SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

[CombatClaret]

As above that’s a very shortsighted way of looking at it. Unless the other nordics remain locked down they have far more susceptible people than Sweden. Which means they will have a resurgence when things are loosened. Theoretically Sweden won’t.

Back to "herd immunity" again.
It was predicted Stockholm would have antibody levels of around 40%, it's turned about to be 15%, leaving 85% susceptible.


At this point, whether herd immunity was the “goal” or a “byproduct” of the Swedish plan is semantics, because it simply hasn’t worked. In April, the Public Health Agency predicted that 40% of the Stockholm population would have the disease and acquire protective antibodies by May. According to the agency’s own antibody studies published Sept. 3 for samples collected up until late June, the actual figure for random testing of antibodies is only 11.4% for Stockholm, 6.3% for Gothenburg and 7.1% across Sweden. As of mid-August, herd immunity was still “nowhere in sight,” according to a Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine study. That shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, herd immunity to an infectious disease has never been achieved without a vaccine.

https://time.com/5899432/sweden-coronovirus-disaster/

[Lowbankclaret]

The stats are interesting but I cannot give you the source but am aware of a situation as posted by you Lowbank.
Wife/partner has CV19 then husband/partner has a 1 in 3 chance of contracting it
Family member in same household 1 in 5
45 minute car drive with someone who is infected-4 in 5.
Two situations I know of personally, colleague got Covid got better ,wife was fine three months later a colleague at her work gets Covid and she then goes down with it
Husband and wife (NHS) tested for antibodies in May-he is negative, she is positive but never been ill. In September she goes down with Covid
Posted before but too many unknown unknowns about this but years ago all by 3 children played with the other children in the street to get chicken pox done and dusted-two got the pox but the 3rd was fine until his 20's when he went down with it.
How. why?
Answers on no more than one side of A4

Yes, in days gone by it was a bit different. My mother sent me round to play with 3 different kids who had mumps, never caught it.

[CombatClaret]

Where is the evidence for this? One of the main planks of the lockdown argument is that if we hadn't locked down, there would have been vastly more deaths. Where is the evidence? We already had close to the worst death rate per head of population. The only reasonably reliable countries with substantially worse records are Peru and Belgium, and Peru at least had a stricter lockdown than we did. Why would our death rate, if we hadn't had such a lockdown, have been catastophically worse than either Sweden's or Brazil's? I'm not saying it wouldn't have been - I'm saying where is the evidence?

The pattern was broadly the same in all countries that didn't get a strict handle on it early on. Italy, France, Spain, Sweden, USA, Brazil, UK - all had the same shaped graph. I do not see evidence that things would have been vastly worse if we had had a more lenient set of rules.

Sweden is the perfect example of how lenient rules cause more far more deaths.
Sweden and the U.S. are unique in their failure to reduce coronavirus mortality rates as the pandemic progressed.

swed cases.jpg (125.5 KiB) Viewed 3704 times

What does that mean for deaths? It meant they kept killing people for longer while our lockdown was reducing deaths.
It's worth remembering to that people put restrictions on themselves even if governments didn't so a lot of Sweden was locked down even if officially they were not.

Here is the UK in Red under Sweden, not adjusted for population size. As you can see our lockdown started working while Sweden put fewer restrictions in (some mind you) and therefor kept deaths higher for longer, causing 5-10 times more deaths per 100k that the very similar and best comparable countries of Norway, Denmark, Finland etc.

swe-uk.jpg (61.01 KiB) Viewed 3704 times

[cricketfieldclarets]

Speaking to my mother by phone last night, she told me about the principal of the college where she is chair of governors.

He felt ill a couple of weeks ago, got tested, positive for Covid. Was ill enough he had to be in bed for 3 days but thankfully no worse. Obviously they self isolated, followed the rules etc. However the main point is his wife got no symptoms and was tested and was negative. So even living together in the same house does not mean you will get it.

Just like other viruses I suppose.

Just had an identical conversation at work. A girl on the team found out her boyfriend had it. She lives with him. Both work form home. Etc. Nothing for her.

One of my good friends same. Entire household negative. Only he was positive.

[cricketfieldclarets]

Back to "herd immunity" again.
It was predicted Stockholm would have antibody levels of around 40%, it's turned about to be 15%, leaving 85% susceptible.


At this point, whether herd immunity was the “goal” or a “byproduct” of the Swedish plan is semantics, because it simply hasn’t worked. In April, the Public Health Agency predicted that 40% of the Stockholm population would have the disease and acquire protective antibodies by May. According to the agency’s own antibody studies published Sept. 3 for samples collected up until late June, the actual figure for random testing of antibodies is only 11.4% for Stockholm, 6.3% for Gothenburg and 7.1% across Sweden. As of mid-August, herd immunity was still “nowhere in sight,” according to a Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine study. That shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, herd immunity to an infectious disease has never been achieved without a vaccine.

https://time.com/5899432/sweden-coronovirus-disaster/

I dont want to get in to an argument about it because neither of us know for sure.

