3 ms·

I mean thats a nice theory. The first broad point: infections are decreasing. I suspect that this might not always be because we are reaching "herd immunity".

I mean thats a nice theory. The first broad point: infections are decreasing. I suspect that this might not always be because we are reaching "herd immunity". It could just be a side effect of stats. Also Vaccines in the USA will target the people who are likely to get tested. In the UK infections are decreasing because we are in a harsh lockdown. The vaccine show little to no effect _yet_ (unlike israel) As for the second point: vaccinating those who've not been infected first. Its a great idea, but difficult to do in practice. First as the author points out, we don't have an accurate, quick and cheap t-cell test, so its not actually practicable to figure out who's been infected prior to vaccination. The author says the infections are dropping in the UK and sights that as the start of natural immunity. I say thats bollocks. Its almost certainly because of the lockdown. looking at the regional numbers, its the only thing explains a coordinated drop over the entire county. Given that "uk" variant started in the south east, it should have caused peaks spread over time as it moved from city to city. There is no data for that. which suggests it's lockdown thats causing the drop.

Reason077 6y ago
> “In the UK infections are decreasing because we are in a harsh lockdown. The vaccine show little to no effect _yet_” UK data does suggest that the vaccination campaign is having an effect: hospital admission rates have been dropping more sharply than infection rates. No doubt the lockdown has reduced infection rates, but there are also seasonal factors. As the weather warms up, people spend more time outdoors, windows are opened for better ventilation, etc. Covid rates will naturally drop in spring for the same reasons that cold and flu do.
- KaiserPro 6y ago
  > UK data does suggest that the vaccination campaign is having an effect: hospital admission rates have been dropping more sharply than infection rates. https://www.ft.com/content/6d4ff17b-b3a2-4f9a-bb73-84e50ba614b6 https://www.ft.com/content/6d4ff17b-b3a2-4f9a-bb73-84e50ba61... The data doesn't show that. There is a slim margin that might suggest fatalities are dropping, but not by much. > As the weather warms up, people spend more time outdoors, windows are opened for better ventilation, etc. February was the coldest month for a long time in the UK. Epic rain, frost and snow. People have been stuck inside. The re-opening of schools will cause a rise in infections, the question is, how much. I expect that the data will be much more clear in april, when about 20 million more people will be inoculated.
  - Reason077 6y ago
    > "The data doesn't show that. There is a slim margin that might suggest fatalities are dropping, but not by much." It takes longer for fatalities to drop because typically, there is several weeks between infection and death, and a further delay before deaths get reported. There is also a delay (weeks) between receiving a vaccine dose and achieving maximum immunity. Death rates have also dropped fastest in the groups (such as over-80s) who were vaccinated first: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n506 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n506 > "February was the coldest month for a long time in the UK. Epic rain, frost and snow. People have been stuck inside." Yes, we had a couple of weeks of unusually cold weather. But it's much warmer now, and currently, that's forecast to continue.
    - KaiserPro 6y ago
      > dropping more sharply than the infection rate. I know this might seem petty, but its really important to split out the effect of lockdown vs vaccinations. If the drop in hospital admissions is down to vaccinations, we'd expect to see a decrease in those in the top 4 groups that have been vaccinated, but a no decrease in other groups (like in Israel) In the case of the UK when the general background is decreasing infections we should see a marked difference in steepness between both groups. Now, as you rightly point out, there is normally a 4-6week lag between infection and hospital admission (this has been getting longer with improved at home monitoring). Deaths for the over 70's not so much. They are more likely to palliated, rather than put on a vent. I am not a vaccine skeptic, I look forward to getting mine and going back into a physical office. I just want to make sure that we prove things with the data we _have_ rather than try and back fill insignificant margins with meanings they can't support. The UK is a beacon of vaccination, I want it to be robust, rather than bluster.
