Non - Pandemic

SlowDownDerek said:
As I say there may be some truth in the optimal time to deploy a vaccine but I still don't follow why you're suggesting the vaccine accelerates mutations. You said yourself that mutations are more likely to happen when the virus is spreading among more people, that's certainly been our experience so far, so if anything you'd expect less chance of mutation in vaccinated people.

Is it just a coincidence that this seasonal change you talk about started once the lockdowns kicked in?

Also surely there's no guarantee that delaying the vaccine roll out until a more optimal seasonal time wouldn't have been a waste of time because we're only one country and there's every chance a vaccine defiant strain would turn up no matter what we do.
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Immune responses reduce viral growth, which reduces genetic variation, creating a ‘Goldilocks’ situation for adaptation: too little immune response means not much selective pressure to escape immunity, and too much immune response shuts down viral replication before escape variants can be generated.
In theory, at intermediate levels of immunity, there is enough viral replication to generate escape variants and enough selection pressure to amplify those variants so that they grow to high frequency and may be transmitted to others.

And probably a coincidence, yes. Most flu cases for the last 10 years have peaked around New Year, give or take 2-3 weeks. Effectiveness of lockdowns is quite inconclusive, so can't say for certain.
 
king-bedwetter said:
Immune responses reduce viral growth, which reduces genetic variation, creating a ‘Goldilocks’ situation for adaptation: too little immune response means not much selective pressure to escape immunity, and too much immune response shuts down viral replication before escape variants can be generated.
In theory, at intermediate levels of immunity, there is enough viral replication to generate escape variants and enough selection pressure to amplify those variants so that they grow to high frequency and may be transmitted to others.

And probably a coincidence, yes. Most flu cases for the last 10 years have peaked around New Year, give or take 2-3 weeks. Effectiveness of lockdowns is quite inconclusive, so can't say for certain.
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This comes across like a copy and paste job from an anti vac website. There's nothing here to say why escape variants are more likely in vaccinated populations as opposed to people who are simply infected by the virus.

To say it's a coincidence that the case rate started to fall once lockdowns kicked in is absolutely laughable tbh.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
This comes across like a copy and paste job from an anti vac website. There's nothing here to say why escape variants are more likely in vaccinated populations as opposed to people who are simply infected by the virus.

To say it's a coincidence that the case rate started to fall once lockdowns kicked in is absolutely laughable tbh.
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No not really, I've told you there's an established body of research on the subject of leaky vaccines and induced escape variants i.e. vaccines that don't prevent infection, only attenuating the symptoms and severity. If you can't be bothered to look it up and read it yourself then that's fine by me. I said I would leave it because I gathered from your questions you're either too lazy to piece together what I've said or you're so blinkered you reject any new information.

And again, I deliberately avoided being definitive on the lockdown question because there is no consensus on their efficacy. I've based my observation on previous trends which are undeniable.

All I'm advising is caution going forward and objective thinking to come to the best solution. If you want to be a bootlicker and blindly agree with everything the government tells you then have at it.

Now get out.
 
king-bedwetter said:
No not really, I've told you there's an established body of research on the subject of leaky vaccines and induced escape variants i.e. vaccines that don't prevent infection, only attenuating the symptoms and severity. If you can't be bothered to look it up and read it yourself then that's fine by me. I said I would leave it because I gathered from your questions you're either too lazy to piece together what I've said or you're so blinkered you reject any new information.

And again, I deliberately avoided being definitive on the lockdown question because there is no consensus on their efficacy. I've based my observation on previous trends which are undeniable.

All I'm advising is caution going forward and objective thinking to come to the best solution. If you want to be a bootlicker and blindly agree with everything the government tells you then have at it.

Now get out.
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You've not been able to answer any of the points I've raised. Your argument appears to be based on some sort of ideal world scenario where we've got the time to test whether these current vaccines are 'leaky'. We don't have that time because thousands were dying when the vaccine roll out started. You seem to be suggesting that we should have paused the roll out on the off chance that these vaccines will cause further mutations in the virus. Or should I say more mutations than would otherwise occur if the virus had simply been left to spread unchecked.

How do your observations based on previous trends explain the rapid fall in infections after the imposition of our three lockdowns at entirely different times of the year? Or the clearly observable fall in infections for vaccinated groups in multiple countries? All just seasonal coincidence is it?

Bootlicker lol.
 
Phone Box politics on here now regarding the Pandemic..one in the box on rotating basis... others chucking in grenades...or like an Irish Bookies sandwiched between a pub and a Gym.

There are a couple of posters who seem to have a good grip on the research, lessons learnt, data collation and summation etc....maybe they work close to, or in Science circles or are Doctors. Good stuff.

Others...My God.. Amateur Politicians... just out looking for a Dust up on Doom Street.

When it comes Football... the Money Whores and Garden Shed Accountants are in the ascendancy !

