The vaccine doesn’t work?

[Arizona11]

Professor Whitty said that there will likely be another spike in cases as some people may not have been vaccinated or the vaccine simply may not work for some people! DAK what he means by the vaccine not working and should we be worrying? Surely this could be a disaster! Here is a link to the video:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-56333192

[absolutezero]

Dr Doom (or Prof Pessimism) strikes again.
Ignore.

[swill453]

Professor Whitty said that there will likely be another spike in cases as some people may not have been vaccinated or the vaccine simply may not work for some people! DAK what he means by the vaccine not working and should we be worrying? Surely this could be a disaster! Here is a link to the video:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-56333192

The news has been full of reports for about the last 6 months about vaccines being X% effective, where X has been something between 50 and 95. The "vaccine not working" refers to the (100-X)% of people. Nothing (further) to worry about.

Scott.

[XFool]

Professor Whitty said that there will likely be another spike in cases as some people may not have been vaccinated or the vaccine simply may not work for some people! DAK what he means by the vaccine not working and should we be worrying?

Surely he just means what he says? Few, if any, vaccines are going to be 100% effective with every single individual in a large population, due to natural biological differences between people, or related to state of health or age.

Then there is the question of changes over time in the virus itself.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl ... ectiveness

[Mike4]

This thread is an excellent example of how damaging it is for the word "immunity" to be used by people, the BBC etc in relation to vaccines. People get the wrong idea, that the coronavirus vaccines make one "immune" to COVID. They don't.

Being vaccinated simply reduces the probability of you developing COVID disease.

Granted it is quite a big reduction in probability but a degree possibility always remains.

[Arizona11]

Thanks for the replies so far. Yes I think we all appreciate that none give 100% efficacy but all should provide some protection and hopefully prevent people getting seriously ill and maybe dying. However, he should choose his words a little more carefully. To say that the vaccines may not work for some people is not the same as they don’t provide 100% protection, and may panic some people. I am surprised that more hasn’t been made of his actually wording as it can be very damaging indeed.

[Arborbridge]

Professor Whitty said that there will likely be another spike in cases as some people may not have been vaccinated or the vaccine simply may not work for some people! DAK what he means by the vaccine not working and should we be worrying? Surely this could be a disaster! Here is a link to the video:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-56333192

Didn't you know it isn't 100% effective? There's been plenty of information about it: therefore for some people it will not be effective. No surprise there at all.

What I find interesting is that he took this opportunity to hammer home his own message, which is slightly more realistic than some of the over-exuberence we've seen lately. It's also interesting as an input to those "do lockdowns work?" discussions here - he clearly thinks they do, or at least he's saying it in negative: NOT having them will UNwork.

Arb.

[Arborbridge]

This thread is an excellent example of how damaging it is for the word "immunity" to be used by people, the BBC etc in relation to vaccines. People get the wrong idea, that the coronavirus vaccines make one "immune" to COVID. They don't.

Being vaccinated simply reduces the probability of you developing COVID disease.

Granted it is quite a big reduction in probability but a degree possibility always remains.

Please don't use this as an excuse to aim missiles at the BBC. Their news coverage has been exemplary and they do not deserve to be singled out amongst news organisation for brickbats.

Arb.

[absolutezero]

Please don't use this as an excuse to aim missiles at the BBC. Their news coverage has been exemplary and they do not deserve to be singled out amongst news organisation for brickbats.

Arb.

That's a good one. Keep the jokes coming.

[Arborbridge]

Please don't use this as an excuse to aim missiles at the BBC. Their news coverage has been exemplary and they do not deserve to be singled out amongst news organisation for brickbats.

Arb.

That's a good one. Keep the jokes coming.

Humour: the best way to keep us all as one.

[stevensfo]

Professor Whitty said that there will likely be another spike in cases as some people may not have been vaccinated or the vaccine simply may not work for some people! DAK what he means by the vaccine not working and should we be worrying? Surely this could be a disaster! Here is a link to the video:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-56333192

I tried reading that report twice, then a third time. Then with one eye closed and with a marmalade sandwich in my hand. (Remember Paddington Bear?) But it still reads like a Sixth former's attempt to say more or less, that the Pope is Catholic, that bears sh*t in the woods etc etc.

Which vaccine? They work in so many different ways, and the biggest problem is that, due to 40 years of dumbing down, the British public don't have a ****** clue about it! Just remind me. For how long have the friggin' British people been receiving vaccinations?? Seriously! How many generations? This is O-level stuff for God's sake!

There may be good news in the similarity of the AZN and Sputnik vaccine, so that if they are combined, perhaps the two types of protein synthesis will stimulate the immune system much more.

Fingers crossed!

Steve

[XFool]

...Covid-19: Don't think pandemic is over, Whitty warns

BBC News

"A lot of people may think this is all over. It is very easy to forget how quickly things can turn bad," he said.

His comments come amid pressure from backbench Tories to ease lockdown more quickly, given the drop in infections.

