What is the endgame for the scientists?

[adc82140]

Some of them seem to change their opinions as often as you change your underwear.

Steven Reicher was yesterday clamouring for a pre Christmas lockdown. Today he's suggesting you might want to do a lateral flow test before going out to meet people. Anyone would think he saw the Good Morning Britain poll about lockdown (17% in favour) and realised he had lost the public.

 

[DerekC]

I am sure some scientists have model railways!

 

[nw1]

The issue I think is that the epidemiologists believe they have an obligation to publicise the most alarming, doomsday scenarios 'just in case' - if they do not, they may think they are not doing their jobs properly.

The problem, though, is with the politicians who listen to such scenarios and do not evaluate them against other doomsday scenarios which might occur as a result of long and hard lockdown.

For balance, there should also be economists also painting similarly alarming, doomsday scenarios about the economy, jobs and poverty, and mental health experts suggesting alarming, doomsday scenarios about depression, and other consequences of mental illness such as alcoholism or worse.

The issue seems to be the lack of balance on the part of governments. They listen to one group of experts, but not others. They should listen to all the experts in all the relevant areas and come to a balanced conclusion based on the 'least worst option' or 'minimise total suffering' principles. And they need to think long-term, because at the end of the day, long-term is what matters.

 

[TwoYellas]

And every time I do I find myself completely puzzled by what people think the endgame is for the scientists who are conspiring to control us via fear of the virus? What is the supposed goal that means that they're lying, exaggerating and making things up? Because to me it seems, frankly, to be proper tin foil hat conspiracy theory stuff akin to arguing the earth is flat and the moon landing was faked. Verging into QAnon territory even such as the recent one that JFK Jr. is alive and about to join Donald Trump on the ticket for the 2024 Presidential Election.

It's been fascinating somewhat to read different reactions on the pandemic in forums, twitter and so on.

Scientists are the ones that have been warning about how pandemics are becoming more and more likely and that outbreaks require more research and preparation. For example, the WHO have said this since the SARS epidemic of 2003. The WHO which has done excellent work helping the most vulnerable in poorer countries as well as fighting disease globally. (WHO isn't perfect, but it's a vital collaborative international agency, so reform is required where it's weak - not Trump style defunding).

In the main scientists, doctors and epidemiologists are the ones helping provide the solutions and research to prevent the devastation that major disease outbreaks cause to societies. The answer is cooperation in an interconnected world, not pure selfishness. If you take two anti science type leaders during covid (Bolsonaro and Trump) you can see the the massive deaths their handling has facilitated in their countries.

In this forum I've read many interesting and informative posts about the impacts that restrictions have had on different people. But yes, there has also been utter reductive drivel written - such as framing restrictions as supported by demonic far-left authoritarians and portraying the laughably named "freedom day" as some kind of milestone - a great victory against the left-wing authoritarians (you'd really need to believe that anything to the left of Genghis Khan to be far-left to believe this nonsense). It doesn't take a lot to see that the slogan (referring to the date in July 2021) was just a political tabloid-esque publicity stunt and absolutely useless in dealing with sensible restriction removal.

Some folks reliance and trust in Johnson to act (in their eyes) with steadfastness and not take scientific advice but instead keep the public free was also quite hard to believe. Johnson acts in his own interests only, this is quite clear.

Now I'm not pro-lockdown or anything like that, but I understand that these are times of emergency and a sensible balance has to be struck. Puerile, anti science nonsense helps absolutely no one.

 

[21C101]

I don't agree with putting Whitty in the same bracket as any of the well known troublemakers mentioned above, though I am not happy with certain things he says, I think he is well meaning but has lost his way a little bit as time has gone on.

I remember years ago coming up against a completely ignorant client representative who wanted to proceed in a manner that was basically unacceptable and we had no choice other than to refuse even if it blew the contract up.


It was an extremely stressful and unpleasant few months of arguments and having to do Whitty type technical presentations to sceptical client and own company senior bods as it escalated.