I hope for obvious reasons that Sweden continues as is. Will it? who knows.

As many people have posted. There is far more to immunity than antibodies. I dont imagine I have chicken pox antibodies but i probably wont ever catch it again.

[cricketfieldclarets]

Sweden is the perfect example of how lenient rules cause more far more deaths.

If you look at it in the short term absolutely. Over time I am confident that wont be the case.

[mdd2]

Careful CFC you never know and what you don't want is shingles when you are older-please get the vaccine when offered it at 70 years whenever that maybe. Post herpetic neuralgia is dreadful and very difficult to treat and can last for years. It ruined my mother's latter years. Even if you have had CPox the vaccine at 70 reduces the risk of shingles

[bfcjg]

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-is-t ... ntibodies/
I dont think scientists are fully sure about antibodies,T cells and B cells in relation to Covid but as time goes on they find out more and will tailor drugs and treatments accordingly.

[CombatClaret]

If you look at it in the short term absolutely. Over time I am confident that wont be the case.

I could cut and paste this response into any thread about the economic damage of Brexit. Any time evidence shows us thing are going or have gone badly a handful of people tell us we just haven't waited long enough.

[UnderSeige]

Where is the evidence for this? One of the main planks of the lockdown argument is that if we hadn't locked down, there would have been vastly more deaths. Where is the evidence? We already had close to the worst death rate per head of population. The only reasonably reliable countries with substantially worse records are Peru and Belgium, and Peru at least had a stricter lockdown than we did. Why would our death rate, if we hadn't had such a lockdown, have been catastophically worse than either Sweden's or Brazil's? I'm not saying it wouldn't have been - I'm saying where is the evidence?

The pattern was broadly the same in all countries that didn't get a strict handle on it early on. Italy, France, Spain, Sweden, USA, Brazil, UK - all had the same shaped graph. I do not see evidence that things would have been vastly worse if we had had a more lenient set of rules.

I think that it's good that you are both debating about mortalities rather than cases. Mortalities are the true measure of a pandemic rather than cases. You can't have a pandemic of cases with few mortalities.

To add a bit of perspective the Spanish Flu is estimated to have killed around 228,000 people in the UK and 50 million worldwide. SARS-COV2 has so far killed around 45-60 thousand in the UK and around 1.2 million worldwide. This was a virus that had the ability to mutate to something completely different every year or was possibly even three different viruses. Hence three waves.
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/H ... %20alone.

The 7 day average for UK fatalities from COVID19 is exactly 200 per day (7 day moving average on 27/10/20) and is growing on a linear curve. It has taken 13 days to get from 100 to 200. Given that the curve is linear we are likely to get another 200 per day (6,000 per month) doubling every month unless the growth pattern changes.

If this pattern continues throughout the winter 'respiratory illness period' you would be looking at another 70,000 to 100,000 thousand mortalities. Double that of March April. If the curve goes exponential, we are in Spanish Flu territory. Does anyone expect any of this to happen?


The questions are:

• Will the pattern of growth change to become exponential? There are signs of a possibility of this in France and Belgium but not in the 'leader of the pack' - Spain.

• Will herd immunity kick in and put us on the downward slope of the 'Gompertz curve'? It took approximately one month for this to occur in the UK March/April with the aid of a lockdown. It has taken India round three months. It took Brazil three months to flatten the curve. Sweden took just over a month.

• Will a vaccine intervene and will it be good enough to reduce the number of mortalities? Fair chance of this starting in a few weeks time.

• Will government restrictions be enough to 'flatten the curve'?

• Once government restrictions are lifted, how many vulnerable people will there be left to spread the virus? Will vaccines and other advances is medicine be enough to reduce the pandemic to a fraction of a problem in the near future?

My view is that the the odds are stacked against the virus.

[cricketfieldclarets]

I could cut and paste this response into any thread about the economic damage of Brexit. Any time evidence shows us thing are going or have gone badly a handful of people tell us we just haven't waited long enough.

Let’s see in three to six months.

As I say I don’t know if I’m right. But I think and hope I am.

[UnderSeige]

UK hospital told to prepare for Oxford COVID vaccine in November.
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUKS8N2GJ05J

[Devils_Advocate]

Prof Devi Sridhar

"Humility. Community. Empathy. Focus. Vision. Hard work. Public interest. These seem to be the core components of countries doing better with health, economy & society"

[CombatClaret]

Sweden's lack of action caused Covid to become the number one cause of death in the country.
In the other Nordic countries it doesn't even make the top 10.

ElaruWdWMAUK2Wn.jpg (516.56 KiB) Viewed 3586 times

[CombatClaret]

We are at 200 deaths every day now. It will probably be 400/day by early November and 800/day by the end of the month. With every bone in my body I hope I'm wrong.