Then you get some Happy Mavericks coming along with flippant or tangential remarks...stirring up the pot.

You can't buy it....the shelves have been emptied !

:LOL:
 
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SlowDownDerek said:
You've not been able to answer any of the points I've raised. Your argument appears to be based on some sort of ideal world scenario where we've got the time to test whether these current vaccines are 'leaky'. We don't have that time because thousands were dying when the vaccine roll out started. You seem to be suggesting that we should have paused the roll out on the off chance that these vaccines will cause further mutations in the virus. Or should I say more mutations than would otherwise occur if the virus had simply been left to spread unchecked.

How do your observations based on previous trends explain the rapid fall in infections after the imposition of our three lockdowns at entirely different times of the year? Or the clearly observable fall in infections for vaccinated groups in multiple countries? All just seasonal coincidence is it?

Bootlicker lol.
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Immune responses arising from past infection or vaccination should inhibit viral replication, preventing infection and adaptation, but we had neither of these going in to the second season. This is why we saw more infections and more death than first time around, but because immune responses were poor there was less pressure for immune escape variants - the virus didn't need to mutate because it was infectious enough in that form. We began increasing the number of intermediate levels of immunity the moment first dose of vaccinations began, setting more favourable conditions for escape variants. Think, what's the current population of people who have received only one of two doses?

We can also take informed guesses as to the number of people who may have died without the intervention of vaccines, since we know the +ve test rates and infection fatality rates. Even being liberal with these numbers (4% +ve test cases and 5% IFR) would give 400,000 more cases and 20,000 more deaths across all age groups by the time the virus is already in decline. This is all tragic, but still hardly registers as an increase on all cause mortality from previous years and the majority of deaths will have been around and over the average life expectancy.

All cause mortality in 2019 was low by previous years standards, this left a huge pool of susceptible people when Covid arrived. Around New Year 2020 flu like illnesses were still present and still showed the same case trends as before but mortality was low, adding to the susceptibility come March. The first lockdown reduced the number of cases, but mortality was inevitably high. As I've explained above, mortality remained high 2nd time around despite lockdowns. Yes, you can point to infections reducing during 2nd lockdown, but 3rd time we were already in decline. This, together with examples elsewhere where no lockdowns were imposed (Sweden), point to it being inconclusive. There's also a growing number of research papers on lockdowns suggesting there's minimal impact since the majority of transmissions occur at home.

And I'm not saying if lockdown is right or wrong, there are obvious risks with our hospital capacity, but eventually we were going to have to confront the virus and the outcome should have been expected. SAGE even predicted this (see below). The trade-off was talked about a lot during the start of the year, but it seems we were sold a load of pony on the numbers.
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ntions-on-an-epidemic-of-covid-19-in-uk-1.pdf

Seasonality has been commonly understood in the epidemiology of respiratory illnesses for the past century, so I don't know why you find this so funny or hard to believe. I suppose cognitive dissonance and challenging your programming will do that to you?
 
king-bedwetter said:
Immune responses arising from past infection or vaccination should inhibit viral replication, preventing infection and adaptation, but we had neither of these going in to the second season. This is why we saw more infections and more death than first time around, but because immune responses were poor there was less pressure for immune escape variants - the virus didn't need to mutate because it was infectious enough in that form. We began increasing the number of intermediate levels of immunity the moment first dose of vaccinations began, setting more favourable conditions for escape variants. Think, what's the current population of people who have received only one of two doses?

We can also take informed guesses as to the number of people who may have died without the intervention of vaccines, since we know the +ve test rates and infection fatality rates. Even being liberal with these numbers (4% +ve test cases and 5% IFR) would give 400,000 more cases and 20,000 more deaths across all age groups by the time the virus is already in decline. This is all tragic, but still hardly registers as an increase on all cause mortality from previous years and the majority of deaths will have been around and over the average life expectancy.

All cause mortality in 2019 was low by previous years standards, this left a huge pool of susceptible people when Covid arrived. Around New Year 2020 flu like illnesses were still present and still showed the same case trends as before but mortality was low, adding to the susceptibility come March. The first lockdown reduced the number of cases, but mortality was inevitably high. As I've explained above, mortality remained high 2nd time around despite lockdowns. Yes, you can point to infections reducing during 2nd lockdown, but 3rd time we were already in decline. This, together with examples elsewhere where no lockdowns were imposed (Sweden), point to it being inconclusive. There's also a growing number of research papers on lockdowns suggesting there's minimal impact since the majority of transmissions occur at home.

And I'm not saying if lockdown is right or wrong, there are obvious risks with our hospital capacity, but eventually we were going to have to confront the virus and the outcome should have been expected. SAGE even predicted this (see below). The trade-off was talked about a lot during the start of the year, but it seems we were sold a load of pony on the numbers.
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ntions-on-an-epidemic-of-covid-19-in-uk-1.pdf

Seasonality has been commonly understood in the epidemiology of respiratory illnesses for the past century, so I don't know why you find this so funny or hard to believe. I suppose cognitive dissonance and challenging your programming will do that to you?
Click to expand...