Evrntually the dam broke, the person who was at the bottom of it was removed and the client did what was asked all along.

When we got the letter with the results of them doing it my instinctive reaction was, "not enough, the fight goes on"

My boss at the time talked it through and rightlt persuaded me that it was enough, and we were vindicated.

I suspect that after the pressures of the last two years Whitty is in a similar position with no boss to help him see the wood for the trees.

 

[takno]

It's been fascinating somewhat to read different reactions on the pandemic in forums, twitter and so on.

Scientists are the ones that have been warning about how pandemics are becoming more and more likely and that outbreaks require more research and preparation. For example, the WHO have said this since the SARS epidemic of 2003. The WHO which has done excellent work helping the most vulnerable in poorer countries as well as fighting disease globally. (WHO isn't perfect, but it's a vital collaborative international agency, so reform is required where it's weak - not Trump style defunding).

In the main scientists, doctors and epidemiologists are the ones helping provide the solutions and research to prevent the devastation that major disease outbreaks cause to societies. The answer is cooperation in an interconnected world, not pure selfishness. If you take two anti science type leaders during covid (Bolsonaro and Trump) you can see the the massive deaths their handling has facilitated in their countries.

In this forum I've read many interesting and informative posts about the impacts that restrictions have had on different people. But yes, there has also been utter reductive drivel written - such as framing restrictions as supported by demonic far-left authoritarians and portraying the laughably named "freedom day" as some kind of milestone - a great victory against the left-wing authoritarians (you'd really need to believe that anything to the left of Genghis Khan to be far-left to believe this nonsense). It doesn't take a lot to see that the slogan (referring to the date in July 2021) was just a political tabloid-esque publicity stunt and absolutely useless in dealing with sensible restriction removal.

Some folks reliance and trust in Johnson to act (in their eyes) with steadfastness and not take scientific advice but instead keep the public free was also quite hard to believe. Johnson acts in his own interests only, this is quite clear.

Now I'm not pro-lockdown or anything like that, but I understand that these are times of emergency and a sensible balance has to be struck. Puerile, anti science nonsense helps absolutely no one.

Apart from calling other members puerile, you don't actually appear to be saying anything in this post. I'm not for having a pile-on on science in general, and I don't think anybody else in this forum is, but this whole attitude of "I'm team science and anybody who thinks that there arguable questions and debate to be had is an anti-science Trump-lover" attitude is really very unhelpful frankly

 

[yorksrob]

In this forum I've read many interesting and informative posts about the impacts that restrictions have had on different people. But yes, there has also been utter reductive drivel written - such as framing restrictions as supported by demonic far-left authoritarians and portraying the laughably named "freedom day" as some kind of milestone - a great victory against the left-wing authoritarians (you'd really need to believe that anything to the left of Genghis Khan to be far-left to believe this nonsense). It doesn't take a lot to see that the slogan (referring to the date in July 2021) was just a political tabloid-esque publicity stunt and absolutely useless in dealing with sensible restriction removal.

And yet the witdrawal of restrictions was drawn out as long as possible. "Data not dates" we were told, yet the authorities refused to respond to the data when things were looking positive, sticking stubbornly to their dates.

Even then, certain quarters were predicting doom and disaster, none of which materialised, until a new varient from abroad turned up.

 

[yorkie]

In this forum I've read many interesting and informative posts about the impacts that restrictions have had on different people. But yes, there has also been utter reductive drivel written - such as framing restrictions as supported by demonic far-left authoritarians and portraying the laughably named "freedom day" as some kind of milestone - a great victory against the left-wing authoritarians (you'd really need to believe that anything to the left of Genghis Khan to be far-left to believe this nonsense). It doesn't take a lot to see that the slogan (referring to the date in July 2021) was just a political tabloid-esque publicity stunt and absolutely useless in dealing with sensible restriction removal.

I assume this is an attack on my views; would you have continued restrictions throughout the summer? Do you not accept that the only way to transition from epidemic phase to endemic equilibrium is to build up immunity? Do you not accept that building up immunity in the Summer was a good thing; it should have happened earlier and it has actually protected us from more infections occurring in the winter?

