Covid 19 Part XXIX-85,394 ROI(2,200 deaths) 62,723 NI (1,240 deaths) (26/12) Read OP

Hector Savage · 15-12-2020 11:11AM

El Sueño wrote: »

The guy on with Claire Byrne there was very good. It was great to see him shutting her down when she was practically salivating at the thought of the "killer new strain".

I thought Claire Byrne had some sense, wasn't she coming out against lockdowns recently ? newstalk girl yeah >?

Stheno · 15-12-2020 11:13AM

Hector Savage wrote: »

I thought Claire Byrne had some sense, wasn't she coming out against lockdowns recently ? newstalk girl yeah >?

No thats Ciara Kelly is it not?

stephenjmcd · 15-12-2020 11:14AM

caveat emptor wrote: »

Reading into that new strain a bit more there is a bit more too it. There's this pre print paper. There have been changes to the spike protein throughout but this but the paper claims to show data showing a two fold increase in infectivity. This is on top of research showing that these kind of mutations can lead to "antibody escape". i.e previously generated antibodies MAY not work (via infection or vaccine) . This has been observed in people treated with convalescent plasma and is a selection pressure. There's a number of different lineages that have these changes. One related to the mink in Denmark, one is similar to a mutation observed when sars covid2 was "passaged" through mice for "adaptation purposes". This change increased pathogenicity.

Basically there was something to what their health secretary said yesterday but they are probably running experiments to see if that paper is in fact accurate which will take time. There are significant clusters in SE uk with a significant change to the spike protein. The timing of the announcement of it with large restrictions in London was suspect but I wouldn't dismiss it as a non story just yet. Hopefully there's more info soon.

https://twitter.com/GuptaR_lab/status/1338743292801003520?s=20

Good threads here

https://twitter.com/firefoxx66/status/1338533710178775047?s=19

https://twitter.com/firefoxx66/status/1338602762033094656?s=19

awec · 15-12-2020 11:22AM

Is there due to be another announcement on Friday? Trying to figure what the chances are of changes to the already announced restrictions over Christmas.

ACitizenErased · 15-12-2020 11:23AM

awec wrote: »

Is there due to be another announcement on Friday? Trying to figure what the chances are of changes to the already announced restrictions over Christmas.

Unless there is some dramatic change before Friday I would say chances are very very slim

Hector Savage · 15-12-2020 11:27AM

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Good threads here

https://twitter.com/firefoxx66/status/1338533710178775047?s=19

https://twitter.com/firefoxx66/status/1338602762033094656?s=19

Good, hopefully that will shut up the doom mongers

caveat emptor · 15-12-2020 11:37AM

Hector Savage wrote: »

Good, hopefully that will shut up the doom mongers

Yeah. The doom mongers it's all their fault. If it changes and renders a vaccine ineffective it wouldn't be down to doom mongers. It's selection pressure. Lots of unknowns with an emergent pathogen.

There's no hard evidence that this mutation affects the transmissibility or severity. Can't be ruled out yet and it pays to be prudent. Probably why countries are looking so closely at it. It's amazing how quick the genomic data is shared and analysed globally now. Historically this would have been done after the fact.

https://twitter.com/scottishwormboy/status/1338756037139197952?s=20

This is a virus that evolved in animals and made the jump to infecting people around a year ago.
Since then it has been picking up around two mutations a month - take a sample today and compare it to the first ones from Wuhan in China and there would be around 25 mutations separating them.
Coronavirus is still trying out different combinations of mutations to properly nail infecting humans.
We have seen this happen before: The emergence and global dominance of another variant (G614) is seen by many as the virus getting better at spreading.
But soon mass vaccination will put a different kind of pressure on the virus because it will have to change in order to infect people who have been immunized.
If this does drive the evolution of the virus, we may have to regularly update the vaccines, as we do for flu, to keep up.

From a Good article

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55312505

Hector Savage · 15-12-2020 11:50AM

caveat emptor wrote: »

Yeah. The doom mongers it's all their fault. If it changes and renders a vaccine ineffective it wouldn't be down to doom mongers. It's selection pressure. Lots of unknowns with an emergent pathogen.

There's no hard evidence that this mutation affects the transmissibility or severity. Can't be ruled out yet and it pays to be prudent. Probably why countries are looking so closely at it. It's amazing how quick the genomic data is shared and analysed globally now. Historically this would have been done after the fact.

https://twitter.com/scottishwormboy/status/1338756037139197952?s=20

From a Good article

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55312505

I think it's another way to look at this differently, perhaps there will be future mutations that will render the vaccines useless.

Maybe pausing life and waiting and relying on a vaccine is not the way, maybe they should focus on improving hospital capacity - particularly ICU.

Also focus on the drug treatments of this, this is here to stay, it's endemic, time we learned to live with it rather than defeat it.

Of course I hope mutations won't affect vaccines, but it's a lot to hope for and the stakes are high.

PowerToWait · 15-12-2020 11:55AM

Hector Savage wrote: »

Of course, with the vaccines rolling out they need something else to scaremonger over ... can see the fat neckbeards out there hoping and praying that it's resistant to vaccines.

