Thread: Covid Mk ll

Originally Posted by Tote

If it’s the lockdown that working what’s happening in the most locked down city in the world? There’s clearly something defective with the argument that vaccination does not stop spread
I’ll do some research when I’m not on my phone
Regards
Tote

What's happening in Melbourne? People are ignoring the rules - probably in part because they've been told that vaccination prevents infection - and there were a heap of AFL grand final parties that gave it a big spike. Also, unlike in Sydney's LGAs and unlike here last year, the police are focussing on the anti-vax protests and not compliance. No ring of steel this time.

And Melbourne's vaccination rates aren't far behind NSW's, so I doubt that's the reason.

I'd also suspect that that "most locked down city" tag isn't particularly accurate, but it does make good headlines for the Murdoch press.

Originally Posted by Tote

There’s clearly something defective with the argument that vaccination does not stop spread

Not at all, it's just not absolute. The vaccines don't and won't stop spread, what they do is reduce viral loads in vaccinated people resulting in a lower probability of infecting contacts. NSW is a great example of a combination of lockdown and vaccination affecting the spread. I'd expect case numbers to start to increase as lockdowns lift but the evidence (from every other country that has trodden this path) is that hospitalisations and death among the vaccinated will stay low.

What will happen is a very small proportion of people who are fully vaccinated will reach ICU and die and those fatalities will be trumped up by the media and conspiracy theorists to "prove" that vaccination doesn't work.

In other news, my in-laws from Scotland are currently visiting my other sister in-law in Manchester, and she's now tested positive. The next week should be interesting to see if she infects her husband and parents.

The UK is slightly more vaccinated than Australia and slightly more so than Germany: respective daily new cases on Thursday 14th October were:

• Australia - 2,688

• Germany - 11,756 new cases

• UK - 45,000 new cases

The UK infection rate is apparently also 8 - 12 times higher than France, Italy and Spain.

The reason is that the UK has abandoned all restrictions, whereas the other European countries still require social distancing, masks and vaccine passports.

In other words, we will have to accept a new "Covid normal" for some time yet unless we want to have say, 20,000 new cases a day.

UK’s high Covid case rates buck trend as western Europe outperforms east | Coronavirus | The Guardian

BTW, this also shows that high vaccination rates don't automatically cause low infection rates - the difference in rates is whether or not other preventative steps are maintained.

The outlier appears to be Britain, which – though now overtaken by multiple EU states – has vaccinated a similar share of its population to most western European countries, but has an infection rate that more closely resembles those in the east.

The figures quoting blanket vaccination rates across Australia are skewed....

UK vaccination rate is 66.7 Covid is endemic across the whole country leading to a case rate of 45000 per day. It is fair to say that using the whole population to calculate infection rates is reasonable. There are also no restrictions like the ones in NSW or Victoria currently

Aust Vaccination rate is 54.9 BUT covid is only endemic in a proportion of that population IE mostly NSW and Victoria. NSW is 80% vaccinated, Victoria is 66% vaccinated.

UK has a case rate of 44,000 positive daily cases for a population of 68 Million people - 647 cases per million people

Victoria has a case rate of 2000 per day on a population of 6.68 Million - 299 cases per million people

NSW has a case rate of 400 per day in a population of 8.166 -48 Cases per million people

It will be interesting to see what happens in NSW as restrictions ease further - that is why there is still a ban on Sydney people visiting regional NSW until 1 November to give the regions a chance to get to 80+% vaccination.

Again that vaccination rate must be doing something to slow infections.......

Regards,
Tote

Originally Posted by Tote

The figures quoting blanket vaccination rates across Australia are skewed....

UK vaccination rate is 66.7 Covid is endemic across the whole country leading to a case rate of 45000 per day. It is fair to say that using the whole population to calculate infection rates is reasonable. There are also no restrictions like the ones in NSW or Victoria currently

Aust Vaccination rate is 54.9 BUT covid is only endemic in a proportion of that population IE mostly NSW and Victoria. NSW is 80% vaccinated, Victoria is 66% vaccinated.

