Covid - Plan B & Omicron

[Leon103]

Well - reporting on variants lag somewhat, but they're now saying that omicron is now 50% of infections in London. But regardless - what's your point? The vaccines have been tested against pre-omicron variants and stand up pretty well - by the standards of flu vaccines the Covid vaccines are remarkably good. But if millions of vaccinated people are getting exposed then even with a 90% effectiveness, you're going to have 100k's of people infected. The difference is that most of them don't end up in hospital - there's anecdotes of hospitals where every Covid patient is non-vaccinated.

The issue isn't one of testing vaccines, but of getting them into arms. The first guy to die of omicron was "an intelligent man" who "believed the conspiracies" and so didn't get jabbed, died within 2 weeks of getting ill :

My mistake I was led to believe that the results of the vaccines should % of immunity which should stop people getting it. They should have sold it that you will still get covid but potentially not so bad.

Don't worry I am no anti-vaxer. Just asking some questions so you can put your wig back on.

Just a shame there wasn't a mad rush to get people the booster months ago than a big panic now that the NHS is under the cosh yet again.

 

[Leon103]

Did he have his first and second *** them refuse the third or did he have non of them?

On my phone so haven't looked at the links.

WIll check with Twitter, fountain of knowledge is good old twitter

 

[Chippy_Tea]

My mistake I was led to believe that the results of the vaccines should % of immunity which should stop people getting it.

They did say once you had both jabs it reduced your risk of catching it to 25%

 

[Leon103]

They did say once you had both jabs it reduced your risk of catching it to 25%

What about 3 jabs.

I wonder what protection you got from simply catching it

 

[dad_of_jon]

Mother and father in law both went into hospital around 8 weeks ago. They both had covid and had 2 jabs as did mrs DOJ. MIL died in hospital OF Parkinsons. Both her and FIL recovering from covid whilst in hospital. It seems to me in our experience that adding covid to their existing conditions sped up the inevitable. I'm triple jabbed and not knowingly had covid.

We went to Swansea on Tuesday (specifically because it was quietest day of week) and the reduced size and better spaced out than usual xmas market seemed safe enough, but no hanging around or browsing. Straight to the marshmallows which were behind a screen unlike food on other stalls!!! - girl serving was wearing a mask.

Then into sports direct (don't ask you'd never believe me) quietest i've seen it.

Finally to brewdog for lunch.

we were the only customers there until we were about to leave when another couple came in. Looked at spoons opposite which was half full.

Today went to verdis - Sat at least 3m maybe 4m from the next persons, yet outside the tables were close together and it was rammed. 1m distance? - as there was no brisk wind/breeze it was calm(unusual for the mumbles) we went in.

We had alternative plans in case our first choices were deemed too unsafe when we got there, So I don't need restrictions to keep me from harm, I'm quite capable of weighing up the risks myself ta very much. I do understand that some people do need a bit of assistance to protect themselves from making poor choices - especially if those poor choices impact upon those who are taking reasonable precautions.

P.S. brewdog swansea is a pretty safe bet it is always the quietest pub on the wind street strip whatever day/time it is. I had 3 amazingly good beers I'd not had before, and impy stout and a belgian quad as well as a pint of hazy jane with Guava. I would have worked my way thru the board but we limit our time indoors and I can't overdo it on the medication im on. (moderate drinking only)

 

[Flat Foot]

Sat in a car park waiting for my booster appointment time and the mobile data is ridiculously slow.

The jokes about 5G are almost about to write themselves...

 

[Flat Foot]

Separately, it's interesting the number of my work colleagues who have been eligible for some time for a booster who are now moaning this week about how difficult it is to book an appointment - I've been asking what prevented them booking it sooner but the response has mostly been "too busy"

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I wonder what protection you got from simply catching it

I have given that some serious thought today.

I haven't had my booster i tried to book but i kept getting put into a queue and the walk in place here has queues round the block, they keep telling us the symptoms are mild and as SWMBO has had her booster i am thinking of taking a chance i work alone most of the time so i am fairly confident i wont catch it off anyone therefore i might not catch it at all and if i do i may just have cold like symptoms, having the booster doesn't guarantee you wont get it so i am in two minds what to do.

 

[DavidDetroit]

I caught some guff from a relative for not wanting to do an indoor get together with vaccinated and unvaccinated relatives.
Michigan is mid getting a COVID beatdown (again) and with all the seniors in our orbit, I just couldn't see doing it. Among many factors, reluctance to get/frowning upon being vaccinated isn't helping our case.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=covid+statsIt's so off-the-charts, the graph used isn't even calibrated to be a useful visual.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I posted this earlier today and soon after a couple of business owners phoned 5 live saying people are cancelling bookings in droves because the government have told everyone not to meet up unless its totally necessary.

They government haven't locked businesses down so they don't have to help them financially which will be the finish of a lot of businesses and a lot of people are going to be unemployed because of the knock on effect.


============


Chipppy_Tea Said -
What a total cop out instead of laying rules down to stop the spread they urge the public not to mix with people you don't have to they may as well say if you choose to go to your parents house for Christmas and they all get Covid you only have yourself to blame.


