Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis part 2 - Ireland

[Drifterwood]

Two problems?

The 70% threshold depends how infectious the virus is in a completely non immune population. ...It corresponds to an R0 around 2.6 as originally claimed for covid. If the real R0 is much higher than this, then you need much more. If R0 was 10, then you need 90% immune to bring that downe to an observed R of 1.0. I think the best explanation how this epidemic has evolved ia real Ro higher than this, which however did not find us completely non immune. There is proven cross immunity with other corona viruses (AKA 'colds'), and also with sars and mers where these borke out in -er-.... the pacific region where covid has been more easily controlled.

This sort of model also expalins how covid can roar through hospitals or care homes where there are immuno compromised people (by illness or simply old age)..

Fine - get the vaccination rate as high as possible and let those who won't vaccinate catch the virus.

High vaccination and low cases is the goal, no?

 

[dandelion]

High vaccination and low cases is the goal, no?

I think high cases is probably not exactly a goal but the final best outcome. Because we update our immunity through being infected. The goal is to eliminate the serious and deadly cases. Vaccine has only done that imperfectly, which was probably to be expected because the same applies to flu.

What has been overlooked by policymakers despite ithe opportunity it created to end this fast, is cases amongst the young have never been significantly dangerous. They didnt need a vaccine. I imaging this was considered a year ago, but it as ecided suppression and test and trace would end cases and deaths until the vaccine arrived. Total fail.

 

[Industrialsize]

I think high cases is probably not exactly a goal but the final best outcome. Because we update our immunity through being infected. The goal is to eliminate the serious and deadly cases. Vaccine has only done that imperfectly, which was probably to be expected because the same applies to flu.

.

So go catch Covid so you can "update" your immunity. You wouldn't want to have an older version.

 

[g0nz0]

Two problems?

The 70% threshold depends how infectious the virus is in a completely non immune population. ...It corresponds to an R0 around 2.6 as originally claimed for covid. If the real R0 is much higher than this, then you need much more. If R0 was 10, then you need 90% immune to bring that downe to an observed R of 1.0. I think the best explanation how this epidemic has evolved ia real Ro higher than this, which however did not find us completely non immune. There is proven cross immunity with other corona viruses (AKA 'colds'), and also with sars and mers where these borke out in -er-.... the pacific region where covid has been more easily controlled.

Cross immunity is more accurately called cross reactivity. The problem with the word immunity is that it is not binary. And cross reactivity in fact does not even necessarily infer cross protection.

For example, cross-reactivity can also destructively interfere, where immune response to one pathogen lowers the response to a different pathogen.

Which does a better job will only be discovered in the field, and especially as new variants come along we will see if natural or vaccine immunityb holds up better against them.

So far, the vaccines have won that battle.

Of course, the british government for one is determined to eradicate all unvaccinated peope, so we will never know if natural immunity works better than vaccinated. It will all be claimed as the benefit of being vaccinated when clearly it
is not.

Yes, in what I presume is the misguided aim of (at least occasionally) attempting to minimize the death count, they have vaccinated people. Go figure.

Well actually they do infect and then presumably lead to the death of body cells. Thats deliberate. It is somewhat different to what I understand as the traditional approach where you inject a dead virus and there is simply a response to eradicate from the blood what was injected. The vaccines do take over body cells to amplify the effect of just the injected virus components.

I actually said the vaccines cannot commandeer host cells and reproduce, and you cannot get long covid from the vaccines. As a result, the amount of body cells that are destroyed is significant lower.

But as you mention it, the definition of infection is the invasion of bodily tissue by pathogenic microorganisms that proliferate, resulting in tissue injury that can progress to disease. And thus, the vaccines cannot infect.

The mRNA and adenovirus platform vaccines don't take over body cells. They can't infect you. They can't make you sick. In both cases they contain portions of the spike, so they can't enter your cells and interfere with your DNA.