Cases become deaths and the cases have shot up, the people who will die in the next 4 weeks already have the virus today.
Whitty and Valance were accused of scaremongering when they said we will see 200 dead a day by mid November, we're a few weeks ahead of that prediction already.

[cricketfieldclarets]

Sweden's lack of action caused Covid to become the number one cause of death in the country.
In the other Nordic countries it doesn't even make the top 10.

ElaruWdWMAUK2Wn.jpg

We know this. Caused. Thats happened now. There is a bigger picture and longer term.

Stats can be used in anyway.

The reality is the stats show that next to nobody is now dying in Sweden. Which is good right?

[CombatClaret]

We know this. Caused. Thats happened now. There is a bigger picture and longer term.
Stats can be used in anyway.
The reality is the stats show that next to nobody is now dying in Sweden. Which is good right?

Next to nobody is dying in Sweden TODAY, because the infections were low in AUGUST/SEPTEMBER. Now look at where cases are today and you'll see in a months time deaths will be up again. It's really simple to understand surely?!

sweden.jpg (116.37 KiB) Viewed 3565 times

They killed more people the first time round and they've done nothing to stop infections rising again, they are not a success story, even they admit this.
Herd immunity is not achievable without a vaccine, there is T cell immunity but since we've no way to mass test for it we have to assume anyone could be vulnerable.
Sweden is just a maypole for libertarians to dance around despite it being a poster child for how to to handle a pandemic.

[UnderSeige]

Next to nobody is dying in Sweden TODAY, because the infections were low in AUGUST/SEPTEMBER. Now look at where cases are today and you'll see in a months time deaths will be up again. It's really simple to understand surely?!


sweden.jpg

They killed more people the first time round and they've done nothing to stop infections rising again, they are not a success story, even they admit this.
Herd immunity is not achievable without a vaccine, there is T cell immunity but since we've no way to mass test for it we have to assume anyone could be vulnerable.
Sweden is just a maypole for libertarians to dance around despite it being a poster child for how to to handle a pandemic.

Sweden is the most left wing socialist state in the European Union and is now the darling of people mainly on the right who would like restrictions lifted and liberty restored. It's baffling.

[UnderSeige]

Good News. It looks like things are starting to move with the vaccine.

NHS staff ‘set to get Covid vaccine in WEEKS as Government prepares mass roll-out before Christmas’
NHS staff are set to get a coronavirus vaccine within weeks as the Government prepares a mass roll-out before Christmas, according to reports.

Glen Burley, chief executive of George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust in Warwickshire, told staff that a “coronavirus vaccine should be available this year”, according to the Mail on Sunday.

He added that NHS staff are set to be “prioritised prior to Christmas”.

In his memo, he wrote: “Our Trust, alongside NHS organisations nationally, has been told to be prepared to start a Covid-19 staff vaccine programme in early December.

“The latest intelligence states a coronavirus vaccine should be available this year with NHS staff prioritised prior to Christmas.

“The vaccine is expected to be given in two doses, 28 days apart.”

If the vaccine programme starts in December, it could pave the way for Boris Johnson to relax tough social restrictions enforced since March.

The paper also reports that the Government has introduced new laws which would allow Britain to bypass the EU approval process if a safe vaccine is ready before the post-Brexit transition period ends on December 31.

A senior Government source said: “We have made sure that if a vaccine is proven safe and effective we won't be held back from deploying it by the need for approval from Brussels.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/uknews/13 ... -in-weeks/

[UnderSeige]

More Good news from the Sun

Game-changing £5 Covid saliva test which gives result in 15 minutes could be ready by Christmas
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13009633/ ... s-15-mins/

[UnderSeige]

Travel Between New York and London Could Resume as Early as November

With the help of COVID testing, Heathrow hopes that flights to and from New York would be up and running by Thanksgiving.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
flipboard
London’s Heathrow Airport is hoping that on-site passenger COVID-19 testing will facilitate an opening of passenger travel between London and New York as early as November.

“I would love to have a New York–London pilot up and running by Thanksgiving. That seems entirely feasible,” Heathrow’s CEO John Holland-Kaye told U.K.-based industry publication Travel Weekly during a webcast on September 27.

On October 20, Heathrow officially launched rapid-result COVID-19 testing facilities in its T2 and T5 terminals following testing trials that started back in August. The facilities are initially being made available to passengers traveling to Hong Kong, where proof of a negative COVID-19 test prior to flight departure is required. The tests being offered are rapid-result Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) and Antigen tests.

The tests cost £80 (US$105) per passenger, and the results are available within one hour.

The airport is analyzing the testing process and sharing its findings with British government officials. The hope is that the testing could ultimately provide a safe alternative to the 14-day quarantine requirement currently in place for travelers arriving in the United Kingdom from numerous countries and territories, including from the United States.

