Covid19

[JT!]

10 hours ago, Ali C said:

In 40 years I’ll be happy to have made it to my 80s (well, late 70s)! 

But what about the 18 year old's who use it instead of the vaccine?

[Matt24.]

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/ema-advises-against-use-ivermectin-prevention-treatment-covid-19-outside-randomised-clinical-trials . Interesting to compare your perspective.

[AdamR28]

11 hours ago, Stephen Morris said:

I still stand by this.

Always interested to learn... can you share some info or know where it can be found? Thanks in advance!

[Al_Fel]

This shows examples of countries with a good vaccination program compared to those without.

[Ali C]

So that does look promising for the vaccine but I think there’s other info to add to the pot which can effect figures, I’m honestly not just saying this to be difficult btw! 
 

The virus mutation could be effecting how many people die from Covid. Usually a virus is deadliest when it first spreads to a new species but actually a virus really doesn’t want to kill its host as that means death for the virus too…this is where it starts to mutate and change into something that is usually less deadly. The delta strain could still be highly infectious (hence the second spike) but less deadly (hence the lower death rate). Do we know what strain Indonesia has? It looks like they didn’t have a huge first wave so it’s possible they haven’t had a mutation yet but I admit that’s just speculation on my part.

 

I still want to wait until things have settled before I fully make a decision.

[Al_Fel]

1 hour ago, Ali C said:

So that does look promising for the vaccine but I think there’s other info to add to the pot which can effect figures, I’m honestly not just saying this to be difficult btw! 
 

The virus mutation could be effecting how many people die from Covid. Usually a virus is deadliest when it first spreads to a new species but actually a virus really doesn’t want to kill its host as that means death for the virus too…this is where it starts to mutate and change into something that is usually less deadly. The delta strain could still be highly infectious (hence the second spike) but less deadly (hence the lower death rate). Do we know what strain Indonesia has? It looks like they didn’t have a huge first wave so it’s possible they haven’t had a mutation yet but I admit that’s just speculation on my part.

 

I still want to wait until things have settled before I fully make a decision.

Totally agree with you. Facts and figures are nothing without context. There's always the possibility that the virus has spread more than we know and nearly everyone has already had some version of it. That would mean that the first waves would wipe most of the "Weaker" people out.

I've had my first dose of the vaccine and I'll be getting the second dose. I'd rather not have had it at all but I'm not too worried about it.

[Topsy]

I too was taught that, technically, the normal course a virus takes is to become more infectious but less deadly. (during regular bio class, nothing specific)

However according to an, admittedly, quick google, Indonesia definitely has delta too.

 

Let's just hope viruses can't develop masochistic tendencies. 

 

[JT!]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/28/health/pfizer-third-dose-data-bn/index.html

Looks like a 3rd is on the menu.

[AdamR28]

More antibodies gives better viral protection, who knew 

My guess: 5th jab onwards will be payable, when the general population have been scared into thinking they'll die from whatever the latest variant is.

 

A good link about viruses in general, with explanations in layman's terms: https://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/viruswars/viruses.php#antibodiesstrikeback

[JT!]

32 minutes ago, Adam@TartyBikes said:

My guess: 5th jab onwards will be payable

Makes no sense to me. Having someone pay for a vaccine is just a deterrent, countries are desperately trying to convince people to get vaccinated now, I don't see how they'll ever not be free.

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

I can just see it being an annual thing like the flu vaccine, given to those most at risk, designed based on the most likely/dangerous variant expected (as with the flu).

[forteh]

Just out of curiosity...

The vaccines don't prevent you catching covid (whichever strain is currently most virulent) but does appear to blunt the impact of the virus so to say. So we are opening up to quarantine free travel for most places next week as long as you are double jabbed.

So you can still carry and transmit the virus just fine, it's not going to kill you personally so efficiently but you can still give it to all and sundry that you travel with?  So the infection rate will once again rocket us into lockdown 247™.

Seems a bit daft if you ask me?

Double AZ jabbed here by the way, not had covid.

[JT!]

1 hour ago, forteh said:

So you can still carry and transmit the virus just fine, it's not going to kill you personally so efficiently but you can still give it to all and sundry that you travel with?  So the infection rate will once again rocket us into lockdown 247™.

Yeah this is pretty much what happens when you declare a 'freedom day' and stick to that date regardless of anything else.

Although it seems that covid cases in the UK are rapidly declining right now, and no one is really sure why. It really just goes to show that no one really knows fully what's going on and what to expect.

[AdamR28]

My take on that...

Kids finished school for summer (approx 2 weeks ago).

Human factor: Nobody is going to get a test if they aren't told to (by school, for example) or they don't have symptoms (remember, nearly 40% of people are asymptomatic, even without the vaccine).

