Forum menu
Pardon?!?
Edit: the truth is more prosaic… isolating after a close contact tested positive
Scratch that, story just changed to he's been told to isolate after an MP has tested positive. Conveniently.
Isn't Boris self isolating after being in close contact with Lee Anderson MP, who tested positive this morning along with his wife?
Look, look, Track And Trace works! 😆
Look, look, Track And Trace works! 😆
World beating, apparently 🤣
Here’s an easy to understand description of the PCR tests by Dr Adam Rutherford (worth following on Twitter)
https://twitter.com/adamrutherford/status/1327901972419276800?s=21
The replies to that ace Twitter thread… so many patient people playing chess with pigeons.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54902908
The Moderna is showing 95% efficacy. Is it the same mRNA approach as the Pizfer one?
What about this Jansen one in Belgium - is that dead virus?
Same type of technology as BioNTech / Pfizer. The announcement is another early Phase 3 one - only based on 95 cases of Covid. Still good news, looks like we'll get lots of different working vaccines.
Moderna = RNA
Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) = non-replicating viral vector
https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
EDIT; Though RNA, they say it is more stable;
"While Pfizer’s vaccine requires ultracold freezing between -70C and -80C from production facility to patient, Moderna said it had improved the shelf life and stability of its own vaccine, meaning that it can be stored at standard refrigeration temperatures of 2C to 8C for 30 days. It can be stored for six months at -20C for shipping and long-term storage, the company said."
As expected from the antibody trials from Lilly and Regeneron, presence of neutralising antibodies protects against severe COVID infection. Confirming this for two mRNA vaccines with pretty much the same response is encouraging, and bodes well for other vaccine candidates.
Of note in the press release - Grade 3 means it might smart a bit...
Grade 3 (severe) events greater than or equal to 2% in frequency after the first dose included injection site pain (2.7%), and after the second dose included fatigue (9.7%), myalgia (8.9%), arthralgia (5.2%), headache (4.5%), pain (4.1%) and erythema/redness at the injection site (2.0%). These solicited adverse events were generally short-lived. These data are subject to change based on ongoing analysis of further Phase 3 COVE study data and final analysis.
Remember that Moderna lowered their dose from the top dose tested in Phase 1, it's possible the Phase 3 dose may also have been too high. I used to work with their CMO.
Do we have an order in for this with Moderna? The cold store requirements make it sound like something we can support next year for more normal pharmacist distribution.
No, its not one of our 6.
Does the Oxford one require ultra cold storage?
No, its not one of our 6.
So, are initial stocks all going to USA, or spread more widely?
So, are initial stocks all going to USA, or spread more widely?
They have contracts with a number of countries. The EU has a very large order and offered us to join the procurement exercise but we declined stating we could secure a contract cheaper and faster....we are still negotiating....
The EU has a very large order and offered us to join the procurement exercise but we declined stating we could secure a contract cheaper and faster….we are still negotiating….
Another inspiring achievement by Johnson-chum Kate Bingham.
From the Guardian:
More than 50 pupils at one of England’s top boarding schools have tested positive for Covid-19.
Sedbergh School in eastern Cumbria said that 53 senior students in four different boarding houses had confirmed cases.
“The vast majority were asymptomatic, and we must therefore assume that a number of pupils across the school have Covid-19,” principal Andrew Fleck wrote in a letter to parents on Monday.
Mobile testing units will test all students and staff on Tuesday and Wednesday, the principal said. Those who test positive will be asked to travel home and isolate for ten days.
Sendd them home to infect their families when they could be isolated in one of the bording houses. madness.
admissions dont seem to be leveling off as fast as we might hope?
we were starting to see an effect after 14 days in lockdown 1
Or are the situations too different to compare & the data too noisey?
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare
If you look at cases there was a plateau then a rise too. Half term then back to school? Last week shopping/pub frenzy before lockdown?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53640249
I tried and struggled to find out about the rest of Europe recently. This article sums it up quite well. On balance, I'm quite happy to be in the UK right now.
Last week shopping/pub frenzy before lockdown?
I think this has been touted as a possibility. Who knew?
admissions dont seem to be leveling off as fast as we might hope?
