Tweet from Rob;


* also confirm, will not be putting casino table games back into club, not sure where rumour came from but defo was not from me![/i]

https://twitter.com/rob_yong_/status/1436354644956139536

Jake Cody “ffs”

Rob :  middle finger emoji

So this virus will either kill half a million people in the uk or will be the biggest amount of hype since Corbyn election victory.

Does anyone have any interesting links to either the basic science or infection rates in different  countries?

The Chinese raw data is here

http://garnetcdn.migu.cn/lovebridge.html

Chinese data is of course impressionistic, linked to the truth but not exactly reflective of reality.

Nice of Mr Johnson to give his announcement on the 1 year anniversary of this thread.

JC has vanished, and even his brother gets more press at this time.

 Sadly 500k died in the USA, with the UK a quarter of that, history will be the judge of how well or badly each of the has done.

The UK has done very well with vaccines, let’s hope the EU can catch up so that the UK population has destinations to be able to go in holiday this summer.

Cases today are -11% yet deaths  -27% (per week) I think this will continue for the year, vaccines are stopping deaths but cases still running through the unvaccinated population are going to be high.

Science is winning but a few months before we can declare victory.

I am looking forward the the vaccine passport political fights.

By the summer lots of the UK population will have had 2 jabs plus 2 weeks for efficacy. Lots of Mediterranean Europe won’t..

Will Spain demand vaccine passports before visitors can come. Greece have already said they will.

What happens with kids - they are not going to get the jabs  but they can catch and pass the virus?

Will one jab be enough to allow the holiday resorts to allow tourists to come?

Will it be the only the over 60s from the UK can can go on holiday in July as the rest of the adults in the UK won’t have had 2 jabs.

Will Greece have different standards from the Spanish or Portuguese?

It’s going to be a mess.

I have a child at primary school so I hope she goes back tomorrow but still think there can be a 5pm press conference this afternoon and Boris will stop everything for 6 weeks.

I am optimistic about vaccines, it has to start slowly as they jab the very old who need a visit, but soon you can get the old but mobile into large vaccination centres, then get a long line of cars on the inside lane of a motorway, stick a bar code on the myGP app then scan and jab as they drive up, a couple of Heath are workers can do thousands a day.

I was 3 hours out - it’s at 8pm

I have a child at primary school so I hope she goes back tomorrow but still think there can be a 5pm press conference this afternoon and Boris will stop everything for 6 weeks.

I am optimistic about vaccines, it has to start slowly as they jab the very old who need a visit, but soon you can get the old but mobile into large vaccination centres, then get a long line of cars on the inside lane of a motorway, stick a bar code on the myGP app then scan and jab as they drive up, a couple of Heath are workers can do thousands a day.

Christmas shopping and meeting families over Xmas has had the predictable effect of increasing cases a lot, hospitals are getting full and with cases still rising (although noisy data from Xmas break) then hospitalisation will continue to grow until cases start to fall, when hospitalisations grow deaths follow 2 weeks later.

We are in a very bad place BUT vaccines are being injected every day, probably 1m this week maybe 2m next week, deaths will fall from mid Feb with all of these Oder people not dieing as they have the vaccine, the UK just needs to get from here to there.

Boris will do a lockdown, as Scotland, Wales and NI will do it, so is crazy that England with more cases wouldn’t. The entire health and media establishment will shout for it.

If there is a lockdown then schools will close until the end of half terms as figures will not improve before then to justify opening.

What he should do is lockdown this afternoon, schools closed till end of Feb, announce aim for 5m vaccinations a week target for late Jan, if deaths are falling in late Feb then go to national tier 3, then aim for tier 2 at Easter if deaths are below 200 per day and still falling.

The question of the day is when will Boris announce all primary schools are to close, can he make it to next weekend to close the schools next Monday or will he announce it tomorrow afternoon to cancel it from Tuesday morning.

The numbers are obvious he has to do the latter, but when will he bow to the inevitable.

For Brexit I have always followed both sides on Twitter, Alistair Campbell & D A Green but also Daniel Hannah and Andrew Lilico, but I am just ignoring the covid nutters, I can’t even be bothered to work out if they a crazy or just trolling. 

The good news on the West Midlands covid numbers from the 29th specimen date  is that there was a small addition today but a big move elsewhere in the country which suggests that they happened to have had an efficient lab for B!ham tests relative to the rest of the country rather than a giant spike here.

Still bad numbers everywhere, I don’t see that we can get R below 1 before Easter with normal restrictions, either immunity from vaccination or antibody response from catching the virus will probably have to do a lot of the work. The UK population don’t seem to be willing to make the lifestyle changes necessary to lower transmission, nor does the rest of the world either.