UK has a case rate of 44,000 positive daily cases for a population of 68 Million people - 647 cases per million people

Victoria has a case rate of 2000 per day on a population of 6.68 Million - 299 cases per million people

NSW has a case rate of 400 per day in a population of 8.166 -48 Cases per million people

It will be interesting to see what happens in NSW as restrictions ease further - that is why there is still a ban on Sydney people visiting regional NSW until 1 November to give the regions a chance to get to 80+% vaccination.

Again that vaccination rate must be doing something to slow infections.......

Regards,
Tote

You're right, but within Vic and NSW the majority of active cases are localised and this is being managed by specific lockdowns.

The vacc rate is what is allowing states to ease restrictions whilst still having other measures to deal with problem locales to keep a lid on hospital admissions.

DL

Originally Posted by Arapiles

Also, a lot of the European countries have had a drop in life expectancy because of Covid deaths - we and NZ possibly have had an increase in life expectancy ...

Most countries in the world have had excess deaths due to Covid: Australia and New Zealand have had negative excess deaths, that is we've had fewer deaths than we normally do.

Pretty amazing and it completely vindicates the decisions made in terms of quarantine and elimination/suppression of Covid:

The pandemic’s true death toll | The Economist

In case you can't see it:

	OFFICIAL COVID-19 DEATHS	PER 100,000	ESTIMATED EXCESS DEATHS	PER 100,000	ESTIMATE V OFFICIAL
Asia	1,152,403	24.6	3.6m to 12m	78 to 260	+700%
Latin America and Caribbean	1,508,281	230.0	2m to 2.3m	310 to 350	+50%
Europe (incl. EU)	1,263,513	168.7	2m to 2.1m	270 to 280	+60%
Africa	215,310	15.7	870k to 2.3m	64 to 170	+800%
North America	752,687	202.9	860k to 1m	230 to 270	+20%
European Union	782,975	175.1	820k to 880k	180 to 200	+9%
Oceania	2,490	5.8	−8.5k to 11k	−20 to 25	−300%

For Australia:

	OFFICIAL COVID-19 DEATHS	PER 100,000	ESTIMATED EXCESS DEATHS	PER 100,000	ESTIMATE V OFFICIAL
Australia	1,532	5.9	−4.6k to 100	−18 to 400m	−300%

...... At the other end of the table, a handful of countries have actually had fewer people die during the pandemic than in previous years.

..... In cases where death rates fell below their pre-pandemic norms—because covid-19 claimed relatively few victims, while lifestyle changes lowered the toll from other causes such as flu—this number is negative.

Really - stats at 10 paces .

Arapiles posts show the ongoing confusion held by a relatively small proportion of the population about the role of vaccination and other anti-covid measures.

There are two results from vaccination (and other measures).

The first of these is that vaccination reduces the probability of the vaccinated individual becoming infected. There are arguments about to what extent, but it is clear from the overall evidence that it reduces risk of infection very substantially, although it is impossible to determine by how much, without regular testing of everyone, as minor or asymptomatic infections will not be detected. But the effects on serious illness (hospital) and death are well documented, with those vaccinated (taking into account the population proportion vaccinated) about 10% of the probability of hospital admission and <5% of the probability of death.

The second result is that because of the reduced probability of infection for those vaccinated, and because less virus is shed by those vaccinated because the infection is less severe, the number of people infected by each case is lower. Even with the delta variant, the number infected by each vaccinated case added to the reduced probability of those vaccinated becoming infected means that provided the vaccination rate is high enough, the reproduction rate will drop below one. If the reproduction rate is below one, the pandemic will disappear - how rapidly depends on the vaccination rate and the rate of introduction of infected cases from outside.

Those who look at the world only from how it affects them personally (i.e. sociopaths), fail to see that this second result even exists, or don't believe it is worth considering. But this is the result of vaccination that drives the fact that vaccination is free. Fortunately, the fact that some jurisdictions are showing (by their first dose %) that the proportion of these sociopaths is very low, certainly below 5%, and this includes those who have been taken in by the sociopaths propaganda. Unfortunately, 5% of 27 million is a large number, and these are not evenly distributed, so there are both groups and areas where the vaccination rate is not high enough to bring the reproduction rate below one.