You may see harsh restrictions as acceptable and you may not like the use of language to describe the restrictions that were in place but that is your opinion and I see no evidence presented by you to suggest my opinion was wrong. I note Sweden - which did not impose such harsh restrictions - is doing pretty well at the moment; do you admit that?

Some folks reliance and trust in Johnson to act (in their eyes) with steadfastness and not take scientific advice but instead keep the public free was also quite hard to believe. Johnson acts in his own interests only, this is quite clear.

Now I'm not pro-lockdown or anything like that, but I understand that these are times of emergency and a sensible balance has to be struck. Puerile, anti science nonsense helps absolutely no one.

Who is posting anti-science nonsense? I have consistently listened to scientists and I regularly post links and quotes from scientists. If the scientists I listen to happen to disagree with yours then that's not my problem.

If you disagree with views, can you quote those views and present your case and state why you disagree? This would be more constructive than make a sweeping judgemental remark aimed at a range of views without giving people clarity on what it is you are disagreeing with, or why.

It just comes across to me that you are looking for an argument to argue rather than to actually debate a specific point. If you want to disagree, I am happy to disagree with you but there needs to be a bit more clarity on what exactly has been said that you object to, and what your alternative viewpoint is.

 

[The Ham]

To illustrate the difficulty that the scientists have I'll share something from the story of work I do.

When modelling to see how a drainage system will work on storm conditions we can produce lots of different models based on different storm durations (measured in minutes) and the likelihood of storms (from likely every year to likely every 100 years).

Now some of those results will show flooding of various amounts. Now it is entirely possible that those storm durations for that likelihood of storm may never happen and so the system never actually floods. However someone reporting on the results could be justified in reporting that there's flooding.

However even if you were to go and monitor the actual outcome is likely that it would rarely look like the model showed as there's various factors which will change it. For instance if someone decides to install a water butt or rainwater harvesting system then the floods would likely be less severe. Conversely if people pave over their gardens then the resulting outcome will be worse.

Therefore the outcome could be vastly different from any given model, however the science behind model is still valid.

In the same way of people change what they do (for example reduce the number of contacts that they have) then of course the outcome will be different than if people carried on as before.

Therefore chances are the scientists are reporting the results, and hopefully trying to explain the differences between the models, however the nuances that they understand and may be trying to explain are likely to get lost in the reporting of them by the media. There's also a good chance that it is also lost on the politicians who are trying to understand something that they have had little need to understand before.

That's not to say that there aren't some trying to benefit from this, however to start from the assumption that they have some underlying desire to achieve something/being about change for some ideological reason is likely to be wide of the mark (again there could be some who are, however that's why we need to be listening to a range of opinions to understand people's motivations for giving one view over another).

 

[yorkie]

To illustrate the difficulty that the scientists have I'll share something from the story of work I do.

When modelling to see how a drainage system will work on storm conditions we can produce lots of different models based on different storm durations (measured in minutes) and the likelihood of storms (from likely every year to likely every 100 years).

Now some of those results will show flooding of various amounts. Now it is entirely possible that those storm durations for that likelihood of storm may never happen and so the system never actually floods. However someone reporting on the results could be justified in reporting that there's flooding.

However even if you were to go and monitor the actual outcome is likely that it would rarely look like the model showed as there's various factors which will change it. For instance if someone decides to install a water butt or rainwater harvesting system then the floods would likely be less severe. Conversely if people pave over their gardens then the resulting outcome will be worse.

Therefore the outcome could be vastly different from any given model, however the science behind model is still valid.

In the same way of people change what they do (for example reduce the number of contacts that they have) then of course the outcome will be different than if people carried on as before.

Therefore chances are the scientists are reporting the results, and hopefully trying to explain the differences between the models, however the nuances that they understand and may be trying to explain are likely to get lost in the reporting of them by the media. There's also a good chance that it is also lost on the politicians who are trying to understand something that they have had little need to understand before.

