Display MoreRe posturing, and break. RB and W can block me. I can block them. That would make this thread in microcosm what happens in social media where people talk to an echo-chamber of like-minded people only. Not for me. I just wish RB and W were a bit more coherent in their arguments. Navid I think feels that no-one here will listen to his one true truth. It is silly - there is a difference between listening and agreeing. I listen to what Navid posts, I think it is poisonous propaganda combined with weird conspiracy theory.
Here is some more posturing.
The "mRNA vaccines are going to kill us all" strand here I find less poisonous - it is a fair question - just on balance very wrong and full of misinformation. The uncertain long-term dangers of mRNA vaccines are very low. The uncertain long-term dangers of COVID are substantial. The "mRNA vaccines will not work long-term" strand here is correct - but no-one has expected current mRNA vaccines to work long-term. They are a short-term fix. It is easy to change the vaccines so they induce whichever bits of immunity we think is best. That technology is one of the things that gives me great hope for the future, in spite of variants. The "we should be free, COVID is a scare story designed to shut down the economy" strand is complex. What I dislike is the politicisation of a really difficult issue: do we do more harm by shutting down or masking etc, reducing rates, or by opening up and increasing rates. We have seen many cases where shutting down early leads to less harm overall. We have also (and will have for many years) the bad effects of major shutdowns on our children. I don't think it is simple to make that choice. Personally the only part of it I am clear about is freedom. What is my right not to wear a mask or to go into a crowded indoor place without being vaccinated when weighted against children's lives blighted, or grandparents dying 20 years too soon?
I'm sorry that RB here and perhaps others feel what I write as above is posturing. It won't alter what I write. Mostly, I do this for myself because I am fascinated by the combination of science and politics, and because every now and again (like that neat self-control case study FM1 first posted) I learn something really cool that is new. Obviously, I am not a medical doctor or research scientist, not an epidemiologist. Making sense of a lot of diverse information that has not been properly understood is for me the greatest and most fun challenge whatever the field, in this case though I don't have the background to evaluate the molecular biology stuff (not sure even the experts there have much of an idea most of the time, and I guess RB cannot do this, because he has not been able to come to any definite conclusions), I can evaluate all the risk stuff and the epidemiology - it is just lots of applied probability theory with a few twists. I'm sure many here are the same.
Interesting that with best efforts everyone still makes a lot of mistakes. (I blame only the ones who make mistakes for political reasons). My guess (see below) is that we need to shift now to treating COVID more like severe Flu - with the proviso that as a society if we have stretched hospitals we need to educate people in habits (including masks on public transport) that reduce Flu transmission when it has high risk. Many Asian countries have done this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58357021
It is interesting that the UK scientists are still divided about how much extra transmission we will get from schools. The government has done all it can to maximise school transmission. No masks, no drive to improve ventilation in schools, no vaccination for 12-15 year olds (that will not prevent transmission but will surely reduce it by at least 50%). I wonder a bit how much the division here is political, rather than scientific. Do you want to do your best to reduce rates - in which case obviously you need masks in school and lots and lots of attention to increasing ventilation - or do you reckon there is no point in trying to do that, and anyway it is good to maximise the infection rate - get everyone immune?
Politics is funny. With the vaccine and delta we are now in the place everyone thought we would be at the start. No point trying to control the epidemic (it is too infectious) and only strategy is to go for herd immunity. So which way we go now is at the margins killing a few more people in the one hand, or having a bit more freedom and maybe getting the coming fifth wave over and done with quicker on the other. The big complication is the winter and hospitals. Our hospitals struggle to cope with normal winter demand due to other respiratory viruses. COVID on top of that makes things worse. Which means that a best for everyone strategy might be to get rates up as high as possible now to reduce rates in January and February when we expect Flu to be worse than usual.
One final factor to consider is that as time continues we will gte better at managing COVID. We will have a few more of the vulnerable vaccinated (and we can use those boosters). We will have effective at-home treatments. The key political issue is overflowing hospitals - which result in wall to wall tv coverage - rather than death statistics - which after a year of them no-one really cares is it 100 or 300 per day (it sounds callous, but that is the way we work). So politically any home treatment that keeps people out of hospital is very very important. As are Flu jabs (mine is booked for late September). Though no-one has a clue how well they will work this year.
I'm not sure anyone really knows how much infection we need to have immunity from that (if it is good enough and there are no new variants) reduces infection rates. The modellers just plug in guestimates. No-one can know for sure because we have little accurate data on delta transmission, and working out transmission is such a complex thing.
Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) says it is still difficult to work out whether schools are drivers of transmission, or simply reflecting the spread of the virus in the communities where they are located.
But if cases continue to rise, scientific advisers say the more pupils and teachers that contract Covid-19, the more schools and education will be disrupted.
And it warns of the "subsequent consequences for parents and carers, and the wider workforce implications".
In Scotland, where pupils returned to school in mid-August, a third of new cases are in the under-19s.
The consensus statement from a sub-group of Sage continues: "Schools will represent a high proportion of remaining susceptible individuals and it is highly likely that exponential increases will be seen in school-attending age groups after schools open."
It says vaccination will also have made "almost no difference in these population groups over the summer holidays", and when schools reopen, measures in place to limit the spread of the virus will be "much reduced" compared to the spring and summer.
Pupils and staff will no longer be recommended to wear masks in secondary schools in England, although they are still advised in Scotland.
Under new rules, aimed at keeping more children in school, pupils who are close contacts of positive cases will also no longer have to isolate when term starts.
Secondary school pupils across the UK will be asked to take two rapid tests before term starts, to see if they have the virus, and twice-weekly tests at home after that.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said the Sage report was a rebuke to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson.
"Next to nothing has been done to prepare for the possibility of large numbers of cases which will lead to lots of education disruption as children and staff have to isolate because they are positive - or stay off because their Covid symptoms go on longer.
"It is perfectly clear to education professionals that the current safety requirements for schools and colleges are not sufficient to prevent a rise in cases come September," he said.
Last week the government in England said it would provide around 300,000 carbon dioxide monitors to schools next term to help improve ventilation and lessen Covid outbreaks, but Mr Courtney says they will only diagnose a problem "not solve it".
Monitor effects
Mike Tildesley, professor in infectious disease modelling at the University of Warwick, told the BBC that schools reopening in September would have an impact on mixing patterns in other walks of life.
"It remains to be seen what effect that has on cases and hospital admissions," he said.
"We will need to monitor that during September.
"And we need to be prepared for the fact that hospital admissions will start to rise - not just from Covid but from other respiratory viruses too, like flu."
But he said vaccines put the country in a much better place than before, although booster campaigns might still be needed.
Politics, and conflicts of interest have made this a particularly hard pandemic to deal with pragmatically as a society. Seemed so simple in the beginning...follow the science, but quickly we discovered politics had infiltrated the health care sciences, it's organizations/institutions -both public and private, that oversee and regulate them, to such an extent that they lost the peoples trust.
Not sure how science can ever regain that trust, but the best way out of this mess is for them to figure out a way. IMO, a good first step would be to come clean. Until then, we will have to just muddle our way through, picking and choosing the science we want to follow as we go.
When it comes to governmental mitigation mandates and directives, I think the people all over the world (except Aus/NZ) are speaking up and saying "no more lockdowns". Masks...the jury is still out. I think politicians would have a more receptive audience if they showed us exactly what science they are basing their mandates on. Especially so when it comes to school children.