So: Number of tests being carried out dropping off since 2 weeks ago: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing

Therefore: Number of 'positive cases' drops, due to a combination of the above.

 

Other ponderings:

1) I still don't understand why a negative test doesn't over-ride a 'ping' from the NHS app. Unless the tests are not accurate enough to be relied upon... https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/accuracy-of-rapid-covid-test-may-be-lower-than-previously-suggested/

2) The UK is carrying out about 1m tests a day and reporting under 50k positive results (<5%). With a test inaccuracy of higher than 5%, how can any of this be trusted?

[Mark W]

On 29/07/2021 at 4:14 PM, Adam@TartyBikes said:

I still don't understand why a negative test doesn't over-ride a 'ping' from the NHS app. Unless the tests are not accurate enough to be relied upon...

The incubation period of the virus is estimated to be between 2 to 10 days* from being in contact with it. Extreme example, but if you got pinged by the app in the morning, then had a PCR in the afternoon and tested negative, you could still have the virus in your system. That's why they recommend having two PCR tests during self isolation - one at day 2 (if it's positive at that point, they would then contact trace people you'd been around) and one towards the end of the isolation period to double check if you do/don't have it.

It was frustrating as shit being in self isolation knowing in all likelihood we didn't have it, but because of that difference in incubation periods in different people it's just how it is. For most people it takes 2-5 days, so our second test could well have come back positive. Either way, we didn't know for sure so we had to wait it out. If everyone who was supposed to self isolate did, the virus would have died down way earlier. You can't spread a virus if you aren't around other people. 

 

 

*It was initially thought to be 14 days in the early days of the pandemic which is why self isolation used to be for 14 days, rather than 10.

[AdamR28]

Makes sense, thanks Mark!

In which case why not test at days 2 and 5, for example, and if both are negative you can crack on. 

 

Though if you can fool the PCR test with any acidic liquid, and they are now saying its barely better than 50% accurate, it all seems a bit pointless.

[JT!]

How does that app work? Just Bluetooth and then it connects with everyone else who you pass by, then when someone gets covid it just tells everyone who's been in range of that person? How many people actually use it?

[Mark W]

32 minutes ago, Adam@TartyBikes said:

In which case why not test at days 2 and 5, for example, and if both are negative you can crack on. 

Because the incubation period can be up to 10 days. "A negative test result means you probably didn't have COVID-19 at the time you took your test. However, it is possible to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 but not have enough virus in your body to be detected by the test. For example, this may happen if you recently became infected but you don’t have symptoms, yet." The WHO guidelines recommend a 14 days isolation period as there have been some cases where that period has been up to 14 days, but it seems governments are deciding that 10 is a more realistic/workable number.

I'm not sure where you're getting that 50% accuracy thing for PCRs? The link you posted before was some random rapid test rather than the PCR test itself (which was used to verify the results of the rapid test they were referring to in that article).

[Mark W]

37 minutes ago, JT! said:

How does that app work? Just Bluetooth and then it connects with everyone else who you pass by, then when someone gets covid it just tells everyone who's been in range of that person? How many people actually use it?

It's essentially along those lines, yeah.

I believe the app was more popular earlier in the pandemic, but now less so as so many people are being pinged as things reopen. There's been stories of employers (especially in hospitality) requesting their staff either uninstall it or disable it while they're at work to minimise the chances of them getting pinged and having to isolate. I downloaded it to see what it was like/how it worked, but uninstalled it afterwards as it seemed pretty shit, and also had quite a few people saying there were security concerns with it. I believe they may have been addressed now.

EDIT: It's interesting seeing on social media how "I'm not anti-vax, but..." is the new "I'm not racist, but..." with some of the things people are coming out with. The cognitive dissonance involved in saying that other people who are against vaccinations are anti-vax, but they themselves, despite being against vaccinations, aren't anti-vax is really something. The clue is in the name.

[Ali C]

I’m not anti-vax but…  

 

In related news, seen the anti vaccination passport protests in France? Seems people aren’t keen on the idea

[AdamR28]

28 minutes ago, Mark W said:

I'm not sure where you're getting that 50% accuracy thing for PCRs? The link you posted before was some random rapid test rather than the PCR test itself (which was used to verify the results of the rapid test they were referring to in that article).

I can't remember where exactly now, but here's another, older link I just found. The reported accuracy seems to be dropping with further studies, from what I've seen: https://www.cochrane.org/CD013705/INFECTN_how-accurate-are-rapid-tests-diagnosing-covid-19

 

"Using summary results for SD Biosensor STANDARD Q, if 1000 people with symptoms had the antigen test, and 50 (5%) of them really had COVID-19:

- 53 people would test positive for COVID-19. Of these, 9 people (17%) would not have COVID-19 (false positive result).