[UnderSeige]

Oxford coronavirus vaccine seems to produce an immune response in people over 55

The University of Oxford coronavirus vaccine candidate has been found to produce an immune response in people over the age of 55. The results are encouraging because older people are at an increased risk of becoming severely ill and dying from covid-19, partly because the immune system weakens with age. The finding, which has not yet been published, builds on results from July which found that the vaccine also produces an immune response in younger adults, aged between 18 and 55.

Yesterday, US health adviser Anthony Fauci said it should be known by the end of November or early December if a coronavirus vaccine candidate was safe and effective. Fauci, speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, added: “The question is, once you have a safe and effective vaccine, or more than one, how can you get it to the people who need it as quickly as possible?”
https://www.newscientist.com/article/22 ... es-60000/

[UnderSeige]

UK scientists developing coronavirus breath test ‘with one minute diagnosis time'
A non-invasive Covid-19 breath test that delivers results “within one minute” is being developed by UK scientists.

The technology, which is being worked on as part of a project known as TOXI-Triage, uses “breath signatures” to “rapidly distinguish Covid-19 from other respiratory conditions”.

The researchers said their findings, published in The Lancet’s EclinicalMedicine journal, could dramatically improve the experience of taking a coronavirus test as well as “play a part in restarting the economy”.

“If shown to be reliable, it offers the possibility for rapid identification or exclusion of Covid-19 in emergency departments or primary care that will protect healthcare staff, improve the management of patients and reduce the spread of Covid-19.”

[cricketfieldclarets]

Next to nobody is dying in Sweden TODAY, because the infections were low in AUGUST/SEPTEMBER. Now look at where cases are today and you'll see in a months time deaths will be up again. It's really simple to understand surely?!


sweden.jpg

They killed more people the first time round and they've done nothing to stop infections rising again, they are not a success story, even they admit this.
Herd immunity is not achievable without a vaccine, there is T cell immunity but since we've no way to mass test for it we have to assume anyone could be vulnerable.
Sweden is just a maypole for libertarians to dance around despite it being a poster child for how to to handle a pandemic.

As I say lets see. Hopefuly I am right.

[cricketfieldclarets]

More Good news from the Sun

Game-changing £5 Covid saliva test which gives result in 15 minutes could be ready by Christmas
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13009633/ ... s-15-mins/

this is as important as cures and vaccines imo

[PeterWilton]

More Good news from the Sun

Game-changing £5 Covid saliva test which gives result in 15 minutes could be ready by Christmas
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13009633/ ... s-15-mins/

This would be extremely good news if true. So I'm left wondering why not a single source for this piece of great news was willing to be named.

[ksrclaret]

Back to "herd immunity" again.
It was predicted Stockholm would have antibody levels of around 40%, it's turned about to be 15%, leaving 85% susceptible.

How many times!? Immunity does not begin and end with the concentration of monoclonal antibodies in your blood plasma. T cells and B cells play a pretty huge role, too.

People are not walking around with thousands of antibodies specific to every single pathogen they've ever encountered. Instead, there a few memory B cells and memory T cells that circulate in the blood, sometimes for up to 30 years after the initial infection. When a pathogen is encountered for a second time, memory B cells and memory T cells are activated straight away. The memory B cells divide into plasma B cells, producing the antibody specific to the pathogen on a huge scale. The memory T cells are also activated if the pathogen is viral, as these destroy infected body cells, denying the virus the opportunity to use the host cell to replicate.

This is stuff my first year A Level students know inside out, and it baffles me as to why this information is largely ignored by some of the scientists. Some of the other scientists have been on this from the start, but these are the ones not connected to any government body. Totally bizarre.

[keith1879]

The 7 day average for UK fatalities from COVID19 is exactly 200 per day (7 day moving average on 27/10/20) and is growing on a linear curve. It has taken 13 days to get from 100 to 200. Given that the curve is linear we are likely to get another 200 per day (6,000 per month) doubling every month unless the growth pattern changes.

If this pattern continues throughout the winter 'respiratory illness period' you would be looking at another 70,000 to 100,000 thousand mortalities. Double that of March April. If the curve goes exponential, we are in Spanish Flu territory. Does anyone expect any of this to happen?

I may be misunderstanding your wording.....but fatalities are doubling roughly every 12 days. That is exponential growth (not linear). So 400 per day by 8 November, 800 per day by 20 November, 1600 per day by early December. Now I see no reason to doubt that figure if no action were being taken ....and your figures of 70,000 to 100,000 mortalities could be realistic.

We are taking action (I worry that it isn't enough and has been too late) and there is some evidence in the case figures to suggest an improvement. Confirmed cases were doubling every 12 days up to October 12th but since then the doubling time has extended steadily to 22days (on todays figures). If the doubling time for deaths behaves in the same way with an approximate 16 day time lag then we we might be looking at "only" 8000 deaths per month or thereabouts in November.

