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Big AlQuote
yorkshirestone
50k cases per day, likely 1% infection rate nationwide, hospital admissions doubling roughly every three weeks and the clowns in government in the uk are ditching social distancing and masks on Monday
Utterly ridiculous.
Fast track to more restrictions in autumn, and a load of avoidable illnesses and deaths in the meantime
Keep your mask on, keep your distance and get your jab
Well, that's why I think it'd be far better to keep things as they are. Another lockdown, and...
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CaptainCorellaQuote
terraplane
...there is the belief by some that vaccinations could be driving the variants (at least if I understand the below correctly):
There are four major risks associated with high numbers of infections. These are an increase in hospitalisations and deaths, more ‘Long-COVID’; workforce absences (including in the NHS); and the increased risk of new variants emerging. The combination of high prevalence and high levels of vaccination creates the conditions in which an immune escape variant is most likely to emerge. The likelihood of this happening is unknown, but such a variant would present a significant risk both in the UK and internationally.
SAGE 93 Minutes 07/07/2021
Almost.
The key sentence is indeed the one you emboldened but it's a multi-factor thing, not just vaccinations...
The combination of high prevalence and high levels of vaccination creates the conditions in which an immune escape variant is most likely to emerge.
"High prevalence" refers to the vast numbers of cases. When there are huge numbers of cases, then there are huge numbers of viruses replicating, and from time to time, mutating. More cases = more chance of a mutation. Fewer cases = fewer chances of a mutation.
"Vaccination" refers to the fact that for a mutation to survive in a (human) body that has had a vaccine it has to mutate a bit. Eventually, with enough mutation, the mutated virus becomes immune to the vaccine.
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skytrenchQuote
Big AlQuote
yorkshirestone
50k cases per day, likely 1% infection rate nationwide, hospital admissions doubling roughly every three weeks and the clowns in government in the uk are ditching social distancing and masks on Monday
Utterly ridiculous.
Fast track to more restrictions in autumn, and a load of avoidable illnesses and deaths in the meantime
Keep your mask on, keep your distance and get your jab
Well, that's why I think it'd be far better to keep things as they are. Another lockdown, and...
The death count in the UK is still low despite the many infections and will hopefully remain so. And this is just coming out of the many Euro football gatherings that have certainly had an effect on the number of infections. Should the deaths rise too high, restrictions will undoubtedly return.
How's the death count in LA, daspyknows...is there reason for alarm?
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skytrench
Seeing that vaccinated persons are now hosting the virus, albeit with less death, mutations will occur and it could be desirable that a less deadly mutation emerges, that is more infectious and spreads far, thereby protecting populations naturally against the more deadly strains.
(not wishing sickness upon anyone, but rather sick than dying).
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skytrench
Seeing that vaccinated persons are now hosting the virus, albeit with less death, mutations will occur and it could be desirable that a less deadly mutation emerges, that is more infectious and spreads far, thereby protecting populations naturally against the more deadly strains.
(not wishing sickness upon anyone, but rather sick than dying).
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bleedingman
But IF it was engineered in a lab to get stronger (theoretically) as it mutated, become MORE infectious, evade vaccines, and possibly become more deadly over time, wouldn't all bets be off as to what to expect?
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TheBluesHadaBaby
Unless I'm mistaken, Covid Delta HAS proven to be less lethal than original Covid, among the unvaccinated, too. Over twice as infectious, but less lethal when you do catch it. I'm not sure, though, that that finding is controlled for our having figured out better treatment protocols for the seriously ill than we had in 2020, and the current lower mortality rate being more due to that than the differences in the Original versus Delta viruses themselves.
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TheBluesHadaBabyQuote
skytrench
Seeing that vaccinated persons are now hosting the virus, albeit with less death, mutations will occur and it could be desirable that a less deadly mutation emerges, that is more infectious and spreads far, thereby protecting populations naturally against the more deadly strains.
(not wishing sickness upon anyone, but rather sick than dying).
Unless I'm mistaken, Covid Delta HAS proven to be less lethal than original Covid, among the unvaccinated, too. Over twice as infectious, but less lethal when you do catch it. I'm not sure, though, that that finding is controlled for our having figured out better treatment protocols for the seriously ill than we had in 2020, and the current lower mortality rate being more due to that than the differences in the Original versus Delta viruses themselves.
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Beast
Well; you couldn’t make this shite up. Here we are in the UK on the verge of “freedom day” on Monday and so what happens? Our new health secretary tests positive for COVID - and met our PM and God knows who else only yesterday. He was also visiting care homes in the past few days. No word yet as to whether the PM will be self-isolating on “freedom” day, which would be the ultimate irony, if so
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grzegorz67Quote
Beast
Well; you couldn’t make this shite up. Here we are in the UK on the verge of “freedom day” on Monday and so what happens? Our new health secretary tests positive for COVID - and met our PM and God knows who else only yesterday. He was also visiting care homes in the past few days. No word yet as to whether the PM will be self-isolating on “freedom” day, which would be the ultimate irony, if so
It truly beggars belief.Clowns, Charlatans and Hypocrites just about covers it. As elected politicians their first concern is the economy and retaining popularity but it's been very obvious for a long time that there are big disagreements behind the scenes between the Politicians and Scientists, many of whom have voiced their disapproval at the plans.