That's not to say that there aren't some trying to benefit from this, however to start from the assumption that they have some underlying desire to achieve something/being about change for some ideological reason is likely to be wide of the mark (again there could be some who are, however that's why we need to be listening to a range of opinions to understand people's motivations for giving one view over another).

absolutely but the issue with the very latest model is that they did not include the information from South Africa in even their best case model even though the information was known at the time.

See posts in the other thread: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ariant-of-concern.225357/page-66#post-5452745

....Many experts in South Africa were absolutely clear that Omicron is less virulent than Delta; I can understand the modellers wanting to include a model that assumed those statements were untrue, but it makes absolutely no sense to refuse to include a model which assumes they were actually telling the truth....

This podcast (which I listened to a few weeks ago) is well worth listening to:

SPI-M (the “Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling) is the government committee in charge of producing forecasts for the future direction of the pandemic in different circumstances. It was their report in early June, combining mathematical models from Imperial, Warwick and LSHTM, than persuaded Boris Johnson to delay the planned re-opening of society on 21st June to its current scheduled date of 19th July.

In the weeks since that report, two things have become clear: the raw case numbers have been rising very rapidly, but the hospital admissions have been much lower than predicted when the PM made his decision. As of today, 1st July, just over 250 people per day are being admitted into hospital with Covid, compared to over 600 by now as forecast by SPI-M.

Freddie Sayers spoke to Dr Mike Tildesley, an infectious disease modeller from the University of Warwick who sits on the committee and works on the models himself, about how his forecasts have performed against reality, and whether, knowing what we know now, the PM made the right decision.

The interview was published on 1st July 2021 so is a bit out of date and doesn't relate to recent events but it is well worth listening to.

I think Dr Mike Tildesley is one of the good guys and he explains very well what the limitations are. As I said in another thread:

.... Yes the models themselves could be quite accurate in theory, but the data going into them and the assumptions made by the models are often completely inadequate.
...

The models themselves could be absolutely brilliant but if the data put into them is wrong, we have a problem...

 

[The Ham]

absolutely but the issue with the very latest model is that they did not include the information from South Africa in even their best case model even though the information was known at the time.

See posts in the other thread: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ariant-of-concern.225357/page-66#post-5452745

This podcast (which I listened to a few weeks ago) is well worth listening to:

The interview was published on 1st July 2021 so is a bit out of date and doesn't relate to recent events but it is well worth listening to.

I think Dr Mike Tildesley is one of the good guys and he explains very well what the limitations are. As I said in another thread:

The models themselves could be absolutely brilliant but if the data put into them is wrong, we have a problem...

I think that we are probably not that far apart in our thinking. Obviously putting poor data in is going to give you different results. However so is (as an example) retaining restrictions for longer than the model had assumed.

In the video much was made of the wave being about 1/3 of that in the model. However my understanding was that model was based on easing of restrictions in June. That didn't happen and so the outcome was always going to be lower as there would have been fewer extended interactions between people than the model had aloud for.

As the scientist said he tends to be pessimistic about the data ranges, as such it doesn't take a lot of a change across a few variables for the outcome to be noticeably better when you are talking about potentially short doubling times.

If we take an R value of 3 and a 95% uptake in vaccine which reduces infection rates by 95% then if you start with 100 after 3 periods you'd have 29 cases. Do the same with 92% uptake and 92% reduction and you ended up with 46 cases.

As such, whilst two variables have seen a fairly small shift, it results in the number of cases being about 50% higher. However if you continue that forwards the gap between the two continues to diverge.

It may well be that there were notes about how changing variables do create better outcomes than the models allowed for (again something highlighted within the video), such as how virulent each variant is, however that's the sort of nuance which is trying to be explained. Yet without the understanding of how a small change can have a big impact on the outcome (see the example given above), this could have been lost on the decision makers.

