Covid-19 Politics

[Stavros]

As this quote says it remains to be seen whether it is the result of the vaccine and not something that occurs rarely but at approximately the same rate in the general population. The vaccine has been administered to a lot of people, but it could be a very rare side effect.

If it is the result of the vaccine I am curious whether it is something tied to a defect in production or is inherent to the design of the vaccine. Maybe it is tied to certain batches or conditions those batches were in. We'll see what the scientists find.

A robust defence of the AstraZeneca vaccine by David Spiegehalter in today's Guardian (he appears from time to time on Channel 4 News in the UK).

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...a-causal-links

[Stavros]

In a perfect world, I would say yes the teachers should be vaccinated before the schools are opened. But we don't live in a perfect world and considering the fact that there were many front line workers, retail and food service industry come to mind, that had to work during the pandemic and had even bigger risk of getting infected, than I think I teachers can do the same in a more controlled environment.

If one were to be picky, one could suggest a distinction between 'front line workers' and 'emergency workers' or 'First Responders'. It might be easy for Fire Stations, but General Hospitals by their nature are not only risky environments for all who work in them, but just as hard to segregate staff within them, though I suppose you could expand the cordon around ICU's and isolate entire floors-?

Indeed, another, probably impractical solution is the Isolation Hospital, on Ellis Island or whichever island you have in New York that can be converted. Ultimately, everyone must be vaccinated, it is that basic. Priorities in the first phase has meant the most obvious have been vaccinated, but as with the UK, I think that education has become, like care homes, a major casualty of this pandemic.

I am not sure the teachers and their unions are entirely to blame but I don't know enough about the US situation to say more. Here, there seems to me a staggering indifference to the impact of Covid on education, made worse by the Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson, who never fails to fail when promoting or defending Govt policy. I don't watch SNL, but the man is so devoid of character, SNL would probably have to rely on a plastic carrot to represent him, preferably one that doesn't talk. What damage has in fact been caused we don't yet know, and chidren are both flexible and resilient, but losing a good part of a year can have terrible consequences, something I have known personally for reasons I won't go into here.

As an aside from Covid, I am astonished that boh Lakeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya are nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in Judas and the Black Messiah -was neither of them in a lead role? Kaluuya has the BAFTA nomination for Supporting Actor, but they could easily have dropped Anthony Hopkins to give Stanfield a nod for Best Actor if it really is that important.

And you are right to correct me on Maosim beig more relevant to Hampton than Marxism, though I am not sure what outside the Little Red Book he knew about it. There is a Trotskyist critique by Don Alexaner from 1993 of the welfare programmes the Panthers organized -the Breakfasts for example- which I think became the basis of their popularity, as they dd not just talk about revolution, but demonstrated practical things that benefited their communities. One wonders, had he lived, where Hampton might have taken the Panthers as they turned in on themselves, given his savage remarks about Stokely Carmichael. Ironically, if the -targeted- assassiations had not stripped them of their leaders, the Panthers like Hampton might have ended up running for Mayor and promoting climate change policies, as Bobby Seale has done.

A world away from Godzilla! And do you worry that an English actor plays an American? Are there no Americans who could play Hampton (not to take away Kaluuya's abilities) -?

[broncofan]

A robust defence of the AstraZeneca vaccine by David Spiegehalter in today's Guardian (he appears from time to time on Channel 4 News in the UK).

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...a-causal-links

It is a very good defense. I just read it. The article really explains the major issues well.

I'm glad to see an analysis of it. Astrazeneca's vaccine is pretty important to world supply. Pfizer and Moderna are harder to deliver in places without a lot of cold chain technology and it is cheaper to produce.

[broncofan]

I've included two stories about the Oxford/Astrazeneca vaccine that have broken within the last 24 hours. First, Astrazeneca released data from U.S. trials showing very good efficacy and no increased risk of blood clots. Second, U.S. regulators noticed that they may have included outdated information in the data they released.

Since this is still unfolding we don't know if "may have" means they did but I think it's likely because Astrazeneca made a puzzling mistake in one of the earlier trials where they included data from people accidentally given a half dose of the first shot.

I suspect it is a very good vaccine mainly because of the work of Oxford researchers and that Astrazeneca has done a bumbling job managing clinical trial data.