The california study suggested actually some research has said this isnt true. I guess as you say the reason why the spike would be preserved is because its exact formulation is critical to its success in entering cells. But that doesnt mean no change is possible, only that its difficult to do. But on the other hand, faced with a huge antibody response to this spike, there is also huge adaptive pressure upon the virus to change the spike as it has become a critical area of failure.

Okay, so like other coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 use a spike glycoprotein on the envelope to bind to their cellular receptors (ACE2). This binding triggers a cascade of events that leads to the fusion between cell and viral membranes, facilitating cell entry. Within the spike, there are two key subunits - S1 and S2 - that mediate for cell attachment and membrane fusion respectively. There is a short domain within the S1 subunit containing two glycosylation sites. These secrete short fragments of receptor binding domain that bind to the ACE2 receptor.

So, its not so much a concern that portions of the spike mutates. Its more the case that the ACE2 binding subunit, by nature, is highly conserved as the binding of the viral RBD on its S-domain is an essential step for membrane fusion and entry into target host cells. It is only at that stage can the S2 domain transition from its pre-fusion state to its stable post-fusion state.

It is true that the delta variant has a couple of S1 mutations which enable it to bind better to ACE2 whilst also helping it avoid immune system recognition. But the Delta spike evades neutralizing antibodies triggered by both infection and vaccination. The likely explanation for the increased spread of Delta variant in India (where seroprevalence can be higher than 70%) is natural infection immune evasion, i.e., the ability to spread in a population in which a substantial portion of individuals has pre-existing immune responses against SARS-CoV-2. This is certainly the case in certain resource-poor communities across India.

Thus far, the two-dose vaccination protocol has held against Delta in preventing moderate to severe illness - much more effectively than natural infection. It was always anticipated that vaccine tweaks for boosters might be necessary to cover variants (much like the annual 'flu vaccines). To date, we haven't needed these yet.

Being double-vaccinated by an mRNA vaccine still provides the best protection against the Delta variant, irrespective of whether you have contracted the Alpha/Beta variants or not. In fact, having contracted it naturally plus subsequent vaccinations gives an even stronger response to the vaccines, and thus subsequent infections. There is little downside to the mRNA vaccinations.

Thus.. it may be better to use a diffuse approach in vaccine or natural immnity, because if you use a target one it risk creating this huge pressure for the virus to change exacty there. Sciens has made an assumtion about how best to make a vaccine, which might simply be wrong. This is quite possible the first real field trial. IT IS the first full scale trial of either of these new vaccine delivery systems.

Science makes guesses, called hypothesis, which are logical assumption based on available evidence. The next part of science validates these guesses, through empirical testing, and uses this evidence to mature and explain the hypothesis by way of a thesis.

None of the big pharmaceutical companies go about injecting people with these vaccines without having a highly detailed understanding at the cellular level of how exactly they function.

No, they are not.

No, they are. Really, they are! All of the public health bodies globally genuinely are of the converse opinion to yours.

They claim massive success based upon massive generation of specific antibody. In the field results in the UK are not nearly so good. Its quite interesting reading some of the posts on here from the US, where much greater vaccine success is being claimed, but mostly not against the Indian/delta strain. Which is a kinda important caveat since covid has mutated its spike, which is what it isnt supposed to be able to do.

Who said SARS-CoV-2 isn't "supposed" to be able to mutate its spike? There have been over 4,000 mutations have been detected in its spike protein alone. Accepting this, the spike is still highly conserved.

"They" claimed success based on preventing people from contracting moderate to severe disease and in preventing hospitalisations.

Also, they don't claim success based on generation of a specific antibody. You don't appear to understand how vaccines are licensed. Eliciting the immune response of a specific antibody alone would fall fair short of the meeting the burden of proof, and certainly wouldn't qualify a vaccine for emergency use. You have to prove the vaccine does *something* (i.e., generate an immune response - in the case of vaccines, antibodies plus T-cell responses), *and* that the immune response is efficacious (i.e., keeps people out of hospital), *and* that any potential side effects are captured, and that said side effects, if present, are outweighed by the benefit of taking the vaccine.

