IOM Covid removing restrictions

[Ham_N_Eggs]

21 minutes ago, thesultanofsheight said:

It was also suggested that he has recently fallen off the wagon and that might explain his recent disappearance and holiday off the grid.

That's probably more to do with the matters connected to the alleged super injunction.

[thesultanofsheight]

9 minutes ago, Ham_N_Eggs said:

That's probably more to do with the matters connected to the alleged super injunction.

Could well have been. But there was also press speculation that he’d fallen off the wagon. And Johnson’s drinking has been the subject of press comment over the years. It was suggested above that I’d made it up when in fact it’s something that has been reported on over the years as the links above show. 

[Roger Mexico]

2 hours ago, P.K. said:

I have read that it's possible to contract Covid-19 more than once. Because it's happened. I have also read that the antibodies the body generates on contracting Covid-19 fade out after six weeks or so. Hence you can contract it more than once.

I have also read that herd immunity has only ever been achieved with an effective vaccine.

So have I got that wrong somewhere?

There have been a few well documented cases where someone has tested positive and then again several months later.  They can also test to see it is a fresh infection by looking to see if the second infection belongs to a different genetic line[1] which means that the person must have been infected by a different person from the first time, rather than just having the genetic material hanging around in their body.  In the few cases so far the second infection was less serious than the first, which indicates there may be some protection, but it's possible that the reinfected person could still pass it on to others.

Vaccines are certainly the most important way in which herd immunity can be achieved.  And obviously they are the most painless - it means you avoid large percentages of the population being ill or dying.  Most importantly vaccines are the only long-lasting way of dealing with a disease.  Otherwise the plague kills half the village (producing a rough form of herd immunity) and then twenty or thirty years the same thing happens again.

51 minutes ago, Gladys said:

I found the same two articles.  It would seem that T cell immunity is the unknown   However Sunetra Gupta believes that herd immunity is the likely way out.  I suppose it is how we get there that is the big question.  

Well herd immunity is always what you want to achieve, though it's only really a way of saying that not everyone in a population has to be immune for infection to die out.  The real question is how.  Doing nothing and seeing what happens may be interesting for an evolutionary biologist like Gupta, but her simple mathematical models may not work in complex situations, especially when the subjects of study are capable of changing the way they operate.  People tend not to risk falling ill and possibly dying just to please an Oxford professor.

What is certainly clear is that the belief that herd immunity has somehow been achieved anywhere is nonsense.  Nowhere do antibody tests show anything near the level of exposure that even the most optimistic models say would be likely to produce herd immunity.  You can't really try to cover the gap by say "Because T-cells" without providing mechanisms and estimates based on existing knowledge.  I suspect T-cells will be having all sorts of effects here, but it's a mindbogglingly complex subject and we need more to go on that just hope.  And certainly the second wave many countries are currently experiencing shows that Gupta was clearly wrong in her belief that herd immunity had already happened.

27 minutes ago, Gladys said:

Given the number of asymptomatic 'cases' (which, according to some, is a nonsense - no symptoms, no case), perhaps there already is a degree of herd immunity, I suppose the trick is to find out why and see if that will lead to a vaccine for wider use. 

I'm slightly dubious about the very word 'asymptomatic' because it's not a clear dividing line.  Does a mild cough count? Does it count if you also have a cold at the same time?  But medical practice is very clear here,  - something counts as a case if someone tests positive.  This makes sense if you think about it, especially for a disease which seems to have a wide range of symptoms and can affect many different parts of the body.  If you choose any other set of criteria you end up with endless debates about what is or isn't a case.  Obviously this is particularly true with a new disease like Covid-19 where the clinical criteria haven't been well established, but the lab test is taken as the defining criterion for long-established diseases such as measles as well.

 

[1]  Not 'strain' which is a word that often gets used, but that really implies a genetic version of the virus that consistently behaves differently in some way and we haven't really seen that in this coronavirus yet.  Instead a different line (or lineage) of the virus means that there have been changes in the genetic coding of the virus, so it can be distinguished from other lines when it is sequenced.  All genetic material will develop small differences over time when it is replicated, and as viruses replicate a lot they build up changes.  The vast majority of these are neutral - they don't make any difference to how the virus operates - but they act as a sort of history.

[WTF]

4 hours ago, wrighty said:

How about paying the caring professions properly so they don’t have to work double shifts in multiple establishments, and get proper sick pay so they’re not temped to go in if unwell? 

that's just the greedy ones who want to spend more in life than they're actually worth.

 

as for herd imminuity,  that is what you are left with once all the waifs and strays have been wiped out,  those that are left are the immune herd,  you can't can't give immunity to everyone however much you want to.

Edited September 19, 2020 by WTF

[TheTeapot]

1 hour ago, Roger Mexico said:

 

I'm slightly dubious about the very word 'asymptomatic' because it's not a clear dividing line.  Does a mild cough count? Does it count if you also have a cold at the same time?  But medical practice is very clear here,  - something counts as a case if someone tests positive.  This makes sense if you think about it, especially for a disease which seems to have a wide range of symptoms and can affect many different parts of the body.  If you choose any other set of criteria you end up with endless debates about what is or isn't a case.  Obviously this is particularly true with a new disease like Covid-19 where the clinical criteria haven't been well established, but the lab test is taken as the defining criterion for long-established diseases such as measles as well.