I mentioned that yesterday, its a worry, the slow down appears to have stopped and its going back to what it was.
excellent visualisation tool of change in weekly cases
theres a zoomable one lower down
https://twitter.com/carlbaker/status/1328364650719817734
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Rm9BgAIc452nkRrUAt01cji61OlneJtk/view
“The vast majority were asymptomatic, and we must therefore assume that a number of pupils across the school have Covid-19,” principal Andrew Fleck wrote in a letter to parents on Monday.
Is he just stupid or doesn't he understand you can't have asymptomatic Covid-19?
excellent visualisation tool of change in weekly cases
This appears identical to the SARS-CoV-2 testing data?
Is the correlation between the two so good?
Is he just stupid or doesn’t he understand you can’t have asymptomatic Covid-19?
Can't you?
Just had a test in one of the Liverpool test centres. Walked in at 3pm, only people in there apart from the army lads, got the text message results bang on 4pm (negative)
Can’t you?
No. COVID-19 is the disease. SAS-COV2 infection can be asymptomatic, so you can be infected with the virus, shedding and even infectious. But you don't have disease. He meant asymptomatic infection.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/symptoms/#symptoms
It doesn’t help when that explainer NHS page says…
Coronavirus (Covid-19) … and then uses “coronavirus” where it mean Covid-19 … is it any wonder that people think it is the name of the virus?
The WTO did’t help either, as they didn’t want “SARS” mentioned in communications about the virus, so as not scare people in countries hit by the the previous SARS virus in recent years.
So, the public thinking that Covid-19 is the name of the virus can not be undone now. No point getting pedantic about it this far in.
Another inspiring achievement by Johnson-chum Kate Bingham.
Second easiest deal in history.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and six other MPs are self-isolating after they attended a breakfast meeting and one later tested positive
What a bunch of useless wastes of skin. If this were teachers the press would be going mad about the stupidity.
Another inspiring achievement by Johnson-chum Kate Bingham.
US ALWAYS had first dibs on this. NIAID paid for the trials as part of Warp Speed. Spreading across the modalities is reasonable, betting on every one more challenging. Plenty of other options will be along soon to complement the cold fridge option.
So, the public thinking that Covid-19 is the name of the virus can not be undone now. No point getting pedantic about it this far in.
I beg to differ and as we get people with antibodies through infection, vaccines and other treatments and increasing long tail COVID it is likely to be more important not less.
It's already a cause for concern that people can't distinguish between an antibody test vs PCR.
It doesn’t help when that explainer NHS page says…
Coronavirus (Covid-19) … and then uses “coronavirus” where it mean Covid-19 … is it any wonder that people think it is the name of the virus?
#Faceplant
Yeah, so what next a form asking.. "have you ever had Coronavirus"?
I was in a HOSPITAL today.... I don't think I heard any term pertaining to the disease or virus used correctly.
Consider it's possible to have been with someone had the Virus in March/April.... and tested has positive for antibodies but tested negative to actually having the virus now ...
US ALWAYS had first dibs on this. NIAID paid for the trials as part of Warp Speed.
Who has first dibs on the European made batches due next year?
I don’t think I heard any term pertaining to the disease or virus used correctly.
We’ve tried to on this thread I think, but you can’t undo 6 months of interchangeable use of the terms by public bodies and the media now. Well, you might do eventually, but not with pedantry in forums… would take a huge communication effect, as for HIV/AIDS.
…as we get people with antibodies through infection, vaccines and other treatments and increasing long tail COVID it is likely to be more important not less.
I agree with that.
What do the latest Liverpool mass test results tell us? I believe its been a week now...anyone know/understand the comparisons
My favourite line from the emails I am getting more regularly now.
PHE advised no staff need to isolate.
What do the latest Liverpool mass test results tell us? I believe its been a week now…anyone know/understand the comparisons
Any links to the results?
As anticipated, excess mortality is climbing. Week 45 data (week-ending Nov-06) is 19% above 10-year mean and will continue to climb further. Currently 1200 above the previous 10-year maximum and 1900 above the mean.
I guess we won't see the effect of England's lockdown on deaths for a few more weeks, it's not looking good in the short term.
My favourite line from the emails I am getting more regularly now.
PHE advised no staff need to isolate.
Yeah it's almost like there is an exponential growth ... who'd have thunk it?
