Covid-19 and Politics

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Boris Johnson did more to protect Dominic Cummings from getting the sack than he did care home patients from getting Coronavirus
 
Tory conference cancelled and replaced by virtual event due to coronavirus

Schools and pubs are safe though, the virus knows the difference.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Boris Johnson did more to protect Dominic Cummings from getting the sack than he did care home patients from getting Coronavirus
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To paraphrase one of his fellow Americans:


"Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your Cummings"
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Tory conference cancelled and replaced by virtual event due to coronavirus

Schools and pubs are safe though, the virus knows the difference.
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There is a subtle point here. Epidemiologists aren't trying to achieve no cases next week, they're trying to achieve a reduction week on week. They recommend activities based not on the belief that they're safe, but that they'll get away with it in terms of not causing too many new infections.

Individuals who don't want to be one of these reducing numbers will make their own risk assessments and won't do things just because they're allowed.
 
catsmate said:
Herd immunity was an insane strategy.
Based on the New York numbers you'd be sacrificing, at best, 0.3% of the population or 150,000 people. Which requires the CMR not to increase, which is inevitable in large scale epidemics.
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And that doesn't even take into account the possible long term effects that some may suffer. I've been reading more and more about chronic fatigue linked to infection by Covid-19. There is also the risk of blood clots leading to heart attacks and strokes, which apparently isn't connected to the severity of the initial infection.

This is an article from New Scientist:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0262407920311416
 
Rolfe said:
Before I retired one of the lecture topics I introduced into the animal health course was vaccine safety and adverse reactions. We have the non-specific reactions which are either very rare (anaphylaxis) or trivial (temporary malaise, soreness at the injection site), then we have specific adverse reactions. I could come up with very little in the veterinary field.

  • Reversion to virulence of the Chlamydophila abortus vaccine for sheep
  • Vaccine-site fibrosarcomas in cats related to FeLV and rabies vaccine
  • Bovine neonatal pancytopenia (bleeding calves) caused by the adjuvant in a BVD vaccine raising anti-bovine antibodies in cows
  • Canine parvovirus probably having been spread worldwide by a contaminated canine distemper/hepatitis vaccine in 1988
None of these things seems at all likely to affect a coronavirus vaccine, although it does depend on how the vaccine is produced. It's notable that the BVD vaccine that caused the bleeding calves was fully tested and licensed long before the problem emerged. Was there a change to the adjuvant? I suspect so. That adjuvant will never be used again in any vaccine.

The Oxford vaccine is a DNA (or RNA?) vaccine. These have been used in animals but never before in man as far as I know. The concept is seriously cool. Is it safe? There's been enough work in animals that I think someone would have noticed by now, but on the other hand the poster child for these vaccines is a rabies bait vaccine given to wildlife and how closely can you monitor wild foxes? There is at least one known case of accidental innoculation of a woman by that rabies vaccine and although the vector (vaccinia virus) gave her cowpox (because she was on immunosuppressive treatment) she seroconverted to rabies and had no longstanding ill effects.

If the trial results are made public and everything looks good, I'll certainly take a coronavirus vaccine.
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The concern with a COVID-19 vaccine is Antibody Dependant Enhancement, something that has been an issue in both SARS and MERS vaccine candidates. ADE occurs when the presence of antibodies from a vaccine makes subsequent infection more serious/deadly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement


It's possible ADE is why some cases of COVID-19 are very serious even though most are mild. In this scenario, the initial immune response and antibody production is insufficient to kill the infection, ADE sets in with the and the infection becomes much more serious.

The fact that they have studied this previously with SARS and MERS gives a head start in getting around the issue with COVID-19, but I'd want to see very thorough testing done before taking a vaccine. If not caught in testing ADE would not be immediately apparent when the vaccine is distributed and only show up when people start dying in much greater numbers.
 
Yes, I've read about that. It's one of the things I'd be looking for evidence had been addressed and was not likely to be a problem before I went for the vaccine.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Gov’t today, “How were we to know about asymptomatic transmission back in March?”

