Coronavirus

[STFC_Manc]

As the vaccines are wanning and were never 100% effective, a lot of the cases are within the vast majority of people who have been vaccinateed.  The vaccines are though keeping people out of hospital and worse though.

[Jimmy HaveHave]

As the vaccines are wanning and were never 100% effective, a lot of the cases are within the vast majority of people who have been vaccinateed.  The vaccines are though keeping people out of hospital and worse though.

Exactly that and me included. Many of the positive cases at work are all people in their 50's close to their booster dates so maybw six months in between was too long a gap.

[Jimmy HaveHave]

Austria makes vaccines mandatory as it goes into full lockdown

[RobertT]

As the vaccines are wanning and were never 100% effective, a lot of the cases are within the vast majority of people who have been vaccinateed.  The vaccines are though keeping people out of hospital and worse though.

Which is their job - they are not designed to prevent infection, they are designed to prevent infection taking hold of the body.  By doing so they reduce some positive cases simply because the viral load remains too low, but their main job is to prevent serious infections, which they do.

We now have the option to add a booster shot (probably going to be annual combined with flu in the years to come I imagine) and medications designed to do a similar job once infected.  It won't mean nobody ever dies of this, but it will bring the impact down considerably so that you manage your resources accordingly.  If a the healthcare system seems stretched, you start pushing advertising for the Boosters, just like they push hard on flu jabs when it's a bad season.

We had the opportunity to prevent infection and stop the thing from becoming endemic, we didn't take it.

[Jimmy HaveHave]

Good point so you make. I do wonderi if we will need a booser next summer as the vaccines seem to lose their strength within 5 months.

[RobertT]

Yes, the way they work, it is likely we will need annual top-ups for a few years.  There are plenty of Countries with small %'s of infection still.  This thing has the legs to keep rattling around for a few years still before eventually moving to seasonal (a possibility, not saying I know).

[Jimmy HaveHave]

I don't think even the experts really know it's a case of month by month and seeing what happens.

[theakston2k]

We had the opportunity to prevent infection and stop the thing from becoming endemic, we didn't take it.

Oh come on that opportunity never really existed, it had spread all over the world before China admitted it was even an issue. Every attempt at ‘zero covid’ has failed miserably even New Zealand & Australia are giving up on that approach. To stop it becoming endemic would have required the whole world to have an absolutely brutal lockdown for months at the very beginning which would have been impossible to implement in a practical sense.

[Batch]

agreed there theakston, though I'm not sure the dithering helped much

[Jimmy HaveHave]

We don't hear anything from Spain & Italy anymore are we to assume they both have the virus under control.

[horlock07]

Oh come on that opportunity never really existed, it had spread all over the world before China admitted it was even an issue. Every attempt at ‘zero covid’ has failed miserably even New Zealand & Australia are giving up on that approach. To stop it becoming endemic would have required the whole world to have an absolutely brutal lockdown for months at the very beginning which would have been impossible to implement in a practical sense.

Agree that it was spreading making containment difficult, but the Chinese were working with the WHO on it back end of December 2019 and we didn't have  confirmed case in the UK till 29th January so the government had at least nearly a month to try and get ducks in some sort of row!

[theakston2k]

We don't hear anything from Spain & Italy anymore are we to assume they both have the virus under control.

Not at all, both have significantly increased in the last couple of weeks. God knows what’s gone on in Germany, their daily case numbers are significantly above the U.K. now and have 16% positivity rate on tests which is mental when you compare it to our 4%. Germany have maintained masks and even dictated mask types so shows how little effect our ‘Plan B’ would have had here. Maybe our approach since July has been right all along….

[JoeMezz]

Maybe our approach since July has been right all along….

The main thing that's helping is that the majority of Europe double jabbed people with both jabs close together. We decided to build immunity between jabs by having longer between the two jabs. Now, their immunity is dropping, ours will drop after 5/6 months but that's where the boosters come in. They've been very effective at widening the gap in the risk of hospitalisation between those vaccinated and unvaccinated. 

[theakston2k]

The main thing that's helping is that the majority of Europe double jabbed people with both jabs close together. We decided to build immunity between jabs by having longer between the two jabs. Now, their immunity is dropping, ours will drop after 5/6 months but that's where the boosters come in. They've been very effective at widening the gap in the risk of hospitalisation between those vaccinated and unvaccinated. 

I also don’t think allowing a high but relatively stable number of cases over the last few months has been a bad thing. Hopefully it will prevent the spikes and will have built up the natural immunity.

[Jimmy HaveHave]

Not at all, both have significantly increased in the last couple of weeks. God knows what’s gone on in Germany, their daily case numbers are significantly above the U.K. now and have 16% positivity rate on tests which is mental when you compare it to our 4%. Germany have maintained masks and even dictated mask types so shows how little effect our ‘Plan B’ would have had here. Maybe our approach since July has been right all along….

That's pretty much most of Europe then