Lockdown’s Last Lingerings - (Covid since L2 ended)

[Legend]

5 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

BTW as far as vaccination is concerned nobody seems to be recognising the arithmetic.  By the end of 2021 the UK Govt is contracted to have received 10 million doses of vaccine from Pfizer and 15 million from Astra Zeneca a total of 25 million doses.  But each patient requires two doses so that quantity will only vaccinate 12.5 million people.  However if you then follow the line of argument that the Pfizer vaccine is only effective for 6 months (they have stated) and extrapolate to the Astra Zeneca vaccine (actual situation not known as far as I can ascertain) there might only be enough vaccine to have dealt with 6.25 million people in the UK by the end of 2021.

 

Unless the rate of vaccine production can be very seriously increased 25 million doses per annum will only protect 6.25 million people for each year so fewer than 10% 0f the population will be vaccinated - and that looks like a possible arithmetical certainty for 2021 if not in subsequent years.  Meanwhile the virus continues toi mutate with the rest of the population able to play host to each successive mutation (as long as teh vaccine remains effective against the mutations).

I thought the Govt had contracted for 100 million of the Astra Zeneca /Oxford vaccine .  They have also contracted for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines . I believe there are two others as well . One of them I believe may be produced by Valneva , I don’t know what the fifth one is .  

[newbryford]

16 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Dont worry it will be gone by the next general election.

you can be sure about that.

 

Though caution..weve had

7 years of Austerity

4 years of Brexit

2 years of Covid

? Years of something with the letter D...

 

Is it something to do with the lead time for Dapol models?

[Gilbert]

2 hours ago, gordon s said:

No, the difference with most self inflicted conditions is that there is no risk to NHS staff and any others in the hospital at that time. This is a whole new ball game with huge numbers that could the close hospital doors for other treatments. There comes a time when personal freedom and liberty have to guided by responsibility to the whole population. I hope we never lose our consideration towards others.

 

 

This is a very important point. As a recently retired 40 year NHS veteran (not front line but heavily involved)  I think we need to do more than clap....

[Gilbert]

3 minutes ago, newbryford said:

 

Is it something to do with the lead time for Dapol models?

Fair point....

[Andy Hayter]

6 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

 

BTW as far as vaccination is concerned nobody seems to be recognising the arithmetic.  By the end of 2021 the UK Govt is contracted to have received 10 million doses of vaccine from Pfizer and 15 million from Astra Zeneca a total of 25 million doses.  But each patient requires two doses so that quantity will only vaccinate 12.5 million people.  However if you then follow the line of argument that the Pfizer vaccine is only effective for 6 months (they have stated) and extrapolate to the Astra Zeneca vaccine (actual situation not known as far as I can ascertain) there might only be enough vaccine to have dealt with 6.25 million people in the UK by the end of 2021.

 

 

 

Not sur where your numbers have come from Mike, but mine say that AZ will deliver 30m doses by September 2021.  That still leaves a shortfall but nothing like as bad as your numbers indicate.

[RJS1977]

5 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

The date of Easter was calculated by the ancients well before the Christians. The amount of days each week, month, year had been known for thousands of years. Those who built Stonehenge certainly knew it as did the Babylonians.

 

Pretty simple. It's the first Sunday after the first full moon after the March Equinox

 

 

Well, yes and no.

 

As you say, the pagan festival of Easter was known long before Christianity.

 

For want of a better term "Christian Easter" (i.e. the Christian festival marking the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ) was originally celebrated around the time of the Jewish Passover as per the accounts given in the Gospels. As most of the earliest Christians were Jewish, it was effectively a 'semi-fixed' date on their lunar calendar (Passover is a full moon - the 15th day of the month of Nisan - and 'Christian Easter' was in those days the Sunday following it). As Christianity spread, it went from being a mostly Jewish religion to a mostly Gentile one. At first the Jews advised the Gentiles on the date of Passover, which they could use to calculate Easter, but eventually the Gentiles had to work it out for themselves. Unable to understand the Jewish calendar, they opted for the first Sunday after the first full moon after the March Equinox (partly because going any earlier put the start of Lent within a month of Epiphany), which is the same as 'pagan Easter', but also coincides with Passover around 85% of the time.

[Nearholmer]

Other methods of calculation were available in these isles until the synod of Whitby.

[Pete the Elaner]

Back to lockdown restrictions...I have just cancelled my Christmas visit to my parents so I'll spend the time at home on my own. I don't find it such a big deal. I'll probably spend some time in the layout room.

I really don't care about catching it myself but I am concerned about passing it on.

I will be happy to spend a few days with them once they have had their vaccine, whenever that is.

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, Gilbert said:

This is a very important point. As a recently retired 40 year NHS veteran (not front line but heavily involved)  I think we need to do more than clap....

 

... yes, when I first heard "Clap for Carers", I did wonder why anybody should be wishing the clap on NHS workers 

[LBRJ]

29 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

... yes, when I first heard "Clap for Carers", I did wonder why anybody should be wishing the clap on NHS workers 

I dunno why for  the sake of me, but that reminded me that as a young man I lived, and often drank a pint or three, very close to a residence for student nurses  

[APOLLO]

So how long in time does a positive case test last . Once tested positive have you got it for ever, statistically ?