This ain't over yet by a long chalk unfortunately. The big, often badly behaved crowds for the football won't have helped either. I'm told the atmosphere in and around Wembley last week was pretty toxic.
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BeastQuote
grzegorz67Quote
Beast
Well; you couldn’t make this shite up. Here we are in the UK on the verge of “freedom day” on Monday and so what happens? Our new health secretary tests positive for COVID - and met our PM and God knows who else only yesterday. He was also visiting care homes in the past few days. No word yet as to whether the PM will be self-isolating on “freedom” day, which would be the ultimate irony, if so
It truly beggars belief.Clowns, Charlatans and Hypocrites just about covers it. As elected politicians their first concern is the economy and retaining popularity but it's been very obvious for a long time that there are big disagreements behind the scenes between the Politicians and Scientists, many of whom have voiced their disapproval at the plans.
This ain't over yet by a long chalk unfortunately. The big, often badly behaved crowds for the football won't have helped either. I'm told the atmosphere in and around Wembley last week was pretty toxic.
It certainly does beggar belief - and the more so now that our PM and his Chancellor are NOT going to self-isolate because, hey, they're part of a "pilot scheme" that excludes anyone pinged by the test and trace app from self-isolating. Meanwhile, public services (e.g., the London underground) and private businesses are having to close because of the sheer number of people being pinged and asked to self-isolate for 10 days, meaning they can't go to work.
As you say, the Chief Medical Officer and others have for some time been diplomatically but clearly contradicting the government line about free-dumb day and all the rest of it.
As for sports events. today 150,000 spectators will attend the British Grand Prix. Nuff said.
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Rocktiludrop
Strange people, like permanent lockdowns are what's in order, are you crazy, do you think lockdowns and restrictions are sustainable, please get real.
And I'll explain why its unsustainable as it is now, the track and trace system is set so high that the food industry are warning there won't be enough people working to deliver the food that's needed to the Nation at this rate.
So many workers having to self isolate for 10 days because they came in contact with someone who has tested positive.
And you guys want more restrictions, are you psychopaths, do you want anarchy and hunger.
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daspyknowsQuote
skytrenchQuote
Big AlQuote
yorkshirestone
50k cases per day, likely 1% infection rate nationwide, hospital admissions doubling roughly every three weeks and the clowns in government in the uk are ditching social distancing and masks on Monday
Utterly ridiculous.
Fast track to more restrictions in autumn, and a load of avoidable illnesses and deaths in the meantime
Keep your mask on, keep your distance and get your jab
Well, that's why I think it'd be far better to keep things as they are. Another lockdown, and...
The death count in the UK is still low despite the many infections and will hopefully remain so. And this is just coming out of the many Euro football gatherings that have certainly had an effect on the number of infections. Should the deaths rise too high, restrictions will undoubtedly return.
How's the death count in LA, daspyknows...is there reason for alarm?
Haven't seen the numbers but first cases rise, then hospitalizations rise and finally deaths. If the hospitalizations are increasing there is reason for alarm.
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treaclefingers
It's sort of interesting, the rationalization that go on. If the death rate isn't peaking as before (and we know that's because most older people already are vaccinated), some people don't feel the urgency to get vaccinated even though hospitalizations are going up.
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TheBluesHadaBabyQuote
CaptainCorella
Almost.
The key sentence is indeed the one you emboldened but it's a multi-factor thing, not just vaccinations...
The combination of high prevalence and high levels of vaccination creates the conditions in which an immune escape variant is most likely to emerge.
"High prevalence" refers to the vast numbers of cases. When there are huge numbers of cases, then there are huge numbers of viruses replicating, and from time to time, mutating. More cases = more chance of a mutation. Fewer cases = fewer chances of a mutation.
"Vaccination" refers to the fact that for a mutation to survive in a (human) body that has had a vaccine it has to mutate a bit. Eventually, with enough mutation, the mutated virus becomes immune to the vaccine.
To clarify a little bit more, genetic mutation is RANDOM. It's always random unless a human is engineering it in a lab. So neither living things nor viruses mutate work-arounds for difficult conditions they're encountering IN RESPONSE TO those obstacles. A vaccine doesn't DRIVE a virus to mutate a way around it.
But when many copies of a virus continue to exist (THAT's the "driver") very large numbers of mutations of course continue to occur. A few mutations damage the virus' ability to spread, most neither help nor harm its infectiousness, and a few increase its infectiousness. It's that last kind of random mutation, of course, that's the problem. (Also problems, for us: the few random mutations that increase a virus' lethality. Those, though, often are bad for the viruses as well as the hosts.)
A vaccine DOESN'T generate or spur the appearance of virus Variant X. It's the continued existencce of lots of viruses and therefore lots of mutations that generates Variant X, along with many, many other variants that turn out not to matter. Variant X EMERGES only in the sense that its random mutation happened to give it an adaptation that allows it to replicate and spread in environments where competing versions of the original virus can't get past obstacles as well... the vaccine being the big new obstacle.
Mutations occur entirely irrespective of a vaccine.
A variant virus only "emerges" in an envirnoment of vaccinated hosts -- people -- because it is able to get past the vaccine a little better, while the virus' other versions are failing at higher rates around it.
Saying vaccines are "driving variants" is a lazy and dangerous distortion, one that is very easy to turn into more of the antivaxxer disinformation that has gotten and continues to get very many people needlessly killed.