Pfizer’s barely a year old, how can they extrapolate a longer period of protection with any confidence?
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The title of the paper is SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines induce persistent human germinal centre responses, so this is a framing of the lay media rather than the scientists. This key finding of the paper is something that is more consistent with vaccines that have long lasting effects and so that was speculated as a possible consequence. The paper was not published as a confident claim of long lasting immunity though.
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got my Moderna at 5pm yesterday in the midst of a disgusting heatwave. really not all that enjoyable experience for the past 12hrs. but it’s the second shot, first was AZ. feels like Covid did. gross to mix with the hottest day of the year at 42’C
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What are the expert’s opinions about how things are going to unfold in the UK over the next month? That 7 day case average has got a full head of steam now. I look at that and it gets me worried because there are no circuit breaking lockdowns planned that will stem the tide like in January.
All the evidence is that the vaccines do a tremendous job at reducing hospitalisations. But where’s the ceiling if we are easing all restrictions in three weeks? I will surely expect us to shoot well past the 60k/day 7-day average of early January.
How well are the vaccines going to protect us all if there are 100k Delta cases per day, 150k/day, 250k per day and the sheer weight of numbers makes the small % of vaccine breakthrough significant?
Was looking at the data earlier, and while infections are on the rise, deaths are still very low, which suggests that the vaccinations are working.
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These are this weeks figures from The Netherlands:
Projected jabs 1.458.714
Achieved jabs 1.467.823
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Cases are also comparatively high because of the sheer volume of testing we’re doing compared with elsewhere. We’re picking up a lot of asymptomatic positive cases this way that are likely being missed in other countries.
So these give the impression that the situation is worse than it truly is. Also, with such high numbers vaccinated any positive case is likely to be degrees less severe among the vaccinated population than it would be otherwise, again helping to break the link between case numbers of infections, and hospitalisations and deaths.
Hence case numbers have now been in the 20,000/day region for a while but hospitalisations are at 200/day. That’s the same rate we had at the end of March when there were less than 5,000 cases per day. At the same time there were 3x the number of deaths during that period.
Vaccines are making a profound difference such that what would previously be considered a worryingly high number of infections is no longer so scary. The more people are vaccinated the greater this disconnect will become.
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Government here has released more slots to accelerate full vaccinations, so instead of my 2nd does Pfizer 6 weeks after my first, I managed to change it to 4 weeks and will take it this Friday.
On countries like UK who has a high level of vaccination, I think the logical move will be to move away from daily numbers but focusing on managing the clinical conditions of the infected. Based on whatever is known, when it becomes endemic like our common flu, then there will be no need to report daily numbers but managing the infected based on their level of sickness.
However, this is also dependent on the overall society’s cooperation towards ensuring that before we move into fully endemic protocols, people need to continue the mask wearing when they are not feeling well etc. The worst thing that can happen is that if we treat Covid-19 like the common flu too fast too soon, and start moving around without taking hygiene protocols, then the chances of infecting those unvaccinated is still going to weigh heavily on the systems. As much as majority will be vaccinated, there will still be millions who for reasons, valid or not, will not be for now, even domestically. So while the governments around the world grapple to work out what it means for Covid19 to be endemic, we do have to do our part. Vaccination for the majority is the best way forward but if we do not move as a society in one direction, then any plans put together will fall apart.
numbers are falling as we are in a heat wave. 24 cases in our province of 5mil people.
Saw this graphic about the UK but not sure how accurate it is:
I think if true, this shows spikes in the last 90 days happening mostly in the younger age groups, who would happen to be the age groups most likely to be out and thereabouts in public, mixing around with each other without masks or social distancing etc. Is it also true that I heard somewhere, that these age groups are also the least vaccinated in the UK?
Again, I think the key thing is to vaccinate everyone who is eligible as quickly as possible but at the same time, people need to be patient and stop opening up to “normal” activities too fast too soon, or else if they government is forced to extend restrictive measures, they would not be the only one liable (I also think the government, not just UK, needs to enforce their restrictions strictly or else,…whats the point.)
I didn’t wait for an appointment for the 2nd jab to come through. I went through the NHS web site, was aable to book a slot and got an appointment - so got lucky I guess.
One thing I will mention, is that though the messaging to to get vacced earlier, the individual who went through the questions with me at the centre, was surprised I was actually able to get an appointment.
Sorry, cannot help and like you I’d not risk losing the actual booking by cancelling.
Were these people allowed into the games because they are already vaccinated? Is that a criteria for these mass events? If not, I would be alarmed that such mass events would allow mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated ones. Again, I must say, such normalcy is the end result we want, but doing this too fast…
As far as I have seen, there were no vaccination requirements to get a ticket or attend, but risk was managed by maintaining the stadium at only 1/4 capacity, preventing footballing tourism by requiring all visitors to the UK to quarantine for 10 days after arrival. Of course, that didnt apply to scotland, and it appears that about 80% of the cases were a result of gatherings elsewhere.
I just find in the interim before we reach the critical mass in terms of vaccination in all age groups, there is a need to “make things more difficult” for non-vaccinated persons to attend mass events. Things like a PCR test 2 days before attending these events at their own cost. I think this is important because what we really don’t want is to see non-vaccinated persons getting infected and getting seriously sick and weighing down the systems again, especially now with the Delta variant that seems to be alot more infectious and affect younger age groups, who happen to be the least vaccinated and most likely to go out in groups and have a good time and ignoring the social distancing and mask mandate.
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True. My mistake. I misread a Spanish newspaper. I will bemore careful in future.
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To our American members, any idea if there is any real desire in government to re-open flights from the UK / Europe? There’s an article in the FT talking about September at the earliest.