[mrjonathanr]

Is that rhetorical Chris? It was dumped on them by the DfE as school finished in December. In our case, at 6.30pm, that was 2 hours after we had closed for Christmas.

[Stabbsy]

So given this:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/14/recovering-from-covid-gives-similar-level-of-protection-to-vaccine
And this:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/jan/10/one-in-five-have-had-coronavirus-in-england-new-modelling-says

If we assume equal infection rates across the population, that's around a third of the population, including all the most vulnerable, with a significant degree of immunity by mid Feb. I'm increasingly optimistic of an easing after half term, and it'll be increasingly difficult to defend onerous restrictions.

While the above is probably true in terms of defending restrictions (especially to the Tory backbenchers), I’d argue it’s the wrong approach. It’s the same mistake the government made in May by releasing the lockdown too quickly before cases were at a low enough level. We’ve just been letting things rumble on at a lowish but noticeable level that was high enough to make further serious waves almost inevitable.

A harder lockdown until March or even April could set you up for a full summer/autumn without looking over your shoulder permanently. With low enough levels, TTI can actually work properly - particularly if you let public health experts look after it. The tier system also starts to make more sense. If you look at, say, Australia, that’s how they’ve kept things under control. Local lockdowns come in for a handful of cases and it gets snuffed out fairly quickly. Making that work in exactly the same way in the UK would be difficult for obvious reasons, but a similar approach could work.

It would be painful/inconvenient from a personal perspective, but I think it’s the right strategy in the long run. The repeated lockdown/release cycle we’ve been going through is false economy in my view. If we release again in February, then we won’t quite get ahead of it, the vaccination program will be less successful, hospitals will struggle to recover and TTI won’t get the opportunity to work. Probably not a popular view (not even with me!), but governments are there to make the right decisions not the popular ones.

[tomtom]

Herd or community immunity is going to come back into the frame - really this is what we're talking about here non? A sufficient number of people with a level of immunity from catching it or vaccination so covid (and its impacts) dwindles and life can return slowly to previous ways...

Some things to consider - It was touted by a few that the reason London wasn't badly affected in Oct/Nov was because of high levels of previous infection from the first wave. That clearly didn't stop the Dec/Xmas wave that is presently filling the hospitals though maybe it would have been worse? Despite there being high infection percentages from wave 1, it still found areas to 'rip through' in the most recent wave. I also read that with the more transmissible strain, the percentage of population with some immunity needs to rise from 60-70 to 80+ percent... Also, a percentage (much reduced) are still going to get ill - and some will still die from it even when vaccinated etc...

I guess this is why the mood music from the scientists is all along the lines of things will ease off, but distancing and mask wearing will be with us for a good while (years) etc...

/ramble

[petejh]

I saw this today for vaccinations up to 12th Jan, I don't know their source:

UK COVID VACCINATIONS

1ST DOSES
YESTERDAY = 2,431,648
TODAY = 2,639,309

INCREASE = 207,661

DAILY VACCINATIONS NEEDED TO HIT 15M TARGET BY FEB 14TH = 374,566


Pretty impressive numbers, looks like they might get near to having the top 4 priority groups done by mid Feb, certainly by late Feb barring a catastrophe. My guess is the restrictions will go back to regional tiers from late Feb and a very strong recovery in the economy through 2021. Lots of pent up demand.

I don't think mask-wearing and distancing will last very long into 2021 once we're past early spring. I do think that by late this year covid will be viewed by many as like a flu - that is, something dangerous that we vaccinate against and life goes on despite it. Some bad regional outbreaks next winter will make people fear the worst again but the direction of travel is vaccines will keep a lid on both covid and most people's fear.
Caveat, all barring a catastrophic new strain that kills young people like spanish flu did.

[sdm]

So given this:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/14/recovering-from-covid-gives-similar-level-of-protection-to-vaccine
And this:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/jan/10/one-in-five-have-had-coronavirus-in-england-new-modelling-says

If we assume equal infection rates across the population, that's around a third of the population, including all the most vulnerable, with a significant degree of immunity by mid Feb. I'm increasingly optimistic of an easing after half term, and it'll be increasingly difficult to defend onerous restrictions.