 

Brit15

[Bernard Lamb]

1 minute ago, APOLLO said:

So how long in time does a positive case test last . Once tested positive have you got it for ever, statistically ?

 

Brit15

That seems to vary from place to place, or at least the methods used to determine it do.

There were three British students in Italy who were kept there for several weeks as the tests kept returning as positive.

The discussion was in respect of just how long it was reckoned that they could still spread the virus. I suppose that given the current knowledge of the disease it is the length of  bit of string situation.

In other areas people are returning to normal work after 10 to 14 days. How "safe" that is I know not.

Bernard

[Michael Hodgson]

That clearly isn't long enough for those who develop serious symptoms and have to go into hospital.

 

Logically one would think you should be deemed to have it until you have a negative test - but we aren't being told to go and get tested again before going back to work.  It seems to be assumed that if you still have the virus after a fortnight you are no longer infectious. 

 

If you've had the virus and recovered, you might think you would have developed immunity, but there are people who have caught it again and usually were worse the second time.  These jabs are the magical solution as they apparently do give us immunity (after a follow-up jab a few weeks later), but what they don't know and are avoiding discussion is how long immunity lasts and whether we will all have to keep on having jabs for life.   I know nothing about immunology, but I would like to know why we don't get immunity as effectively from recovering from catching the thing.  They say it's a flu-like virus and I have a nagging doubt that Covid may be like the man-flu I catch every winter even though I have my flu jabs.

[Reorte]

14 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

Back to lockdown restrictions...I have just cancelled my Christmas visit to my parents so I'll spend the time at home on my own. I don't find it such a big deal. I'll probably spend some time in the layout room.

I really don't care about catching it myself but I am concerned about passing it on.

I will be happy to spend a few days with them once they have had their vaccine, whenever that is.

My parents are still expecting me to show up; that's their decision, and I've no qualms about myself, so I'm still planning on going. I live by myself and I've not seen any family since last Christmas. To be honest it's not been that hard going (although if I was unfortunate enough to have had to work from home, and if the pubs had been shut right through, I'd have found it far worse) but I could do with a bit of cheer and I'm not at all convinced that the risk is high enough to be all that concerned; it's not as if I've been mixed with crowds of Christmas shoppers, just my local Tesco, which never seems that heaving.

[Nearholmer]

Covid is not a ‘flu like virus’, it’s a ‘common-cold like virus’.

 

Which to me doesn’t bode well for a while, given how good our immunity against colds is!

 

 

[Reorte]

2 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Covid is not a ‘flu like virus’, it’s a ‘common-cold like virus’.

 

Which to me doesn’t bode well for a while, given how good our immunity against colds is!

Our immunity to colds is pretty good. It's just that there are so many different cold-causing viruses that there's always another one to catch that you've not had before. We tend to catch fewer colds as we get older though, as we're less likely to encounter one we've not already had.

 

Covid-19 is caused by a cold-like virus in that some colds are caused by (different) coronaviruses. It's quite a different virus from flu, so from the virology perspective it's definitely not a flu-like virus, although a lot of the symptoms are similar.

[Neil]

A couple of random observations.

 

The first is that those with a voice in the media who advocate the strongest for fewer restrictions 'because it damages the economy' also seem to be those who are most prepared for the economy to take a hit so that 'we can regain our sovereignty'.

 

Also

 

I have noticed concern for the 'mental health of individuals' from quarters which have never previously shown any interest in such matters. In fact they've seemed oblivious to the fact that poverty and insecurity are drivers of mental ill health.

 

I'm tempted to suggest that an as yet unreported side effect of Covid is hypocrisy. 

[Reorte]

I could easily make a similar retort in the other direction but wouldn't it be better if we avoided sneering at those whose political opinions we disagree with?

[Phil Parker]

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

but there are people who have caught it again and usually were worse the second time.

 

The science on some of these seems wobbly - there seems to be discussion as to whether they had fully recovered the first time or it just hung around and came back.

 

If you really didn't get any immunity, the numbers of cases would be many times what we see, and treatments taking blood plasma from those who have recovered and have antibodies, wouldn't work. It was Birmingham University who produced a report showing anti-bodies work, or "Hey look, we have a working immune system", a few months ago.

[caradoc]

On 20/12/2020 at 13:02, The Stationmaster said:

Unless the rate of vaccine production can be very seriously increased 25 million doses per annum will only protect 6.25 million people for each year so fewer than 10% 0f the population will be vaccinated - and that looks like a possible arithmetical certainty for 2021 if not in subsequent years.

 

But what percentage of the population is seriously at risk from Covid: Surely less than 10% ? Therefore the priority must be to vaccinate those at risk and bring the dreadful toll down to a level at which some form of normality can return.

 

[Nearholmer]

The government dashboard now seems to include the thing that I've long thought it needed, but was lacking, and which has been available in, for instance, France for ages: numbers of people in hospital at a local level.