I haven't seen any "field results" from the UK that are bad. On the contrary, the vaccines have worked incredibly. You can see in the UK that they have strongly attenuated the link between infection and hospitalisation. In the US, it appears to be a disease of the unvaccinated (with the caveat that the US numbers were wildly inaccurate during Trump and undercounting, and presumably have swung the other way somewhat with Biden with overcounting)...

Whilst the UK case numbers are screwy at the moment (the 5-day dip is not entirely surprising, and likely explained by a combination of the Euros ending, schools finishing, and the general muddle in British testing anyway and any political interference or messing that has gone on -- I am convinced British case numbers are under-counted at the moment), it will be very interesting to see what happens over the next 2 weeks as the removal of all restrictions leads to a subsequent uptick or whether hospitalisations remain stable.

If they do remain stable, we may well be starting to move from pandemic to endemic, which would be terrific. However, there is still plenty left to be explained in the pursuit of ensuring we do no harm. For example, Israel was ahead of the UK on vaccination and yet it has had to reverse some of its reopening.

 

[Freddie53]

So go catch Covid so you can "update" your immunity. You wouldn't want to have an older version.

This is becoming quite technically advanced conversation!

I have read or watched news reports the following message has been given by the US government heath agencies.

Getting fully vaccinated for COVID reduces the symptoms to the point that only a small percentage will actually contract COVID with symptoms. Of that group, only a smaller percentage have to go to the hospital.

Furthermore, in a control group, it is very close to zero of deaths from COVID if all have been fully vaccinated.

One official stated that most likely if a fully vaccinated person does die, the death will be from other complications, not COVID.

From time to time, there are deaths of people from trying to get out of their chair and fell while doing so. The falling from the chair is the direct cause of death as perhaps a blood clot was formed and traveled to the lungs causing deaths.

Often these persons are old and/or in very poor health. There is no absolute certainty that a person will not die from falling from a chair.

It would be a stretch to say that never has a person or will a person who has been fully vaccinated die while testing positive from COVID.

There will be exceptions. There are people that die from a auto accident. There will be people that die from a plane crash.

Sources that I have heard or read state that the chances of dying in an auto accident is greater than dying from COVID if a person is fully vaccinated.

What I have been lead to believe it will be very rare if a fully vaccinated person who get good nutrition and is in excellent health to die from COVID.

If a fully vaccinated person does die from COVID, most likely the real cause of death would be from other health problems or the person is so old that the body's immune system has collapsed.

Question:

Years ago here in the US, some vaccines were mandated. Children could not go to school unless that had ben vaccinated for a variety of illnesses. All who refused to be vaccinated were kept legally in total quarantine. Example: small pox.

Here in the US, some health standards are set by the federal government while other health issues are set by the federal government.

What is the status of mandatory vaccines for COVID where you live in 2021? Legal or just encouraged!
Here in the US in all 50 states people are highly encouraged to be vaccinated against COVID. Temporary vaccination sites have been set up in areas that don't have a local agency to administer the jabs. The vaccinations are free as the US government pays for it all.

Sadly some red states have less than 50 % vaccinated. Guess where the pandemic is raging?

The good news is that there is pick up of people getting vaccinated when the pandemic reaches their community and they see on the news that the new pandemic is caused by very low vaccinations.

It is awful that some US media have campaigned against the COVID jabs. They have lead some Americans to decide to not get the jabs.

From what I am seeing on TV and what I have read, it is too late for some to get vaccinated. Once a person contracts COVID a jab will not help at all.

 

[Jason]

Meanwhile in the UK we have fast-falling numbers of coronavirus cases.

it may be correct to say that the effects of last Monday’s freedom day haven’t come through yet (in England) though very many people jumped the gun. Of course it may all change in the next few days.

however right now we have cases down 40% despite miserable weather two weeks ago, despite more social mixing because of football and despite jumping the gun for freedom day. And no one can suggest why.

