China Coronavirus

[trileacman]

Very good interview with Dr. Feeley on Primetime. Had expected a old dithering wind-bag but he really wiped the floor with McConkey.

I didn't see it

What did Dr. Feeley suggest that the government do

What's his way forward

This is his own words.

In view of recent controversies caused by an article in The Irish Times on Saturday, September 12th, I think it is important to articulate my position on the present Covid crisis and its management, and to comment also on more recent developments.

How lethal is Covid-19?
Up to August 10th, the number of Europeans who died from a Covid-19 illness (182,639) was slightly above the number who died three years ago as a result of "flu" (152,000). The number of patients who died in Europe from the 1917/18 Spanish flu was approximately 2.64 million – this would be equivalent to approximately 7.4 million deaths of today's European population.

It is not for want of good reason that deaths are now referred to as Covid-19-associated deaths. Of 5,700 patients admitted to New York hospitals, 88 per cent had more than one underlying condition (co-morbidity) and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported that from January to May, 19.5 per cent of Covid-19 patients with co-morbidity died compared to 1.6 per cent with no other illness.

Dr Martin Feeley's view that coronavirus is 'much less severe' than the flu for most people and that restrictions were no longer justified caused a furore.
Dr Martin Feeley stepped down from his post as clinical director of Dublin Midlands Hospital Group on September 15th
The Irish experience is very similar – up to mid-August 94 per cent of deaths were in patients with underlying medical conditions. A Stanford-led group analysed over 100,000 Covid-19-related deaths in Europe, including Ireland, and the US and concluded that "deaths for people under 65 without predisposing conditions were remarkably uncommon" .

Another important feature is the number of people who contract the virus and remain completely asymptomatic. In extremely well-defined scenarios such as the Diamond Princess cruise liner and the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier almost 66 per cent of the positive tests were completely asymptomatic, while a report from China suggests 78 per cent of cases were asymptomatic.

Who is at risk?
For most respiratory diseases, such as the common cold and influenza, children are the primary carriers. However, this does not appear to be the case with the Corona viruses which caused SARS in 2003 and Covid-19. Six weeks after opening schools in Denmark there was no evidence of a spike in cases. A University of Southampton review found no reported incident of pupil-to-teacher transmission.

While children are at negligible risk if healthy and not obese, conversely the individuals at the opposite end of the age spectrum are at greatest risk. The case mortality rate regardless of co-morbidities at 60 years is about 1 per cent, at 70 years about 2 per cent, and increases dramatically to above 15 per cent in individuals over 80 years.

The presence of a chronic illness is the all-important factor in determining the risk even in the elderly; up to mid-September approximately 6,000 nursing home residents had tested positive for Covid-19 and 83 per cent recovered. Diseases of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems are high risk; as is diabetes mellitus, although distinguishing its risk from the obesity risk is difficult.

The best kept secret regarding Covid-19 is the vulnerability of overweight individuals. For reasons unknown this is not publicised to the degree required. Unfortunately this lack of awareness is exacerbated, if not caused, by HSE-published data on risk factors. In its definition of obesity the HSE uses a body mass index (BMI) of 40 whereas most international literature uses a BMI of 30.

MI is a crude measure of body fat; briefly, an individual of 178cm (5'10") height weighing 95kg (15 stone), about 25 per cent over ideal, has a BMI of 30 and is by definition obese.

This disease is profoundly different to the Spanish flu which was an indiscriminate killer, with the average age of victims just 27 years of age
By using a BMI of 40 about 3 per cent of the adult population is considered at risk, but if the international BMI standard of 30 is used the at-risk proportion increases to about 23 per cent. The HSE data, therefore, grossly understates the obesity risk, and under-records the effects of obesity by using a BMI of 40.

In the New York study referenced above, 41.7 per cent of admitted patients had a BMI of 30, the second most common risk factor after hypertension. It has been shown that the highest risk factor for ICU admission is obesity; in Ireland even when using BMI of 40 as the criterion, 19 per cent of those admitted to ICU had this risk factor.

Should we be more worried about increasing numbers of cases?
From mid-July to mid-September there were almost 6,000 reported Covid-19 cases. The media and political reaction has amounted to a foreboding narrative akin to a major catastrophe.

