load decline (0·95 log10 copies per mL per day) than did unvaccinated individuals with pre-alpha (0·69), alpha (0·82), or delta (0·79) variant infections. Within individuals, faster viral load growth was correlated with higher peak viral load (correlation 0·42 [95% credible interval 0·13 to 0·65]) and slower decline (–0·44 [–0·67 to –0·18]).

Edited 28 October 2021 by jgtuk

[jgtuk]

The report also refers to the drop off rates and less efficient protection as time goes by, hence the call for boosters etc.

[Spudulike]

37 minutes ago, Otis said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59077036

• They also appear to be just as infectious

 

Yet when I wrote this I was accused of spreading mismisinformation. 

What you need to consider is that a vaccinated person is less likely to get covid and, consequently as a result, less likely to spread it. I think that has been the point being made all along. 

[Otis]

7 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

What you need to consider is that a vaccinated person is less likely to get covid and, consequently as a result, less likely to spread it. I think that has been the point being made all along. 

True. But that wasn't the point made yesterday. 

[dsr-burnley]

Genuine question - I'm not being contrarian, I genuinely want to know - how do they define infection?  It seems to me that as soon as you breathe in a bit of this virus and it gets into your lungs, you're infected.  And then your body fights against it and kills it and you aren't infected any more.  And if that's the case, neither vaccine nor natural immunity can stop the infection, they can only make us better equipped to fight off the virus.

 

So is there a threshhold, a certain number of virus particles for example, at which you go from non-infected to infected?  Or does something specific happens to the virus, over and above just breathing it in, that means that you previously had the virus in your lungs and weren't infected, but now you are?

[SpacedX]

7 hours ago, dsr-burnley said:

Genuine question - I'm not being contrarian, I genuinely want to know - how do they define infection?  It seems to me that as soon as you breathe in a bit of this virus and it gets into your lungs, you're infected.  And then your body fights against it and kills it and you aren't infected any more.  And if that's the case, neither vaccine nor natural immunity can stop the infection, they can only make us better equipped to fight off the virus.

 

So is there a threshhold, a certain number of virus particles for example, at which you go from non-infected to infected?  Or does something specific happens to the virus, over and above just breathing it in, that means that you previously had the virus in your lungs and weren't infected, but now you are?

It's a really good question. Since transmission by fomites is thought to be rare, it comes down to if you’re breathing in aerosolised virus and it hasn't been established what the infectious dose is that gives a significant chance of being infected. An experiment to quantify this would involve deliberately exposing people and measuring the infection rate at different doses which would be unethical given the disease’s severity. Whatever the infectious dose may be, length of exposure will be an important determining factor. Each breath might not produce much virus but if you’re standing beside someone who’s infected, sharing the same airspace with them for 45 minutes, probability is that you’re going to inhale enough virus to cause infection. Scientists in the United States have shown in the laboratory that the virus can survive in an aerosol and remain infectious for at least 3 hours. Although the conditions in the study were highly artificial.

 

But like I say, capturing those small concentrations of aerosols that, given the right combination of airflow, humidity and temperature, might build to an infectious dose over time, is extremely challenging data to collect. 

[StanSP]

My mum has tested positive. 

My missus and I both did a PCR test yesterday around 9.30am.

 

Shes already got her result notification (negative thankfully) at 5am this morning. 

 

Where's mine?! They were sent off together at the same time from the same test centre... 

[st albans fox]

28 minutes ago, Line-X said:

It's a really good question. Since transmission by fomites is thought to be rare, it comes down to if you’re breathing in aerosolised virus and it hasn't been established what the infectious dose is that gives a significant chance of being infected. An experiment to quantify this would involve deliberately exposing people and measuring the infection rate at different doses which would be unethical given the disease’s severity. Whatever the infectious dose may be, length of exposure will be an important determining factor. Each breath might not produce much virus but if you’re standing beside someone who’s infected, sharing the same airspace with them for 45 minutes, probability is that you’re going to inhale enough virus to cause infection. Scientists in the United States have shown in the laboratory that the virus can survive in an aerosol and remain infectious for at least 3 hours. Although the conditions in the study were highly artificial.