DanBC 6y ago
> In the UK infections are decreasing because we are in a harsh lockdown. The vaccine show little to no effect _yet_ (unlike israel) Yes, we're only just beginning to see the vaccine effect. Vaccine effect is now clear in hospital admissions, but not so clear in cases: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1363480366397485056?s=20 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1363480366397485056?... https://www.ft.com/content/6d4ff17b-b3a2-4f9a-bb73-84e50ba614b6 https://www.ft.com/content/6d4ff17b-b3a2-4f9a-bb73-84e50ba61...
ascagnel_ 6y ago
> The first broad point: infections are decreasing. > I suspect that this might not always be because we are reaching "herd immunity". It could just be a side effect of stats. Also Vaccines in the USA will target the people who are likely to get tested. I think the decrease of infections is more a regression to a mean -- we were seeing spikes in infection rates over the holidays (and starting a little earlier in the US, because of when we celebrate Thanksgiving) as people decided to meet friends and family indoors and unmasked. Now that the source of the spike is behind us and most cases that were part of that spike have recovered, the weekly caseload is dropping back to where it was in October and early November. https://images.ctfassets.net/o2ll9t4ee8tq/5lcVQMPbqeYblRqbqezt3H/c9ec8f38807847c10b70bf7547f64b17/image10.png https://images.ctfassets.net/o2ll9t4ee8tq/5lcVQMPbqeYblRqbqe... (image from the COVID Tracking Project -- https://covidtracking.com/analysis-updates/more-good-news-this-week-covid-19-data-feb-18 https://covidtracking.com/analysis-updates/more-good-news-th...)
tinus_hn 6y ago
You claim lockdowns are effective because they are effective: if cases are going down without lockdown, it’s because of some unknown outside factor. If cases are going down with lockdown, it must be because of lockdown. Lockdown is both necessary and unnecessary.
- acdha 6y ago
  Cases go down when the virus is spreading less. We know lockdowns are effective because that’s happened everywhere which effectively implemented them, but nobody is saying that it’s the only option: for example, if anti-maskers woke up one morning and decided to be decent people the rate would reliably slow, too. What doesn’t help is pretending that the risks aren’t real and haven’t been well-understood for roughly the last year — ask how many people would still be alive, in better health, and working if your country had simply copied the plans from Taiwan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, etc.
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    Oh sorry, is South Korea in the ‘everything is going great’ list again? Last thing I remember they were in their third wave with restrictions for 3 months already. They must have forgotten how to wear their magical masks.
    - acdha 6y ago
      Again, the only people saying masks are magic are people like you who took an anti-science position and haven’t been willing to admit being wrong. They reduce cases but they’re not perfect, which is why some activities like indoor dining are inherently risky until we have widespread vaccination. Currently, South Korea is showing 9 cases per million versus hundreds in most of Europe, the US, etc. so we’re still talking about many thousands of deaths avoided by keeping spread 1-2 orders of magnitude lower. If you only care about the economy, ask how much money in treatment that’s saved or the lifetime economic output of the people who died early. https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/south-korea https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/south-korea