BBC NEWS -
The prime minister and England's chief medical officer have urged the public to be cautious if they socialise before Christmas, amid record UK Covid cases.
At Wednesday's news conference, Boris Johnson said he was not shutting pubs and restaurants but advised people to "think carefully before you go".
Prof Chris Whitty went even further than the PM, urging the public not to "mix with people you don't have to".
He warned more Covid records would be broken as the Omicron variant surges.
The UK recorded 78,610 new Covid cases on Wednesday - the highest daily number reported since the start of the pandemic.

Full post -
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/covid-plan-b.96512/post-1100490

 

[Chippy_Tea]

One owner now saying on Monday she had 220 covers booked for Friday she now has 40, they bought the food have staff to pay and its going to kill her business.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Did he have his first and second *** them refuse the third or did he have non of them?

Apparently none of them, he was a full-on believer of the conspiracies according to the stepson.

My mistake I was led to believe that the results of the vaccines should % of immunity which should stop people getting it. They should have sold it that you will still get covid but potentially not so bad.

Well the people who are actually selling it - ie Pfizer and AZ - have been quite careful to be clear about the limitations. The trouble is that it's complicated and the British media don't really do nuance - the number depends on whether you're talking about infection, symptoms, severe symptoms or death, and on which variant and vaccine you're talking about. So 2 jabs give 90-95% protection against the pre-omicron variants putting you in hospital, 98.8% with a booster. So that's like playing Russian roulette with 1 or 2 bullets rather than 20. We don't know yet whether that will continue with omicron - best guess is that it will be close but probably not quite as good ,maybe 90%??

You also have to remember that even without a vaccination, about a third of people get infected but don't show symptoms. Things get much more variable when it comes to less severe symptoms, it gets very dependent on the exact combination of variant and vaccine and eg how long it is since you got jabbed. The latest UKHSA report gives a good overview - they say against delta you're looking at 2 jabs of Pfizer giving you 65-95% protection against symptoms from delta, 2 jabs of AZ is more like 50-60%. A booster of Pfizer improves that to ~94% for both Pfizer and AZ.

They're 65-80% effective in preventing you getting infected, and around 50% effective in preventing you transmitting to people around you (more so against alpha, less so delta).

However, the vaccines - particular unboosted - work less well against omicron. Early data suggests that 2 doses of Pfizer only cut your risk of symptoms from omicron by 40%, and AZ may do almost nothing to stop symptoms (although there are some questions about that number), whereas a booster makes a dramatic difference, it increases effectiveness against symptoms back up to 70-75%. So it's really worthwhile getting your booster.

There's lot of data in that UKHSA report, well worth a read.

Just a shame there wasn't a mad rush to get people the booster months ago than a big panic now that the NHS is under the cosh yet again.

Easy to say in hindsight but I don't think you can be too hard on them. They'd jabbed most of the over 70s by mid March, which means with 12 weeks to 2nd *** and 6 months to booster the over 70s should mostly have been boosted by now anyway. The mad rush is really in the wake of the data that only emerged in the last week or two that omicron was really hitting the effectiveness of 2 AZ in particular, and boosting really helped against omicron. It's right to then prioritise boosting, but I don't think you can be too critical of not doing so before then, there were reasons for leaving a 6-month spacing.

The two things I would be critical of in the *** programme were
1) Not creating a priority group of high-risk people whose job involves singing/talking loudly in front of a group of people - teachers, singers, vicars, even MPs(!) - and jabbing them ahead of other under 50s. It seems that was primarily a database issue.

2) Reducing the 2nd-*** spacing in June, rather than cracking on and using the capacity to 1st-*** teenagers so that at the very least they were all (***+2 weeks) before September, and ideally were given enough time that 2nd jabbing before September could have been an option. We know that the start of the academic year is a huge mixing pot of infection, and should have done more to anticipate it and reduce it.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Apparently none of them, he was a full-on believer of the conspiracies according to the stepson.

Lets hope that their loss will persuade other non believers to get the ***.

 

[Flat Foot]

Agreed on your two criticisms @Northern_Brewer. In the early days they said they didn't have the granular jobs data to do this which I understand, but it's a shame they haven't been collecting it.

My wife got hers 'early' in the end as our local vaccination centre had an excess of vaccines so contacted local schools and got them to send staff in. When she went in she asked if any would still be spare even after that and they were, so I got one.

It happened to be great timing as it made our travel to see family overseas a couple of months later who we hadn't seen in some time because of this a lot easier.

And as I posted the other day in here, the fact we didn't vaccinate secondary kids before returning to school felt like a terrible decision at the time and I'm not sure any experience from that points to any different. There's been lots of moments in this pandemic where it has been easy to critique after the event, or even during since it's not you actually deciding and making the trade offs. But that one felt so obvious.

 

[Leon103]

I have given that some serious thought today.

I haven't had my booster i tried to book but i kept getting put into a queue and the walk in place here has queues round the block, they keep telling us the symptoms are mild and as SWMBO has had he booster i am thinking of taking a chance i work alone most of the time so i am fairly confident i wont catch it off anyone therefore i might not catch it and if i do i may just have cold like symptoms, having the booster doesn't guarantee you wont get it so i am in two minds what to do.