The top TV story night after night features numbers of people testing positive for a condition associated with hospital and ICU admission rates of 2.5 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively. Admission rates are about one fifth of prior months and lower than those associated with seasonal flu. Such reporting would be more appropriate were the country dealing with an Ebola outbreak.

What is happening is what should be happening – the young are working in essential services and socialising and contracting the virus, while the vulnerable, the elderly and those with illness are being cautious and, importantly, are being protected by the rest of society.

However, there is one worrying trend – over four successive fortnight periods the proportion of cases in the over-65 age group has been 4 per cent, 5 per cent, 7 per cent, and 10 per cent. This suggests a gradual relaxation in the at-risk group or by those around them? If so, this is where we need absolute vigilance.

Is there an alternative strategy?
Many scientists from around the world are now of the view that eradicating SARS-Covid-2 is not realistic in the short term. I say this as eradication appears to be the new goal in Ireland.

The initial response was entirely appropriate for a contagious disease with the suspected virulence of the 1917/18 Spanish flu. However, after nine months of intensive scientific scrutiny of the virus' behaviour globally concludes this is no longer the case.

This disease is profoundly different to the Spanish flu which was an indiscriminate killer, with the average age of victims just 27 years of age. It's also profoundly different to the seasonal Influenza. Therefore different strategies are required to manage Covid-19.

The Government deserves enormous credit for opening our schools. What is needed now is an extension of that thinking
Experience has taught us that the at-risk and vulnerable individuals are identifiable with remarkable accuracy, and that protective measures – hygiene, masks, social distancing and cocooning – are extremely effective.

Common sense might dictate that we expose the low-risk population to this condition and protect the at-risk, ie, the red rag of "herd immunity". That is what was happening and yet the policy seems to be to prevent this happening. This should particularly have been allowed to happen during the summer months before the "flu season" and thus reduce the workload on the health services during winter months.

Achieving a balance
The Government deserves enormous credit for opening our schools. What is needed now is an extension of that thinking to strike the right balance and avoid the cost greatly exceeding the benefit.

The at-risk can be protected by themselves and others adhering to proven protective measures. By definition, almost all emergency hospital admissions are at risk and therefore the protective measures for patients and for the staff need to be retained; similarly for nursing homes. This policy will involve those "at risk" not going to work, which is much better than nobody going to work.

The young and healthy majority need to be allowed to live rather than exist, while being mindful of those at risk.

In living with this disease the able elderly may feel disinclined to comply with restrictions or cocoon, as indeed may others at risk. This, however, poses the mountain climber dilemma – "by putting myself in danger I am possibly asking others to risk their lives to save mine".

Regardless, we need to stop scaring the nation; be honest with the nation and consider how to better facilitate personal choice.

Haven't got a recording of tonight's PT so I'll try to paraphrase him and I hope it accurately describes his ideas.

1. The early fear of Covid was that it was as dangerous as Spanish Flu so complete lockdown was at the time the sensible and correct decision.
2. Covid is not as virulent as previously feared and selects for a particular cohort of people.
3. It makes more sense to isolate these high risk groups and take particular precautions around them than to isolate the entire population at large.
4. In ICU settings the transfer of infection between patient and medical staff is now nearly negligible as staff take the necessary precautions and properly use PPE. This strategy needs to be extrapolated to the high-risk groups. (care homes etc).

He didn't directly say it but I believe he thinks the sooner the disease becomes endemic the less likely it is to be a problem to the high-risk groups. It currently moves with alarming pace because it's roaring through a susceptible population. It will move much slower/possibly even stop moving through a population with antibodies to coronavirus. At this point restrictions on high risk groups can be eased as they will be less likely to be exposed to the virus in social contact.

[sid waddell]

https://mobile.twitter.com/RTE_PrimeTime/status/1311045248521510912

Ya I posted the above in relation to the prime time debate earlier. Here is the link again in case it gets lost.

Feeley's message is to protect the old and vulnerable and that it is possible with the measures we have in place already and to give a bit more liberation so people can live their lives.

On the other hand McConkey wants to live in Greenland and play with elf's and teletubbies.