I don't see it being advisable to reopen significantly in February.

The recent rapid spread has occurred despite the levels of immunity from previous infections. It hasn't prevented it tearing through the population.

The reinfection study was only on the under 55s and ran until November. So the data is largely from before the b117 variant. It seems likely that the levels of immunity for a 60 year old against the b117, 501Y.V2 or the new Brazilian variant will be a lot lower.

Although numbers are just starting to head in the right direction in the areas that went to tier 4 earlier, they are doing so from a very high level and, with a more infectious strain plus a weaker lockdown than for lockdown 1, I don't expect numbers to drop that quickly.

So if we start to reopen in February, we are likely to be doing so from a position of still having high prevalence.

In a let it rip scenario, we'll quickly overwhelm the NHS, even with most of the 70+ being immune.

We'll have vaccinated the most vulnerable, who won't die, but the hospitals will fill up with people in their 60s, 50s and 40s until the death rate shoots up again due to lack of healthcare capacity.

Unless numbers start to drop a lot faster than I expect, I don't see opening up in February being sensible.

There's going to be a lot of pressure to do it though, particularly from those who have been vaccinated and those who think they're immune from past infections.

I expect we will see some easing in February. With a return to a tiered system that opens up too quickly and sees a rapid return to very high infection levels that threaten to overwhelm the NHS. I hope I'm wrong.

[SA Chris]

If you look at, say, Australia, that’s how they’ve kept things under control. Local lockdowns come in for a handful of cases and it gets snuffed out fairly quickly.

I agree largely with what you've said, but comparing UK to Australia is very different. Due to massive distances, inter city and inter state travel is not that common there, compared to travel  between counties / lockdown regions in the UK.

[James Malloch]

So given this:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/14/recovering-from-covid-gives-similar-level-of-protection-to-vaccine
And this:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/jan/10/one-in-five-have-had-coronavirus-in-england-new-modelling-says

If we assume equal infection rates across the population, that's around a third of the population, including all the most vulnerable, with a significant degree of immunity by mid Feb. I'm increasingly optimistic of an easing after half term, and it'll be increasingly difficult to defend onerous restrictions.

I don't see it being advisable to reopen significantly in February.

The recent rapid spread has occurred despite the levels of immunity from previous infections. It hasn't prevented it tearing through the population.

The reinfection study was only on the under 55s and ran until November. So the data is largely from before the b117 variant. It seems likely that the levels of immunity for a 60 year old against the b117, 501Y.V2 or the new Brazilian variant will be a lot lower.

Although numbers are just starting to head in the right direction in the areas that went to tier 4 earlier, they are doing so from a very high level and, with a more infectious strain plus a weaker lockdown than for lockdown 1, I don't expect numbers to drop that quickly.

So if we start to reopen in February, we are likely to be doing so from a position of still having high prevalence.

In a let it rip scenario, we'll quickly overwhelm the NHS, even with most of the 70+ being immune.

We'll have vaccinated the most vulnerable, who won't die, but the hospitals will fill up with people in their 60s, 50s and 40s until the death rate shoots up again due to lack of healthcare capacity.

Unless numbers start to drop a lot faster than I expect, I don't see opening up in February being sensible.

There's going to be a lot of pressure to do it though, particularly from those who have been vaccinated and those who think they're immune from past infections.

I expect we will see some easing in February. With a return to a tiered system that opens up too quickly and sees a rapid return to very high infection levels that threaten to overwhelm the NHS. I hope I'm wrong.

I wonder if the government thought of this (for once) and was the reason the current rules were put in until end March, with possible changes to reduce restrictions before if it’s sensible to do so...