 

It still doesn't show capacity of hospital, but that is a flexible thing according to how many non-covid treatments are suspended, so could be confusing anyway.

 

Crystal clear why we locally are in near-Lockdown: as of yesterday, there are 106 people in hospital with Covid, whereas at the peak of the first wave it was about 62, and people are being admitted at the rate of about 10 per day, although the numbers on ventilation are currently a lot lower than at the previous peak.

 

All things considered, our hospital is big, but not enormous, and 100+ patients is a lot. Back of a fag packet maths suggests three wards, each needing maybe five nurses on each shift, so around 45 nurses in total to cover three shifts.

Edited December 21, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Barry O]

39 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

All things considered, our hospital is big, but not enormous, and 100+ patients is a lot. Back of a fag packet maths suggests three wards, each needing maybe five nurses on each shift, so around 45 nurses in total to cover three shifts.

I think your calculations are very low.. at least that is what I have heard  from some of the doctors and nurses who have worked on CoVid wards . 

 

having said that our local trust has been "hiding" information recently for the number of beds in use for CoVid patients.. as of three days ago it was 20.. across the whole of Leeds.. The Trust are peddling the "we are being overwhelmed story".. so some of the data is now not being updated..

 

Baz

[The Stationmaster]

21 hours ago, Legend said:

I thought the Govt had contracted for 100 million of the Astra Zeneca /Oxford vaccine .  They have also contracted for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines . I believe there are two others as well . One of them I believe may be produced by Valneva , I don’t know what the fifth one is .  

The UK Govt has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine spread evenly over several stages ina period of two years.  One recent sourd ce (I forget where) gave the figure of 10 n million doses by 31.12.21.  the same source gave 15 million doses of the Astra Zeneca vaccine by the same end date.

 

A Gov'UK site says 40 million doses of the A-Z vaccine by the end of March 2021 and a total order, over an unspecified period, of 100 million doses from the two suppliers.  An earlier BBC article says the Govt has ordered 100 million doses of the A -Z vaccine and 60 million of the Pfizer vaccine.  A recent report in the Evening Standard says the Govt has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 100 million of the A-Z vaccine with no rate of delivery quoted for either although both will obviously be delivered in batches.  

 

As both vaccines a require two doses to be effective 140 million doses would be sufficient for 70 million people.  But the Pfizer vaccine is reportedly only valid for about 6 months after injection so would only be enough for 25 million people per annum - but it won't all be delivered in one year so it would effectively protect even fewer with a need to regularly revaccinate those who have already been vaccinated.  The longer term efficacy of the A-Z vaccine doesn't appear to have been mentioned yet.

 

2 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

But what percentage of the population is seriously at risk from Covid: Surely less than 10% ? Therefore the priority must be to vaccinate those at risk and bring the dreadful toll down to a level at which some form of normality can return.

 

Logically so although I understand that locally people over 85 were not being vaccinated in last week's campaign vaccination of the top priority group at the GP surgeries.    The other thing of course is that once vaccinated the at risk groups need to be revaccinated thus continually consuming a percentage of each year's supply of vaccine

[Nearholmer]

Quick look on the government dashboard site shows 158 patients with Covid in Leeds Teaching Hospital, of whom 13 are on mechanical ventilation, down from a peak of 321 on 20th November. New admissions are in the mid-teens each day.

 

If they're hiding something, they're using sophisticated concealment techniques, because the trends are all fully consistent, none of the sort of sudden steps that might betray fibbing.

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

The government dashboard now seems to include the thing that I've long thought it needed, but was lacking, and which has been available in, for instance, France for ages: numbers of people in hospital at a local level.

 

It still doesn't show capacity of hospital, but that is a flexible thing according to how many non-covid treatments are suspended, so could be confusing anyway.

 

Crystal clear why we locally are in near-Lockdown: as of yesterday, there are 106 people in hospital with Covid, whereas at the peak of the first wave it was about 62, and people are being admitted at the rate of about 10 per day, although the numbers on ventilation are currently a lot lower than at the previous peak.

 

All things considered, our hospital is big, but not enormous, and 100+ patients is a lot. Back of a fag packet maths suggests three wards, each needing maybe five nurses on each shift, so around 45 nurses in total to cover three shifts.

I think you'll find that in many cases Nurses are working 12 hour shifts except probably in ITUs (although that might also be the case there).  On an 'ordinary' surgical  ward where my daughter works the norm is 12 hour shifts for Nurses and Nursing Assistants (actually the shift is 13 hours but one hour is deducted for a break - so yesterday my daughter was 07.00 - 20.00 and it will be the same again for her tomorrow, Wednesday and Boxing Day;  on New Year's Eve she will be working 19.00 - 08.00).

 

according to an ITU Nurse who called 'Any Answers' their normal ratio for Nurses : patients is 1:1 but they are currently on 2 : 3 because of Covid cases being moved into the ITU and they are short of equipment.    The tipping points within the NHS centre around all sorts of factors and not just the number of beds but also the availability of trained staff and the availability of eqiuipment.  Due to limited capacity it is not difficult for hospitals to run out of ITU beds.