Another two weeks. ONS prevalence data is turning over. Add 11-days for deaths and a few more for all-cause deaths, says two week (Weeks 46-47). it's a pretty straightforward prediction now. But note the divergent slopes of this year and other years (it's a semi-log plot).
“The vast majority were asymptomatic, and we must therefore assume that a number of pupils across the school have Covid-19,” principal Andrew Fleck wrote in a letter to parents on Monday.
Is he just stupid or doesn’t he understand you can’t have asymptomatic Covid-19?
I consider myself a bit of a pedant.... but really there are plenty of more important things to worry about at present!! Particularly when you consider that the distinction between "disease" and asymptomatic carrier does not seem to be binary, with a full spectrum from symptoms so mild they can go unnoticed, through to the most serious.
Especially with school kids, when by "asymptomatic", they could well just mean "not showing the symptoms we've been told to look out for"... which, in the UK, is still the list of most usual symptoms in adults, not children.
So, anyone bring the cake?*
I got a cake but it didn't seem to taste of anything... oh hang on...
paulo
I consider myself a bit of a pedant…. but really there are plenty of more important things to worry about at present!!
Those "important things" hinge on the distinction between having antibodies or not, currently having live shedable virus and not... and actually understanding what is being measured and isn't.
Take a random example ... someone who has had the virus, developed anti-bodies and probably still has them... fails to social distance (just randomly lets say they were on live TV at the time) then it turns out one of the people he (or she) was with then tests positive.
You haven’t made anything more clear there.
Anyway… time we started giving a damn about what the likes of Crikey are being put through this year…
https://twitter.com/seaningraham22/status/1328656598999429120?s=21
Well according to our health minister the peak of the second wave is behind us in France.
Of interest is that schools have remained open even if anything non-esential is shut. The turning point is a few weeks after the school holidays when mask wearing becamoe obligatory in primary schools as wel as secondary. I think another significant thing has been making meetings between colleagues in school virtual even if the classes are maintained which reduces the risk of transmission between classes by teachers. I haven't had any reports of whole schools being infectd for ages. The only recent disasters have been pre-school where the kids still have no mask.
I now hope that shops can open again. If masks and distancing works in schools it should in shops too. Limit the numbers let in in relation to space and queue at 2m intervals outside.
The Dolly Parton Covid-19 research fund is the latest example of Parton’s well-known philanthropy. Her Imagination Library gifts free books to children from birth until starting school in participating areas. She recently told Oprah Winfrey that she never had children “because I believe that God didn’t mean for me to have kids so everybody’s kids could be mine, so I could do things like the Imagination Library.”
😉
They have contracts with a number of countries. The EU has a very large order and offered us to join the procurement exercise but we declined stating we could secure a contract cheaper and faster….we are still negotiating….
I'm not quite sure this is true. According to a Spanish friend the EU doesn't have an order finalised for the Moderna vaccine yet. Below is a snippet from La Vanguardia.
The Moderna company plans to produce between 500 and 1 billion doses of its vaccine by the end of 2021. The first hundreds of millions of doses will be distributed as a priority in the United States , whose government has financed almost entirely the development of the vaccine.
Canada and Japan have also signed agreements with Moderna to guarantee shipments of the vaccine in the coming months. The European Union is in negotiations with the US company but has not yet closed a purchase contract, which means that neither Spain nor any other EU country will be among the first recipients of the vaccine .
I think another significant thing has been making meetings between colleagues in school virtual even if the classes are maintained which reduces the risk of transmission between classes by teachers.
Makes perfect sense Ed, doesn’t it. Crazy that isn’t common practise here.
According to a Spanish friend the EU doesn’t have an order finalised for the Moderna vaccine yet.
The EU supply will be from the European production, rather than the USA production, no? That’s going to be later, but larger, IIRC.
From August:
https://medcitynews.com/2020/08/moderna-to-supply-up-to-160m-doses-of-covid-19-vaccine-to-europe/
Looks like I had it mixed up… 80 million minimum, 160 million possibly (presumably that extra 80 million is what current negotiations are about) from the early supply. Lonza and Rovi to be used in Europe to greatly increase supply… at some point.
The EU supply will be from the European production, rather than the USA production, no? That’s going to be later, but larger, IIRC.