Given it's know that a certain Mr Johnson isn't keen on detail I suspect that this is likely to be a key weak point, as without putting the effort in to understand how a few small changes can have a noticeable impact, then when a small change is seen it's only ever going to be assumed that the result will be small.

 

[brad465]

The WHO have said, aside from advising to cancel holidays at this time, that the pandemic could end by the middle of next year if at least 70% of the population in every country were vaccinated against covid:

WHO urges cancelling some holiday events over Omicron fears

"An event cancelled is better than a life cancelled," warns the World Health Organization's head.

www.bbc.co.uk

The World Health Organization has urged people to cancel some of their holiday plans to protect public health as the Omicron variant spreads globally.
"An event cancelled is better than a life cancelled" said WHO head Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that "difficult decisions" must be made.
"In some cases, that will mean cancelling or delaying events" he said.
He added that there was now "consistent evidence that Omicron is spreading significantly faster than... Delta".
Dr Tedros' comments come as a number of countries - including France and Germany - have tightened Covid restrictions and imposed travel curbs to try to halt the spread of the new variant. The Netherlands has introduced a strict lockdown over the Christmas period.
The White House said on Monday that President Joe Biden was not planning on "locking the country down". The country's top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, earlier warned that Christmas travel would increase the spread of Omicron even among the fully vaccinated.
In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that the government needed to "reserve the possibility" of bringing in new rules in England as Omicron cases surged, but did not announce further restrictions.
New Year's Eve celebrations in London's Trafalgar Square have been cancelled "in the interests of public safety", Mayor Sadiq Khan said.
Omicron - first detected in South Africa in November - has been classed as a "variant of concern" by the WHO.

The World Health Organization has urged people to cancel some of their holiday plans to protect public health as the Omicron variant spreads globally.
"An event cancelled is better than a life cancelled" said WHO head Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that "difficult decisions" must be made.
"In some cases, that will mean cancelling or delaying events" he said.
He added that there was now "consistent evidence that Omicron is spreading significantly faster than... Delta".
Dr Tedros' comments come as a number of countries - including France and Germany - have tightened Covid restrictions and imposed travel curbs to try to halt the spread of the new variant. The Netherlands has introduced a strict lockdown over the Christmas period.
The White House said on Monday that President Joe Biden was not planning on "locking the country down". The country's top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, earlier warned that Christmas travel would increase the spread of Omicron even among the fully vaccinated.
In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that the government needed to "reserve the possibility" of bringing in new rules in England as Omicron cases surged, but did not announce further restrictions.
New Year's Eve celebrations in London's Trafalgar Square have been cancelled "in the interests of public safety", Mayor Sadiq Khan said.
Omicron - first detected in South Africa in November - has been classed as a "variant of concern" by the WHO.

How true and realistic this is remains to be seen, but this would be a good argument to use against those in favour vaccine mandates/passports/discrimination on vaccination status, etc. to say that not everyone has to be vaccinated. In the UK we're at 69% fully vaccinated if all ages are considered, with 75% at one dose, so we're basically already there.

 

[Spaceflower]

This virus mutates rapidly so it might not just be a case of 'hey presto, 70% vaccination achieved'. It might evolve into s strain that the vaccine is less effective against as is suspected with the Omicron strain. There might be the requirement for an annual booster. That was my initial suspicion and what I've seen so far has only strengthened that.

I hope we don't end up with mandatory vaccine passports but they will only work if applied universally. I foresee a political/ethical power struggle playing out in this regard..

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Dec 2021 ==

Nicola Sturgeon suits a tash like.

 

[The Ham]

I think we have to be clear what 'the pandemic being over' means. No matter how much rhetoric Johnson puts out, Sars-Cov-2 isn't going away; it just won't be an issue, as we'll have high immunity to it and any variants.

Although I would highlight that "we" is likely to be best if that is the worldwide population having been vaccinated, so that there's a reduced risk of variants developing in unvaccinated populations.

Also it's likely to mean some fairly efficient drugs to help those with more extreme cases fight it off more efficiently. Especially if there was an over the counter drug which people could get as a precaution if they for a positive test result (probably costing about the same as a prescription so people didn't need to use GP resources to obtain it).

