Coronavirus: Please use this thread for all COVID19 talk!

Sorry. That's just what I do

 

Lol I don’t know where those extra smileys came from in my post.

 

Hysteria?

 

Does anyone know what the efficiency/effectiveness whatever the word is of the different vaccines are?

I saw something like 97% but can’t remember which one it was and where I read it

 

I have read that after 2 x doses that:
Pfizer = 95%
Moderna = 95%
Oxford = 90%
Sputnik V = 92%

And the one jab Johnson and Johnson is 68%.
And the Noravax (which is waiting approval and is also 2 doses) is reported to be 88%.

 

So if in the under 40 category where the risk of serious illness is less than 1% would that not mean, theoretically, you have a 99% efficiency/effectiveness against the virus already so getting the vaccine is not really going to help you fight the disease?

 

It’s also to stop transmission to the elderly and vulnerable.
Experts say the risk is low, but are still studying how well the shots blunt the spread of the virus.

The current vaccines are highly effective at preventing people from getting seriously sick with COVID-19.

But even if vaccinated people don’t get sick, they might still get infected without showing any symptoms. Experts think the vaccine would also curb the chances of those people spreading the virus.

“A vaccinated person controls the virus better, so the chances of transmitting will be greatly reduced,” said Dr. Robert Gallo a virus expert at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

 

No, because that isn't how mathematics works. It means that your chances improve by a further 95%, so a probability of serious illness dimishes from 0.01 to 0.0005. In any case, it's not just about individuals but about defeating the virus by achieving herd immunity. In order to spread, the virus needs to have a non-resistant host where it can multiply. If the vast majority of humanity becomes resistant, it dies out.

 

And also less chance of transmission equals less chance of mutations.

 

Yes indeed.

 

I understand the point about herd immunity and giving everyone the best possible chance to defeat the virus.

My point was if you fall into the under 40, generally healthy category would you be considered to be 99.whatever % able to deal with the virus based on numbers? So adding an extra 92% which multiplies your ability to deal with the virus to an even larger extent might be deemed by some as unnecessary. Having the vaccine boosts your ability to deal with the virus, but the risk is already so low the main reason to get the vaccine is to help the population get over the virus.

I’m not an anti vax person or massively opposed to getting it, personally I haven’t been offered it yet anyway. I’m just trying to understand more on a topic I don’t really know much about

 

The virus will gradually drop into a background virus as all initially catastrophic viruses tend to do. We have zero chance of stopping this thing mutating. It will keep doing it. However, scientists seem to suggest it only has a few avenues for mutation left. As soon as people stop dying in excessive numbers we should get our lives back. There is no logical reason not to. And anyone thinks Britain has the power to stop the spread and mutation of this virus is as loony as an anti vaxxer.

 

Yes, exactly, you put it very well. It's vital that the vast majority of adults get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.

 

Who are these scientists that suggest that it has limited avenues for mutation? All viruses -- all things, really -- have a nearly infinite number of opportunities to mutate, if provided with a nearly infinite number of opportunities to replicate.

Countries absolutely have the power to stop the spread and mutation of the virus, because those things are effectively one in the same. Stop the spread by increasing the level of immunity in the global population such that significant outbreaks become rare (and eventually stop entirely) and you'll greatly reduce the chances that it will mutate to evade your immune response.

This isn't some kind of incredibly unlikely scenario. Wild polio is all but eradicated, because the vast majority of the world population has been inoculated against it.

 

That can’t be right. According to antivaxxers vaccines have never got rid of any disease. (sarcasm mode)

 

While this is a global pandemic it cannot be controlled. It won't be until all the world is vaccinated.

As to your other question you could have just googled it. It is fairly commonplace science...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2BN0L3

There are dozens of articles about the capacity of the virus to mutate in meaningful ways. But it is easier to assume I am wrong, I guess.

I will let you get back to digging your bunker now

 

I mean, we're controlling it right now. That's the whole reason that restrictions have been put in place, to prevent unrestricted spread. Even getting to 70% immunity in a country will largely end widespread outbreaks. So long as the virus doesn't outkick our coverage.

You're misunderstanding the article. The capacity for the virus to mutate is unlimited. The question scientists have is how many of those mutation paths will make it more virulent (and thus outcompete other strains of the virus). They believe that convergent mutation -- the tendency for these various mutation paths to coalesce around similar traits, mostly involving the spike protein -- might suggest that there are a limited set of mutations that will benefit the virus.

But as the article notes, it is drifting genetically. And the more it is allowed to drift, the more likely it becomes that other variants, like the one that originated in South Africa, will reduce vaccine efficacy. One of the paradoxical possibilities is that as vaccination kicks into high gear, a strain of the virus could develop that is less deadly, or harder to spread, but where the spike protein is different enough that the immune system doesn't recognize it.

 

Yeah that is my thing. I just can't read and you are just smarter than me.

"It is plausible that this virus has a relatively limited number of antibody escape mutations it can make before it has played all of its cards, so to speak," said Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego.

That could enable drugmakers to stay on top of the virus as they develop booster vaccines directly targeting current variants, while governments struggle to tame a pandemic that has killed nearly 3 million people.

The idea that the virus could have a limited number of mutations has been circulating among experts since early February, and gathered momentum with the posting of a paper showing the spontaneous appearance of seven variants in the United States, all in the same region of the spike protein'

Oh maybe I didn't read it wrong and we are both using the same information to follow our own agendas here. I say the virus has limited avenues of mutations because it appears there really are a limited number of ways it can evolve which remain harmful. If you want to say that this virus could evolve into something less harmful and then more harmful again fine, but we better eradicate the common cold pronto or we are all ****ed.

You may now continue to teach me to read by talking me through my own quotation in that lovingly laborious style of yours and explaining why I am wrong.

 

Again, there are no limits to the number of mutations it can undergo, and if you believe there is you're fundamentally misunderstanding what they're saying. It's just that most of those mutations are not beneficial, and consequently most of the lines will die out swiftly. That's what the scientists are saying. Because most of the mutations that have developed are along similar lines, it may be that there are only a few pathways that will benefit the virus, not that there are only a few pathways, period.

The sentence "virus could have a limited number of mutations" is just a bad choice by the article-writer. No scientist in the world believes that the virus literally has a limited capacity to mutate. It will never stop producing mutations, just as is true for every other living thing.

 

There are no limits to the amount of **** things that can happen to me every time I walk out my front door. But that doesn’t mean that, on balance, I prefer to cower indoors. I’ve had my jab, can I go out and play now please?