Mr RPs Twitter feed is amazing, this graph yesterday for the West Midlands made me check it twice.

https://twitter.com/rp131/status/1344680650650120195?s=21

If the West Midlands has a similar number today I can’t imagine primary schools will open here in Birmingham on Monday.

So the Oxford vaccine is approved. India will probably follow but Europe and the USA will wait, wanting more data.

Who is right will be a question for the history books, but if the UK can get over 2m a week vaccinated  in Jan and Feb then many lives will be saved in the UK.

The interesting bit will be late March when deaths could be below 100 a day but cases over 30,000 a day we saw in Dec, should the lockdowns be eased as deaths are lowish  and declining or kept as cases are high.

Easter is early this year so tourism will want things open PDQ.

If the UK opens up but Europe doesn’t because they have not vaccinated all their old people yet, will holiday resorts open on the costas for the Easter May holidays.

UK vaccination stats are published here

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/12/COVID-19-total-announced-vaccinations-24-December-2020-1.pdf

0.36m of 3.3m over 80 were vaccinated by 20th Dec

This is half a percent of the uk population, which doesn’t sound a lot but given the age skew in COVID deaths, it could cut the death rate by 20%.

(I have lost the link, but an Israeli paper showed that vaccination the oldest 0.5% of people would cut deaths by 19%, the above is not exactly that but it is a good start)

Given even a single dose if very effective about a week after inoculation the effects should be seen in death rates and pressures on the NHS after a months lag of the process of the disease though those that already have it.

This should mean that the IFR and hospitalisation scan go down while cases skyrocket.

As soon as the Oxford vaccine is approved next week, single jabs should be given to as many people as possible as quickly as possible, anyone who knows which end of a needle is pointy should be conscripted into rolling out the jabs, 2, 3 or 4m doses a week in January, March / April is too late for the winter peek.

Oxford trial is 70% effective after a half dose and 90% effective after two doses https://twitter.com/UniofOxford/status/1330769567409385474

“Today marks an important milestone in the fight against #COVID19. Interim data show the #OxfordVaccine is 70.4% effective, & tests on two dose regimens show that it could be 90%, moving us one step closer to supplying it at low cost around the world“


This week by Oxford Uni is another example of imperfect science communication, hindering the brilliant science behind it.

There were 2 parts to the study
Brazil 9000 people (2 full strength doses) 60% effective
UK 3000 people (1st half strength then full strength 2nd jab) 90% effective.

On average 70% effective.

The tweet implies that 1 jab is 60% but 2 jabs are 90%  but that is not what is happening.

Professors of Biochemistry are very good a science but should find someone else to do their tweets.

I need to learn to count.

3m NHS and care homes, 3.3m over 80s and 5.5m in their 70s
total 11.8m

Two doses makes 23.6m injections, at 1m per week is mid May which would be far more depressing.

Which means they need 2m injections a week to make an impact.

Anything after Easter will only see big benefits in winter 21//22.

Easter school hols then the seasonal effects of lowering R should limit it the excess deaths till sept 21.

Hopefully the Pfizer vaccine will get sign off later this month and the Oxford one will give good results and sign off in Dec.

Vaccinations will then start , maybe they can do 1m injections a week, starting in Dec.

2m in the NHS, 0.5m in care home plus staff (let’s say 0.5m) then all the over 70s 3.3m totals 6.3m people so 12m doses, if the UK does million a week  - so we are looking at end of Feb for the most vulnerable to have some protection.(there are lots of vulnerable under 70s as well but they are lower down the list)

Christmas shopping with 2 months purchases  compacted into 3 weeks is going to be a mess, huge queues etc etc

Then many people will meet for Xmas day - hospitals in Jan will be overloaded, vaccinations won’t have  taken effect in time.

Meeting at Xmas needs to be severely limited, then give the hope of family meals in late Feb when the older population will be safer.

Age breakdown of auK

0-4   3,857,263
5-9   4,149,852
10-14   3,953,866
15-19   3,656,968
20-24   4,153,080
25-29   4,514,249
30-34   4,497,132
35-39   4,395,667
40-44   4,019,539
45-49   4,402,122
50-54   4,661,015
55-59   4,405,908
60-64   3,755,185
65-69   3,368,199
70-74   3,318,867
75-79   2,325,296
80-84   1,715,328
85-89   1,042,090
90 and over   605,181

BREAKING: Keir Starmer is calling for a two week circuit break lockdown

eventually some clear ground with the government, right or wrong

Well that's never going to happen now is it? Not a chance this lot to be seen following Labours lead.

His response to the new tier system in parliament was setting up for this. Far more critical and much less we support the measures.

3 weeks is a long time in COVID, I had also assumed that Boris would not do a lockdown.