It would be much better for them to listen to scaremongering, from mostly unverified sources, about refugees, direct provision centres, child grooming gangs, traveller crime gangs, hordes of Islamic rapists invading Europe.

Not this scaremongering about a real and deadly disease that is killing tens of thousands every single week.

CIARAN_BOYLE · 15-12-2020 11:56AM

awec wrote: »

Is there due to be another announcement on Friday? Trying to figure what the chances are of changes to the already announced restrictions over Christmas.

Theres a Nphet meeting thursday. Who knows what they will pull out but I doubt the government will want to change anything.

awec · 15-12-2020 12:15PM

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Theres a Nphet meeting thursday. Who knows what they will pull out but I doubt the government will want to change anything.

I know they had said before that things would relax from the 18th, but wasn't sure if they planned to confirm exactly what would change closer to the 18th.

Benimar · 15-12-2020 12:19PM

awec wrote: »

I know they had said before that things would relax from the 18th, but wasn't sure if they planned to confirm exactly what would change closer to the 18th.

Those changes are already confirmed - travel outside county, 3 families meet indoors etc.

There wont be any further loosening of that.

Plumbthedepths · 15-12-2020 12:31PM

Similar findings to what the experience of the BAME communities in the UK were.

https://www.independent.ie/news/travellers-and-people-with-black-and-asian-ethnicity-more-likely-to-contract-covid-19-39864447.html

hmmm · 15-12-2020 12:35PM

Hector Savage wrote: »

Good, hopefully that will shut up the doom mongers

Why were we not told about the other 3,999 mutations in the spike protein? The world needs to know so that the hordes of virologists on social media can make their own minds up about the data.

https://twitter.com/ewanbirney/status/1338616975786958848

bb1234567 · 15-12-2020 12:41PM

wadacrack wrote: »

Good thread. The situation throughout Europe is not good.

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1338593065125220357

Well that sounds bad but for example USA had massive uncontrolled spread coming up Thanksgiving which was expected to make it get even more out of hand and by no means has it improved since then (obviously) but Thanksgiving didn't seem to cause it to get any worse than the natural trajectory was already appearing to be heading

TonyMaloney · 15-12-2020 12:52PM

bb1234567 wrote: »

Well that sounds bad but for example USA had massive uncontrolled spread coming up Thanksgiving which was expected to make it get even more out of hand and by no means has it improved since then (obviously) but Thanksgiving didn't seem to cause it to get any worse than the natural trajectory was already appearing to be heading

I don't think that's right actually. There was a massive spike following Thanksgiving

Widescreen · 15-12-2020 12:58PM

Benimar wrote: »

Those changes are already confirmed - travel outside county, 3 families meet indoors etc.

There wont be any further loosening of that.

In a country the size of Ireland there was absolutely no requirement to open up the country from the 18th Dec to 6th Jan. You can drive from anywhere to anywhere in Ireland in a matter of hours.

With the virus about to spiral out of control here again now they should change this to 22/23 Dec to 2nd Jan max and that is being generous and possibly foolish.

The government have gone from protecting people from the virus to basically saying at this stage does it really matter if more people die.

if they could have a referendum about Christmas, which obviously they can't, majority would have voted to maintain restrictions.

It could be nasty in the hospitals in a few weeks time unfortunately.

awec · 15-12-2020 01:01PM

Benimar wrote: »

Those changes are already confirmed - travel outside county, 3 families meet indoors etc.

There wont be any further loosening of that.

Particularly wonderign if they'll say anything about cross border travel.

Mitch Connor · 15-12-2020 01:02PM

funnydoggy wrote: »

if they could have a referendum about Christmas, which obviously they can't, majority would have voted to maintain restrictions.

IMO you are wrong on this.

I think the majority would vote to lift restrictions to the level they are doing so, if not more. Rightly or wrongly.

I'll be having a much quieter christmas this year, but I just don't think a majority would have voted to keep hihgher restrictions in place. Sure a good amount were or are ignoring a lot of the restrictions as is.

Plumbthedepths · 15-12-2020 01:03PM

awec wrote: »

Particularly wonderign if they'll say anything about cross border travel.

People cross the border everyday for work, school , shopping. Nothing really much they can say.

mightyreds · 15-12-2020 01:12PM

Widescreen wrote: »

In a country the size of Ireland there was absolutely no requirement to open up the country from the 18th Dec to 6th Jan. You can drive from anywhere to anywhere in Ireland in a matter of hours.

With the virus about to spiral out of control here again now they should change this to 22/23 Dec to 2nd Jan max and that is being generous and possibly foolish.

There was never any stop on people travelling the country and if you think because they lifted these imaginary restrictions on travel, that it will will make any difference to whether people did it or not your kidding yourself, I could have went to Spain at anytime I wanted over the last 7 months never mind Galway.

Cluedo Monopoly · 15-12-2020 01:13PM

Benimar wrote: »

Those changes are already confirmed - travel outside county, 3 families meet indoors etc.

There wont be any further loosening of that.