I repeat, no one can suggest why. We’ve so many experts studying the pandemic, and no one knows why.

Just possibly - and I know I risk the online pile on - it’s not the case that lockdowns have “low effect” in controlling coronavirus (as now officially accepted) but that they have absolutely no effect. The only way you can begin to explain this drop is to say that there is not any correlation between lockdown and number of cases. In which case lockdowns in UK and elsewhere have been absolutely pointless. Sweden got it right.

 

[g0nz0]

Meanwhile in the UK we have fast-falling numbers of coronavirus cases.

it may be correct to say that the effects of last Monday’s freedom day haven’t come through yet (in England) though very many people jumped the gun. Of course it may all change in the next few days.

Let me just correct that for you...

It is correct to say that the effects of last Monday’s freedom day haven’t come through yet.

What those effects are, we will discover in about a week or two.

however right now we have cases down 40% despite miserable weather two weeks ago, despite more social mixing because of football and despite jumping the gun for freedom day. And no one can suggest why.

I repeat, no one can suggest why. We’ve so many experts studying the pandemic, and no one knows why.

Umm... I suggested why above. Many people are suggesting a possible why.

It could be related to the new Tory testing regime and political interference.

It could be related to schools being out (which, in the UK, leads to less testing).

It could be related to the end of the Euros.

It could be related to the high level of vaccination.

It could be any combination of these things.

We haven't as yet seen the impact from "freedom day" and we haven't as yet seen the impact from the glorious spell of warm weather.

Just possibly - and I know I risk the online pile on - it’s not the case that lockdowns have “low effect” in controlling coronavirus (as now officially accepted) but that they have absolutely no effect.

Wacky.

The only way you can begin to explain this drop is to say that there is not any correlation between lockdown and number of cases. In which case lockdowns in UK and elsewhere have been absolutely pointless. Sweden got it right.

Wackier.

 

[Jason]

Well @Freddie53 the UK position is that vaccination is recommended (for all over 18 and for children with underlying health problems) but is not a legal requirement. Uptake is excellent: 92%+ with one jab and well over 70% with two.

The UK is now looking at vaccination passports. These would be needed for entry to (say) nightclubs. However it seems clear that there would be creep. It’s already being suggested that all university students must have a vaccination passport. They could be required for more and more places including pubs and restaurants. They may be needed for dentists (so get toothache, and if you don’t have a passport wait two months to get vaccinated and be treated). I very much hope the government will lose a Commons vote on this.

We all need to be vaccinated. The soviet style bureaucracy of vaccination passports is too awful. Of course they only work if linked to an ID check, so in effect it’s passport needed to do anything with a nice data track of all movements..

 

[Jason]

Let me just correct that for you...

It is correct to say that the effects of last Monday’s freedom day haven’t come through yet.

What those effects are, we will discover in about a week or two.



Umm... I suggested why above. Many people are suggesting a possible why.

It could be related to the new Tory testing regime and political interference.

It could be related to schools being out (which, in the UK, leads to less testing).

It could be related to the end of the Euros.

It could be related to the high level of vaccination.

It could be any combination of these things.

We haven't as yet seen the impact from "freedom day" and we haven't as yet seen the impact from the glorious spell of warm weather.



Wacky.



Wackier.

in a nutshell you are saying that cases will go up in the next week or two.

that’s a testable hypothesis.

 

[Industrialsize]

in a nutshell you are saying that cases will go up in the next week or two.

that’s a testable hypothesis.

You’ve put words in his mouth....

 

[g0nz0]

in a nutshell you are saying that cases will go up in the next week or two.

that’s a testable hypothesis.

Show me where I said that.

I said we'd know in a week or two. I don't recall making any prediction because I don't know. I await with baited breath the results of the Boris unlocking experiment.

 

[Drifterwood]

I'm counting nine plagues so far. One more and we'll have some new commandments. I'm not expecting them to include social distancing.

