IOM Covid removing restrictions

[Non-Believer]

13 minutes ago, quilp said:

Is it possible that a variant emerges that is resistant to one vaccine type, say the Pfizer version, but is not resistant to the Moderna, or the AZ? It would be of immense importance in effective treatment, in short order, if we had the ability to speedily identify the profile of which variant a person had contracted. 

There appears to be increasing concern in Covid news coverage about the speed that the virus is mutating into different variants. We now have the UK variant, the S. African variant, 2 variants from Brazil, one of which is of greater concern than the other. Maybe more too.

If it decides to mutate into something that is resistant to the vaccines currently being developed and applied this is going to be a game of catch-up for many years to come.

[Gladys]

3 minutes ago, Rhumsaa said:

Well..... I agree but playing devils advocate - if they at some level believe their stance over Rachel's then the saving face aspect is our subjective view?

It depends on what advice they are receiving to substantiate that belief.  As we know, the promised advisory committee has not been established.

The advice will also depend on the question that is being asked and, as you know very well, questions can be framed in such a way as to get the confirmatory answer.

If genomic information is not of any use to us, why are we bothering sending tests to Liverpool?  The answer from Dr Ewart was that it fed into the UK's data gathering, so of no use to us, apparently.  I can foresee that valuable input coming to an end pretty soon. 

[Roger Mexico]

32 minutes ago, Lost Login said:

Thanks so the point really is That as teapot says it will not help us cease the transmission and get us out of lockdown any quicker than the current measures will.

Well actually it might.  Or more likely it might stop the need to extend lockdown for longer.  I(f say a new case appears and you can link it to an existing cluster that you know about through genomics and pick up all the likely contacts, then you don't need to think about lockdown in the same way you might if it was a new unrelated case appearing from nowhere.

Of course it also helps in such circumstances if you have good track and trace and carry out a lot of testing (in New Zealand anyone with cold symptoms is encouraged to have a test).  And that you provide good support, both financial and otherwise to those who have to isolate - so people don't have to worry about testing positive and so will be more willing to come forward for a test.

But there have been several times over the last few months in New Zealand where individual cases have appeared (usually in those working in isolation facilities) and by tracing the virus back to the person who brought it in, they were able to have life go on as normal.

[AcousticallyChallenged]

5 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

There appears to be increasing concern in Covid news coverage about the speed that the virus is mutating into different variants. We now have the UK variant, the S. African variant, 2 variants from Brazil, one of which is of greater concern than the other. Maybe more too.

If it decides to mutate into something that is resistant to the vaccines currently being developed and applied this is going to be a game of catch-up for many years to come.

My understanding, albeit not as a virologist, is that all the vaccines target the part of the vaccine that is fairly fundamental.

The spike is what the virus uses to latch onto and enter human cells, and that's the bit that your body learns to target with the vaccines. They all encode for that distinctive spike.

This is good from the perspective that if the spike changes such that the vaccine doesn't work, then the virus will most likely be unable to infect human cells.

[wrighty]

17 minutes ago, quilp said:

@rachomics and @wrighty Is it possible that a variant emerges that is resistant to one vaccine type, say the Pfizer version, but is not resistant to the Moderna, or the AZ? It would be of immense importance in effective treatment, in short order, if we had the ability to speedily identify the profile of which variant a person had contracted. 

I doubt it. My understanding is that all 3 vaccines present the covid spike protein to the immune system - Pfizer and Moderna through mRNA, and AZ via a modified non-replicating adenovirus. They probably used whichever sequence of the spike protein was prevalent last March or whenever they were first created. If the spike protein mutates such that it is significantly different then firstly it might not allow the virus to get in.  If it still can however, and it is different enough to evade the vaccine generated antibodies, I suspect this will be for all vaccines until they are changed. 
 

You’re confusing treatment and vaccination though. Being able to speedily identify the profile of an infected patient’s virus won’t influence which vaccine they should be given - the ship has sailed. If it turns out that covid is seasonal like flu however, we probably will end up with vaccines being developed annually to cover the most prevalent form of the virus in the off-season, in readiness to vaccinate the vulnerable for the coming winter. 

[Out of the blue]

3 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

I am willing to offer a substantial wager with you that any purpose built IOM vaccination facilities will not be carpeted with carpet with little triskellions on it. Or even only be open twice a week 9:30 to 4. Why do you feel the need to denigrate “our lot” by propagating such nonsense?

He is trying to emphasize a point that the government has a repeated habit of over speccing and over spending, which can lead to under delivery and delay. In this instance it would appear that the government are building a semi permanent structure in the check in hall. This does not appear to be the best option to me and others. Given we are all being affected by this pandemic and subsequently the governments actions in response, I for one would like to know the rationale behind this particlar course of action.

[horatiotheturd]

18 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

I am willing to offer a substantial wager with you that any purpose built IOM vaccination facilities will not be carpeted with carpet with little triskellions on it. Or even only be open twice a week 9:30 to 4. Why do you feel the need to denigrate “our lot” by propagating such nonsense?

Fair enough.

Will it be up and running for when the first vaccines get here so that they can be rolled out as quickly as is humanly possible?

