I agree, I’m pretty sure that Boris will yet again walk, letting Cressida Dick to take the flack for not doing anything on it. It will only add to the resentment of her tenure as head of the Met outside the government and the idea of one rule for them and one rule for everyone else.
But it will be interesting to see how far it goes and how much sticks. Some uncomfortable press conferences would be most welcome.
Interesting article about history of compulsory vaccination in America. The quote is from Ben Franklin, one of our wiser forefathers.
“In 1736, I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the smallpox taken in the common way,” Franklin wrote. “I long regretted bitterly and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of the parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.”
Well Boris wasn’t there so he definitely won’t be subject to police action.
he left early by all accounts. But it was also in his house. To my mind that makes him complicit at least
But we all know nothing will happen anyway.
Well, it was in Sunak’s house, no? Doesn’t Johnson live in no.11 like a few of his predecessors?
ooo, you’re right. More to this maybe?
Goddamn, that spike in graph C…that implies minimal immunity from prior infection, because reinfections are already approaching peak even though total cases are still far below.
I was listening to an interview with a Tanzanian Dr talking about how his patients are using the Tuskegee study to explain their vaccine hesitancy. Even in the distance between that part of Africa and the US, there are shared talking point being used to sow distrust.
As of monday we’re tightening up international travel to require a negative test taken no more than 24 hours prior to departure.
This is correct as a theoretical framework but in practice it doesn’t seem to be correct. Libertarianism always breaks down when pushed and what is revealed in practice among the people who claim to hold this ideal is a level of relative comfort of other people having their rights limited by the government, just not them. Freedom tends to be viewed in a very narrow sense of whatever they want and value, and anything else, for anyone else, can be infringed to the max.
The vaccines (with some exceptions) unquestionably have an effect on transmission.
The question you are able to answer with the data you presented is a subtly but importantly different question - does population vaccination level in a state correlate to frequency of new cases. There are a multitude of reasons why the answers to these related questions may diverge.
For the record, I am vaccinated. It is foolish, in my opinion, not to take a vaccine that has been proven safe to provide some immunity against a pathogen new to the human species. I take on good faith the clinical trials data proving the effectiveness of these vaccines.
Having said that, in real world data we should see a signal in highly vaccinated populations that the vaccine is reducing the spread of the virus. Hard to see that signal. Reason is the virus is highly transmissible, transmissible in asymptomatic people, and repeat contractible after a reasonably short period of time.
A problem with just looking at numbers is the collosal numbers we are talking about. in a population of 60 million theres still 15 million unvaccinated, many of those are kids that are not part of the vaccination programs yet have very high risk factors.
Testing programmes should be getting better so more are detected, particularly if they want to travel (another group with high risk factors).
Also the virus itself it’s ‘with’ us going through moments where it’s just simmering then periods where it’s boiling.
So many things to think about if we’re to be serious, these are the problems we the general public haven’t the time or will to think this all through so we are not serious, that’s why clear and strict messaging is needed.
Again, this is a different question. The question that is of interest in determining people’s actions is “does the vaccine blunt transmission?” The answer is yes. Even with Delta the protection is significant.
The data you are presenting, and the question you are asking with this specific wording is different - has the way we have used the vaccine so far limited community transmission. Again, there are a lot of reasons why the answers to these questions might be different. Some are biological - the rate of incremental increase in protection with increased vaccination rates increases as the vaccination rate increases - but there are also a lot of sociological and logistic factors as well. Despite that, we still see fairly strong relationships between vaccination rates and new case rates, its just not strong enough to result in it also not being easy to find outliers.
Simplest way to look at it is if you are vaccinated in general you have the virus for a shorter time, are contagious for a shorter time so contaminate fewer people than you would have done if you weren’t vaccinated.
I was wondering this the other day while discussion vaccine efficacy (at a very basic level) with some crusaders that feel it’s all a scam. Aside from their complete and utter lack of understanding or willingness to actually look stuff up it struck me that with the UK’s numbers being in excess of 40k new cases per day (average), a certain number of asymptomatic cases and reasonably high level of vaccination the UK’s actual case load and transmission levels are likely to be far higher.
Just wondering what your thoughts were on that?
Do you mean are we undercounting cases?
No, not at all. Just trying to gauge what real case numbers are likely to be due to those asymptomatic cases and lower transmission rates etc. How much worse is the reality likely to be than what is being reported?
Of course, the actual infection rate is far higher. Asymptomatic cases and people with mild symptoms who don’t get tested.
Yes, just wondering how much higher. A third? I honestly don’t know.
The UK has this unique situation with such a high case load (for such a lengthy period of time) but what is the reality beyond the reported figures?
Unknowable, but it surely an X factor above. What do we know? 43% of the world is fully vaccinated against COVID-19. That’s a remarkable achievement in a pandemic less than two years old. There’s some overlap, of course, but the actual % of humanity who have either contracted the disease or been vaccinated against it must be very, very high.
We know from anecdotal data that people can be reinfected (and contagious) as soon as 90 days after a prior infection.
We know health authorities are asking us to take a third dose only six months after having been “fully vaccinated.”
We know the current case count is 75% of what it was at the ultimate peak, although global cases are rising toward some new peak.
We know the death count is 52% of what it is at the ultimate peak and continuing to trend down.
For me this supports the hypothesis that vaccines (and natural immunity) are perhaps having a moderate effect on overall morbidity (we’ll see with this new peak) and a measurable effect on overall mortality.
Does anyone know if there are any downsides to having a booster less than six months after last vax?
The research suggests somewhat less of an immune system benefit when the interval is shortened. But the work to date suggests the curve is not particularly dramatic, just peaks somewhere around 6 months.