That's not a good faith engagement with McConkey's position, it's just sneering

"Protecting the old and vulnerable" is a slogan

Did Dr. Feeley say exactly what he means by "a bit more liberation"? Sounds vague

"A bit more liberation" would mean greater virus spread, and the more the virus spreads the more difficult it is to protect the old and vulnerable, that's just a fact

"Protecting the old and vulnerable" also means basically shutting them away from society and human contact, doesn't it?

Back during the March to May period there was a fringe line of argument that it was inhuman to impose restrictions on old people for a couple of months

I'm pretty sure that a lot, perhaps most of the people making that argument then are the same people that see no problem shutting those same old people away from society now

[sid waddell]

Haven't got a recording of tonight's PT so I'll try to paraphrase him and I hope it accurately describes his ideas.

1. The early fear of Covid was that it was as dangerous as Spanish Flu so complete lockdown was at the time the sensible and correct decision.
2. Covid is not as virulent as previously feared and selects for a particular cohort of people.
3. It makes more sense to isolate these high risk groups and take particular precautions around them than to isolate the entire population at large.
4. In ICU settings the transfer of infection between patient and medical staff is now nearly negligible as staff take the necessary precautions and properly use PPE. This strategy needs to be extrapolated to the high-risk groups. (care homes etc).

He didn't directly say it but I believe he thinks the sooner the disease becomes endemic the less likely it is to be a problem to the high-risk groups. It currently moves with alarming pace because it's roaring through a susceptible population. It will move much slower/possibly even stop moving through a population with antibodies to coronavirus. At this point restrictions on high risk groups can be eased as they will be less likely to be exposed to the virus in social contact.

But there seems to be a big mismatch between Dr. Feeley's vague aspiration to "open up and live life" and protecting the old and the vulnerable

"Alarming pace" doesn't really mean much, it could mean anything

Now let's be really generous and assume for the purposes of argument that 300k people have already been infected here (I don't think it's near that in reality though)

It's estimated that 70% of a population would need to catch the virus to achieve "herd immunity", that's the theory anyway, and we don't even know if herd immunity would exist, it didn't exist for other viruses

70% of the saorstát's population is 3.36 million

You'd be waiting a long, long time for 3.36 million to catch it, unless many tens or even hundreds of thousands of people were to catch it simultaneously, and I think that would not be good, not good at all

I think also that Dr. Feeley seems guilty of very wishful thinking in terms of the mindset of the population at large

He's basically telling people to "don't worry, it'll all be grand, carry on as you would as if there was no pandemic"

But very few people are of that mindset

I think what in reality would happen is that the population would be utterly terrified, there would be mass anger and widespread demands that such a crazy policy be reversed immediately

Also, if the "vulnerable" are being protected, as Dr. Feeley says is currently the case, you'd be getting a skewed view of how dangerous the disease is for all the population

Dr. Feeley really needs to put some flesh on the bones of what he actually proposes, and to be quizzed on the possible consequences, intended or unintended, because from what I can make out, his strategy is indeed to "let the virus rip" - that's what a "herd immunity" strategy is

[highorlow]

Sid, prime time is on the RTE player or on the news now channel.

He never said locking up old and vulnerable is the answer, he said we can protect them with the measures already in place.

e.g., When I headed west to visit my folks during the summer i self isolated 4 days beforehand as a precaution, I didn't stop anywhere on the way down, if I needed a piss I pissed in the ditch. In other words I used common sense. But I do get ya, it takes major buy in by the citizens to apply a degree of common sense that might not be possible (at this stage).

[sid waddell]

Sid, prime time is on the RTE player or on the news now channel.

He never said locking up old and vulnerable is the answer, he said we can protect them with the measures already in place.

e.g., When I headed west to visit my folks during the summer i self isolated 4 days beforehand as a precaution, I didn't stop anywhere on the way down, if I needed a piss I pissed in the ditch. In other words I used common sense. But I do get ya, it takes major buy in by the citizens to apply a degree of common sense that might not be possible (at this stage).