 

[g0nz0]

I'm counting nine plagues so far. One more and we'll have some new commandments. I'm not expecting them to include social distancing.

No doubt plenty of hocus pocus, though...

 

[Freddie53]

Well @Freddie53 the UK position is that vaccination is recommended (for all over 18 and for children with underlying health problems) but is not a legal requirement. Uptake is excellent: 92%+ with one jab and well over 70% with two.

The UK is now looking at vaccination passports. These would be needed for entry to (say) nightclubs. However it seems clear that there would be creep. It’s already being suggested that all university students must have a vaccination passport. They could be required for more and more places including pubs and restaurants. They may be needed for dentists (so get toothache, and if you don’t have a passport wait two months to get vaccinated and be treated). I very much hope the government will lose a Commons vote on this.

We all need to be vaccinated. The soviet style bureaucracy of vaccination passports is too awful. Of course they only work if linked to an ID check, so in effect it’s passport needed to do anything with a nice data track of all movements..

Here in the US the number of positive results to COVID tests has skyrocketed.

Why? The far right is against getting vaccinated. Their leaders push the idea that the jabs will insert computer chips. And on and on more bull shit.

As a result there are several states with less than 40 having been vaccinated. It is in the areas where the far right are in a majority where the huge increase in COVID cases has skyrocketed.

My fear is that if we don't get COVID under control the next strain will be even worse! I suspect November is when a new and worse variant will appear in the US ruining the American holiday Thanksgiving (in late November) and making a mess of the Christmas and New Year's holidays as well.

I certainly hope that this won't come to pass,

 

[dandelion]

So go catch Covid so you can "update" your immunity. You wouldn't want to have an older version.

I am really not worried about catching covid again, and i agree it makes sense to do so. How will that happen in face of all these restrictions?

Cross immunity is more accurately called cross reactivity. The problem with the word immunity is that it is not binary. And cross reactivity in fact does not even necessarily infer cross protection.

afraid i dont see what the problem is saying 'immunity'. and i dont see what you mean by binary. Immunity is nmost definitely not binary in the sense it is all or nothing. Its a scale 0-100%. It is also composed of different elements each of which contributes a share. Most of the media is testing antibody and assuming a high results =immunity, a low result=no immunity. Thats very wrong.

So far, the vaccines have won that battle.

well gosh gonzo, they have only been in the field about 3 months. the delta variant which overcomes immunity didnt even come into existence under pressure from vaccines but quite naturally.

I actually said the vaccines cannot commandeer host cells and reproduce, and you cannot get long covid from the vaccines. As a result, the amount of body cells that are destroyed is significant lower.

But they can comandeer host cells, which will in due course be killed. You are agreeing with me now, they do result in death of body cells.

The mRNA and adenovirus platform vaccines don't take over body cells.

yes they do. Thats how they create virus proteins for the body to react to.

Thus far, the two-dose vaccination protocol has held against Delta in preventing moderate to severe illness - much more effectively than natural infection.

The trouble is, we dont know that. Using Uk figures deaths are currently maybe 1/10 to 1/20 from this wave than previous ones. some of that improvement will be because of vaccination, but some will be because of natural immunity. Sage went so far as to say the outcome now will depend on how many have natural immunity. (looking good so far, so maybe that means its on the higher side than generally believed). So in general, yes the vaccines are still performing against the delta strain but we dont know how well. There is a big difference being reported between how things are going in the US and UK. This seems most likely explainable at the moment because the US is not yet dominated by indian strain infections. this is yet to come.

As to natural infection effectiveness, we dont know what proportion of people have now 'had' covid and so updated their immunity, and what propotion are still effectively being protected from infection by past cross immunity plus their own general immunity. I put 'had' in quotes because it has become unclear what is meant by an infection. once it meant you got ill. Now it means someone did a test which found covid, even if you noticed nothing. there will be plenty of 'infections' which never progress to the stage even a lab test could detect them. But these may still boost your immunity incrementally.

