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Since no one under 16 has been vaccinated yet, about 70% of the population is vaccinated (44M out of 67M). That might be barely enough for herd immunity for som
by SamBam 5y ago
Since no one under 16 has been vaccinated yet, about 70% of the population is vaccinated (44M out of 67M). That might be barely enough for herd immunity for some diseases, but the case numbers in the UK are still very high and trending back upward, showing that this isn't enough for herd immunity for Covid.
Hospitalization rates are also back up to significantly higher than they were this time last year.
And that's with the restrictions you're referring to. So, no, I don't think that it would make sense for the UK to just go right back to normal just yet, at least until the vaccinations rates are high enough that you see the case rate go back down and stay down.
- carnitine 5y agoWhat restrictions are there in the UK? As far as I know in England and Wales where the vast majority live there are none except for those around international travel or imposed by private enterprise.
- jjgreen 5y agoThey're pretty much gone, there are still some mask requirements on, e.g., London underground, but 50% compliance? There is some talk of introducing a vaccine passport for nightclubs, football grounds in a month or two. For me, the mood in London is "we've had enough, it's endemic, let's live with it".
- cm2187 5y agoThese herd immunity thresholds assumed that vaccinated people do not transmit the virus, but it appears that they do. Vaccines seem to be very efficient at preventing complications, which is great and good enough to neutralise this virus. But they don't seem to have made a dent into this summer's cases numbers. It doesn't look like vaccines will prevent the virus from circulating. Hospitalisation rates have been pretty much flat vs previous waves (there was no wave last summer).
- hutzlibu 5y ago"It doesn't look like vaccines will prevent the virus from circulating." Do you have some numbers? As far as I know, it indeed supresses the virus from circulating, it just doesn't stop it completely. Here in my area, which started early with broad vaccinations - the numbers are way down.
- cm2187 5y agoThe size of the peak cases in countries that have high vaccination rate, vs previous peaks before vaccination. UK for instance: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases
- eloff 5y agoYou are comparing different variants as if they are equal. That makes no sense. If you look at the data so far available it does seem to reduce incidence of infection.
- riffraff 5y agowe know the new variants are more contagious than what we had last year, if the vaccines didn't limit growth we should see a steeper curve, I believe.
- rajin444 5y agoHow do you account for prior immunity as well as the "pool" of people that would show up as a case going down as well? Both those factors would result in a softer curve without any vaccination.
- thom 5y agoHas the UK peaked?
- simonsarris 5y agoIsrael also started early with broad vaccinations. Now compare latest waves in USA/GB/Israel: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=USA~GBR~ISR https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor... For fun, add India, which has comparatively low vaccinations, where Delta began: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=USA~GBR~ISR~IND https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
- qwerty456127 5y agoI'm almost sure 100% vaccination rate with the vaccines currently available won't change much. I hope I'm wrong. But there already are cases apparently confirming this. IMHO we should just return to normal, consider this a new kind of flu and deal with the fact it's more deadly. I always knew there is a chance a flu can kill me one day. I'm Ok with the fact the chance is higher now. My personal (apparently risky, I don't recommend it to others) strategy is living an active social life to be in regular contact with the virus (while testing every now and then to make sure I don't spread it) so my immune system keeps on producing the natural antibodies (I also test for every couple of months).
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- 001spartan 5y agoReturning to normal is a terrible idea when COVID patients are overwhelming hospitals across the world. How can things be normal if our healthcare systems are nearing collapse? You might be willing to accept the risk of getting sick on your behalf, but by advocating a return to 'normal' before we have the capabilities to deal with this virus, you are advocating for putting even more stress on healthcare systems across the globe already on the verge of failure. There are patients in heavily-impacted areas who cannot access healthcare for other life-or-death concerns because hospitals are crumbling under the workload of COVID cases. The article even states this; COVID is likely to reach endemic status eventually, but we are still nowhere near that. Ignoring it will have enormous costs on vulnerable populations -- even more than it already has.
- qwerty456127 5y agoPoliticians say this all the time. I doubt anything we can do can change this. Just build more hospitals. We have resolved the masks shortage, we will resolve the shortage of ventilators and hospitals also. We can even soften the shortage of medical personnel by directing the unemployed to paid full-time medical boot camps. I understand this is much easier said than done but we hardly have a choice if we actually want to do something useful.
