Silvaire wrote:
with whatever level of immunity that provides.
That is still a very valid question to ask. What kind of immunity does that do and for how long moreover.
Over here, one of my friends who lived through Covid in December just had to go back under quarantine as a close relation got it (badly, but out of life danger by the looks of it). She has been tested negative (PCR) by now but was told that the immunity she had was probably not sufficient from her getting re-infected and spreading the germs after 3 months. Would also be interesting if they did test her for antibodies, will need to ask her. From Tuesday on we should be able to get self tests (antibodies) in the local pharmacies.
she had was probably not sufficient from her getting re-infected and spreading the germs after 3 months
AFAIK nobody can say that because there is not enough data. We have just one year so far. Reportedly some people got it twice but their numbers are extremely small; way too small to draw any conclusions, especially as most if not all the reports are anecdotal (e.g. 1st time around it may have been just a normal flu, and a test was not done). The 2003 SARS stuff shows that T cell immunity lasts 18 years (so far) which may or may not be relevant, but is plausible.
I have a £60 fingerprick test kit here which I don’t need anymore and will happily donate 
It goes to a UK lab though…
alioth wrote:
I think I agree a lot more with Silvaire on this one.
AFAIK the talks about a certificate is only about cross border travelling. At one point in time things have to get back to normal in any case, and since vaccine is voluntary, there will be no use for any such certificate inside of Norway for instance. Island has already opened up. If you can show a certificate at the border, you can enter. Otherwise, you will have to show negative tests and be in quarantine before entering.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
That is still a very valid question to ask. What kind of immunity does that do and for how long moreover.
And equally how does natural immunity compare with man-made immunization in that regard.
I think the bigger issue with being further immunized for those who have picked up natural immunity is the apparently enhanced side effect reaction to the shots (CV-19 exposure is one of the screening questions), and sources I’ve seen don’t encourage getting the shots for quite a while in this circumstance. As usual not much factual data there either but I think my wife is making the right choice for now. Good for me too that her right choice doesn’t conflict with her occasionally irrational world view She’s a good ‘kid’ regardless.
@LeSving, I can’t tell you how many national borders I cross in a normal year, but it’s a lot. Quite often several on a given day. The same is surely true for anybody who travels in Central Europe. The issue within a given country is the legality of an individual commercial business discriminating based on customer medical records, and the potential effect on their marketability and volume.
@Peter the the ‘not until everyone’s been offered a jab’ message was for internal stuff. I honestly don’t think it’ll really take off anyway.
Obviously international travel requirements will be primarily driven by what other countries want or (as the relatively clean ones at the moment) what we impose on them and get in return.
Graham wrote:
Interesting data. The big lift in ‘definitely’ seems to correlate with vaccines actually becoming available just before the turn of the year. Probably too early to say whether the downturn beginning in the second week of March will continue, but I would be keen to see where that line goes over the next fortnight.
Well the next fortnight’s of data is in.
It looks like all the amateur behavioural psychologists here were wrong and our public health medics were right. One week delay in administering the AZ vaccine to allow the time for the EMA review to take place has resulted in restoration of the public confidence in the vaccination programme. A noticeable drop when the AZ issues arose and a restoration of confidence once the EMA review has been allowed to take place.
Government here estimated that there will have been approximately 35 additional cases of COVID 19 as a result of the 1 week delay. As we are only giving AZ to those under 65 (mainly health care workers) where the death rate is quite low, there is unlikely to have been any lives lost. In fact by managing to restore public confidence, it’s likely that in the long run, many lives will have been saved.
The public enquiry into the numbers dead as a result, that some here have predicted, would be short lived.
Indeed, it seems things are looking relatively good in Ireland. That is excellent news!
The rest of Europe may be a different story, with a much larger population and much higher cases/deaths. Not to mention the various stops on AZ use from country to country.
Pressure is mounting on our government to put various EU countries, such as France and Italy, with exponentially-rising infection rates on the travel red list (two weeks hotel quarantine at the individual’s cost). Politically very difficult.
dublinpilot wrote:
As we are only giving AZ to those under 65
Fascinating. Sweden is only giving AZ to those over 65.
My local hospitals (mainly the Royal Sussex I think): zero on ventilators
One doesn’t ask what happened to these people… one cardiologist I spoke to (not in Brighton) described it as “carnage”.
The success of the “single shot first” policy, done ~50% with AZ, is massively obvious now.
Politically very difficult.
Reportedly, there is a lot of business travel France-UK. I am surprised. Certainly there are huge numbers of truck drivers but they aren’t hanging around – or at least they aren’t supposed to be hanging around, at either end, and they are exempt.
But also there is concern that “the events immediately preceeding 31/12/2020” (with a risk of UK supermarket shelves getting cleared out) might repeat 
That situation was resolved, magically, only when the UK signed on the dotted line. It is probably still a bit fragile.
The solitary confinement quarantine must be truly horrible though, plus the £1700.
kwlf wrote:
It sounds like – and is – a system that would be considered pretty good in the 1980s. My understanding is that it is confidentiality concerns that stymied ambitions for more interconnected systems. Every hospital trust seems to develop its own computer systems, badly, and usually they can’t talk to one another. A lot is still done by paper and pen.
Sounds still much more advanced than in Germany, where there is exactly zero shared records between different hospitals or surgeries.
German law enforcement have strictly 0 capabilities to see your health care records, not only for legal reasons but for technical as well.