[abarro81]

One thing to be cautious of Pete, is that for every day you're under your vaccination target, the target itself grows..  but yeah, fingers crossed the ramp is quick. Daily data is now on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ and for the 2 days so far it's a quick ramp (daily vaccinations approx 50k higher on 12th than 11th) so early signs look promising

[spidermonkey09]

Everything suggests that the capacity will not be the issue, it will be supply. The trend of the ramp is promising and it sounds like we could already be vaccinating many more people (see 24 hours a day debate) but are limited by stock. This also sounds like it will fluctuate for the next month but should be steady after that. The government are not releasing the numbers on supply, maybe to protect AstraZeneca, but can see this changing if a significant bottleneck develops in an effort to absolve themselves of blame!

As ever, there is a world of difference between what we 'should' do in a lab experiment/ideal world and what the government will do I suppose. Whilst I see the merits of sdm and stabbsy's arguments I don't think they will be politically defensible. We are many months away from a zero covid strategy; to achieve that would probably take until autumn as far as I can see, and would require lockdowns to be a lot stricter than they are now, which even if implemented I suspect would be ignored by large swathes of the public.

[BrutusTheBear]

I know our kids' primary head had to spend months planning for socially distanced / blended learning approach, where they spent forever seeing how many kids they could fit in, wile still maintaining social distance criteria, and alternate teaching days.

Seems like the way forward to me. It does not have to be cycles of all shut/open.

Regarding wasted effort, heads spending their Xmas break organising mass lateral flow testing for children was not really necessary, was it?

Yes. Schools were dumped right in the pre Christmas re:testing.  I can only vouch for the secondary school I work in but we have trained up staff and as of this week the sports hall is a fully functioning testing unit. School is open with attendance around 100 pupils each day. Everyone that has consented including staff will be tested twice a week. I have just had my first one done (I scored negative).  Personally, I am reassured by this as whilst we know the tests aren't great testing twice a week should be a fairly good screening method and pick up any cases whilst we are all still working with children in school.
*Generally speaking teachers/school staff are still very pissed at the government though.

[tomtom]

We are many months away from a zero covid strategy; to achieve that would probably take until autumn as far as I can see, and would require lockdowns to be a lot stricter than they are now, which even if implemented I suspect would be ignored by large swathes of the public.

I think its impossible now.... (or at least highly impracticable) as its everywhere in the UK now - so getting down to zero covid cases (or very close to) will take a long time, of everyone obeying the rules exactly, isolating as they are supposed to, not working when the shouldn't etc... Then - we'd have to have a very good TTI system (its not) and a functioning border biosecurity system - rather than waving a bit of paper at immigration and going straight through (have more than a handful of people been fined for breaching quarantine?). If we want to lock down fully for much longer, and stop any form of regional, national or international travel then maybe...

Can't see that happening...

RE: Timings, if we're 2-3 weeks off the NHS peak (if numbers are flattening) many of those hospitalised will be in there for weeks (many less - but many for a long time) so the pressure will be high for much longer than end of feb I expect... Remember how long it took for the death rate to come down after the march/april peak? There was a huge lag behind cases.

Vaccines - this is all very positive. I am frustrated by the slow ramp up, but also encouraged (in a strange way) that aside from Israel, every other nation has really struggled to roll out the vaccine fast (we seem to be actually doing better than many places for once). 

[SA Chris]

Is that rhetorical Chris? It was dumped on them by the DfE as school finished in December. In our case, at 6.30pm, that was 2 hours after we had closed for Christmas.

Yes, rhetorical, can't make that shit up.

[sdm]

As ever, there is a world of difference between what we 'should' do in a lab experiment/ideal world and what the government will do I suppose. Whilst I see the merits of sdm and stabbsy's arguments I don't think they will be politically defensible. We are many months away from a zero covid strategy; to achieve that would probably take until autumn as far as I can see, and would require lockdowns to be a lot stricter than they are now, which even if implemented I suspect would be ignored by large swathes of the public.

There is no zero covid strategy. We can get deaths and hospitalisations down to low levels (subject to future mutations) and get it to the point where it no longer needs to prevent normal life but there is no chance of eradicating it in this country in the forseeable future.