Reason077 6y ago

> “In the UK infections are decreasing because we are in a harsh lockdown. The vaccine show little to no effect _yet_” UK data does suggest that the vaccination campaign is having an effect: hospital admission rates have been dropping more sharply than infection rates. No doubt the lockdown has reduced infection rates, but there are also seasonal factors. As the weather warms up, people spend more time outdoors, windows are opened for better ventilation, etc. Covid rates will naturally drop in spring for the same reasons that cold and flu do.

KaiserPro 6y ago
> UK data does suggest that the vaccination campaign is having an effect: hospital admission rates have been dropping more sharply than infection rates. https://www.ft.com/content/6d4ff17b-b3a2-4f9a-bb73-84e50ba614b6 https://www.ft.com/content/6d4ff17b-b3a2-4f9a-bb73-84e50ba61... The data doesn't show that. There is a slim margin that might suggest fatalities are dropping, but not by much. > As the weather warms up, people spend more time outdoors, windows are opened for better ventilation, etc. February was the coldest month for a long time in the UK. Epic rain, frost and snow. People have been stuck inside. The re-opening of schools will cause a rise in infections, the question is, how much. I expect that the data will be much more clear in april, when about 20 million more people will be inoculated.
- Reason077 6y ago
  > "The data doesn't show that. There is a slim margin that might suggest fatalities are dropping, but not by much." It takes longer for fatalities to drop because typically, there is several weeks between infection and death, and a further delay before deaths get reported. There is also a delay (weeks) between receiving a vaccine dose and achieving maximum immunity. Death rates have also dropped fastest in the groups (such as over-80s) who were vaccinated first: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n506 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n506 > "February was the coldest month for a long time in the UK. Epic rain, frost and snow. People have been stuck inside." Yes, we had a couple of weeks of unusually cold weather. But it's much warmer now, and currently, that's forecast to continue.
  - KaiserPro 6y ago
    > dropping more sharply than the infection rate. I know this might seem petty, but its really important to split out the effect of lockdown vs vaccinations. If the drop in hospital admissions is down to vaccinations, we'd expect to see a decrease in those in the top 4 groups that have been vaccinated, but a no decrease in other groups (like in Israel) In the case of the UK when the general background is decreasing infections we should see a marked difference in steepness between both groups. Now, as you rightly point out, there is normally a 4-6week lag between infection and hospital admission (this has been getting longer with improved at home monitoring). Deaths for the over 70's not so much. They are more likely to palliated, rather than put on a vent. I am not a vaccine skeptic, I look forward to getting mine and going back into a physical office. I just want to make sure that we prove things with the data we _have_ rather than try and back fill insignificant margins with meanings they can't support. The UK is a beacon of vaccination, I want it to be robust, rather than bluster.

DanBC 6y ago

> In the UK infections are decreasing because we are in a harsh lockdown. The vaccine show little to no effect _yet_ (unlike israel) Yes, we're only just beginning to see the vaccine effect. Vaccine effect is now clear in hospital admissions, but not so clear in cases: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1363480366397485056?s=20 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1363480366397485056?... https://www.ft.com/content/6d4ff17b-b3a2-4f9a-bb73-84e50ba614b6 https://www.ft.com/content/6d4ff17b-b3a2-4f9a-bb73-84e50ba61...

ascagnel_ 6y ago

> The first broad point: infections are decreasing. > I suspect that this might not always be because we are reaching "herd immunity". It could just be a side effect of stats. Also Vaccines in the USA will target the people who are likely to get tested. I think the decrease of infections is more a regression to a mean -- we were seeing spikes in infection rates over the holidays (and starting a little earlier in the US, because of when we celebrate Thanksgiving) as people decided to meet friends and family indoors and unmasked. Now that the source of the spike is behind us and most cases that were part of that spike have recovered, the weekly caseload is dropping back to where it was in October and early November. https://images.ctfassets.net/o2ll9t4ee8tq/5lcVQMPbqeYblRqbqezt3H/c9ec8f38807847c10b70bf7547f64b17/image10.png https://images.ctfassets.net/o2ll9t4ee8tq/5lcVQMPbqeYblRqbqe... (image from the COVID Tracking Project -- https://covidtracking.com/analysis-updates/more-good-news-this-week-covid-19-data-feb-18 https://covidtracking.com/analysis-updates/more-good-news-th...)

tinus_hn 6y ago

You claim lockdowns are effective because they are effective: if cases are going down without lockdown, it’s because of some unknown outside factor. If cases are going down with lockdown, it must be because of lockdown. Lockdown is both necessary and unnecessary.

acdha 6y ago
Cases go down when the virus is spreading less. We know lockdowns are effective because that’s happened everywhere which effectively implemented them, but nobody is saying that it’s the only option: for example, if anti-maskers woke up one morning and decided to be decent people the rate would reliably slow, too. What doesn’t help is pretending that the risks aren’t real and haven’t been well-understood for roughly the last year — ask how many people would still be alive, in better health, and working if your country had simply copied the plans from Taiwan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, etc.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  Oh sorry, is South Korea in the ‘everything is going great’ list again? Last thing I remember they were in their third wave with restrictions for 3 months already. They must have forgotten how to wear their magical masks.
  - acdha 6y ago
    Again, the only people saying masks are magic are people like you who took an anti-science position and haven’t been willing to admit being wrong. They reduce cases but they’re not perfect, which is why some activities like indoor dining are inherently risky until we have widespread vaccination. Currently, South Korea is showing 9 cases per million versus hundreds in most of Europe, the US, etc. so we’re still talking about many thousands of deaths avoided by keeping spread 1-2 orders of magnitude lower. If you only care about the economy, ask how much money in treatment that’s saved or the lifetime economic output of the people who died early. https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/south-korea https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/south-korea