- 947 people would test negative for COVID-19. Of these, 6 people (0.6%) would actually have COVID-19 (false negative result).

In people with no symptoms of COVID-19 the number of confirmed cases is expected to be much lower than in people with symptoms. Using summary results for SD Biosensor STANDARD Q in a bigger population of 10,000 people with no symptoms, where 50 (0.5%) of them really had COVID-19:

- 125 people would test positive for COVID-19. Of these, 90 people (72%) would not have COVID-19 (false positive result).

- 9,875 people would test negative for COVID-19. Of these, 15 people (0.2%) would actually have COVID-19 (false negative result)."

 

Haven't personally done the maths on that badboy, but I can see how that averages out to approx half given the 72% false positives in one of the 'variations'.

 

In regards to the incubation period, I get the 10 or 14 day thing. My logical brain says that if the virus is present there has to be a way to detect it via a test (else our bodies wouldn't be able to detect it, rendering our immune systems useless, and therefore vaccines too), so why can't we do that to prevent or reduce isolation periods.

Is it that a virus is completely undetectable until it has incubated? Or is it that the current tests can't do that? And if they can't, why are we carrying out testing?

I clearly don't understand fully but this seems to indicate the virus is present at all stages.

https://www.eurogentec.com/en/inside-the-sars-cov-2-live-cycle

(Edit: I guess the study above makes a case for NOT testing after a ping, because the false positive rates being so high would lead to more people than necessary having to isolate)

[Mark W]

1 hour ago, Adam@TartyBikes said:

I can't remember where exactly now, but here's another, older link I just found. The reported accuracy seems to be dropping with further studies, from what I've seen: https://www.cochrane.org/CD013705/INFECTN_how-accurate-are-rapid-tests-diagnosing-covid-19

That isn't about PCR tests, that's about rapid tests. In the conclusion they mention that they were looking at them as possible alternatives to PCRs, or for when PCRs can't be done in a timely manner. The inaccuracy of rapid testing is why the self isolation stuff is typically based on results of PCR tests. PCR tests for viruses have been around for a long time and why they're described as the 'gold standard' for detection, it's the rapid tests like the lateral flow tests and so on that appear to be the less reliable ones in studies like the one you linked to. Those are only around because PCR testing takes longer to process due to the results being sent off to labs, and they wanted to try and find a quicker way to see if someone might have the virus or not.

Can't work out how to do quotey stuff again, but related to "Is it that a virus is completely undetectable until it has incubated? Or is it that the current tests can't do that? And if they can't, why are we carrying out testing?" 

There will be a lower limit of viral load for a test to pick it up, but that's inevitable purely because of the nature of any testing for any illness/disease I'd assume? Whatever the lower threshold is, it's low enough to catch people who are asymptomatic, so I'd assume from that that it can be a fairly minimal amount.

Just because there is that lower limit (whatever it may be), I don't really see why that means that we shouldn't do any testing at all? It became clear early in the pandemic that asymptomatic spreaders were driving infection rates, so even if it's people like that that are getting positive test results and finding that they need to isolate that still helps reduce spread. To look at it another way, breast cancer screening doesn't always work, so would you also advocate for not having any breast cancer screening?

1 hour ago, Ali C said:

In related news, seen the anti vaccination passport protests in France? Seems people aren’t keen on the idea

A lot of people aren't keen, some with fairly good reasons. As before, I'm not sold on the idea either.

[MadManMike]

3 hours ago, Mark W said:

EDIT: It's interesting seeing on social media how "I'm not anti-vax, but..." is the new "I'm not racist, but..." with some of the things people are coming out with. The cognitive dissonance involved in saying that other people who are against vaccinations are anti-vax, but they themselves, despite being against vaccinations, aren't anti-vax is really something. The clue is in the name.

Depends on the content of the post I guess, but I use "I'm not anti-vax, but..." sometimes and I think it's used fairly, as I have had tons of jabs in my life, I just have reservations about this one.

[Mark W]

Yeah, the main post I saw that was stuck in my head had that phrase tagged on to a thing about how "half the adult population is seriously ill from taking the vaccine" amongst other 'interesting' claims. Especially interesting because they're double vaccinated themselves, but now say that they regret making that decision because they didn't have all the "facts". In their case, we're definitely talking more Trump-esque "alternative facts".

[JT!]

Being anti-vax has extreme connotations linked to it. So I see why people say "I'm not anti-vax but...". I agree with them, they aren't anti-vax. But given the science, if you're not anti-vax, but not taking the covid vaccination (or would any variation of the covid vaccination), you're a hypocrite, not anti-vax.