I believe the initial shipments will come directly from the USA. The doses for Spain will ultimately come from a plant in Alcobendas apparently, but that might be a bit later next year.
The EMA haven't certified Moderna vaccine yet (& data not fully out yet)
But the deal Moderna have offered is 80 million doses up front with option to buy 80 million more (<$25 a dose) they've been in negotiations since July
UK claimed we could get it quicker & cheaper that thru EU joint procurement scheme, but does anyone believe we got our 5 million doses at a better rate than they can get 160 million?
UK government refused to disclose what they've paid
Our desperate scramble to get some yesterday was what we've come to expect
Out vaccine tsar more interested on spaffing £1/2bn on her mates PR firm than doing her job
making meetings between colleagues in school virtual even if the classes are maintained which reduces the risk of transmission between classes by teachers.
Makes perfect sense Ed, doesn’t it. Crazy that isn’t common practise here.
Crazy that it's not done in No10!
My local train company has cut half of the rush hour train services during lockdown. Now it’s standing room only on the trains shared by school kids and commenters. Utterly mad.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map
Slowly slide the control from August to November. A useful way to picture what has happened this term.
What’s the scale on that “infographic” mefty?
Edit: ahh, I see, it’s in the subtitle, ignore me.
Looks great, if all those come good.
EU currently has twice the doses per ahead than UK on the way though, by the looks of that. You could argue that’s just luck though, perhaps.
It is a bar chart, not a infographc and the scale is clearly stated.
I see things are going well in Sweden.
Now it’s standing room only on the trains shared by school kids and commenters
What do they have to say about it?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/health/coronavirus-immunity.html
Eight months after infection, most people who have recovered still have enough immune cells to fend off the virus and prevent illness, the new data show. A slow rate of decline in the short term suggests, happily, that these cells may persist in the body for a very, very long time to come.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.15.383323v1
I don’t understand enough to really comment but thought it’d be worth sharing
The caveat
The research, published online, has not been peer-reviewed nor published in a scientific journal.
My local train company has cut half of the rush hour train services during lockdown. Now it’s standing room only on the trains shared by school kids and commenters. Utterly mad.
Which company?
The TOCs are under huge pressure at the moment with drivers/conductors being off sick or self-isolating and also with driver training. Roll-out of some newer stock was delayed because it's difficult/impossible to train drivers while social distancing and it's also lead to problems with drivers maintaining currency.
To maintain any form of reliability overall, they've had to cut some services.
South Eastern. They aren’t running max length trains either.
don’t understand enough to really comment but thought it’d be worth sharing
Your immune system has two branches; Cellular and Humoural. The first is cells that recognise nasties and act on them immediately, the second is antibodies (proteins that circulate in the humours or fluids) that neutralise them. In the paper they have measured the timescale for both of these. The two cell types are T and B cells. The antibodies come in different flavours I(mmuno)g(lobulin) M, A, and G depending on which humour and how long it takes B cells to make them to make them.
The paper shows that cellular immunity declines as expected - the cells go away after infection as they have little to do when the nasty has gone, the antibodies also decline with rates like other antibodies, and special cells called memory cells rise. These cells are the lasting part of your immunity that are ready to fire off and mobilise your immune system when your body sees the same nasty again in the future.
Now they speculate that at six months (basically as long as they can measure at the moment), the changes in the two arms of the immune system are such that there is still likely to be some protection from reinfection. That’s a pretty likely scenario, since few people have been reinfected since far.
Come back in another 18 months and I suspect things will look quite different. Other coronaviruses infect adults with a period of about two years, but kids get infected more often. It’s not impossible that adults with no past history might also be infected more frequently - like kids. We shall see.
[tl:dr] six months on, your immune system works as it should and you probably won’t get reinfected with Covid too quickly after a first infection. Or after a vaccine by implication.
That reinfection report is positive, thanks TiRed for the idiots guide and reality check.
Thanks again TiRed.
On the lockdown thread someone posted about a new strain of the virus in Australia with th following quote:
The Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier says the particular strain of the virus is breeding “very, very rapidly” with a short incubation period of about 24 hours, and with infected people showing only minimal symptoms.
They should patent the strain as it sounds like the perfect live vaccine to me if it provides immunity from other strains too!
