PHE says no flu at all

Just a POI - she's parroting their scientific advice. As she should - however odd that advice might seem.

What I suspect will be much more significant over the coming months is the emerging evidence that vaccinated people that do catch Covid catch it much less severely than otherwise.

yeah. I could claim a bit back but all that would happen is that instead of HMRC getting it my accountant would, and he gets enough already.

And unlike most politicians she does have a scientific/physics background

Of course. Then the anti vaxxers will say 'that is because all the vulnerable people died in the first wave'

The trouble is that very few people study philosophy, even fewer

It is as impossible to prove that the vaccine *is* working as to prove that it is ineffective.

We are:

- practising social distancing

- wearing PPE routinely

- running at vastly higher levels of personal hygiene

- getting vaccinated

- being locked down

- developing natural immunity

- killing off the vulnerable

Only if case rates were *still going up*, would we be able to claim that the vaccine (and all the other measures) was *ineffective*.

As it is, case and death rates are coming down but we have no way of knowing ultimately how much was due to the vaccine.

And as animal testing is largely banned,. no way to find out, by doing tests, either.

What can be measured is some kind of antibody response. But the chain of reasoning from that to death and infection rates is still not clear cut.

People long for the simple minded security of Boolean logic. It works/doesn't work. They long for absolute proof,. certainty and irrefutable 'facts'.

Sadly all science offers - and there are fundamental philosophical reasons why that is so (cf 'Problem of Induction') - are *models* that more, or less, *work*.

And when people insist on being given 'facts' they get all disappointed when the answer is 'we don't have them' and blame a government which has been hoist by its own petard of claiming omniscience in matters of social justice and 'protecting the peepul' in order to acquire its most heartfelt desire, the omnipotence of a centralised unelected power structure that can do anything it wants. Like the EU.

In the end its Darwin in action. People will make simple binary choices and live or die by them, in more or less complete ignorance of the reasons they should be examining.

That is deep social conservationism - Darwinism in action. For whatever reason some people get the game of life right, and they then teach what they did as dogma to their children. If its sound advice based on something real, that advice hangs around a long time. If its bad advice that just worked once, their children suffer, and die.

Forces that seek to overturn that social conservatism - that huge body of consensual knowledge of 'stuff that worked for me dad, so its good enough for me' by hailing 'progressive' 'social justice' ' modernisation' 'new liberalism' etc etc run the risk - nay are

But of course, that is why they do it.

Marxism is all about destroying what worked for years in the pathetically devout certainty that something better will emerge.

In all cases it has been arguably far far worse.

The fear of passing it on to someone who isn't vaccinated?

And that is the point. There is plenty evidence some have died due to the effect of Covid on the NHS, etc, but not from Covid itself. But it is still Covid responsible for that death, if it has slowed down treating, etc.

Look at the "two-jab" for inspiration.

The first jab is "hey, wake up in there".

The second jab is "have you seen this before ? OK. React vigorously."

Whether your body is trained by a second jab, or is trained by the real virus entering the body and training you, the asymptotic result is you're (gradually) making better responses to it. You may get sick. But not as sick as the last time. Or not as sick as ever.

Our bare minimum definition of success is "keep people out of the intensive care unit and off those ventilators". That's a start. For all the progress we've made on improving the ability of people to survive, they're still using ventilators. That hasn't stopped.

But eventually, we have to keep COVID out of people, period, because look at the mess it's making of the "long haulers". People who have survived the virus, who are mentally confused and don't seem to be improving on their own. It damages more than lungs and toes... And long term, we can't afford to be generating a large pool of invalids.

In that sense, "survival" is not the same as with seasonal flu. With seasonal flu, say ten weeks later, you're usually your old self again. That's not necessarily the case with COVID. Yeah. you're alive. But you're not yourself, either. Most of the long haulers interviewed, are concerned they'll never be fixed properly (which might well be true).

So long term, we need to do a better job than just "keeping people alive but miserable". Preventing the health care system from being crushed, that's the "low bar" definition of success. And that seems to be what the vaccination gives so far.

There was yet another variant in the news yesterday. Properties - unknown. Not enough data yet.

Paul

Indeed, along with the fact that the vaccine won't be effective for all (but hopefully most).

I'm not sure what there's to fear if you've had the virus - does this give decent vaccine-like immunity from all variants?

I think that's one of the great unanswered questions at the moment.

Plus the long term effects. Already I see there's a "long covid" being discussed.

Overall, I think humanity has fluffed this chance to learn from dealing with a pandemic. We'll know soon enough when the next one comes along.

Within the last 28 days, even if you were run over

Bu not from those who died of it and never even got tested...it works both ways

I don't personally know of many who've had Covid. But two I do know have had long lasting after effects - even although they weren't hospitalised. Both in their 50s. One appears to be possibly serious - damage to heart and kidneys.

Extremely good incentive to avoid getting it to start with.

Yes.

Nope.

Nope, and the tests were stuffed up by fiddling with the detail while in progress.

That?s wrong too. Its known that its not as good as with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Nope, its also known that it doesn?t do as well with the south african strain.

That isnt what has happened.

Mindless conspiracy theory.

Yes, but since they didn?t include those in the trial, its less clear how effective it is with those.

Because it makes more sense to use the Pfizer vaccine for those because it has been tested properly with those and is known to be more effective with others too.

That?s not what its about in this case.

And realises that the Oxford/AstraZeneca was never tested on the over 65s.

Which does not mean that it does not work, just that for safety during testing, they stuck to younger people. The chances of it not working in older people or being dangerous are very slim (they are still human), but it has not been proven to be as effective.

Still worth having as any protection helps and there are insufficient alternatives to vaccinate everyone with other vaccines.

It is looking like regular vaccination may be necessary anyway, so at least partial protection and then later re-vaccination is better than just waiting.

Glad to know I'm still human. I had mine 4 weeka ago and, so far, am still around without any side effects.

Merkel is not parrotimg scientific advice, she is spinning political propaganda

And even the German newspapers know it

And her scientific background means so does she