It will be very interesting to see how the Welsh circuit break affects their figures.

Another point of interest (and I'm not sure how significant this is) is that since the 7th of September (when just over 1% of tests were positive) until now the percentage of positive tests (using 7dma figures) has risen steadily to over 7% with only a very few hiccups.

Unless we actually start to reduce the number of cases (not just the accelaration in numbers) then we will see a very large number of deaths.

It would have been worse under Corbyn.

[CombatClaret]

How many times!? Immunity does not begin and end with the concentration of monoclonal antibodies in your blood plasma. T cells and B cells play a pretty huge role, too.

People are not walking around with thousands of antibodies specific to every single pathogen they've ever encountered. Instead, there a few memory B cells and memory T cells that circulate in the blood, sometimes for up to 30 years after the initial infection. When a pathogen is encountered for a second time, memory B cells and memory T cells are activated straight away. The memory B cells divide into plasma B cells, producing the antibody specific to the pathogen on a huge scale. The memory T cells are also activated if the pathogen is viral, as these destroy infected body cells, denying the virus the opportunity to use the host cell to replicate.

This is stuff my first year A Level students know inside out, and it baffles me as to why this information is largely ignored by some of the scientists. Some of the other scientists have been on this from the start, but these are the ones not connected to any government body. Totally bizarre.

I understand this, now let me ask you the practical question for which I use the term 'herd immunity' as a blanket catch all for anti bodies or T cells. How do we know who has T cell immunity?

Because until you can tell me exactly who has t cell immunity, which would require a quick and easy test (because we all know how easy testing is) then it's almost useless in our day to day lives. It would be great to know what percentage of the population is immune, but we don't, so just because they are out there in totally unknown numbers it can't and won't change how we fight the virus.

Think of the virus as someone shooting bullets at people, you're saying 'it's ok some people are wearing bullet proof vests'. But you can tell me who they are or how many, even the wearers don't know. It's a relief knowing some people will be saved but it shouldn't change how we approach stopping the shooter.

[ksrclaret]

I understand this, now let me ask you the practical question for which I use the term 'herd immunity' as a blanket catch all for anti bodies or T cells. How do we know who has T cell immunity?

Because until you can tell me exactly who has t cell immunity, which would require a quick and easy test (because we all know how easy testing is) then it's almost useless in our day to day lives. Even if you could tell me a certain percent of the population has t-cell immunity that helps in the abstract but not on the ground. T cell immunity excellent, we know it's out there and is doing good things. But until we have more information it can't and shouldn't change how we fight the virus.

You said only 15% in Stockholm had detectable antibodies, leaving 85% susceptible. If you were considering T cells when using the term herd immunity, how did you come up with 85% as still susceptible? That doesn't make any sense unless you were only considering antibodies, which I strongly suspect you were.

There is a test to detect the presence of specific T cells, but this test is supposed to be very cumbersome and quite slow. Testing is being done, the literature is out there and growing, but testing for the presence of a bit of protein (antibodies) is much easier than testing for a specific cell amongst millions of other cells in a blood sample.

I wasn't suggesting it should change how we fight the virus, although we do need to stop acting as if it's the only thing that kills people. I was expressing my dismay for the way in which scientists talk as you did, only in terms of the number of detectable antibodies.

[CombatClaret]

You said only 15% in Stockholm had detectable antibodies, leaving 85% susceptible. If you were considering T cells when using the term herd immunity, how did you come up with 85% as still susceptible? That doesn't make any sense unless you were only considering antibodies, which I strongly suspect you were.

There is a test to detect the presence of specific T cells, but this test is supposed to be very cumbersome and quite slow. Testing is being done, the literature is out there and growing, but testing for the presence of a bit of protein (antibodies) is much easier than testing for a specific cell amongst millions of other cells in a blood sample.

I wasn't suggesting it should change how we fight the virus, although we do need to stop acting as if it's the only thing that kills people. I was expressing my dismay for the way in which scientists talk as you did, only in terms of the number of detectable antibodies.

I've read even on here people use t-cells as a 'get out of jail free' card or an argument as to why we should not use lockdowns or put in place other kinds of measures. Without admitting that without knowing even what percentage of the pop has them, let alone who exactly, their existence is no use in how we can practically fight the virus today.

The safest way, until we can test people reliably and in large numbers, is to assume no one has them? Because if we do the opposite more people will needlessly die.

Once again it's firing into the crowd with a machine gun and telling us "Don't worry an unknown number of people are wearing bullet proof vests". That information is useless when it comes to stopping the shooter.

[ksrclaret]

Surely the safest way, until we can test people reliably and in large numbers, is to assume no one has them? Because if we do the opposite more people will needlessly die.