I said at the beginning, pre-vaccination that I wanted to catch it and get it out of the way. Fortunately it hasn't entered my household and I have never been close enough to anyone else with it.

 

[Leon103]

Apparently none of them, he was a full-on believer of the conspiracies according to the stepson.



Well the people who are actually selling it - ie Pfizer and AZ - have been quite careful to be clear about the limitations. The trouble is that it's complicated and the British media don't really do nuance - the number depends on whether you're talking about infection, symptoms, severe symptoms or death, and on which variant and vaccine you're talking about. So 2 jabs give 90-95% protection against the pre-omicron variants putting you in hospital, 98.8% with a booster. So that's like playing Russian roulette with 1 or 2 bullets rather than 20. We don't know yet whether that will continue with omicron - best guess is that it will be close but probably not quite as good ,maybe 90%??

You also have to remember that even without a vaccination, about a third of people get infected but don't show symptoms. Things get much more variable when it comes to less severe symptoms, it gets very dependent on the exact combination of variant and vaccine and eg how long it is since you got jabbed. The latest UKHSA report gives a good overview - they say against delta you're looking at 2 jabs of Pfizer giving you 65-95% protection against symptoms from delta, 2 jabs of AZ is more like 50-60%. A booster of Pfizer improves that to ~94% for both Pfizer and AZ.

They're 65-80% effective in preventing you getting infected, and around 50% effective in preventing you transmitting to people around you (more so against alpha, less so delta).

However, the vaccines - particular unboosted - work less well against omicron. Early data suggests that 2 doses of Pfizer only cut your risk of symptoms from omicron by 40%, and AZ may do almost nothing to stop symptoms (although there are some questions about that number), whereas a booster makes a dramatic difference, it increases effectiveness against symptoms back up to 70-75%. So it's really worthwhile getting your booster.

There's lot of data in that UKHSA report, well worth a read.



Easy to say in hindsight but I don't think you can be too hard on them. They'd jabbed most of the over 70s by mid March, which means with 12 weeks to 2nd *** and 6 months to booster the over 70s should mostly have been boosted by now anyway. The mad rush is really in the wake of the data that only emerged in the last week or two that omicron was really hitting the effectiveness of 2 AZ in particular, and boosting really helped against omicron. It's right to then prioritise boosting, but I don't think you can be too critical of not doing so before then, there were reasons for leaving a 6-month spacing.

The two things I would be critical of in the *** programme were
1) Not creating a priority group of high-risk people whose job involves singing/talking loudly in front of a group of people - teachers, singers, vicars, even MPs(!) - and jabbing them ahead of other under 50s. It seems that was primarily a database issue.

2) Reducing the 2nd-*** spacing in June, rather than cracking on and using the capacity to 1st-*** teenagers so that at the very least they were all (***+2 weeks) before September, and ideally were given enough time that 2nd jabbing before September could have been an option. We know that the start of the academic year is a huge mixing pot of infection, and should have done more to anticipate it and reduce it.

How could they say it would give you less chance of going into hospital, seems a strange thing to say, especially as anyone can walk into hospital with covid and say they are struggling to breath and therefore likely to be omitted.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

How could they say it would give you less chance of going into hospital, seems a strange thing to say, especially as anyone can walk into hospital with covid and say they are struggling to breath and therefore likely to be omitted.

When you've got a continuum of cases, hospitalisation is an easily-measured metric that's generally fairly clear-cut. It is more than just walking into hospital, you have to be formally admitted. I would imagine that the triage process would weed out people with mild symptoms - checking oxygen levels is one very easy check on whether someone is in trouble.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I said at the beginning, pre-vaccination that I wanted to catch it and get it out of the way. Fortunately it hasn't entered my household and I have never been close enough to anyone else with it.

I am thinking of waiting until the panic dies down then booking a slot or using the walking in place, SWMBO had the booster and has been fairly rough (she had no side effects whatsoever off the first two) she has been feeling run down and very tired for a couple of days which isn't like her she has tested herself and has not got covid, i don't fancy feeling like that over the Christmas holidays so will give it a miss for now.

 

[johncrobinson]

Got my booster today.Massive que at 9am ( at least 200ft long,) folk going in and strait out.
Overheard conversations from folk in the line who had had covid,They said it was due to close contact with kids.
None said it was a life or death experince in there opinion due to being double jabbed.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I am thinking of waiting until the panic dies down then booking a slot or using the walking in place

I understand but seriously - I wouldn't hesitate given the combination of how transmissible omicron is which means it's pretty much impossible to avoid in the next few weeks (it sounds like the guy who died of omicron was the kind to keep in his house, food delivered, that kind of thing), and the difference that a booster makes against omicron compared to just having 2 jabs.

SWMBO had the booster and has been fairly rough (she had no side effects whatsoever off the first two) she has been feeling run down and very tired for a couple of days which isn't like her

It's possible she's just got the usual pre-Christmas bug coinciding with the booster. I know a couple of people, particularly those who got 2 Zenecas the first time round where the ones who had a reaction to the first two, were fine with the booster, alternatively they were fine the first time and then got hit by the booster.