 

But like I say, capturing those small concentrations of aerosols that, given the right combination of airflow, humidity and temperature, might build to an infectious dose over time, is extremely challenging data to collect. 

it’s now eleven days since my youngest tested positive (with a very quick dark line on LFT)  and 8 since his older brother (with a less dark and slower showing line on LFT).  Both confirmed on PCR.

 

it’s inconceivable that I haven’t been very exposed to the virus over the period that they were both strongly infectious. The youngest was still just pos on LFT on day 6. Whilst we avoided the two of them being in the general run of the house by keeping them in their bedrooms, the youngest had to use the main bathroom and I spent too much time in his bedroom. Always with three ply mask on me. 
 

if I manage to avoid infection (daily LFT tests and one pcr say that’s the case up till this point) then that tells me that vaccination in combination with previous infection is likely a pretty robust protection.  Plenty of parents of the locally infected kids are going down with it despite all being double jabbed.  My question  is do we as a society need natural immunity/vaccine combo to move forward on this ?  Will vaccines on their own not allow us to break out of the Re infection cycle which will continue to restrict our ability to go back to a pre 2020  way of life??

 

 

[st albans fox]

Just now, StanSP said:

My mum has tested positive. 

My missus and I both did a PCR test yesterday around 9.30am.

 

Shes already got her result notification (negative thankfully) at 5am this morning. 

 

Where's mine?! They were sent off together at the same time from the same test centre... 

Careful with quick pcr tests. work out when your mum was likely to have been first infectious and in contact with you and try to avoid having the pcr within 48 hours of that point.  

the message that the govt has given out on this is woeful.  There is a general assumption that a neg pcr test means you won’t be positive. That’s just not true. If the pcr is too soon after your exposure to the virus then you are quite likely to still be negative.  everyone who thinks that they may have been exposed should continue to take LFTs until they feel enough time has passed. (I’d say 7 days).  Certainly if you have any cold symptoms then you should take another pcr.  And about those LFT tests - I don’t bother with the throat which is so uncomfortable  - just do your nose. The chamber at the back of your nose a little way up is just as relevant as getting higher up. Evidently that chamber is where the virus is as likely to be as higher up. I think a lot of people avoid tests because they don’t want to wretch - more poor communication from govt.  a test of your nose is way better than no test at all and some of the lft tests don’t ask you to swab your throat at all. 

 

I’m sure they will text you results soon Stan. I always thought that they rushed out the positive results ahead of the neg ones so that’s a good sign for you. 

[StanSP]

26 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Careful with quick pcr tests. work out when your mum was likely to have been first infectious and in contact with you and try to avoid having the pcr within 48 hours of that point.  

the message that the govt has given out on this is woeful.  There is a general assumption that a neg pcr test means you won’t be positive. That’s just not true. If the pcr is too soon after your exposure to the virus then you are quite likely to still be negative.  everyone who thinks that they may have been exposed should continue to take LFTs until they feel enough time has passed. (I’d say 7 days).  Certainly if you have any cold symptoms then you should take another pcr.  And about those LFT tests - I don’t bother with the throat which is so uncomfortable  - just do your nose. The chamber at the back of your nose a little way up is just as relevant as getting higher up. Evidently that chamber is where the virus is as likely to be as higher up. I think a lot of people avoid tests because they don’t want to wretch - more poor communication from govt.  a test of your nose is way better than no test at all and some of the lft tests don’t ask you to swab your throat at all. 

 

I’m sure they will text you results soon Stan. I always thought that they rushed out the positive results ahead of the neg ones so that’s a good sign for you. 

Yeah my missus is continuing to take LFTs anyway. We reckon mum was first infection either Monday or Tuesday. 

 

I do understand that negative now might not mean negative in a few days so will look out for symptoms.

 

🤞🏾 in any case!