But that seems patently wrong to me because if you're encouraging widespread virus spread in the population, it then becomes pretty much impossible to isolate the old and the vulnerable from that, humans do not exist in a vortex and they will all need to have contact with other humans

And if they are not isolated, how then do you protect them? You don't is the answer

Say in my own situation, I'm a carer for somebody in the most vulnerable category, who cannot cut off contact with me - and unfortunately I cannot cut off contact with all other humans - I do have to go out sometimes

We knew all this stuff about shielding people back in March and April and it didn't work

I don't see why it would work with exponentially greater virus spread

[highorlow]

He never said anything tonight about herd immunity either.

Lookit go and watch the interview.

[trileacman]

Zero Covid means that you pretty much fully open up the economy after measures to eliminate community transmission

You can't pretty much fully open an economy whilst other countries are still gripped by Covid and your population are immunologically naïve to it. 21st century economies rely upon the transfer of people especially one like NZ's where international tourism and seasonal workers are such a large part of their economy. NZ will have travel restrictions in place for a long time and this will hamper their economy for as long as other countries have Covid cases. In Ireland in 6 months 35,000 people have tested positive so 0.8% of the population. NZ will wait a very long time for unrestricted travel to Ireland (and probably all major Western countries) if that is their policy. "but a vaccine will be along any week now" you could argue. I'll cover that later in my reply.

In New Zealand that meant football stadiums could be full

Don't know what football stadiums have to do with it.

It seems self evident that the policy that is currently being pursued is to buy time until a vaccine, and in the meantime open things up as much as is possible while suppressing the virus as much as possible, to find a midpoint, which is always subject to change

Right the vaccine silver bullet hopes.

Some background info on making vaccines. AIDS has killed more than 32 million people since the 80's. There's been 35 years of vaccine development for HIV. all of which has came to nought. Vaccines have passed through stage 3 etc but found to be useless in the real world. The best one they could make after 30 years was one that worked about 30% of the time. Magaret Heckler the US secretary of Health declared on 23 April 1984 that an Aids vaccine would be ready in 2 years. Does that kind of guff from politicians sound familar to you?

Of course HIV is a lentivirus, difficult little b@stards to work with and very different to coronavirus. Biologically comparing coronavirus and lentivirus is like comparing an Indian elephant with a field mouse. Coronaviruses of course are an everyday facet of life. There's a reasonable chance I had one last week. They are found in approx 15% of people with the common cold, an old, well-studied and economically frustrating virus. It's estimated the average person gets 2-3 colds per year, children 6-8. The cold accounts for up to 40% of lost work days in the US and so costs the world a lot of money. Consequently there have be many attempts to create a vaccine because you'd make a lot of money out of it if you did. None have been successful.

So making vaccines is notoriously difficult and almost always a slow and arduous task. Even when you've a vaccine made there's no guarantee that it will give you an immunity for very long, maybe only a few months, hopefully a year. Also whilst vaccines on the whole are generally quite safe their have been previous examples of adverse reactions to vaccines. See Cutter incident, GBS and Swine flu vaccine, Simian Viurs in polio vaccines and Pandermix's links to nacrolepsy. Vaccine makers have to jump through a series of safety protocols before public dissemination of a vaccine and rightly so. There is unfortunately a small chance that the rush to see a coronavirus vaccine pushed through could see a compromise on safety. This is just a reminder that vaccines need to be held up to a rigorous standard to ensure the anti-vaxxer crowd don't get any ammo.

Now a vaccine may be successful and I hope so but the odds are against it. Whilst newsreels and politicians will gleefully pontificate on the coming scientific breakthrough very few vaccine scientists will give you any hard and fast guarantee on timing or efficacy.

Which leaves any country which is predicating it's Covid policy on a vaccine breakthrough on thin ice. If the vaccine doesn't come good where are you left then?

In Sweden I believe it has been reported that up to 15% of cases have got long Covid

Could you share where you got that figure from? I can't find it. I did find this though which tries to explain Sweden's Covid approach. It's from a former editor of the British medical journal. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/09/23/richard-smith-could-sweden-have-got-it-right-with-covid-19/

In plain English it seems to mean that you feel absolutely fecked for weeks or months afterwards, I guess there would be considerable variation in terms of exactly how that manifests itself and for how long

Again medical evidence for this would be appreciated rather than just anecdotes from people. I've yet to see a detailed medical profile of "long Covid" despite the column inches it attracts. Mostly the info in these "long Covid" articles comes from someone who had Covid as opposed to qualified medical professionals.