The Covid Recovery Group, which includes over 70 MPs, has pushed the prime minister to relax more steps, more quickly.

Um, yes. Right...

[Midsmartin]

According to a graphic in one of the papers a week or two ago, vaccines had only reached 4% of some inner city areas, such as Tower Hamlets.
So it's not going to protect them. It's sad that the people in the most deprived areas are also the ones who will suffer from not being vaccinated. Perhaps people will be going door to door in these areas. I hope so.

[servodude]

...Covid-19: Don't think pandemic is over, Whitty warns

BBC News

"A lot of people may think this is all over. It is very easy to forget how quickly things can turn bad," he said.

His comments come amid pressure from backbench Tories to ease lockdown more quickly, given the drop in infections.

The Covid Recovery Group, which includes over 70 MPs, has pushed the prime minister to relax more steps, more quickly.

Um, yes. Right...

Smells very much like they wanted the xRG for it's catchy appeal
- but this time they couldn't use "research" because elsewhere there are actual people doing actual research (and not simply moving their fingers from their fundaments to wave in the air)
- if I looked for a list of members would I be surprised?

-sd

[Lanark]

If I have a vaccine thats 90% effective then I still retain a possible 10% risk of catching something from you.

If you also have the vaccine, then you retain a possible 10% risk of catching something from another person.
My risk when meeting you then becomes 10% of 10%, so a 1% risk.

Extrapolate that over the whole population.

Now consider if its really a good idea to go on holiday to countries where infection rates are 500% higher than the UK and hardly anyone has been vaccinated.

[tjh290633]

It is probable that we will need anti-Covid jabs each year, just like the flu jabs, which might be combined. Other suggestions today are tablets or nasal sprays.

Either way, it seems unlikely that Covid in its various forms will be eliminated.

TJH

[servodude]

If I have a vaccine thats 90% effective then I still retain a possible 10% risk of catching something from you.

If you also have the vaccine, then you retain a possible 10% risk of catching something from another person.
My risk when meeting you then becomes 10% of 10%, so a 1% risk.

The way that the efficacy figures for these have been established has only dealt with symptomatic sickness
so It's really "if I'm vaccinated I'm 10% as likely as someone who hasn't been to come down with observable symptoms" which isn't really the same as "catching" something from a epidemiological point of view (especially for a virus known to spread asymptomatically)

- there is some evidence that this translates to (or comes also with) reduced spread but it is not really clear yet to what degree

Now consider if its really a good idea to go on holiday to countries where infection rates are 500% higher than the UK and hardly anyone has been vaccinated.

- add to that that their virus could be able to evade your vaccine (or vaccine trained immune system more accurately)

- sd

[Lootman]

If I have a vaccine thats 90% effective then I still retain a possible 10% risk of catching something from you.

If you also have the vaccine, then you retain a possible 10% risk of catching something from another person.
My risk when meeting you then becomes 10% of 10%, so a 1% risk.

I would do the sum differently. With unvaccinated people you might have a 10% chance of being exposed to an infected person. And if you are, then a 10% chance of getting sick. So that is a 1 in 100 chance of getting sick.

Now if those two people are vaccinated, then that reduces the risk by 99%.

Taken together the risk is now 1 in 10,000. I suspect a lot of people would ignore a risk that low.

Now consider if its really a good idea to go on holiday to countries where infection rates are 500% higher than the UK and hardly anyone has been vaccinated.

I mentioned the other day that I think we will see travel this summer divided into two self-contained zones. Vaccinated people will travel more freely within the vaccinated zone, with documentation to prove it. Whilst unvaccinated people will only be able to visit places where few have been vaccinated, with quarantine as locally prescribed.

Right now the former is just the UK, the US, Canada, Israel and the UAE. But expect the rest of Europe to catch up, plus wealthier places that rely on tourist trade.

[Dod101]

Do you really see Canada, for instance, as in the 'vaccinated' zone'? My Canadian family certainly does not see things that way. They (or at least one of them) thinks their vaccine roll out has been catastrophically poor. I read the other day that the UK currently represents about 50% of those vaccinated in the world (counting only one vaccination of course) Not many in the 'vaccinated zone' and I do not fancy Israel very much.

Dod

[NeilW]

If I have a vaccine thats 90% effective then I still retain a possible 10% risk of catching something from you.

You do. And as you get older you increase the risk of dying anyway. At 60 year old you have a 1% chance of dropping dead anyway in the next year, which increases exponentially as the years pass until it becomes a near certainty.

What the vaccine does is reduce the increase in the overall population chance of dropping dead from catching the virus to about the same as it would be if you previously just sat in the house doing nothing for a year or so.

In other words the vaccine reduces the mortality risk of the virus to about the same amount of lost life on average as lockdown.

And that is as good as it gets. Now this virus is here and we are vaccinated, on average its arrival means we have all moved up the mortality curve by a year. And we won't be able to move back down.

NeilW