Well we know people have them. We also know that there is some degree of cross-reactivity between T cells specific to other coronavirus variants, and this coronavirus. So no need to assume nobody has them, as we can prove some people do. You're right though, we really could do with testing for this on a large scale if possible.

But this knowledge is not going to be used to say "right everyone, we know some of you have immunity, so off you all go and just pray you're a lucky one". Nobody is suggesting that. But when we see data from Sweden, we can use that knowledge to hypothesise what will happen as more people become exposed to the virus here and develop immunity. From that, we put forward coherent arguments against national lockdowns, which are not magic bullets to prevent people from dying. Far from it, actually.

[dsr]

I've read even on here people use t-cells as a 'get out of jail free' card or an argument as to why we should not use lockdowns or put in place other kinds of measures. Without admitting that without knowing even what percentage of the pop has them, let alone who exactly, their existence is no use in how we can practically fight the virus today.

The safest way, until we can test people reliably and in large numbers, is to assume no one has them? Because if we do the opposite more people will needlessly die.

Once again it's firing into the crowd with a machine gun and telling us "Don't worry an unknown number of people are wearing bullet proof vests". That information is useless when it comes to stopping the shooter.

The information isn't useless. If you know the machine gunner is going to kill 100,000 you can drop a bomb on him and risk the collateral damage. If he's going to kill 50 you have to be more selective about how you take him out.

If people are locked in their homes when there is no good reason for it, they will needlessly die. I can't share your obsession with the idea that dying of coronavirus is such a bad thing that other deaths don't matter. Other deaths do matter, and lockdown is killing people.

Lockdown has a positive side in that it reduces coronavirus deaths, possibly by a very small number, possibly by a very big number. Lockdown has a negative side in that it increases coronavirus deaths, and again we don't know the numbers.

The better the information we have, the better we can decide about lockdown and other dramatic remedies. But there is no credit in saving a life if we are taking someone else's life to do it.

[AndrewJB]

What I am finding increasing frustrating is the distrust the public have in the NHS. Doctors and Nurses are being accused of lying and scaremongering by simply stating the numbers of people in ICU. Nurses and Doctors have no axe to grind and would much rather not be dealing with this virus. 940 healthcare workers have died of this virus, many of those work in hospital, some in my hospital.

Well said Inchy-it is as if we created this disease; the anger and hostility shown at times when we ask folk to wear a mask properly, gel hands and more recently "anyone found stealing hand gel off the ward will be discharged" beggars belief.

I think this kind of thing is a major problem:
https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2020/1 ... t.html?m=1

These people advocating “just let it rip” have got louder and louder with every passing month, and as you can see from the blog, are undeterred by evidence. This is a mixed message the government should be vigorously countering.

[FactualFrank]

I think this kind of thing is a major problem:
https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2020/1 ... t.html?m=1

These people advocating “just let it rip” have got louder and louder with every passing month, and as you can see from the blog, are undeterred by evidence. This is a mixed message the government should be vigorously countering.

These people need locking up until a vaccine is out.

[UnderSeige]

I may be misunderstanding your wording.....but fatalities are doubling roughly every 12 days. That is exponential growth (not linear). So 400 per day by 8 November, 800 per day by 20 November, 1600 per day by early December. Now I see no reason to doubt that figure if no action were being taken ....and your figures of 70,000 to 100,000 mortalities could be realistic.

We are taking action (I worry that it isn't enough and has been too late) and there is some evidence in the case figures to suggest an improvement. Confirmed cases were doubling every 12 days up to October 12th but since then the doubling time has extended steadily to 22days (on todays figures). If the doubling time for deaths behaves in the same way with an approximate 16 day time lag then we we might be looking at "only" 8000 deaths per month or thereabouts in November.

It will be very interesting to see how the Welsh circuit break affects their figures.

Another point of interest (and I'm not sure how significant this is) is that since the 7th of September (when just over 1% of tests were positive) until now the percentage of positive tests (using 7dma figures) has risen steadily to over 7% with only a very few hiccups.

Unless we actually start to reduce the number of cases (not just the accelaration in numbers) then we will see a very large number of deaths.

It would have been worse under Corbyn.

Hi Keith
It was a bit garbled.

The point that I was trying to make is that if we judge the path of the virus from the last week (e.g. fatalities doubling every 12 days) and project this into the 'future number of fatalities', we end up with an absurdly high figure. A figure that is extremely unlikely to happen. The reason for this is that the virus is going to run into a number of things that will stop it in the near future.

Dr John Campbell gave an excellent summary of the current path of the virus in a short LBC interview yesterday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSzq39X ... Qg&index=1

Highlights

• Cases going up but there is a need to compare with March when cases were increasing by 100k to 200k per day.

• He thinks the government strategy is working.

• From 20th to 27th October the cases have gone up by 7.3%. From the 9th to 16th October cases increased by 14%. In late Sept cases were doubling every 7 days. So the 'level of increase' is going down.