If we were able to get it down to zero here, it wouldn't be long before an import event led to a localised outbreak.

I think the closest we can get is to get cases low enough that an effective track and trace system could rapidly control local outbreaks. I'm not convinced we'll ever have the political will to get numbers that low or that we'll ever achieve an effective track and trace system.

It'll be interesting to see how places like New Zealand cope with this issue. With no infection led immunity, they'll need far higher levels of vaccination before they can allow a return to international travel without causing an outbreak.

[SA Chris]

This is true. NZ relies heavily on international tourism, but they could just impose this "vaccination passport" for visitors. The population is pretty low compared to here too, sure by the same token anyone travelling from there could get a vaccine.

For now though, they are all stuck in NZ. How hard for them!

[spidermonkey09]

There is no zero covid strategy. We can get deaths and hospitalisations down to low levels (subject to future mutations) and get it to the point where it no longer needs to prevent normal life but there is no chance of eradicating it in this country in the forseeable future.

If we were able to get it down to zero here, it wouldn't be long before an import event led to a localised outbreak.

I think the closest we can get is to get cases low enough that an effective track and trace system could rapidly control local outbreaks. I'm not convinced we'll ever have the political will to get numbers that low or that we'll ever achieve an effective track and trace system.

It'll be interesting to see how places like New Zealand cope with this issue. With no infection led immunity, they'll need far higher levels of vaccination before they can allow a return to international travel without causing an outbreak.

I agree with all of this.

[sdm]

This is true. NZ relies heavily on international tourism, but they could just impose this "vaccination passport" for visitors. The population is pretty low compared to here too, sure by the same token anyone travelling from there could get a vaccine.

For now though, they are all stuck in NZ. How hard for them!

I think some sort of vaccination passport is inevitable. And once one country introduces it, everyone else will follow until it is a global requirement.

I expect it will lead to some tension this year regarding travel and the rights of old vs young and rich countries vs poorer countries.

[spidermonkey09]

I think some sort of vaccination passport is inevitable. And once one country introduces it, everyone else will follow until it is a global requirement.

I expect it will lead to some tension this year regarding travel and the rights of old vs young and rich countries vs poorer countries.

I don't think vacc passports will become a proper thing until they are privately available. Its probably not sustainable to exclude ~ 65/70% of the population for being under 70 (although nothing would surprise me!).

[mrjonathanr]

I don't generally quote Tory MPs, but Neil O'Brien has handily tweeted a compilation of Toby Young's vacuous tweets on the pointlessness of lockdown/achievement of near herd immunity, now curiously deleted by Young
https://twitter.com/NeilDotObrien/status/1349701110588710916

[andy popp]

I don't generally quote Tory MPs, but Neil O'Brien has handily tweeted a compilation of Toby Young's vacuous tweets on the pointlessness of lockdown/achievement of near herd immunity, now curiously deleted by Young
https://twitter.com/NeilDotObrien/status/1349701110588710916

He really is a dick of the very highest order.

[teestub]

Had a quick look if he’d responded which unfortunately meant going on his Twitter 🤢
Young said (to save anyone else having to look) :

    In fact, I installed an app last week that deletes all tweets more than a week old. This was in response to Twitter's increasing intolerance of people who challenge liberal orthodoxies, including Covid orthodoxy. I would advice other dissenters to do the same.

The app won't protect you from Twitter's internal offence archaeologists, but it will make it harder for censorious political activists to bombard the company with vexatious complaints in the hope of getting you banned.   

This is an interesting development in itself. This obviously doesn’t change all the nonsense he’s spouted and I’m sure there will be ways for suitably enthusiastic people to search old tweets still.

[SA Chris]

Its probably not sustainable to exclude ~ 65/70% of the population for being under 70 (although nothing would surprise me!).

For any country that has essentially isolated itself like NZ and has low level of immunity, they will have to. If any person young or old enters the county, they will either need to be vaccinated, or quarantine and test on arrival.