Is that county thing being enforced? I haven't seen any Garda presence since Level 5 ended.

jackboy · 15-12-2020 01:16PM

Widescreen wrote: »

In a country the size of Ireland there was absolutely no requirement to open up the country from the 18th Dec to 6th Jan. You can drive from anywhere to anywhere in Ireland in a matter of hours.

With the virus about to spiral out of control here again now they should change this to 22/23 Dec to 2nd Jan max and that is being generous and possibly foolish.

The government have gone from protecting people from the virus to basically saying at this stage does it really matter if more people die.

if they could have a referendum about Christmas, which obviously they can't, majority would have voted to maintain restrictions.

It could be nasty in the hospitals in a few weeks time unfortunately.

We have proven we can get to 1000 cases a day and deal with that no bother. All we will need is another lockdown and the numbers will plummet.

For now people get to enjoy Christmas and some businesses will make some money.

prunudo · 15-12-2020 01:18PM

I see/hear the negative/worst case scenario experts are getting wheeled out on the news again the last couple of days. Don't be surprised if they talk themselves into restrictions before Christmas. They keep mentioning how bad things are in other countries and how we are on the cusp of a 3rd wave while never acknowledging how well we are doing here, especially given we've opened up in the last 2 weeks.

podgeandrodge · 15-12-2020 01:21PM

Widescreen wrote: »

In a country the size of Ireland there was absolutely no requirement to open up the country from the 18th Dec to 6th Jan. You can drive from anywhere to anywhere in Ireland in a matter of hours.

With the virus about to spiral out of control here again now they should change this to 22/23 Dec to 2nd Jan max and that is being generous and possibly foolish.

The government have gone from protecting people from the virus to basically saying at this stage does it really matter if more people die.

if they could have a referendum about Christmas, which obviously they can't, majority would have voted to maintain restrictions.

It could be nasty in the hospitals in a few weeks time unfortunately.

I think you are completely off the mark on a majority voting to maintain restrictions. Regardless of their worth or not, a lot of people are out socialising and happy to be able to do so. Myself included. We're not all bunkered down and petrified of going out the door.

Mitch Connor wrote: »

IMO you are wrong on this.

I think the majority would vote to lift restrictions to the level they are doing so, if not more. Rightly or wrongly.

I'll be having a much quieter christmas this year, but I just don't think a majority would have voted to keep hihgher restrictions in place. Sure a good amount were or are ignoring a lot of the restrictions as is.

yep.

brisan · 15-12-2020 01:34PM

eagle eye wrote: »

I'm talking about the general.oublic.

Judging by the amount of traffic on the road during the last restrictions the general public never took it as a lockdown

brisan · 15-12-2020 01:39PM

jaffa20 wrote: »

Can't watch the briefings anymore. I'm guessing Tony is still concerned?

I think he is bordering on worrying at this stage

bb1234567 · 15-12-2020 01:42PM

podgeandrodge wrote: »

I think you are completely off the mark on a majority voting to maintain restrictions. Regardless of their worth or not, a lot of people are out socialising and happy to be able to do so. Myself included. We're not all bunkered down and petrified of going out the door.

yep.

I think you'd be surprised. Despite it looking like many people are out socialising in large groups in town, of the confirmed positive cases in Ireland as of 5 days ago the average person only has 3.5 social contacts that need to be traced. Up from an average of 3 social contacts per person during the middle of level 5. So majority of Irish people are still quite severely limiting their social contacts despite reopening, and are not meeting significantly more people than usual since the restrictions ended.

I imagine upcoming mingling with older relatives is largely the reason. My entire family are limiting contacts so that we can spend time safely with our grandparents who are 79 and 81 with some health problems.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/1210/1183642-coronavirus-briefing-update/

caveat emptor · 15-12-2020 01:44PM

hmmm wrote: »

Why were we not told about the other 3,999 mutations in the spike protein? The world needs to know so that the hordes of virologists on social media can make their own minds up about the data.

https://twitter.com/ewanbirney/status/1338616975786958848

That's a good thread on it. I'm not overly concerned. 4000 mutations is permutations and combinations which is ever growing. So 3995 might not be so interesting etc.

Different strains become more dominant as time goes by and there is NOTHING to say that it means

disease is worse
vaccine won't work
it's more infectious

This could happen though so it's important to keep an eye on it. Something that is low probability and high impact is definitively worth tracking. It was fairly political how it was announced yesterday and I was sceptical whether it is a factor in the increased numbers (most likely not).

How mutations come about and what they observe from them is just as interesting as the mutation itself. i.e a mutations observed in lab conditions while passaging sarscov2 through mice could be a more impactful one if observed in the wild. i.e if more mice start dying or something. Again probably won't affect vaccine or immunity through illness but might cause greater numbers of infection. (those that cause less simply die out). We could get a mutation that makes it far more milder but more contagious which would be a good thing overall.

This is a tail risk area and I think it's quite interesting Viruses are pretty random.
Again wouldn't worry about it at all until under the headings above.

brisan · 15-12-2020 01:45PM

iamwhoiam wrote: »

Well whoever handed it to him hardly drank from it first

You do know what surface spread is ?

Covid 19 Part XXIX-85,394 ROI(2,200 deaths) 62,723 NI (1,240 deaths) (26/12) Read OP

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