I've posted here because that thread is one of the ones which tells me to log in to post even when I'm logged in. There were so many a few days back I thought I'd been banned. 🙂
The world is having its revenge today!!!
Dido Harding told to self-isolate by the NHS app…
Im sure she will find some way to mess it up. Im predicting photos of her at the shops in a few hours.
Not quite following how she's been asked to self isolate a week after her husband?
Danish mask study published today. Expect some write up on lockdownsceptics and elsewhere tomorrow.
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817
Sadly the measured effect was smaller that the study was powered for (15 vs 50% reduction) and the trial failed to meet its primary endpoint. That doesn’t mean masks do not work (there is a trend) but it does mean you can’t say masks do work either! Not the first failed trial where people have gone in looking for a big effect and not found it.
Infection with SARS-CoV-2 occurred in 42 participants recommended masks (1.8%) and 53 control participants (2.1%). The between-group difference was −0.3 percentage point (95% CI, −1.2 to 0.4 percentage point; P = 0.38) (odds ratio, 0.82 [CI, 0.54 to 1.23]; P = 0.33).
The absence of statistical significance meant the paper was not accepted by the NEJM or lancet. That’s not at all surprising. A P-value of 0.38 means that a difference of the size seen (-0.3) could have occurred by chance in just over 1/3 trials. That’s how P-values should be interpreted. They powered on expecting to not miss a 50% drop (-1.0) in 8/10 trials.
Not the first underpowered study and it won’t be the last. Big effects need few participants but are pretty rare. Small effects need lots of participants and the trials are longer and more expensive. That’s the sad reality.
Am I going to be able to re-open my barber shop on Dec 2nd?
I know nobody actually knows but is it likely? I'm in Kirklees.
The lad that works for me is 30, his wife is a teacher in Keighley and they have both tested positive since we finished in November. He is desperate to get back and earning, me not so much.
Danish mask study published today. Expect some write up on lockdownsceptics and elsewhere tomorrow.
You couldn't make this stuff up.
Big effects need few participants but are pretty rare.
The adherence is pretty shambolic,
The face masks provided to participants were high-quality surgical masks with a filtration rate of 98%
without clear instructions on how and when to wear them or ensuring those instructions were followed against a backdrop of social pressure against mask wearing whilst measuring the wrong thing (when surely the important thing is spread of the virus by mask wearers to others) in settings where noone else was wearing a mask where the criteria was "outside the house".
Personal observation in the UK shows a huge percentage of mask wearing is either ineffective or actively negative. People wearing sopping wet masks, nose exposed, chin masks ... people driving in cars alone wearing masks
Based on the lowest adherence reported in the mask group during follow-up, 46% of participants wore the mask as recommended, 47% predominantly as recommended, and 7% not as recommended.
What does that mean? 46% wore the mask 100% of the time outside the house or 46% wore the mask over their face correctly and removed it using safe methods 100% of the time?
Not quite following how she’s been asked to self isolate a week after her husband?
He was told to isolate because he'd been in contact with someone who has tested positive.
A week later she is told to isolate because she'd been in contact with someone else who has tested positive. Which could be her husband if he has developed symptoms and tested positive after being infectious before being told to isolate.
Of course, they could have ****ed up his isolation and she caught it off him when he should have been isolating from her. I'm guessing their house would be big enough for them to properly keep apart for two weeks.
Am I going to be able to re-open my barber shop on Dec 2nd?
I know nobody actually knows but is it likely? I’m in Kirklees.
I wouldn't bank on it considering we have one of the highest rates in the country at the moment and T2 never did anything to stop the increase pre lockdown, areas such as Batley, Dewsbury, Mirfield and most of the surrounding areas are the main culprits with rates of over 1K+ per 100,000.
Personal observation in the UK shows a huge percentage of mask wearing is either ineffective or actively negative.
This was always going to be the case. Being clear that social distancing is much more effective than casual* mask wearing should always have been part of the government’s messaging. To open up public transport and workplaces masks are an essential tool, but they are not magic. To be fair, they’ve always added things like “make space” to their “wear a mask” messaging, but undermined that with their “covid secure” concept. And as for “one metre plus”…?!?
[*by which I mean untrained and unprofessional]
I see things are going well in Sweden.
Yeah. Many infections, not many deaths or ICU admissions. Yet.
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa