lots of criticism out there (it is the internet after all) but none of it explains the theory.
no.
complete trolling fail I'm afraid.
Can you present any opinions of equivalent status in favour of the approach?
From the Guardian live covid blog today
Antibody and vaccination levels have continued to increase across all regions of the United Kingdom in recent weeks.
The figures currently stand at:
In England, the lowest antibody levels were seen in the north-east (91.3%) and the highest in London (93.9%) in the week beginning 12 July.
Covid-19 antibodies are generated through vaccination or from previous infection.
As Covid rates are falling, it suggest that around 90% level is needed to control Delta
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/aug/04/coronavirus-live-news-china-sees-most-local-cases-since-january-biden-rolls-out-more-covid-aid?page=with:block-610a62958f0892081f6cbe4f#block-610a62958f0892081f6cbe4f
go back and read the discussion.
A poster said that the UK government actions were responsible for creating variants of concern. I asked how.
no one has provided anything to support this and the theory behind it. We have seen criticism from an epidemiologist of the so called "Vaccine escape" theory.
If you can't open up when over 70% of your adult population is vaccinated, when can you?
The vaccine escape stuff is not in itself support of the UK strategy, I'm asking for you a source showing explicit support for the UK approach by epidemiologists.
Since I had the consideration to provide four links to support my point, you could do the same, rather than hand waving at the thread.
At 75%, 80%, 85%, or 90%. There are four more conservative options that didn't take a great deal of imagination.
I have never seen a single post of yours on boards which is critical of UK government policy, although I don't claim to have read them all. In the absence of any independent thought I'm not even sure why I'm bothering attempting a debate.
Good news from the look of things on the real time data coming out of the Uk today.
so you can't answer the simple question, so you resort to ad hominem.
The poster I initially responded to said that the actions of the UK government was responsible for creating a variant of concern. can you explain how this is the case?
You still haven't provided any evidence of support of the UK govt "freedom day" strategy by epidemiologists, and I have provided evidence of opposition.
So, in the absence of you bothering to look (or perhaps you looked and couldn't find any) we can assume that it was a purely political move.
FWIW, criticising all of your posts is not an ad hominem.
why are you on about support or otherwise of the UK government's approach? that is not what the discussion you butted in to is about. you got it wrong, you missed the point and now you are deflecting.
But, on that topic, is the fact that the approach is supported by SAGE, the CMO and CSO not decent evidence of expert opintion? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/05/chris-whitty-keeping-covid-restrictions-will-only-delay-wave
fwiw, I don't agree with not wearing masks on public transport or shops, but the rest I do.
and yeah, criticising someone's posts in general is pretty much the definition of ad hominem. just ask NHS_Susan.
@Aegir wrote
why are you on about support or otherwise of the UK government's approach? that is not what the discussion you butted in to is about.
Because @Peregrinus wrote
The epidemiological criticism of the UK's "freedom day" is not so much the concept as the timing; a time at which only 50% of the population is vaccinated is too soon. It creates an unnecessary opportunity for new variants - and especially vaccine-resistant variants - to flourish rapidly, and that's a risk we don't need to run, since the same "freedom day", implemented when significantly more of the population was vacccinated, would create significantly less risk.
To which you responded
are you able to link to this epidemiological criticism, it would be interesting to read the theory behind it.
..and I responded to that. I did not butt in. If you want to have a private conversation, do it by DM. This is an open forum.
That aside, thanks for providing the Guardian article in support of your point. There's also this, with my emphasis:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58078900
Prof Christina Pagel, a member of Independent Sage and one of the signatories of the letter which branded the unlocking dangerous and unethical, says she is very concerned about what the autumn will bring.
"Covid is so unpredictable. I acknowledge I was wrong on what was going to happen, but that doesn't mean it's over. We need to get cases down even further - if we go into autumn with 20,000 cases a day I would be very worried."
Nonetheless, at the time of the re-opening I wasn't reading anything independent in support of the government strategy, although maybe that's just what Twitter feeds me.
@bob mcbob wrote:
There's a health warning on those antibody figures. They're only testing people over 16, and there is considerable variance in the younger age groups;
If you look at the England graphs you can see about 80% of those aged 16-24 probably have antibodies. Which is kind of concerning when only 54% have one dose. Either way, it does mean that herd immunity is a bit away yet. You need to hit an even spread across the whole population. 16-24 year olds don't exist in an island.