Gov’t in March, “We know asymptomatic transmission occurs and that it’s a very significant challenge.”
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They lie, safe in the knowledge that the only people who will bother to check are those who are already opposed to the government. The newspapers are too busy posting pictures of people outside pubs or "fruity" girls enjoying a glass of champers to worry their readers about the government killing their mum/gran. :mad:
 
lomiller said:
The concern with a COVID-19 vaccine is Antibody Dependant Enhancement, something that has been an issue in both SARS and MERS vaccine candidates. ADE occurs when the presence of antibodies from a vaccine makes subsequent infection more serious/deadly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement


It's possible ADE is why some cases of COVID-19 are very serious even though most are mild. In this scenario, the initial immune response and antibody production is insufficient to kill the infection, ADE sets in with the and the infection becomes much more serious.

The fact that they have studied this previously with SARS and MERS gives a head start in getting around the issue with COVID-19, but I'd want to see very thorough testing done before taking a vaccine. If not caught in testing ADE would not be immediately apparent when the vaccine is distributed and only show up when people start dying in much greater numbers.
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That came up at the recent House of Commons Committee meeting and was addressed by Prof. Gilbert:

We also have a better understanding now of what type of vaccine is likely to produce that kind of response. The RSV vaccine in the 1960s was an inactivated RSV virus. You take a large amount of the virus itself, inactivate it with formalin so that it cannot cause an infection, and then use that with an alum adjuvant to strengthen the immune response. That is the type of vaccine that seems to be most associated with causing that type of enhanced disease after exposure to the virus. That was seen in some early development of SARS vaccines—the original SARS, not SARS‑CoV‑2—again with inactivated virus vaccines with an alum adjuvant, whereas it has not been seen with different types of vaccines, and we now understand better that they are inducing a different type of immune response.
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Looks like it's something the scientists are aware of.
 
ohms said:
That came up at the recent House of Commons Committee meeting and was addressed by Prof. Gilbert:



Looks like it's something the scientists are aware of.
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Being aware of it and knowing how to get around it are 2 different things. ADE is part of the reason there has never been a successful vaccine for Dengue, AIDS, SARS or MERS.

The real risk, however, is political not scientific. A vaccine is being viewed as a magic bullet that will solve all the issues around COVID-19 and allow everything to return to the way it was. There will be enormous political pressure to fast track any vaccine that shows potential, but this invariably means lowering standards for testing. That would be bad at the best of times, but for a virus family already known to elicit ADE inadequate testing could be a disaster.
 
LOL! Hope he dies!

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has announced he has tested positive for coronavirus live on television.

“It came back positive,” a mask-wearing Bolsonaro told a hand-picked group of reporters on Tuesday lunchtime.
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angrysoba said:
LOL! Hope he dies!
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If he doesn't, then I reckon he'll double down on his "it's nothing more than a bit of a sniffle" rhetoric.

Having a really pretty bad case of Coronavirus doesn't seem to have taught Boris Johnson much about the disease, how dangerous it could be for the UK or how important it is to have an effective plan to tackle it. :mad:
 
Three pubs which reopened their doors for the first time on Saturday have had to close again after customers tested positive for coronavirus.

There were scenes of celebration in England over the weekend as the country ended three months of coronavirus lockdown, on what was dubbed "Super Saturday".

But three establishments have alerted visitors that they have had to close again just days later after customers tested positive for Covid-19.
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https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/pubs-shut-coronavirus-cases-reopening-a4490576.html
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Three pubs which reopened their doors for the first time on Saturday have had to close again after customers tested positive for coronavirus.



https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/pubs-shut-coronavirus-cases-reopening-a4490576.html
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Interestingly, it seems like it was the pubs' decision to close rather than being required to do so:

Jess Green, manager of the Lighthouse Kitchen, told BBC Points West she decided to close to "put everyone's health and safety first".

"I felt I had to keep my customers and my staff safe which is why I chose to shut the pub. I'm gutted, but safety comes first.

"We could have opened today but chose not to as I think that's the right thing to do."
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-53315702
 
Rolfe said:
There is a subtle point here. Epidemiologists aren't trying to achieve no cases next week, they're trying to achieve a reduction week on week. They recommend activities based not on the belief that they're safe, but that they'll get away with it in terms of not causing too many new infections.

Individuals who don't want to be one of these reducing numbers will make their own risk assessments and won't do things just because they're allowed.
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Hence, we have just told a relative we will only see him on good days when he can sit outside, as he has been socialising with multiple households.

He lives alone in a tiny flat and generally he has been very good, but, he has clearly had enough and is now prepared to take risks.
 
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