Combined that would reduce the risk of infection, reduce the risk of that infection resulting in hospitalisation and for those who do go to hospital that there's a way to further reduce their risk of dying. At that point it wouldn't matter if there were (picking a crazy figure) 1 million cases a day in the UK as the number dying may still only be a few hundred and only a few thousand needing to go to hospital.

Now some of that could happen fairly quickly (worldwide vaccination within a few years) whilst others (low cost precautionary drugs could be a decade away) could be a longer term goal.

However chances are the more time that passes without a variant which causes significant issues the better the position we'll be in.

 

[Yew]

Also it's likely to mean some fairly efficient drugs to help those with more extreme cases fight it off more efficiently. Especially if there was an over the counter drug which people could get as a precaution if they for a positive test result (probably costing about the same as a prescription so people didn't need to use GP resources to obtain it).

Does such a thing exist for other seasonal coronaviruses, or for influenza?

 

[scarby]

The WHO have said, aside from advising to cancel holidays at this time, that the pandemic could end by the middle of next year if at least 70% of the population in every country were vaccinated against covid:

WHO urges cancelling some holiday events over Omicron fears

"An event cancelled is better than a life cancelled," warns the World Health Organization's head.

www.bbc.co.uk

"An event cancelled is better than a life cancelled" said WHO head Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that "difficult decisions" must be made.
"In some cases, that will mean cancelling or delaying events" he said.

What about the negative mental health effects on people working in the hospitality, events and travel industry caused by customers suddenly walking away? This is certain to cause anxiety, personal economic problems (including job losses) or even nervous breakdowns or worse.

 

[35B]

I think it fairly clear that a *minority* of scientists are hoping to change the way our society works, though more for political reasons than scientific, and have seen this as an opportunity to try to do so. Communist party member Susan Michie being the obvious example.

I've no idea what the motivation of many of the others are, though probably a lot of it is trying to keep on the right side of the people who fund them.

Just picking up on this, not for the comment itself but more as a tag that made me think.

In this pandemic, and more especially the discussion about it, one of my key questions is why individuals are acting as they are. My general observation is that the scientists responding to Covid, in SAGE, iSage and elsewhere, are generally trying to deal with the problem of Covid.

Their overreach - and I believe the desire for lockdown measures for omicron is overreach - reflects a narrow technocentric thinking, where the solution is defined in terms of the tools available, not the underlying issue. So we have epidemiologists, who wish to minimise the spread of Covid (the problem), and therefore reach for measures that will stop Covid spreading. Some choose masks, others choose restrictions on activity - all are examples of the old adage about if you have a man who knows how to use a hammer, he will treat a screw as though it's a nail.

Their politics will influence how readily they'll adopt certain solutions - it comes as no surprise to me that a card carrying Communist would be inclined to a statist solution - but I believe that they are genuine in their efforts. The issue is that their lane hasn't been adequately defined. But they are, I firmly believe, starting from the standpoint of "here is a disease, how do we deal with it" rather than trying to implement a predetermined agenda. Even Michie.

The longer this has gone on, unresolved (and Covid is unresolved), the more entrenched many of the positions have become. Ultimately, Covid will be realised to be endemic, and we will learn to just live with it. At what case volume, I don't know (Francois Balloux has suggested a case rate of 20,000 in the UK); our acceptance of that will slowly develop and creep up - it won't come as a sudden decision. And with Covid waxing and waning at different rates in different places, scares will long be with us.

There are, however, a few in this debate whose motives are genuinely suspect. Eric Feigl-Ding has been mentioned here; it seems obvious that he has chosen to crank up the panic to 11 in the desire to build a profile. Others have sought to use it is a profitable opportunity to make money; Ivor Cummins comes to mind here. Still others have chosen to try to politicise Covid rather than respond to it - something increasingly evident of those behind Great Barrington. Doubtless others will add other names.