• Increases have been halving every week.

• The rate of increase will likely continue to decline until a point at which the numbers start to decline.

• He reckons it will take about a month to get to the point at which there is no increase in cases at all. Once the increase is stopped the R value will be less than 1 and the figures will start to go down.

• Peak mortalities should also be reached in about 4 weeks time.

I like his reasoning but I also like to follow the Spanish data. We seem to be about 6-8 weeks behind Spain and have been since July.

[UnderSeige]

I understand this, now let me ask you the practical question for which I use the term 'herd immunity' as a blanket catch all for anti bodies or T cells. How do we know who has T cell immunity?

Because until you can tell me exactly who has t cell immunity, which would require a quick and easy test (because we all know how easy testing is) then it's almost useless in our day to day lives. It would be great to know what percentage of the population is immune, but we don't, so just because they are out there in totally unknown numbers it can't and won't change how we fight the virus.

Think of the virus as someone shooting bullets at people, you're saying 'it's ok some people are wearing bullet proof vests'. But you can tell me who they are or how many, even the wearers don't know. It's a relief knowing some people will be saved but it shouldn't change how we approach stopping the shooter.

The only way you can tell if someone has T-Cell immunity is by taking a blood sample and exposing it to the virus.

There have been five major studies doing this type of work on samples of the population. These have all been published in the very top peer reviewed medical journals. They have also taken samples of blood from several years ago and found that T-cells relating to SARS, MERS and the four common cold coronaviruses have T-cells that attack the SARS-COV2 virus.

The bottom line is that around 30% of the popoulation were immune to SARS-COV2 before the pandemic started.

Multiple research groups across Europe and the US have shown that no less than 20% and no more than 80% (clustering around 30%) of the population had robust responses of T-cells in their blood to SARS-CoV-2 BEFORE the virus reached their countries.

More recently still, a fantastic piece of research in one of the top two leading research journals, Science, was published that explains how so many people had prior immunity to SARS-CoV-2, even though their immune systems had never seen that particular, novel virus (Mateus et al, 2020). At its heart, this latest piece of work used a series of pieces of common cold coronaviruses to see if they would activate those T-cells. They did. And the pieces that were best at doing this are the very same pieces of shared structure that each of them has in common with SARS-CoV-2.

I like to explain it by saying: “No, those people had never met SARS-CoV-2 before, but they had tangled with several of its cousins, and prevailed.” Their immune systems will never forget those encounters. This, again, is how it works. There isn’t any substantial doubt about this. DR Mike Yeadon

Dr Mike Yeadon has a degree in biochemistry and toxicology, a research-based PhD in respiratory pharmacology, has spent over 30 years leading new medicines research in the pharmaceuticals industry, and founded his own biotech company which he sold to the world’s biggest drug company Novartis in 2017.

[mdd2]

The number of admissions to Manchester hospitals is already stretching beds and staff. Mainstream ITU's are full or near full with cases needing ITU moving between hospitals and some Trusts now have 5 and 6 wards full of Covid cases. The NHS will not be able to carry on doing its usual work and deal with this upsurge in Covid cases. What we are experiencing in the NW will spread south unless the public heed the warnings and sadly, good as the news is about fewer deaths, better treatments and a vaccine soon, all this is likely to compound the bad behaviour that has got us to this point in the first place.

[UnderSeige]

The number of admissions to Manchester hospitals is already stretching beds and staff. Mainstream ITU's are full or near full with cases needing ITU moving between hospitals and some Trusts now have 5 and 6 wards full of Covid cases. The NHS will not be able to carry on doing its usual work and deal with this upsurge in Covid cases. What we are experiencing in the NW will spread south unless the public heed the warnings and sadly, good as the news is about fewer deaths, better treatments and a vaccine soon, all this is likely to compound the bad behaviour that has got us to this point in the first place.

I don't think that good news about the brilliant efforts that science is making to end the virus is causing bad behaviour or even causing people to drop their guard. The people who are respectful of the virus are likely to still be so and will probably be cautious long after the pandemic is over.

Are the misbehaviours those who don't bother social distancing or wearing a mask in public and the protestors, pub and party goers- that type of person? If so I don't think that they give 'two hoots' about any news concerning the pandemic.

I think the constant drip of panic and fear from some parts of the TV and media is unnecessarily worrying many people. Particularly those who live alone and the elderly who have had few visits from their relatives over the past year. News coverage and even our posts need to be balanced. There is a lot of good news and we should be encouraged by it.