And then, just how much of a role does antibody play in defeating covid? Yes,antibody will prevent free spread of covid through the blood and lymph. But if covid enters the external side of an airway cell. Transmits directly to adjacent cells. exits directly back to airway to spread onwards. Just what role does antibody have in this process? Yet we are relying on creating and measuring antibody levels. This model of infection fits quite well with what is being observed - that vaccination prevents serious disease but not infection. Antibody can prevent spread deeper into the body and thus more serious illness, but cannot prevent infections. So herd immunity will never be achieved through vaccination which creates strong antibody responses.

Being double-vaccinated by an mRNA vaccine still provides the best protection against the Delta variant, irrespective of whether you have contracted the Alpha/Beta variants or not. In fact, having contracted it naturally plus subsequent vaccinations gives an even stronger response to the vaccines, and thus subsequent infections.

the study i read reported that for young people - who are the ones being argued about at the moment - infection was as good as double vaccination. No evidence that the combo was better, it was all still maxing out scales. And that all makes sense too. Young people have most corona virus infections, most covid infections, and immune response in best operating condition. Its probably still too early to have real world results on effectiveness. there is no evidence at all yet from the real world which works best against future mutations, but past experience suggests immunity from whole virus vaccines works better than from selective vaccines, while the sage experts seemed unanimous past infection is likely to work better in the real world.

The next part of science validates these guesses, through empirical testing, and uses this evidence to mature and explain the hypothesis by way of a thesis.

Exactly. we are in the middle of a world scale experiment.

(i.e., generate an immune response - in the case of vaccines, antibodies plus T-cell responses)

Dont hear much about those t cells, do we?

On the contrary, the vaccines have worked incredibly

well depends what you mean. looking likely to reduce deaths against the worst current strain to 1/10 -1/20. Unclear how effective it will be against future strains. creating herd immunity even by vaccinating 100% of people seems unlikely.

All this is consisten with an end point something like seasonal flu or a cold. Maybe an irreducible 10,000 deaths a year in the uk despite annual vaccines for the high risk. Absolutely no point vaccinating the low risk, simply not cost effective in saving lives. we seem to have reached that end point already (in the Uk).

 

[dandelion]

I have read or watched news reports the following message has been given by the US government heath agencies. Getting fully vaccinated for COVID reduces the symptoms to the point that only a small percentage will actually contract COVID with symptoms. Of that group, only a smaller percentage have to go to the hospital.
Furthermore, in a control group, it is very close to zero of deaths from COVID if all have been fully vaccinated.

This is where there is a very different message in UK and US. or maybe not, because i am reporting UK results and you US government propaganda.

In the UK it is unclear what percentage of vaccinated people will get symptoms, but it may not be small. The only real data we have is people admitted to hospital, so those with severe symptoms not just a cold. There are now fewer of these. deaths seems to be running at around 5-10% of the previous rate. Which is acceptable by past standards and is a number which passes without notice each year in the Uk from flu. But its still 10,000 a year. 0.01% of the population, about the same rate Japan and India managed from the very start. An irony then that after vaccination we have reduced the death rate to the same low level those countries had from the outset. Thats sound like more evidence they were immune from the outset, but also may suggest an upper limit on the effectiveness of any sort of immunity.

One official stated that most likely if a fully vaccinated person does die, the death will be from other complications, not COVID.

People dying from covid have always been ill with something else too, even if it is only degenerative old age.

Sources that I have heard or read state that the chances of dying in an auto accident is greater than dying from COVID if a person is fully vaccinated.

UK statistician prof spiegelhalter said the risk of an UNVACCINATED person under 30 dying from covid is less than from a car accident. Under 40 your all risks of death by accident is greater than from covid.

My fear is that if we don't get COVID under control the next strain will be even worse!

