Coronabollocks..

[TheGreenGoblin]

There has to be a limit to how long you can expect younger people, highly unlikely to die of Covid, to face economic ruin in order to give our octogenarians a few more years on the state pension.

Whah about the 59 year old *****.. blokes like me?

[PHXPhlyer]

Don't know how long the vaccine is effective, but the antibodies appear to be effective for 5 to 6 months.
Case in point, my 20 yo daughter.
She first tested positive in June (mild symptoms), I think, and has it again now (worse symptoms but getting better). Both times tests confirmed covid.
I don't think I would count on having had it to provide long term protection.
YMMV

PP

[boing]

This from the New York Times. It concurrently explains why the PCR test is poor as an infection indicator but how that fault could be turned to practical use.

A P.C.R. test is performed in “cycles,” each doubling the amount of viral genetic material originally drawn from the patient’s sample. The higher the initial viral load, the fewer cycles the test needs to find genetic material and produce a signal. A positive result at a low cycle threshold, or Ct, implies a high viral load in the patient. If the test is not positive until many cycles have been completed, the patient probably has a lower viral load.

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York recorded viral loads among more than 3,000 hospitalized Covid-19 patients on the day of their admission. They found that 40 percent of patients with high viral loads — whose tests were positive at a Ct of 25 or below — died while in the hospital, compared with 15 percent of those with positive tests at higher Cts and presumably lower viral loads. Data on viral load, or at least an approximation of it, is readily available in the results from P.C.R. tests, which most labs use to diagnose infection.

In another study, the Nevada Department of Public Health found an average Ct value of 23.4 in people who died from Covid-19, compared with 27.5 in those who survived their illnesses. People who were asymptomatic had an average value of 29.6, suggesting they carried much less virus than the other two groups.

These numbers may seem to vary by very little, but they correspond to millions of viral particles. “These are not subtle differences,” Dr. Greninger said. A study from his lab showed that patients with a Ct of less than 22 had more than four times the odds of dying within 30 days, compared with those with a lower viral load.

But the use of Ct values to estimate viral load is a fraught practice. Viral load measurements for H.I.V. are highly precise, because they are based on blood samples. Tests for the coronavirus rely on swabbing the nose or throat — a procedure that is subject to user error and whose results are less consistent.

The amount of coronavirus in the body changes drastically over the course of the infection. The levels rise from undetectable to yielding positive test results in just hours, and viral loads continue to increase until the immune response kicks in. Then viral loads quickly decline. But viral fragments may linger in the body, triggering positive test results long after the patient has stopped being infectious and the illness has resolved.

Given this variability, capturing viral load at one point in time may not be useful without more information about the trajectory of illness, said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center and a member of the incoming administration’s coronavirus advisory group.

“When on that curve are you measuring the viral load?” Dr. Gounder asked.

The exact relationship between a Ct value and the corresponding viral load can vary between tests. Rather than validate this quantitative relationship for each machine, the F.D.A. authorized the tests to deliver diagnoses based on a cutoff for the cycle threshold.

Most manufacturers conservatively set their machine’s thresholds for diagnosis from 35 to 40, values that generally correspond to an extremely low viral load. But the exact threshold for a positive result, or for a specific Ct to indicate infectiousness, will depend on the instrument used.

“That’s why I get very anxious about a lot of these assessments on the basis of Ct values,” said Susan Butler-Wu, director of clinical microbiology at the University of Southern California.

“Certainly, it is a value that can be useful in certain clinical circumstances,” Dr. Butler-Wu said, “but the idea that you can have a unicorn Ct value that correlates perfectly with an infectious versus noninfectious state makes me very nervous.”

Other experts acknowledged these limitations, but said the benefit from recording Ct values outweighed the concerns.

“All of those are valid points when looking at an individual patient’s test results, but it doesn’t change the fact that on average, when you look at the admission test results of these Ct values, they really identify patients at high risk of decompensating and dying,” said Dr. Michael Satlin, an infectious diseases physician and lead researcher of the Weill Cornell study.

Dr. Satlin said adjusting his team’s results for duration of symptoms and several other variables did not alter the high risk of death in patients with high viral loads. “No matter how you try to adjust, statistically, this association is extremely strong and will not go away,” he said.

At a population level, too, Ct values can be valuable during a pandemic, Dr. Hay said. High viral loads in a large group of patients can indicate recent exposure to the virus, signaling a nascent surge in community transmission.

“This could be a great surveillance tool for less well-resourced settings who need to understand the epidemic trajectory, but do not have the capacity to carry out regular, random testing,” Dr. Hay said.

Over all, he and others said, viral load information is too valuable a metric to be ignored or discarded without analysis.

