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Coronavirus (COVID-19)


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53 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Northern Ireland have vaccinated 80% of care home residents.

Edited to add - that is Northern Ireland have given 80%of their care home residents both doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

The hospitals are still swamped but there will hopefully be some evidence of a drop in the number of old biddies dying.

 

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38 minutes ago, s_dog said:

Anything else involves standard virus behaviour of it constantly varying and mutating which could make vaccines less effective. We'd just need to keep adapting the vaccines to keep ahead of it though. 

This isn't a negative though, it's just something known that happens. It's standard practice with viruses to mutate and virologists who have worked on vaccine development their entire lives are aware of and capable of adapting to these things happening. This is why there is a new flu vaccine developed annually.

That being said, I don't believe there is a recorded instance in human history of a widespread and successful vaccine programme being rendered massively ineffective on a widespread scale by a virus mutating, certainly not to the point where we couldn't develop a fix. The only example I can think of is HIV which has had apparently successful small scale vaccines in the past only for the virus to evolve so quickly (it can do so in weeks within the individual to fight off the vaccine) that the vaccine is rendered useless. It's a different beast altogether. Like trying to staple jelly to a wall.  

Flu and respiratory viruses by comparison are relatively stable but even then, vaccine developers get on top of mutations early every season and produce a new vaccine to be administered annually. Even compared to influenza, the Covid virus appears to be relatively stable in terms of mutations. It's legitimately quite unremarkable in that sense.

I suppose that if we stopped researching, upgrading and developing the vaccine, just went with the current iteration forever and never decided to update or tweak it further, then in a few years it would be a lot less effective when thousands of further mutations of the virus have taken place, but why would that ever be allowed to happen? Vaccine development, like the virus itself, constantly evolves.

A virus mutating is nowhere near as detrimental to vaccine development as it is being made out to be.

Edited by djchapsticks
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Nowhere near as gubbed or as large a price we'll be paying for extended lockdowns in 2021 as well. Furlough does not remove all operating costs and businesses are failing every week.
The damage to the economy is therefore not some sunk cost that we can now just write off: that element is only going to get worse and not better any time soon. Which is why when restrictions are lifted they should be done promptly and with none of this zero Covid drivel poisoning the well.
Agree with most of what you said. My reasoning is that we are cautious coming out of lockdown so that we avoid ever having to do it again. Look at where we were in the summer in regards to infection numbers to where we are now. Its been a fucking shambles. Granted we have the vaccines now which will hopefully make the difference. I'm not one of those zero Covid fanatics but to suggest we should be opening up now is ridiculous (not you)
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1 minute ago, MuckleMoo said:
32 minutes ago, virginton said:
Nowhere near as gubbed or as large a price we'll be paying for extended lockdowns in 2021 as well. Furlough does not remove all operating costs and businesses are failing every week.
The damage to the economy is therefore not some sunk cost that we can now just write off: that element is only going to get worse and not better any time soon. Which is why when restrictions are lifted they should be done promptly and with none of this zero Covid drivel poisoning the well.

Agree with most of what you said. My reasoning is that we are cautious coming out of lockdown so that we avoid ever having to do it again. Look at where we were in the summer in regards to infection numbers to where we are now. Its been a fucking shambles. Granted we have the vaccines now which will hopefully make the difference. I'm not one of those zero Covid fanatics but to suggest we should be opening up now is ridiculous (not you)

But we were already slow in opening up over the summer, in fact I don't think there were many other countries that were as slow in opening up as Scotland.  Added to that we fairly quickly had restrictions re-imposed regarding household visiting in the most populated part of Scotland, how much slower can we realistically go?  

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But we were already slow in opening up over the summer, in fact I don't think there were many other countries that were as slow in opening up as Scotland.  Added to that we fairly quickly had restrictions re-imposed regarding household visiting in the most populated part of Scotland, how much slower can we realistically go?  
As I said, we now have the vaccines which will hopefully make the difference
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47 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

This isn't a negative though, it's just something known that happens. It's standard practice with viruses to mutate and virologists who have worked on vaccine development their entire lives are aware of and capable of adapting to these things happening. This is why there is a new flu vaccine developed annually.

That being said, I don't believe there is a recorded instance in human history of a widespread and successful vaccine programme being rendered massively ineffective on a widespread scale by a virus mutating, certainly not to the point where we couldn't develop a fix. The only example I can think of is HIV which has had apparently successful small scale vaccines in the past only for the virus to evolve so quickly (it can do so in weeks within the individual to fight off the vaccine) that the vaccine is rendered useless. It's a different beast altogether. Like trying to staple jelly to a wall.  

Flu and respiratory viruses by comparison are relatively stable but even then, vaccine developers get on top of mutations early every season and produce a new vaccine to be administered annually. Even compared to influenza, the Covid virus appears to be relatively stable in terms of mutations. It's legitimately quite unremarkable in that sense.

I suppose that if we stopped researching, upgrading and developing the vaccine, just went with the current iteration forever and never decided to update or tweak it further, then in a few years it would be a lot less effective when thousands of further mutations of the virus have taken place, but why would that ever be allowed to happen? Vaccine development, like the virus itself, constantly evolves.

A virus mutating is nowhere near as detrimental to vaccine development as it is being made out to be.

Great post.

These vaccines are not just going to go from 90%+ efficacy to being inert either. They could lose about a quarter of their potency and still be more effective than seasonal flu jabs.

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Agree with most of what you said. My reasoning is that we are cautious coming out of lockdown so that we avoid ever having to do it again. Look at where we were in the summer in regards to infection numbers to where we are now. Its been a fucking shambles. Granted we have the vaccines now which will hopefully make the difference. I'm not one of those zero Covid fanatics but to suggest we should be opening up now is ridiculous (not you)
I don't think anyone was suggesting we open up now. My gripe is with the acceptance that a few more months of this is an acceptable price to pay.
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2 hours ago, doulikefish said:

News coming out of Japan that the olympics are to be binned this year aswell

Stuff I’m seeing makes it look like they’re being binned altogether and Japan is going to try and get it in 2032.

Not that I care about the Olympics that much but it sounds pretty shit for them.

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6 hours ago, Rodhull said:

Stuff I’m seeing makes it look like they’re being binned altogether and Japan is going to try and get it in 2032.

Not that I care about the Olympics that much but it sounds pretty shit for them.

From what I'm reading the Japanese Govt. are still pushing for them to go ahead as planned. 

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5 hours ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

I wonder if the Euros will get canned as well.

I’m not a huge fan of The Olympics but they are bigger deal than the Euros.

If it meant that fans could attend as normal, binning the Euros till 2022, given the world cup's in winter anyway, would probably be a good idea.

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17 minutes ago, hk blues said:

From what I'm reading the Japanese Govt. are still pushing for them to go ahead as planned. 

I don't get the point unless you have the crowds? They are stupidity expensive to host and to not get any money back from increased tourism seems like a stupid decision. I could get why the Olympic commission want them on but not the Government.

If Eurosports hadn't bought the bulk of the coverage there there would be no better sporting event to watch during lockdown.

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