[armaghniac]

Sid, prime time is on the RTE player or on the news now channel.

He never said locking up old and vulnerable is the answer, he said we can protect them with the measures already in place.

e.g., When I headed west to visit my folks during the summer i self isolated 4 days beforehand as a precaution, I didn't stop anywhere on the way down, if I needed a piss I pissed in the ditch. In other words I used common sense. But I do get ya, it takes major buy in by the citizens to apply a degree of common sense that might not be possible (at this stage).

Yes, but 4 days might not be enough, although it was a good effort and showed an approach that others will not take. But in reality you cannot separate one third of society off from the other two thirds. Older people have home helps, they need to go to the shop, they need someone to come and service the boiler. There are no measures significant measures in place. Plenty of 60 year olds have jobs.
And common sense isn't universal, on the radio yesterday were a couple in Cork who implied that they didn't believe all the hype and were unhappy at the reporter wearing a mask, and the women said "and I have an 85 year old mother", one wonders if that family are taking measures.

If there are a lot of cases the health service will come under pressure and the economy will still be banjaxed to a substantial exent and as noted it will take a long time for any herd immunity to emerge.
There are only two options before a vaccine or treatment, either carry on with a steady 80-90% of things and don't push it or else test everyone and all but eliminate the dose.

As for vaccines, I'd expect one to come along to make a difference. There are so many vaccines in development using different, and relatively tested, approaches that even if the first vaccine isn't perfect that a later one would improve things. Given the economic damage this virus is causing there is almost unlimited money to develop vaccines, cures and tests and I would expect one of these horses to cross the line in 2021.

[trileacman]

Pandemics are unpredictable and it is too soon to say, argues Richard Smith

richard_smith_2014Sweden stood alone in Europe in not opting for a severe lockdown when cases of covid-19 began to rise in the spring. As a result, the New York Times called Sweden "a pariah state," and Sweden has had higher death rates than most countries in Europe, although lower than Britain. But, as I write this on 20 September 2020, the difference in the number of cases in Sweden and most of the rest of Europe is striking. Most countries in Europe have a rapid rise in cases, whereas Sweden does not. Spain, which had one of the most severe lockdowns, has one of the steepest increases.

The reason for the difference may well be that Sweden has more immune people, probably mostly younger people. But another possible explanation is that Swedes have followed the rules more dutifully than in other countries—perhaps because they trust the public health officials, understand what they have to do and why, and have avoided the stop-go confusion that besets Britain and other countries.

We knew from the beginning of the pandemic that it was likely to last years and that most of us had no immunity. We would either catch the infection or try to avoid it by minimising our contact with others. Eventually either enough of us would have caught the disease to generate the much-maligned herd immunity or many of us would be vaccinated. Either way it was going to be a long haul, and years of minimising contacts would mean no work, schools, or fun.

Sweden could behave differently from other countries because public health officials not politicians decide how to respond to the pandemic. It's very hard for politicians to do things differently from other countries. Putting health officials rather than politicians in charge sounds like the creation of an iatrocracy and frighteningly anti-democratic, but the decision to do it this way was reached through democratic means.

In an interview in the Financial Times, Anders Tegnell, the chief public health official in Sweden, describes the thinking of him and his colleagues:  "At the outset we talked very much about sustainability, and I think that's something we managed to keep to. And also be a bit resistant to quick fixes...We see a disease that we're going to have to handle for a long time..." Tegnell describes a lockdown as "using a hammer to kill a fly." You need "a strategy that can work for years if need be, rather than constant chopping and changing as seen in the rest of Europe."

Crucially to my mind, Tegnell and his team thought about "public health in the broadest sense," recognising the importance of education, work, and meeting with friends for health. "We are not just working with communicable diseases, we are working with public health as a whole."

Sweden has concentrated its efforts against the virus on places where it's most likely to be spread—places of entertainment where many people gather. Those places have strict rules on social distancing. Tegnell is unconvinced by the value of face masks, and they are not much seen in Sweden. Face masks are "more of a statement than actually a measure...Face masks are an easy solution, and I'm deeply distrustful of easy solutions to complex problems." I'm also wary of simple solutions to complex problems, but I can understand why easy solutions and quick fixes are attractive to politicians.