My fear is that unless we get into a normal cycle of regular infection fast, covid will find a variant which overcomes vaccine immunity and we will be back at square one. The process we have gone though needs to be a stepping stone to managing covid by natural regular infection. Thats what would have happened had we not intervened. That intervantion was managed pretty disastrously and failed to prevent deaths. we dont know how well vaccines will work

 

[dandelion]

The UK is now looking at vaccination passports.

Completely pointless. if you are young you are safe. If old you have been offered a vaccine. We arent going to create herd immunity even if 100% are vaccinated. The vaccine is already failing, so unlikely to remain protective by itself in the future. We need to get used to regular covid infections. Trying to stop infections at this point in the epidemic is just daft and counter productive.

 

[Jason]

Completely pointless. if you are young you are safe. If old you have been offered a vaccine. We arent going to create herd immunity even if 100% are vaccinated. The vaccine is already failing, so unlikely to remain protective by itself in the future. We need to get used to regular covid infections. Trying to stop infections at this point in the epidemic is just daft and counter productive.

Vaccine passports only work with an ID check alongside, else anyone can borrow anyone else’s vaccine passport.

For people travelling abroad it may well be that many foreign nations will require proof of vaccination, and we actually need a document that links with a passport. It could be something with the passport number on it, or it could even be some sort of stamp within a passport. I think we just have to accept this.

The UK horror is the threat to require a vaccine passport in more and more locations. Every organisation will find it ticks a box on their health and safety settings. It’s certainly looking like university campuses and all healthcare settings, as well as shopping centres, railway stations and of course nightclubs, theatres, cinemas. And this will be linked with track and trace so we track everyone’s movement.

 

[g0nz0]

But they can comandeer host cells, which will in due course be killed. You are agreeing with me now, they do result in death of body cells.

They don't commandeer host cells to replicate. The vaccine mRNA is translated by muscle cells but it used up in doing so.

mRNA is a transient molecule. The mRNA is translated into protein in the cytoplasm, and is essentially used up. So the translating cell is not affected.

The spike-proteins will be identified as an antigen by the immune system, and will be attacked. Similarly cells which have spikes bound to their ACE2 will be attacked... but the vaccine CANNOT replicate within the body, so the damage is sufficient to induce an immune response but otherwise negligible.

In particular, the cell nucleus, the central organelle containing the cell's DNA, is not affected by the mRNA.

By comparison, as part of attempting to evade the immune system, SARS-CoV-2 blocks the cell's nucleus, preventing nucleocytoplasmic transport. This traps mRNA in the cell nucleus and stops it reaching ribosomes in the cytoplasm, blocking certain normal protein creation.

Furthermore, with SARS-CoV-2 there is intense intracellular host cell membrane remodelling, particularly in the cytoplasm. The cytoplasm is where the SARS-CoV-2 virus replicates. This doesn't happen with the vaccine.

yes they do. Thats how they create virus proteins for the body to react to.

OMG, you seem to have no idea how the vaccines actually work in the body. They really don't take over body cells ... Really!

The trouble is, we dont know that. Using Uk figures deaths are currently maybe 1/10 to 1/20 from this wave than previous ones. some of that improvement will be because of vaccination, but some will be because of natural immunity. Sage went so far as to say the outcome now will depend on how many have natural immunity. (looking good so far, so maybe that means its on the higher side than generally believed). So in general, yes the vaccines are still performing against the delta strain but we dont know how well. There is a big difference being reported between how things are going in the US and UK. This seems most likely explainable at the moment because the US is not yet dominated by indian strain infections. this is yet to come.

As to natural infection effectiveness, we dont know what proportion of people have now 'had' covid and so updated their immunity, and what propotion are still effectively being protected from infection by past cross immunity plus their own general immunity. I put 'had' in quotes because it has become unclear what is meant by an infection. once it meant you got ill. Now it means someone did a test which found covid, even if you noticed nothing. there will be plenty of 'infections' which never progress to the stage even a lab test could detect them. But these may still boost your immunity incrementally.