- tharne 5y ago> Since no one under 16 has been vaccinated yet, about 70% of the population is vaccinated (44M out of 67M). This fact really bothers me. I feel like once adults got vaccinated we all spiked the football and said "F--k the kids, I got mine".
- jtbayly 5y agoThe kids aren't in danger.
- Filligree 5y agoSay that to my cousin's niece. Wait. You can't anymore.
- jtbayly 5y agoSorry for your cousin's and fam's loss. Sorry, also, but that's an anecdote. All the data I've seen doesn't bear out all the hyperventilating of increased risk for kids.
- tharne 5y agoThe kids weren't in danger, that appears to be changing very quickly with the new variant. Let's not be like George W. Bush standing on the aircraft carrier saying "mission accomplished", when we're still in the middle of this thing.
- jtbayly 5y agoShow me data.
- tharne 5y agoThis "show me data" line works well in debates, but not in the real world. You often don't have the time or ability to wait for data to roll in, do a study, have it peer reviewed, and then make a decision. In real life you constantly have to make decisions under uncertain conditions with limited information of unknown quality. And that's the situation we're in right now. We can send the kids back to school with no vaccines, no masks, no precautions, and say "We don't have any data that this thing is dangerous for children". The obvious problem there is that we don't have a ton of data in general with this variant. So, if we're wrong about the danger, we risk harming a lot of children while we dutifully wait for the data to roll in. This is the same reason that most women (and many men for that matter) will cross the street late at night if they are on an empty street and see a large man approaching them. They have zero evidence suggesting that the person is a threat, but the cost of being wrong in such cases is very high. So, having limited data, they tend to take a very cautious and conservative approach and cross the street. In our case, just change, "Cross the street" to "Wear a mask". This comparison is far from perfect, but you get the idea.
- xx511134bz 5y agoWe can test your model of reality. When X amount of youngsters get vaccinated, will we go back to normal? Ye or ne? My mental model says ne.
- dehrmann 5y ago> That might be barely enough for herd immunity for some diseases Also remember that herd immunity works best when those who are antibodies are evenly distributed. Schools will become major places where it's spread because of how many people without immunity are in one place.
- spywaregorilla 5y agoHerd immunity cannot be measured by an arbitrary percentage. Maybe it is 70% or 80%, but only if that's a random sample of the population. Social networks determine the relevance. If you have a single homogenous group of individuals that interact with each other that is unvaccinated then there's still plenty of threats. And that generally includes children as a big intermingling block.
- dham 5y agoThe vaccine isn't a vaccine, it's a treatment. Cases are a poor indicator. It's time to go back to normal.
- tzs 5y agoWhat's delta like for under 16? In the US through May 2021, so it might not be a good representation for delta, here were the infections, hospitalizations, and deaths per 100k for various age groups: Age Inf Hosp Deaths 0-17 37k 287 0.5 18-49 44k 1100 25 50-64 32k 2600 85 65+ 22k 5200 1140 Unless the numbers for delta are way higher, that suggests that for under 17 getting your immunity by actually getting COVID is fine. The main reason then you want to prevent kids from getting COVID is not so much for its danger to them but rather for the danger to the adults that the kids will spread it to. Kid gives it to a grandparent, and that grandparent is 20x as likely to be hospitalized and 2000x as likely to die as the kid. If the kid gives it to their parents, the parents are 4x as likely to be hospitalized and 50x as likely to die. If the numbers for delta are at all similar for kids, then there is a good chance that there is not much difference between a population where everybody gets vaccinated and population where all the adults get vaccinated but the kids do not, suggesting vaccinating adults should be the priority. The long term endgame is probably a population where it is endemic, everyone gets it as a child when they are young enough that it doesn't cause serious illness, and then keeps getting it every year or so for the rest of their lives. Those subsequent cases don't cause serious illness because they still have protection from the last time. That's what happened with the four other coronaviruses that are in wide circulations in humans. They are thought to have caused terrible pandemics when they first got to humans which were deadly in adults but not bad in children. Nowadays they are still around, everyone gets them frequently, and we don't even bother to have a separate name for the illness they cause. We just lump it in with the illnesses from a bunch of other viruses and call it the common cold. Around 20% of common colds are from those coronaviruses.
- hammock 5y ago>That might be barely enough for herd immunity for some diseases How can herd immunity be achieved with a leaky vaccine?