The same thinking makes Tegnell cautious about the "silver bullet" of a vaccine. The idea that "once vaccine is here we can go back and live as we have always done...[is] "a dangerous message...because it's not going to be that easy."

David Nabarro from the World Health Organisation emphasises that the people not governments hold the key to responding to covid-19. We need to follow simple rules, and I can see why people in Sweden might be much more able and willing to follow the rules than people in other European countries. Most people in Europe must have heard the messages about these rules, but in Britain they are mixed with lots of conflicting messages. The stop-start messages from the British government are confusing, and many people don't understand why they should follow the rules. Worse they don't trust the government, and in Britain you don't have to go far to see people breaking the rules. People may wonder why they have to follow the rules if others aren't.

Sweden has avoided the stop-start messages, and the Swedish government is more trusted than the British one. Plus importantly Sweden has emphasised that the pandemic will last a long time (avoiding things like British politicians saying it might be over by Christmas), and it has not asked Swedes to make such extreme changes, meaning surely that it's easier to sustain the changes in behaviour.

When the FT journalist spoke to Tegnell in the spring he said that "it would be in the autumn when it became more apparent how successful each country had been." As Britain looks close to going into another national lockdown, some are arguing that Sweden seems to have adopted a better strategy. But all judgements must be provisional as pandemics are unpredictable, and Tegnell does expect local spikes in cases.

Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004.

Again good reasoned piece. He doesn't say Sweden is wrong or right just that it's as likely that they are either. I don't understand why people can refuse to countenance the idea that Irelands/UK/NZ covid strategy may be incorrect.

[armaghniac]

Again good reasoned piece. He doesn't say Sweden is wrong or right just that it's as likely that they are either. I don't understand why people can refuse to countenance the idea that Irelands/UK/NZ covid strategy may be incorrect.

What is the substantial difference between the Swedish approach and the Irish one at this stage, other than the Swedes actually following the restrictions?

[sid waddell]

He never said anything tonight about herd immunity either.

Lookit go and watch the interview.

He said it in his article quoted on the previous page

[sid waddell]

Zero Covid means that you pretty much fully open up the economy after measures to eliminate community transmission

You can't pretty much fully open an economy whilst other countries are still gripped by Covid and your population are immunologically naïve to it. 21st century economies rely upon the transfer of people especially one like NZ's where international tourism and seasonal workers are such a large part of their economy. NZ will have travel restrictions in place for a long time and this will hamper their economy for as long as other countries have Covid cases. In Ireland in 6 months 35,000 people have tested positive so 0.8% of the population. NZ will wait a very long time for unrestricted travel to Ireland (and probably all major Western countries) if that is their policy. "but a vaccine will be along any week now" you could argue. I'll cover that later in my reply.

In New Zealand that meant football stadiums could be full

Don't know what football stadiums have to do with it.

It seems self evident that the policy that is currently being pursued is to buy time until a vaccine, and in the meantime open things up as much as is possible while suppressing the virus as much as possible, to find a midpoint, which is always subject to change

Right the vaccine silver bullet hopes.

Some background info on making vaccines. AIDS has killed more than 32 million people since the 80's. There's been 35 years of vaccine development for HIV. all of which has came to nought. Vaccines have passed through stage 3 etc but found to be useless in the real world. The best one they could make after 30 years was one that worked about 30% of the time. Magaret Heckler the US secretary of Health declared on 23 April 1984 that an Aids vaccine would be ready in 2 years. Does that kind of guff from politicians sound familar to you?

Of course HIV is a lentivirus, difficult little b@stards to work with and very different to coronavirus. Biologically comparing coronavirus and lentivirus is like comparing an Indian elephant with a field mouse. Coronaviruses of course are an everyday facet of life. There's a reasonable chance I had one last week. They are found in approx 15% of people with the common cold, an old, well-studied and economically frustrating virus. It's estimated the average person gets 2-3 colds per year, children 6-8. The cold accounts for up to 40% of lost work days in the US and so costs the world a lot of money. Consequently there have be many attempts to create a vaccine because you'd make a lot of money out of it if you did. None have been successful.