Your going for the course aren't you? Good luck.
 
king-bedwetter said:
Immune responses arising from past infection or vaccination should inhibit viral replication, preventing infection and adaptation, but we had neither of these going in to the second season. This is why we saw more infections and more death than first time around, but because immune responses were poor there was less pressure for immune escape variants - the virus didn't need to mutate because it was infectious enough in that form. We began increasing the number of intermediate levels of immunity the moment first dose of vaccinations began, setting more favourable conditions for escape variants. Think, what's the current population of people who have received only one of two doses?

We can also take informed guesses as to the number of people who may have died without the intervention of vaccines, since we know the +ve test rates and infection fatality rates. Even being liberal with these numbers (4% +ve test cases and 5% IFR) would give 400,000 more cases and 20,000 more deaths across all age groups by the time the virus is already in decline. This is all tragic, but still hardly registers as an increase on all cause mortality from previous years and the majority of deaths will have been around and over the average life expectancy.

All cause mortality in 2019 was low by previous years standards, this left a huge pool of susceptible people when Covid arrived. Around New Year 2020 flu like illnesses were still present and still showed the same case trends as before but mortality was low, adding to the susceptibility come March. The first lockdown reduced the number of cases, but mortality was inevitably high. As I've explained above, mortality remained high 2nd time around despite lockdowns. Yes, you can point to infections reducing during 2nd lockdown, but 3rd time we were already in decline. This, together with examples elsewhere where no lockdowns were imposed (Sweden), point to it being inconclusive. There's also a growing number of research papers on lockdowns suggesting there's minimal impact since the majority of transmissions occur at home.

And I'm not saying if lockdown is right or wrong, there are obvious risks with our hospital capacity, but eventually we were going to have to confront the virus and the outcome should have been expected. SAGE even predicted this (see below). The trade-off was talked about a lot during the start of the year, but it seems we were sold a load of pony on the numbers.
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ntions-on-an-epidemic-of-covid-19-in-uk-1.pdf

Seasonality has been commonly understood in the epidemiology of respiratory illnesses for the past century, so I don't know why you find this so funny or hard to believe. I suppose cognitive dissonance and challenging your programming will do that to you?
Click to expand...

So you accept that vaccination inhibits the ability of the virus to mutate because it helps reduce the spread of the virus and therefore limits the opportunities for adaptation.

If the risk derives primarily from increased intermediate levels of immunity, caused by a portion of the population having only one dose then surely they have got the timing of this vaccine roll-out bang on. Even if you were right about the downturn in infections being purely down to seasonal factors we still have extremely low infection rates and therefore the risk of mutation is very low at present i.e. the perfect time to vaccinate.

The bigger point is the UK is a drop in the ocean in terms of world population so whatever we do is rendered irrelevant if the conditions for mutation exist elsewhere in the world.

I've certainly not dismissed the impact of seasonality - it's as clearly observable as the impact of lockdowns and vaccinations on reducing the spread of the virus. Infections began to fall 2/3 weeks after the imposition of all three lockdowns we've had.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
So you accept that vaccination inhibits the ability of the virus to mutate because it helps reduce the spread of the virus and therefore limits the opportunities for adaptation.
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Yes, under the right circumstances with it allowing you time to build immunity. Correct me if I'm wrong and apologies if so, but I don't think I've said anything to the contrary?
SlowDownDerek said:
If the risk derives primarily from increased intermediate levels of immunity, caused by a portion of the population having only one dose then surely they have got the timing of this vaccine roll-out bang on. Even if you were right about the downturn in infections being purely down to seasonal factors we still have extremely low infection rates and therefore the risk of mutation is very low at present i.e. the perfect time to vaccinate.
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The risk is highest with increased intermediate levels of immunity and the virus in widespread circulation. Difficult to say when would have been best but for example from March onwards, where the cumulative totals really began to slow down, may have been better to begin all vaccinations ahead of Autumn. 20 million first doses had been done by then though.
SlowDownDerek said:
The bigger point is the UK is a drop in the ocean in terms of world population so whatever we do is rendered irrelevant if the conditions for mutation exist elsewhere in the world.
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Absolutely, but vaccinations began worldwide around the same time so I'm not isolating the mistake at the feet of just our government and the problem could exist to varying degrees globally. The fact there's been so much attention on "foreign" variants suggests this might be true and current vaccines are already showing poor cross-neutralisation across different strains.
Without getting too conspiratorial, there's obviously been pressure from pharmaceutical companies over the release of the vaccine and it's not difficult to see how they could profit from this not going 100% smoothly. They're already exempt from any legal troubles, I think?
 
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