[Non-Believer]

9 minutes ago, AcousticallyChallenged said:

My understanding, albeit not as a virologist, is that all the vaccines target the part of the vaccine that is fairly fundamental.

The spike is what the virus uses to latch onto and enter human cells, and that's the bit that your body learns to target with the vaccines. They all encode for that distinctive spike.

This is good from the perspective that if the spike changes such that the vaccine doesn't work, then the virus will most likely be unable to infect human cells.

Changing of the spike was exactly what was being discussed in one of these articles; it was felt that this has increased the ease and speed with which the virus infects.

[Gladys]

9 minutes ago, Out of the blue said:

He is trying to emphasize a point that the government has a repeated habit of over speccing and over spending, which can lead to under delivery and delay. In this instance it would appear that the government are building a semi permanent structure in the check in hall. This does not appear to be the best option to me and others. Given we are all being affected by this pandemic and subsequently the governments actions in response, I for one would like to know the rationale behind this particlar course of action.

If it helps, there were Swales vans there last evening. 

[horatiotheturd]

10 minutes ago, Out of the blue said:

He is trying to emphasize a point that the government has a repeated habit of over speccing and over spending, which can lead to under delivery and delay. In this instance it would appear that the government are building a semi permanent structure in the check in hall. This does not appear to be the best option to me and others. Given we are all being affected by this pandemic and subsequently the governments actions in response, I for one would like to know the rationale behind this particlar course of action.

And let's be honest they do have form for stupid custom made carpets and curtains that serve no purpose over plain cheap ones.

[horatiotheturd]

1 minute ago, Gladys said:

If it helps, there were Swales vans there last evening. 

Bargain!

I noticed they had refloored Salisbury cathedral as well.  Obviously doesn't matter if it costs a few grand and hold things up for a few days as long as the floor is nice ffs.

Assume this all went out to tender months ago?

[finlo]

9 minutes ago, Gladys said:

If it helps, there were Swales vans there last evening. 

Top of the range Karndean it is then!

[Non-Believer]

I need to find a gig in about 12 months' time that needs a lot of used plasterboard and 4 x 2 batten....

[Gladys]

Well, without wanting to prolong the flooring debate, I would assume that the floor was in a pretty unattractive state - just look at the floor in other supermarkets, particularly where shelving and freezers are placed - it would have to be of a reasonable quality from a hygiene perspective.  So it is arguable that it would have to covered in something that can be quickly mopped down. 

The next query would be whether there was a dilapidations payment by the tenant at the end of the last tenancy, there often is as the end of a commercial full repairing tenancy including dealing with tenant's improvements.  I believe that the landlord is Douglas Corporation, so there is just the possibility that the Corpie are paying for the new flooring from the dilapidations from the last tenancy.  I could be dead wrong though. 

[Lost Login]

39 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

The straight fact is that fast accurate genomics of the various cases picked up would have told the contact tracing team how many main lines of transmission there had been. This would make their job much easier. In at least one of the briefings Henrietta has said they've got a case with no clear line of transmission. Genomics would help link to other known clusters.

I'll try to explain with a hypothetical. I'm not sure of current numbers, or the finer details so I'll kind of make them up. 40 current active cases, of which 15 are known travelers in isolation, so we can ignore them. Of the other 25 say, 10 are linked in one cluster and 9 in another, through either family or location but no established link between the groups. Then there is another little group of 4 that the contact team can reliably put with each other, and then there are two individual cases with no idea how they have come about. This is where the genomics comes in. Can we put these different groups together or are they 5 different routes of infection? 

If they are all the same then you can be very comfortable that by isolating those people you will be closing that transmission down. But say that group of 4 is different to the others, or its one of the individuals, then you know that there is a good chance it is still out there and more work needs to be done.

Fast genomics is a very valuable tool for the purposes of contact tracing and closing down routes of transmission.

That's my understanding anyway, I hope it makes sense.

Genomics I understand will assist you in knowing which cluster cases belong to but not I struggle to see how it assist directly tracing transmission/contacts as the tracers want to know who you caught it off and who you may have transmitted it to,   

 In your example an individual infects a group in Ramsey, and a Group in Douglas.  Presumably testing will find all those people with the same sequencing of vaccine. A time later another individual is tested to be found positive and has the same sequencing.  Genomics can link it back to the Ramsey Group or Douglas Group but I am not sure it can differentiate as to which Group or whether it passed through an intermediary in between. I may be totally wrong in that but this why although I understand Genomics is useful I am really struggle to understand why using Mrs Glover’s facility will speed up the breakage of transmission in the Isle of Man under the present circumstances and that in practical terms it therefore makes little difference whether het facility or a different one is used.

 To me it would always be preferable to use a local service provider but in terms of stopping the current outbreak, as you can see, I still struggle to understand how getting to run Genomic testing now or over the last week or so really would have accelerated breaking the chain of transmission. We don't appear to the number of unknown cases etc that would seem to give any benefit. If on the other hand we were trying to eliminate by track and trace and only requesting those to lockdown whilst everybody else continued as normal then I totally understand why it would be very useful.