So making vaccines is notoriously difficult and almost always a slow and arduous task. Even when you've a vaccine made there's no guarantee that it will give you an immunity for very long, maybe only a few months, hopefully a year. Also whilst vaccines on the whole are generally quite safe their have been previous examples of adverse reactions to vaccines. See Cutter incident, GBS and Swine flu vaccine, Simian Viurs in polio vaccines and Pandermix's links to nacrolepsy. Vaccine makers have to jump through a series of safety protocols before public dissemination of a vaccine and rightly so. There is unfortunately a small chance that the rush to see a coronavirus vaccine pushed through could see a compromise on safety. This is just a reminder that vaccines need to be held up to a rigorous standard to ensure the anti-vaxxer crowd don't get any ammo.

Now a vaccine may be successful and I hope so but the odds are against it. Whilst newsreels and politicians will gleefully pontificate on the coming scientific breakthrough very few vaccine scientists will give you any hard and fast guarantee on timing or efficacy.

Which leaves any country which is predicating it's Covid policy on a vaccine breakthrough on thin ice. If the vaccine doesn't come good where are you left then?

In Sweden I believe it has been reported that up to 15% of cases have got long Covid

Could you share where you got that figure from? I can't find it. I did find this though which tries to explain Sweden's Covid approach. It's from a former editor of the British medical journal. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/09/23/richard-smith-could-sweden-have-got-it-right-with-covid-19/

In plain English it seems to mean that you feel absolutely fecked for weeks or months afterwards, I guess there would be considerable variation in terms of exactly how that manifests itself and for how long

Again medical evidence for this would be appreciated rather than just anecdotes from people. I've yet to see a detailed medical profile of "long Covid" despite the column inches it attracts. Mostly the info in these "long Covid" articles comes from someone who had Covid as opposed to qualified medical professionals.

The idea behind Zero Covid is that you can pretty much fully open up your internal economy

Football stadiums being full is a signifier of what that means for people's way of life under such a strategy if successful, it means basically unrestricted normal life

You can say a non herd immunity strategy is based on there being a vaccine but a herd immunity strategy is based on there not being one, so let's bring forward a massive public health crisis on an assumption

This source says 260k people in Sweden have long Covid

Whatever the truth of the numbers, you can't just write it off

https://aktuelltfokus.se/novus-kvarts-miljon-svenskar-langtidssjuka-i-covid-19/

The main reason for why Sweden's policy was wrong was that it was immoral, they sacrificed a lot of lives that could have been saved

Also they didn't protect their economy and are nowhere near herd immunity

[highorlow]

Also they didn't protect their economy and are nowhere near herd immunity

Source?

As for the economy, only in about 8 months time can a fair comparison be done.

[sid waddell]

Also they didn't protect their economy and are nowhere near herd immunity

Source?

As for the economy, only in about 8 months time can a fair comparison be done.

There has been nothing at all to suggest Sweden are remotely near herd immunity, and everything we know suggests they are way off it

Contratry to the fake narrative pushed by those who are praising Sweden for cynical right-wing political reasons, cases are rapidly going up there the same as everywhere else in Europe

The "Sweden are nearing herd immunity" claim has been constantly pushed by such people

It's up to them to prove it

They've so far produced nothing other than a cynical, opportunist political narrative based on absolutely nothing except their own bad faith bias

Also, if the lovers of the Swedish strategy believe that they are nearing herd immunity, why are they not saying that Spain or Italy or the US are, given that those countries have even higher death and case rates

[Milltown Row2]

At this rate we just have to manage the situation, as we wont be getting cures any day soon and all evidence of previous vaccines has shown that its minimum 2 plus years.

Wash hands, sanitize and protect those at risk that have underlying conditions, but we need to get on as much as we can going forward, and if it requires mini lockdowns then do it right, close ports and airports to travel, essential goods/employment only during periods of high hospital intake.. hospitals have done brilliantly since getting a handle on medicating people with covid.

Collecting as much data and tracing will do more to preventing the spread and understanding the how it transmit and who's more at risk..

Some business will never recover from this, unless we can reduce the percentages of catching it.

I've been out for dinner twice, in all of that time, haven't been to a pub and have no desire until I can actually go out and follow on from before March!