Most of the scientists I pay attention to believe the az/oxford vaccine may be the most important when it comes to supply for most of the world. It's not quite as effective as Pfizer and Moderna's, but it's still very effective, cheaper to produce, and much easier to distribute in places without cold chain systems, which is probably most of the world.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-vaccines-astrazeneca/astrazenecas-us-trial-data-a-confidence-booster-for-covid-19-shot-idUSKBN2BE0IZ

https://apnews.com/article/astrazene...568891d06b7da8

[Stavros]

To repeat something I wrote a week ago, quoting a Professor at the LSHTM
1) Studies have yet to be completed and peer reviewed to determine if vaccinated people are still liable to be infected and thus become carriers of the virus;
2) the majority of the population has not been vaccinated; and
3) we still do not know how long the effectiveness of the vaccine lasts.

The first AstraZeneca vaccine was administered in January, so it is still too early to tell how points one and three above follow on from the vaccine we have -but are points that relate to all the other vaccines too. A lot of what is going on is politics, not medicine, and is an argument between the EU and AstraZeneca over the honouring of contracts with, it appears, the UK having got its orders in first. It is not really an EU-Uk spat, though some -Telegraph journalists, for example- using this as an example of EU incompetence, when the reality is that had the UK remained in the EU I doubt this woud have happened. For the record, AstraZeneca is an Anglo-Swedish company, and its CEO is French.

Either way, from the start, we needed a globally co-ordinated response that should have maximised the medical expertise and political will of governments everywhere to do the best for their citizens. Sadly, led by cretins in the US and Brazil the trajectory of the response was delayed and skewed with the result that millions have been infectd, variants of varyng strength have grown, and anyone wanting a foreign holiday or a 'return to normal' can say Ciao to that for at least another year. Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK Govermen's Chief Science Advisor, thinks we will be living with the consquences of Covid for the next 10 years.

[broncofan]

To repeat something I wrote a week ago, quoting a Professor at the LSHTM
1) Studies have yet to be completed and peer reviewed to determine if vaccinated people are still liable to be infected and thus become carriers of the virus;
2) the majority of the population has not been vaccinated; and
3) we still do not know how long the effectiveness of the vaccine lasts.

I agree with you with respect to point 1. While it may take a while to get the kind of robust proof that is required in clinical trials, there is some evidence emerging in places where lots of people have been vaccinated that vaccinated people are less likely to transmit as well. That doesn't mean that some vaccinated people don't get asymptomatic infections and transmit them but that the overall risk of spreading the disease appears lower in vaccinated people. First, symptomatic infections are less likely and it was noted before the vaccines were developed that true asymptomatics seemed to shed less virus. They can infect others but are believed to have a lower propensity to do so.

I am not saying there is sufficient data to form firm conclusions just that I've read that there are early indications that the vaccines provide some protection against disease spread. Obviously until point one is demonstrated to a satisfactory degree vaccinated people should behave as though they (personally) have some protection against disease but can still infect others.

Regarding point 2, it will be interesting to see what happens when demand for vaccines becomes the limiting factor in various countries. I think we are expecting that by early Summer in the U.S.

Regarding point 3, I agree and wonder what the standard protocol is for figuring that out. It's a dangerous virus and obviously we don't want lots of vaccinated people starting to get infected at higher rates to form firm conclusions but that may be the only way to determine when a booster is needed.

[Stavros]

Broncofan, with your rationa approach to this, some thoughts for you to comment on. In one scenario, I see Covid-19 becoming a chronic illness, that, along with Influenza, will kill thousands of people a year, probably the elderly with complicating conditions. There will be annual Covid jabs as we have with 'flu, modified and improved as more knowledge is acquired about the virus. This is an accommadation to reality, but begs the more cultural question allied to public health-
If Covid-19 becomes a permanent presence, do we not need as people to maintain some of the barriers to transmission that we have been using this past year? Returning to 'normal' for a lot of if not most people, will mean not wearing a mask in enclosed spaces. It would probably not be a major problem in concert halls, cinemas, or sports stadia, but I can't see many people wearing a mask in a club/bar/pub or a cafe and restaurant and indeed, lifting masks was allowed when cafes were open last year in the UK.

But will people want to maintain these barrier measures, and can they be made mandatory, for example on public transport and in stores/malls - and more to the point, will people wear them? As long as Covid-19 is an airborne virus, the danger of being infected remains high, until we have establshed the boundaries as per the three points in my previous post. For how much longer, as the vaccine takes effect, will people be willing to limit their activities, and will the politicians already divided over the issue, follow the science or what they hope is 'popular opinion'? Not least when some are campaigning on the basis that restrictions derived from the science of public health, are being used in law to restrict personal liberty.

[broncofan]

I think you're right that we will see covid for a long time but I think it's POSSIBLE things normalize more quickly. Once a greater number of people have some immunity and it's circulating less broadly, both the risk of hospitalization and death will be much lower. While I think at this moment it makes sense for vaccinated people to still wear masks in public places (for themselves and others), the calculus will change over time.