 

[nedchester]

Just picking up on this, not for the comment itself but more as a tag that made me think.

In this pandemic, and more especially the discussion about it, one of my key questions is why individuals are acting as they are. My general observation is that the scientists responding to Covid, in SAGE, iSage and elsewhere, are generally trying to deal with the problem of Covid.

Their overreach - and I believe the desire for lockdown measures for omicron is overreach - reflects a narrow technocentric thinking, where the solution is defined in terms of the tools available, not the underlying issue. So we have epidemiologists, who wish to minimise the spread of Covid (the problem), and therefore reach for measures that will stop Covid spreading. Some choose masks, others choose restrictions on activity - all are examples of the old adage about if you have a man who knows how to use a hammer, he will treat a screw as though it's a nail.

Their politics will influence how readily they'll adopt certain solutions - it comes as no surprise to me that a card carrying Communist would be inclined to a statist solution - but I believe that they are genuine in their efforts. The issue is that their lane hasn't been adequately defined. But they are, I firmly believe, starting from the standpoint of "here is a disease, how do we deal with it" rather than trying to implement a predetermined agenda. Even Michie.

The longer this has gone on, unresolved (and Covid is unresolved), the more entrenched many of the positions have become. Ultimately, Covid will be realised to be endemic, and we will learn to just live with it. At what case volume, I don't know (Francois Balloux has suggested a case rate of 20,000 in the UK); our acceptance of that will slowly develop and creep up - it won't come as a sudden decision. And with Covid waxing and waning at different rates in different places, scares will long be with us.

There are, however, a few in this debate whose motives are genuinely suspect. Eric Feigl-Ding has been mentioned here; it seems obvious that he has chosen to crank up the panic to 11 in the desire to build a profile. Others have sought to use it is a profitable opportunity to make money; Ivor Cummins comes to mind here. Still others have chosen to try to politicise Covid rather than respond to it - something increasingly evident of those behind Great Barrington. Doubtless others will add other names.

An excellent analysis of the situation and very much as I see it.

The Scientists have to comment on the best solution from a Scientific point of view (theoretically lock down everyone for a month completely in the extreme) but we know that is not practical as there are other factors at play. Therefore, what has to happen is a risk assessment of the situation and everyone has a different view on risk. Clue: Nothing is entirely risk free.

 

[cuccir]

It also - building on the last posts, and the recent discussions about the modelling scenarios - depends what questions you ask people. If an epidemiologist is asked "what measures should we take to protect against omicron" then they'll rattle off a load of precautionary measures. Again, this is then interpreted in some quarters as doomongering scientists over-reaching, or calling for a lockdown.

As in all professions there are bad-faith actors: Dingel is a good example of one.

 

[43066]

The Scientists have to comment on the best solution from a Scientific point of view (theoretically lock down everyone for a month completely in the extreme) but we know that is not practical as there are other factors at play. Therefore, what has to happen is a risk assessment of the situation and everyone has a different view on risk. Clue: Nothing is entirely risk free.

Of course what should then be happening is that those charged with making decisions - ie the elected politicians - collate the information available to them from a range of sources, including scientists, economists and others and then have the wherewithal to make decisions and own the consequences of those decisions. Unfortunately the current senior leadership, particularly the PM, lack courage and would rather tilt with the wind, hiding behind Witty and Vallance at press conferences.

I genuinely believe the PM lacks the ability to make difficult decisions himself so is heavily influenced by those around him, hence the overly cautious approach taken earlier on in the pandemic which reflected Hancock and Gove’s prominence (with both in turn being too cowed by Sage’s doom mongering). Now that Hancock has gone and Sunak’s influence has seemingly grown, surprise surprise he’s toughened up a bit.

 

[yorkie]

This virus mutates rapidly so it might not just be a case of 'hey presto, 70% vaccination achieved'.

Nowhere near as rapidly as influenza; in any case immunity against severe illness is likely to be very long lasting, while there is no real concept of sterilising immunity for a virus of this nature, and we need to bear this in mind when considering the purpose of vaccines.