 

 

I'd argue, and this may well be medically incorrect, that asymptomatic means you have contracted the Sars-Cov-2 virus, but have not developed the Covid-19 disease. Like being HIV positive, but not developing AIDS.

[wrighty]

17 minutes ago, WTF said:

 

 

as for herd imminuity,  that is what you are left with once all the waifs and strays have been wiped out,  those that are left are the immune herd,  you can't can't give immunity to everyone however much you want to.

Totally misunderstanding the concept. Herd immunity protects the few that can’t be immune by not giving it them in the first place. Say you have a class of 30 kids, one has an immune deficiency. You protect that one by immunising the other 29. 

[wrighty]

4 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

I'd argue, and this may well be medically incorrect, that asymptomatic means you have contracted the Sars-Cov-2 virus, but have not developed the Covid-19 disease. Like being HIV positive, but not developing AIDS.

[TheTeapot]

1 minute ago, wrighty said:

Sorry @wrighty whatever you have replied there hasn't displayed properly for me on either my laptop or my phone, its got a pic logo and the word retrieve. Could you try again please? I'd like to know how wrong I probably am.

[Roger Mexico]

4 hours ago, Gladys said:

Well, to date it has meant locking them away.  That, I think, is inhumane.  A more nuanced approach is needed and one that does not seek to eliminate risk but manage it.  Perhaps very limited contact to specific family members who are themselves are risk-assessed for the possibility of transmission,  with full PPE, periodic testing, but with the option of someone voluntarily forgoing their shielding status in the full knowledge of the risks. 

Also a categorisation of those vulnerable to put in place appropriate protection measures to reflect their vulnerability and the likely impact of contracting CV, and for those approaching the end of life from other causes to have pretty limited measures.  Harsh as that may seem, it is perhaps more humane to give those people the possibility of having contact with their loved ones in the latter stages of life than sheltering them to face death alone.  That may be great for the stats but not for the person. 

The trouble is that even if a dying person is willing to accept the risk of infection, it doesn't end there.  Even if they are isolated from all other patients (which itself may be an imposition) they can't be isolated from the staff in the same way.  Even with the very best PPE (and they've not normal been able to get that), the real danger is transmission to them and then to other patients who haven't decided to take such as risk. 

If staff get infected, or there is the possibility that they might have and they have to isolate, then the ability to care for the other other patients become lessened (even if those patients aren't infected)  This was one of the problems at Abbotswood.  And even for patients who are willing to risk it, catching Covid-19 will mean they require a lot more attention, just to make them as comfortable as possible.  The whole thing would put enormous extra stress on staff and other patients at a time they are already stretched.

4 hours ago, Gladys said:

Absolutely agree.  Conspiracy nuts may think that improvements in medicine does little for the elderly but provide a lucrative source of income for the elderly care industry.  

The funny thing is that it doesn't.  For many decades now (at least 40 years) people have been predicting a massive increase being needed in the number of care home places and so on.  But the odd thing is that it hasn't happened.  Numbers of people in care homes barely went up between 2001 and 2011 for instance.  The growing number of elderly and very elderly people has happened as predicted, but they aren't going in homes for any longer or in greater numbers and the predicted boom never happened.

This may cause problems elsewhere in the system, but the expect expansion of care homes never happened.

[Banker]

Another caught or shopped as the case may be

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/woman-remanded-at-prison-for-failing-to-self-isolate/

meanwhile the guy in Bolton who went on a pub crawl instead of isolating has caused the surge there & may get a fine of £1000!

[wrighty]

1 hour ago, TheTeapot said:

Sorry @wrighty whatever you have replied there hasn't displayed properly for me on either my laptop or my phone, its got a pic logo and the word retrieve. Could you try again please? I'd like to know how wrong I probably am.

It’s an embedded link to the WHO - search for WHO Covid 19 case definition and you’ll get the same thing. 

[TheTeapot]

18 minutes ago, wrighty said:

It’s an embedded link to the WHO - search for WHO Covid 19 case definition

The pdf on here? https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-Surveillance_Case_Definition-2020.1 

Means I'm wrong then, but I thought that would be the case

Edit - Does nothing to explain 'asymptomatic' though

Edited September 19, 2020 by TheTeapot

[hissingsid]

I hope that woman does go to prison.    The reason the situation is so bad across is that some of the public have disregarded all the rules, I feel so sorry for the ones who took sensible precautions and and are now suffering because of the oiks that didn’t.

[Banker]

15 minutes ago, hissingsid said:

I hope that woman does go to prison.    The reason the situation is so bad across is that some of the public have disregarded all the rules, I feel so sorry for the ones who took sensible precautions and and are now suffering because of the oiks that didn’t.

This is link to Bolton story, it does seem like a few idiots are causing the problems in UK 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-54205353

[hissingsid]

More than a few unfortunately the police do not stand a chance.