Delta looks to be "controlled" alright in the UK, but not suppressed. They're starting to plateau on the way down and may settle at 20,000 cases/day until they get higher vaccination rates.
we are at a stage where any decision, by any government, is going to be heavily criticised. Open up more and it's reckless, not open up and we should be learning to live with it.
Covid isn't going away, even with a fully 100% vaccinated population there will still be infections and deaths, just as there is with the seasonal flu which at the moment, seems to be causing a lot of concern, especially if it is coupled with a rise in covid infections, which seems to be Chris Whitty's logic for getting the wave out of the way now.
But they're not anywhere near 100% vaccinated, so I just don't understand the logic. In absence of restrictions, the only thing that will stop a wave is immunity, and vaccination has been shown to give a superior immune response to infection.
Have they just given up on the vaccination programme?
This today has shades of NIAC dysfunction:
Covid vaccines to be offered to all UK 16- and 17-year-olds
JCVI decision comes two weeks after body recommended against routine vaccination of children
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/04/covid-vaccines-to-be-offered-to-all-uk-16-and-17-year-olds
Today's figures
Think its the opposite, previous infection gives better immunity then vaccines.
Anyway how come so many people are in a blind rage that UK are doing well now ?
..
Is there an echo in here? 😁
@Hector Savage wrote
Think its the opposite, previous infection gives better immunity than vaccines.
Nope. It's been heavily reported over the last few months.
...and so on.
You're assuming that the 20% of unvaccinated adults are mostly people who have refused vaccination, as opposed to those who are unvaccinated for other reasons. You're overlooking other children entirely. And you're overlooking the interest that even vaccinated people have in minimising the pool of infection so as to reduce the chances of the development of a vaccine-resistant strain.
Like I say, these are not simple calculations to make. But there's a wide range of vaccines that we already do give to children, so clearly the idea of vaccinating children is not something that is medically, politically or ethically beyond the pale.
The first is a “get vaccinated” message from May that gives no data, and the other two expressly say that natural immunity is stronger than vaccinated.
The last one: “In summary, the results of the current study indicate that NAb titers elicited by CoronaVac are much lower when compared to natural infection.”
The second of the three studies listed looks at the booster effect of second dose of Pfizer or Moderna, comparing the effect in people (a) who have had the first shot, and have also had Covid, and (b) who have had the first shot, but have not had Covid. It concludes that the booster effect is greater in people who have had Covid than in those who have not. But it doesn't look at all at people who have only had Covid, but no vaccination. It therefore doesn't support the view that covid-induced immunity is greater than vaccine-induced immunity. It does confirm, though, what the first piece says — that, even if you already have infection-induced immunity, vaccination will further boost your immunity to a meaningful degree.
The third study does compare vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, and concludes that infection produces stronger immunity than vaccination. But it only looks at the CoronaVac vaccine, which is not offered in Ireland (or elsewhere in the EU, in the UK, or in the US). It's findings may not hold good for Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZenica.
Shocking lack of pie-chart representation and or grams of chocolate comparison to these statistics
Jesus, that's shockingly bad research on my part. Though I swear all the stuff I've read recently supports the view that vaccine induced immunity is higher.
Nothing I’ve read has suggested that, no previous vaccine for any other virus has conferred better immunity than natural immunity, and in any case it seems entirely logical that exposure to the whole virus rather than just the spike protein would confer better immunity purely by dint of there being more landscape for your immune system to remember.
Honestly, I think that pretending that these mRNA vaccines are some miracle wonderdrug is counterproductive.
The HPV vaccine gives stronger protection than previous infection.
I don't think we should jump to conclusions.
This from late June
https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/06/22/how-immunity-generated-from-covid-19-vaccines-differs-from-an-infection/
which references
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34103407/
suggests that vaccine-induced immunity may be broader, but they only speculate as to the reasons.
What makes MRNA vaccines a "wonderdrug" is the pace at which they can be developed. Moderna had their first batch of vaccines ready for testing in early February, 2020. Well over a month before our first lockdown.
I don't know if vax immunity is superior or inferior to natural immunity. I don't think science does either. It appears people who got severe covid and survived have significantly better immunity than those who got a mild dose, so the comparison is not an easy one.
High levels of antibodies in many people also means that, at least for now, we don't need booster shots. Those make sense when antibody levels get too low.
This is also good news, because the WHO is calling for a moratorium on booster shots, to use vaccines primarily on unvaccinated people instead.
It looks like the NHS does not have the ability and/or willingness to register my Irish jabbing, so looks like I'll end up having a de-facto booster jab just to get the record updated.
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