It might evolve into s strain that the vaccine is less effective against as is suspected with the Omicron strain.

There is only one strain of Sars-CoV-2.

All the available evidence I've seen suggests Sars-CoV-2 will become the 5th endemic human Coronavirus; our immunity will be boosted by natural exposure to the virus.

The media are obsessed with antibodies and like to alarm us that some antibodies are no use against a new variant, but we have a huge library of antibodies and the virus cannot mutate so much that the virus can evade all of them. We also know T cells are important in preventing serious illness and there is no evidence of T cell immunity waning against any of the variants; the T cell epitopes are not changing.

I don't agree with people who make the claim that vaccines are less effective against Omicron; it's a highly misleading claim as the purpose of a vaccine is to protect against severe illness, hospitalisations and deaths and the vaccines continue to be effective in that regard (I've posted more thoughts about that in another thread)

The messaging around vaccines and infections and testing is all wrong.

There might be the requirement for an annual booster. That was my initial suspicion and what I've seen so far has only strengthened that.

No, I think there won't be; at least not for healthy people and not in the longer term.

In order to get the best possible immunity, I think we need exposure to the full virus, not just the spike. If a vaccine becomes available that includes more of the virus and is perhaps updated in some way that makes it a closer match for variants that are circulating at the time, then maybe another dose may be worth getting at that time; until/unless that happens, we probably need a full exposure to the actual virus in order to get the broadest possible immune response. We should not be hiding from the virus and expecting we can avoid being exposed to it as that is simply unrealistic and is not an approach we take with any other respiratory virus.

 

[Eyersey468]

Of course what should then be happening is that those charged with making decisions - ie the elected politicians - collate the information available to them from a range of sources, including scientists, economists and others and then have the wherewithal to make decisions and own the consequences of those decisions. Unfortunately the current senior leadership, particularly the PM, lack courage and would rather tilt with the wind, hiding behind Witty and Vallance at press conferences.

I genuinely believe the PM lacks the ability to make difficult decisions himself so is heavily influenced by those around him, hence the overly cautious approach taken earlier on in the pandemic which reflected Hancock and Gove’s prominence (with both in turn being too cowed by Sage’s doom mongering). Now that Hancock has gone and Sunak’s influence has seemingly grown, surprise surprise he’s toughened up a bit.

I agree Boris doesn't seem capable of making decisions himself and seems to go with what he thinks the majority want.

 

[brad465]

I agree Boris doesn't seem capable of making decisions himself and seems to go with what he thinks the majority want.

Last year/winter that was the public and all but a small group in his party, but now a much larger section of his party and even some in his cabinet are far more reluctant to act, he's going with them more, hence for now he's been more stubborn, combined with more favourable stats in lower hospital numbers at the moment, along with less daily deaths and a surging booster drive.

That said he was relatively slow to act before vaccines, because he's lack of decision making capability meant he would only act when a situation seemingly deteriorated so badly that only one option was left. This is also why we got a very thin Brexit deal on Christmas eve last year.

 

[The Ham]

Does such a thing exist for other seasonal coronaviruses, or for influenza?

For the majority of people who get the flu they can self medicate with paracetamol based medication and not need to involve their GP. The fact that people do involve their GP when they don't need to isn't down to the fact that there's a reasonable treatment for the majority of cases.

 

[Yew]

For the majority of people who get the flu they can self medicate with paracetamol based medication and not need to involve their GP. The fact that people do involve their GP when they don't need to isn't down to the fact that there's a reasonable treatment for the majority of cases.

How is this different to COVID, in these post-vaccine times?

 

[The Ham]

How is this different to COVID, in these post-vaccine times?

Probably not a huge amount, although I wouldn't be surprised if there was something developed which created a slightly better outcome than just what's currently available.

 

[Yew]

Probably not a huge amount, although I wouldn't be surprised if there was something developed which created a slightly better outcome than just what's currently available.

I think that statement is probably accurate for almost all diseases?