“One of the things that’s been tough in this pandemic is everybody wants to do evidence-based medicine and wants to go at the appropriate speed,” Dr. Greninger said. “But we also should expect certain things to be true, like more virus is usually not good.”

[boing]

This "cycle based test" means that if a patient has had any viral contact sufficient testing cycles WILL produce a positive result. As you see manufacturers are apparently not consistent in how many cycles they consider should produce a positive result and they test down to a very low viral load.

Most manufacturers conservatively set their machine’s thresholds for diagnosis from 35 to 40, values that generally correspond to an extremely low viral load. But the exact threshold for a positive result, or for a specific Ct to indicate infectiousness, will depend on the instrument used.

There are rumours that the US is going to adopt a reduced number of cycles to be used during the PCR test, the number 25 is being whispered. The result of this will be reduced detection rates in cases of low viral load leading to an overall reduction in positive tests results. No doubt a reduced detection rate will be used as a political football.

.

[AtomKraft]

PHXPhlyer.
Interesting.
Well, surely the antibodies created by the virus when you survive a bout, are the 'best' or most relevant type of antibodies to have?
So I stand by my assertion that the virus itself must be the best inoculater of the masses.

Given that millions get it without symptoms, or just minor ones, the bug itself must surely eventually eradicate itself either by killing its hosts or failing to, but inoculating them?

If it's really the case that the antibodies only last 6 months, whether put there by a vaccine or stimulated by the disease, we are in for a helluva long haul.

[Pontius Navigator]

There has to be a limit to how long you can expect younger people, highly unlikely to die of Covid, to face economic ruin in order to give our octogenarians a few more years on the state pension.

Whah about the 59 year old *****.. blokes like me?

Remember, keep my seniors out of hospital and Save the NHS.

Nothing like getting your priorities right and ducks in a row.

[OFSO]

Percentage of population vaccinated by last Friday:

UK 8.8%
USA 5.3%
Spain 2.3%
Italy 2.1℅
Germany 1.8%

Astra Zeneca may only produce half the amount the EU signed up for due to 'production difficulties'.

Source: Financial Times

[Pontius Navigator]

Well OFSO, I am pizzing.

[Pontius Navigator]

China's Covid cases is still just 88,000 but this does not square with all those isolation camps or

China is battling its most severe outbreak of the coronavirus in 11 months – more than 2,000 cases over the past five weeks, with at least three from the new UK variant. Infections are primarily clustered around cities in north-east China, more than 600 miles away from Wuhan.

[G-CPTN]

with at least three from the new UK variant.

[/quote]

How can this be?

[Boac]

Why is that surprising?

[Pontius Navigator]

with at least three from the new UK variant.

How can this be?

Not a clue. Ask the Chinese, they said it.





.......

[4mastacker]

Kharma??

[CharlieOneSix]

Apparently from tomorrow those of us in Scotland age 70-79 should look out for a blue first class mail envelope which will have our first vaccination appointment therein. Ooh, the anticipation!

[Pontius Navigator]

An actual appointment or invitation to apply?
I don't know the details but one of my son in laws parents apparently chose an ASDA home delivery over vaccination.

[G-CPTN]

I received my invitation to apply for an appointment by text from my local surgery with an address for the local mass-injection centre in the nearby town (hospital (opposite the bus station).
Was offered a range of appointments from week ahead.

[CharlieOneSix]

An actual appointment or invitation to apply?....

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman urged people to look out for the "very distinctive" envelopes, which are being given priority by Royal Mail. The new booking system schedules appointments for patients in order of priority

I don't expect to get mine for a while. Rightly the first health boards to issue the letters are in the areas of greatest infection - Fife, Forth Valley, Ayrshire and Arran, Lanarkshire, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and Lothian. I'm in Grampian.

[PHXPhlyer]

Apparently, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is close to approval.
It is a one dose type.
Not sure of its efficiency rating.
They are cranking it out so when it is approved the number of doses delivered should go up dramatically.
Let's hope.

PP

[Pontius Navigator]

C16, our distinctive envelope was as distinctive as the other NHS ones I have received.

BTW our post box has a label NHS Priority. Apparently if you have a test you should return it only in a priority box

[Rwy in Sight]

Regarding the percentage of the population vaccinated. I spoke with a friend who is a doctor in a hospital receiving COVID-19 cases. She was scheduled to receive the vaccine this week but the vaccines available ran out the day before. She is concerned they have run out of vaccines because they didn't keep in mind two doses are needed to complete the treatment. To reinforce that suspicion I read on a reliable site the Danish PM admitted they made the mistake there and need more to complete the vaccination on those that have received the first dose.