[mdd2]

Too many people are disbelievers and only wake up and smell the coffee (not when they have Covid) when they or a relative/friend goes down with it and there will be about 3 types of people 1) those that stick to the advice 90%+ of the time 2) those that do not bother at all 3) a half way house who stick to the advice some of the time and it this latter group who may drop their guard on hearing of potential break throughs with this; but for now we do need to keep messaging what needs to be done because the way we should be conducting ourselves is not normal and not how we have behaved for all the time we have been on this earth. it is too easy to slip back to normal behaviour which is part of the reason why we are where we are. I groaned when I heard that Man U want spectators back as they can accommodate 23000 in O/T safely-not sure how they manage them to and from the ground. All the good news needs to end, "but for now we need to 1SD 2hand wash 3 wear masks etc" in my opinion.

[Devils_Advocate]

I don't think that good news about the brilliant efforts that science is making to end the virus is causing bad behaviour or even causing people to drop their guard. The people who are respectful of the virus are likely to still be so and will probably be cautious long after the pandemic is over.

Are the misbehaviours those who don't bother social distancing or wearing a mask in public and the protestors, pub and party goers- that type of person? If so I don't think that they give 'two hoots' about any news concerning the pandemic.

[UnderSeige]

The World Health Organisation has given their blessing to three Chinese stage 3 vaccine projects in an 'Emergency Use Programme'. "Hundreds of thousands essential workers and other limited groups of people considered at high risk of infection have been given the vaccine. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 324892.cms

No reports of any problems yet and vaccinations started in June.

[cricketfieldclarets]

Well we know people have them. We also know that there is some degree of cross-reactivity between T cells specific to other coronavirus variants, and this coronavirus. So no need to assume nobody has them, as we can prove some people do. You're right though, we really could do with testing for this on a large scale if possible.

But this knowledge is not going to be used to say "right everyone, we know some of you have immunity, so off you all go and just pray you're a lucky one". Nobody is suggesting that. But when we see data from Sweden, we can use that knowledge to hypothesise what will happen as more people become exposed to the virus here and develop immunity. From that, we put forward coherent arguments against national lockdowns, which are not magic bullets to prevent people from dying. Far from it, actually.

Worded perfectly

[UnderSeige]

Too many people are disbelievers and only wake up and smell the coffee (not when they have Covid) when they or a relative/friend goes down with it and there will be about 3 types of people 1) those that stick to the advice 90%+ of the time 2) those that do not bother at all 3) a half way house who stick to the advice some of the time and it this latter group who may drop their guard on hearing of potential break throughs with this; but for now we do need to keep messaging what needs to be done because the way we should be conducting ourselves is not normal and not how we have behaved for all the time we have been on this earth. it is too easy to slip back to normal behaviour which is part of the reason why we are where we are. I groaned when I heard that Man U want spectators back as they can accommodate 23000 in O/T safely-not sure how they manage them to and from the ground. All the good news needs to end, "but for now we need to 1SD 2hand wash 3 wear masks etc" in my opinion.

Should good news about coronavirus be banned?

[cricketfieldclarets]

The better the information we have, the better we can decide about lockdown and other dramatic remedies. But there is no credit in saving a life if we are taking someone else's life to do it.

And excess deaths and increases of other problems highlight exactly that.

[cricketfieldclarets]

Should good news about coronavirus be banned?

I read both sides from yourself and MDD2 with interest. And respect both opinions no matter how different they are. But I thought that was surely a joke. Seemingly not!?

[Lowbankclaret]

Well I know I for one would be raising my rifle against the oppression.
Not sure this is the same.

[UnderSeige]

I read both sides from yourself and MDD2 with interest. And respect both opinions no matter how different they are. But I thought that was surely a joke. Seemingly not!?

Said with smile on face. Couldn't resist.

[ksrclaret]

Christ Almighty, if good news was to be banned and another lockdown imposed as the Covid Revellers want, I think deaths from mental health would far outstrip any coronavirus deaths.

We've totally lost the plot over this.

[mdd2]

Should good news about coronavirus be banned?

No but quoting that a vaccine may be available by Xmas might be tempered by it may not be available as we just do not know.
That some of us have T cells that seem to attack the virus in vitro is not necessarily good news-it is just news, whether it translates into good news because in follow up studies it has been shown that the infection rate in those with a T call response is x-y% but x% in those without evidence of a T cell response and that otherwise the two groups were comparable we will not know as the studies have not been done.
We all want to hear that 1) a new treatment is very effective and results in death rates of <0.1% 2) a vaccine will be out in 6 weeks which is 95% effective so that we can get back to living and paying off the debt accrued from this devastating infection, but so of the headlines about the "good" news can de as damaging as some of the headlines about "bad" news.
None of the above should be read as criticism of your posts but I do, as you know, feel you have been on the optimistic side (glass half full) and you will consider me as glass half empty.
There are a few thousand more people going to die from this in the next 3-6 months, we need to try and keep the numbers catching this as low as possible to save lives from Covid but also from other medical conditions which are again going to be put on the back burner because of necessity. So I am one for painting a cautious picture rather than an optimistic one, of this very nasty disease, outcomes from which have improved but there remains a significant mortality and morbidity.