UK in the early stages of another COVID wave

submitted by Bagarmoossen from self.debatealtright

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[–]GConly 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (8 children)

So, the UK gov did an infection to death study (55k) where it determined mortality for original Covid to be 0.25%, Kent variant 0.3%. the R number for old was 2.5, for Kent it's 4.

This would mean about 70% of the UK population would have caught it, and at least had a resistance to it now if not immunity. About half of us are fully vaccinated as well, in the 'at higher risk of death' most of been vaccinated.

I'm seeing a lot of noise about the Indian variant having an R number of 6 or so. What I'm not seeing is any evidence that it's got a higher mortality than Original Covid. I'm seeing a lot of data showing that the vaccines still protect against India.

This means the actual number of people who could get seriously sick or die from India are minimal even if we open up.

The only reason for a lockdown until mass vaccination is complete is to try to stop the appearance of new variants that can escape the vaccines.. However mass vaccination in the UK won't stop new varieties popping up all over the place.

I'm mystified as to my govts thinking.

[–]Nombre27 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Multiple waves due to variants is nonsense and is likely due to the lockdowns which prevented people from initially coming into contact with the virus altogether, i.e. they're conflating infection from variants (false) with novel infections. To bifurcate, upon first pass, infection results in death or immunity. The dead can't be infected again and neither should the immune.

When your body comes into contact with a pathogen, provided your immune system is working properly, multiple epitopes should be generated that allow your body to identify and neutralize that pathogen in subsequent encounters. What this variant nonsense is suggesting is that somehow this virus has changed enough to both become more infective or lethal while also avoiding the radar of our body's immune system. Viruses evolve towards greater infectivity and lower lethality.

Had the vaccines been designed traditionally, holistic live attenuated instead of limited pieces of protein as mRNA, then we'd have far more comprehensive immunity.

It just doesn't make sense imo.

[–]Wrangel 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Viruses evolve towards greater infectivity and lower lethality.

More viruses being transmitted means stronger infections. Viruses evolve in a way that makes them spread more, people spreading more viruses will spread the virus more and it will make those who get the virus sicker. It isn't uncommon for viruses to get worse, especially in the short term.

Had the vaccines been designed traditionally, holistic live attenuated instead of limited pieces of protein as mRNA, then we'd have far more comprehensive immunity.

Inactivated vaccines exist and so far their result are abysmal compared to the mRNA vaccines which clearly are the best on the market. With 94% efficacy, the Pfizer vaccines efficacy is not the problem.

[–]Nombre27 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

With 94% efficacy, the Pfizer vaccines efficacy is not the problem.

Did you ever look at where they got that number?

About 40000 people in the study, two arms, 20k in each.

Participants were asked to get tested if they got symptoms. Within the first 2 weeks or 1 month, 170 people in total tested positive.

162 in the placebo group, and 8 in the vaccinated group.

162/170*100% = 95%

However, tested 170 people out of 40000, is 0.425% of the sample.

I have no problem if this is how that is typically reported, but don't expect me to consider that 95% number valid.

Do you know of any other studies where analyzing less than 1% of the total samples is considered representative?

[–]Wrangel 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I have no problem if this is how that is typically reported, but don't expect me to consider that 95% number valid.

That is how it is usually done and that is a very stable result. Getting a higher portion than that would make a lot of medicines impossible to study and with confidence intervals we can ensure that the vaccine is highly effective.

[–]Nombre27 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

That is how it is usually done and that is a very stable result.

I'm not sure you can come to that conclusion as you don't know what happened in the other 99.5% of people. That's a huge extrapolation.

[–]Wrangel 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

They didn't get sick.

[–]Nombre27 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

They didn't get sick.

That's a very lazy answer. Most people that get covid also don't get sick, so simply not getting sick (showing symptoms) doesn't tell us much about a persons covid status, now does it?

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-what-proportion-are-asymptomatic/

What did we learn (see the table for the analysis)

That between 5% and 80% of people testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 may be asymptomatic

That symptom-based screening will miss cases, perhaps a lot of them

That some asymptomatic cases will become symptomatic over the next week (sometimes known as “pre-symptomatics”)

That children and young adults can be asymptomatic

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32491919/

Asymptomatic persons seem to account for approximately 40% to 45% of SARS-CoV-2 infections, and they can transmit the virus to others for an extended period, perhaps longer than 14 days.

They extrapolated from an extreme minority, 0.5% to the other 99.5%, i.e. they have no idea of the status of 99.5% of the people in their study and they're just assuming. This is an epistemological problem.

[–]Wrangel 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Your first article is over a year old and based on very old data, the figure is more like 20% https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03141-3

The point of the vaccine was to stop people from getting sick, if they are not getting any noticeable effects of the virus it isn't really a problem.

They extrapolated from an extreme minority, 0.5% to the other 99.5%, i.e. they have no idea of the status of 99.5% of the people in their study and they're just assuming.

No it isn't. First off the 99.5% got no covid symptoms and second off extrapolating data is doable thanks to confidence intervals. If we have chosen 200 people and 192 of them are unvaccinated that is almost impossible a coincidence. Flip a coin 200 times and get 192 heads and it isn't a balanced coin. 200 is well above what is needed to get a statistically significant result when it is 94% effective. The confidence intervals were fairly narrow for that study. Not to mention that there have been follow up studies that have showed a strong effect.