[Oldmanmatt]

“Your Local Epidemiologist” on FB, is worth a follow.
Even if just for her “round up” posts:

“ As per usual, Friday seems to be catch up day. And we are drinking from a firehose.

Texas vaccinated 1 million people in 1 month. That’s pretty cool.

The U.S. metrics are showing mixed signals. Cases are increasing but the rate of increase is slowing down. Cases are rising in 14 states, staying the same in 32 states, and falling in 10 states. However test positivity rates are still increasing. It’s been two weeks since the New Year. This is when I predicted we would hit our peak. We’ll wait to see if that was a lucky guess.

A new variant popped up in Ohio. Scientists are calling it the “Columbus variant”, which is easier than its real name COH.20G/501Y. It has three mutations on the spike protein. It’s probably more transmissible, but not more deadly. CDC is looking into this data as we speak. There’s no indication that vaccines will not work against it.

Johnson & Johnson published data from their Phase I/II trial. This is huge, as it is the first one dose vaccine to make it this far. The vaccine is safe and 100% (!!!) effective in making antibodies. J&J is in the middle of Phase III. We should know interim results (i.e. efficacy) soon. They’re still on track for a Feb FDA meeting.

Asymptomatic spread is, in fact, confirmed. A JAMA publication this week found 59% of transmission is from asymptomatic people. This is much higher than what we initially thought (40%). Peak infectiousness was at 3-7 days and infectiousness lasted 10 days. This certainly explains why this pandemic has been so darn hard to contain.

Masks with layering materials is sufficient for stopping the spread of COVID. Cotton had a efficiency of 40% compared to N95 masks. Most single-layered materials had efficiencies of <20%, offering little protection. Mask up! And make sure they are double layered.

A meta-analysis study (i.e. the scientists pooled many studies together) found that the overall COVID19 attack rate in schools is low: 0.15% for students and 0.7% for staff. The quality of the pooled studies was not ideal, but it does give us a first glimpse of school transmission.

That’s it for now. Have a great weekend!

Love, YLE”

Data Sources:
COVID19 Data: Covid Tracking Project
Columbus variant: https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/mediaroom/pressreleaselisting/new-sars-cov2-variant
J&J trial: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034201
Asymptomatic spread: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774707?fbclid=IwAR0lPoWEUZrHRb_SnU6i0kXOPnXdIOisLY5Xmv1xVD0lqQ6LLll5kdeVsxA
Mask: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0244626
Meta-analysis: http://jogh.org/documents/issue202002/jogh-10-021104.pdf

Caveat:
I’m sure that the US data on school transmission does not reflect the new English variant rates, or even their Columbus variant. So I assume it under estimates the issue.

[spidermonkey09]

Its probably not sustainable to exclude ~ 65/70% of the population for being under 70 (although nothing would surprise me!).

For any country that has essentially isolated itself like NZ and has low level of immunity, they will have to. If any person young or old enters the county, they will either need to be vaccinated, or quarantine and test on arrival.

Yeah, I wasn't thinking from NZs perspective so much as intra-European travel, where for the foreseeable massive chunks of the population will remain un vaccinated. Even once we are jabbed up in the UK it looks like other European countries (such as France) will be way behind unless things change markedly. I can't see European tourism opening up again solely for those who have been jabbed - it will either stay mostly shut until vaccinations are a bit more widespread or will be open to most people i think. Probably wrong!

[tomtom]

Some figures here on what the expected UK vaccine supply is over the coming months from a released then hastily redacted doc from the Scottish govt...

Positive news - enough for all the over 50 groups by mid March and for 2 doses for all UK adults by mid July. It may be even faster as the assumptions are based on 100% uptake and 5% wastage.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-every-uk-adult-could-be-vaccinated-by-mid-july-if-these-figures-are-anything-to-go-by-12188909?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter

[Johnny Brown]

Well that's encouraging. I've seen a lot of comment suggesting they'll only vaccinate the old and its herd immunity for the rest.