And then, just how much of a role does antibody play in defeating covid? Yes,antibody will prevent free spread of covid through the blood and lymph. But if covid enters the external side of an airway cell. Transmits directly to adjacent cells. exits directly back to airway to spread onwards. Just what role does antibody have in this process? Yet we are relying on creating and measuring antibody levels. This model of infection fits quite well with what is being observed - that vaccination prevents serious disease but not infection. Antibody can prevent spread deeper into the body and thus more serious illness, but cannot prevent infections. So herd immunity will never be achieved through vaccination which creates strong antibody responses.

???

I'm sorry, I didn't get a word of that. I dislike the term herd immunity, as its mostly a statistical concept, but anyway... Its more likely that SARS-CoV-2 will become endemic in time.

The end goal here is to maximize prevention of severe infection.

the study i read reported that for young people - who are the ones being argued about at the moment - infection was as good as double vaccination. No evidence that the combo was better, it was all still maxing out scales. And that all makes sense too. Young people have most corona virus infections, most covid infections, and immune response in best operating condition. Its probably still too early to have real world results on effectiveness. there is no evidence at all yet from the real world which works best against future mutations, but past experience suggests immunity from whole virus vaccines works better than from selective vaccines, while the sage experts seemed unanimous past infection is likely to work better in the real world.

Please provide a link to the study. "Reported" studies without evidence essential don't exist.

Again, where does this "past experience suggests immunity from whole virus vaccines works better than from selective vaccines" come from? Please provide some evidence. This is not necessarily the case. And please define "works better". The goal should be something that is more efficacious but also maximizes safety and minimizes side effects.

Using the whole-virion vaccines can ensure the presence of all potential immunogenic epitopes. However, this neglect the importance of ensuring the the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. As we have seen for many other inactivated vaccines, improper inactivation can alter the properties of antigenic determinant, which can lead to disease enhancement. See A promising inactivated whole-virion SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for example.

well depends what you mean. looking likely to reduce deaths against the worst current strain to 1/10 -1/20. Unclear how effective it will be against future strains. creating herd immunity even by vaccinating 100% of people seems unlikely.

All this is consisten with an end point something like seasonal flu or a cold. Maybe an irreducible 10,000 deaths a year in the uk despite annual vaccines for the high risk. Absolutely no point vaccinating the low risk, simply not cost effective in saving lives. we seem to have reached that end point already (in the Uk).

It is quite possible that we are close to this end point. Wouldn't it be great if we were?

The point is right now, we don't know. Nobody does.

We'll know better in a few weeks, and in particular we'll know once the Beta variant is introduced to the UK en masse. I'm still not convinced by the UK's testing numbers at the moment - the fall off is very welcome, but I doubt the veracity of the figures. It will be great to see deaths falling in a few weeks and rates continue to decline, which will then help provide some support for the fall off in numbers.[/QUOTE]

 

[Jason]

We have breaking a UK-EU story. Boris hails AstraZeneca as EU told it has 'blood on hands' after bitter attacks on vaccine

There’s a prestigious study just out which shows the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe. No surprises here, and of course it’s all good news. However an “official” of the UK government has spoken about the political aspect. This official has not been corrected so it seems this must be the UK government’s view. SIT DOWN!!! TAKE SOME DEEP BREATHS!!!


"The European leaders who trashed the AstraZeneca vaccine have blood on their hands. We now know what we all suspected is true, that they did it out of spite for Britain because of Brexit. When the history books are written, they’ll say these people were directly responsible for the deaths of thousands in developing countries who won’t take AZ because of their anti-vaxx scare stories.”

This language beggars belief. I’m struggling to think of a precedent.

Then we have the NI Protocol. The UK has put to the EU what are maximalist suggestions of what the UK would like. In effect the EU must throw these out. Now I know it could be a case of start high then compromise, but this really looks like no basis for discussion.

is it possible that we are seeing a ratcheting up of the anti-EU rhetoric with a view to the UK triggering Article 16?