What if we get good data on mortality rate and find that once people are vaccinated their risk of death is lower than for influenza and everyone has an opportunity to be vaccinated? People don't wear masks to prevent seasonal flu. It is a risk of death for some people and I've gotten very sick from the flu but I don't take special precautions except to get a flu shot, which is not super effective.

Even people with a much greater risk of death from influenza than I have are generally willing to deal with that risk. Both the rates of hospitalization and death for flu are manageable enough that it doesn't alter people's behavior very much. My parents are in their seventies and I don't recall them thinking about the flu or worrying about it even though we know it kills people in their age group every year.

If we're not seeing a thousand deaths a day in the U.S for instance, but rather fewer than a hundred I can't imagine we won't see lots of social gatherings return.

None of this is to say that I disagree with the current guidelines for vaccinated people to wear masks. But some of those guidelines are based on the fact that not enough people have been vaccinated to sharply cut its prevalence, we lack data on certain things (your previous post highlighted that well), and we don't want to do anything prematurely that will prolong the pandemic.

[blackchubby38]

Broncofan, with your rationa approach to this, some thoughts for you to comment on. In one scenario, I see Covid-19 becoming a chronic illness, that, along with Influenza, will kill thousands of people a year, probably the elderly with complicating conditions. There will be annual Covid jabs as we have with 'flu, modified and improved as more knowledge is acquired about the virus. This is an accommadation to reality, but begs the more cultural question allied to public health-
If Covid-19 becomes a permanent presence, do we not need as people to maintain some of the barriers to transmission that we have been using this past year? Returning to 'normal' for a lot of if not most people, will mean not wearing a mask in enclosed spaces. It would probably not be a major problem in concert halls, cinemas, or sports stadia, but I can't see many people wearing a mask in a club/bar/pub or a cafe and restaurant and indeed, lifting masks was allowed when cafes were open last year in the UK.

But will people want to maintain these barrier measures, and can they be made mandatory, for example on public transport and in stores/malls - and more to the point, will people wear them? As long as Covid-19 is an airborne virus, the danger of being infected remains high, until we have establshed the boundaries as per the three points in my previous post. For how much longer, as the vaccine takes effect, will people be willing to limit their activities, and will the politicians already divided over the issue, follow the science or what they hope is 'popular opinion'? Not least when some are campaigning on the basis that restrictions derived from the science of public health, are being used in law to restrict personal liberty.

If Covid 19 becomes a permanent presence, then I think you allow individuals the right to decide for themselves if they want to continue to wear masks in enclosed spaces and continue maintaining the other barriers to transmission that we have been employing for the past year. Especially if we get to point where there is an acceptable and reasonable amount of people dying from it on a daily basis. Because I think the idea some people have of there being a 0 infection rate for us to get back to normal is unattainable.

We also have to take into consideration that we are in a much better place when it comes to treating cases of Covid 19 then we were a year ago.

[Stavros]

If Covid 19 becomes a permanent presence, then I think you allow individuals the right to decide for themselves if they want to continue to wear masks in enclosed spaces and continue maintaining the other barriers to transmission that we have been employing for the past year. Especially if we get to point where there is an acceptable and reasonable amount of people dying from it on a daily basis. Because I think the idea some people have of there being a 0 infection rate for us to get back to normal is unattainable.

We also have to take into consideration that we are in a much better place when it comes to treating cases of Covid 19 then we were a year ago.

I agree with your post completely The issue we have now, is one of timing. Just as the UK Govt is gambling on the phased lockdown coinciding with a decline of cases due to vaccination, so the fact that other countries are not in our position means that the relaxation of restrictions does not mean a return to 'normal' -UK citizens are not advised to go abroad for a holiday and even travelling within the UK should still be limited to essential trips -but with a heat-wave promised this is going to be a hard one to control. While it means I won't be going to Paris, Amsterdam or Rome for a weekend, I would assume this applies to US citizens being wary of visiting other parts of the country, not least those where there are few restrictions, and this is due to the fact that we still don't know the long term impact of vaccination, as discussed above. But yes, as long as we trust in the science we are on stronger ground, just as the ignorance and indeed, the repudiation of science has been one of the most depressing aspects of this pandemic.

But I for one will probably wear a mask on public transport, in retrospect I think a mask in the past might have spared me some bouts of 'flu or something similar. It might even help, should I ever fly again, to sleep on a plane, something I struggle to do.