and existing vaccines have no effect on it.
That’s fake news. Even your link says nothing like that, so why post it?
“Likely” “somewhat less” “we don’t know”. IOW, the author has absolutely no clue at all.
The research in the UK says the opposite, FWIW.
There is a saying in Czech, which doesn’t rhyme in English, but it basically goes something like: if there were no fish in the pond, they might be up your ar*se.
And all this because it is “to costly” to sterilize food
Likewise.
LeSving wrote:
Exactly, and it’s now here as well, and existing vaccines have no effect on it. Good job UK ! Seriously. I mean the UK.
This is not true.
“The characteristics of the variant had led to concerns about the effectiveness of Covid vaccines against it. However, research published on preprint server bioRxiv showed “no biologically significant difference in neutralization activity” between the laboratory tests on B.1.1.7 and the original strain of the coronavirus.”
@LeSving I’m not sure what your beef with the UK is, but that assertion is straightforward BS. Even the article you link to doesn’t say what you said – it’s just another speculator saying XYZ could be the case. Loads of auxiliary modal verbs.
A mutation occurred because mutations occur, not because of something specific we did or didn’t do. Where is happens is random and not really relevant. I’m sure there are plenty of other variants (as indeed we’re seeing) but ‘ours’ came to light because we were actually testing for these things, unlike most countries. It may not even have started here – might just have first been detected here.
I don’t bite every time you refer to it as the ‘UK mutant virus’ or whatever, but it doesn’t paint you in a good light. Generally speaking most informed commentators are polite enough not to use terms like the ‘China virus’, and I was under the impression it was generally considered poor form to use this sort of blame-laden language.
Norway doesn’t get everything right – it seems some Norwegian physicians made some pretty poor choices in sticking the Pfizer vaccine into some people who were so frail you could have killed them by blowing on them. And your government is buying the AZ vaccine, so presumably not everything from the UK is considered a total disaster.
This and your claim about the taxi driver story makes me think you’re drifting away from sensible discussion on Covid-19 and into the realms of tabloid hysteria – which is shame because I usually enjoy your contributions.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
The ongoing study in Israel regarding the efficacy of our one jab policy is not producing encouraging results.
Surprising indeed how the expectation of mass vaccination would give an early lift in Covid restrictions?
The data out of the promised land is rather patchy, 30% vaccinated (10% in Dec), vaccine may take 3 weeks for those to filter out to see impact but so far no lift in restrictions or meaningful shift in data…if you have to wait for March to see impact in Israel what does it mean as timing for UK/US (2nd/3rd on pipeline)? and the rest of the world?
There’s a John Hopkins paper out discussing the potential mortaility impact from the economic damage done
I doubt anybody is surprised by this… a difficult problem for the politicians.
The ongoing study in Israel regarding the efficacy of our one jab policy is not producing encouraging results.
That conflicts with the UK conclusion which is that the first dose is pretty effective and buys time to get more vaccine.
Looking at UK data curves it takes 3 weeks for a lockdown to make a difference. We locked down on 1 Nov and cases/hospital cases/deaths continued to climb for 2 weeks thereafter. In the 3rd week of Nov they plateaued and then nudged downwards in the 4th week.
If we assume that a lockdown takes effect (i.e. lowers transmission) from day 1, and people have meaningful protection 3 weeks post-vaccine, then it suggests you are looking at 3 weeks to take effect and then another 3 weeks for it to feed into reported numbers – i.e. 6 weeks after having a noticeable number of people vaccinated you are likely to see the effect in the data….. I don’t think any country will be showing an effect yet.
Also, data just out today shows the UK vaccination programme is back above the desired run-rate with 343k first doses administered yesterday. This means either the Pfizer flow is restored to what it should be (unlikely, since second jabs remain low) or a big load of AZ has been released for use, presumably with obstacles related to glass vial procurement and/or batch QC having been overcome. The UK Government and AZ are releasing zero information (that I can find) on supply and export. If this data were available you would have massive controversy in the media around whether we should be exporting or not while our own programme is still under way. Pfizer certainly appears to have followed a degree of US Government direction in an ‘America first’ policy, but it is not clear what AZ is doing.
Government and AZ are releasing zero information
That’s sure to be the case; also this appears to confirm it.
Probably, all the drug companies are being directly threatened, by all countries that have more than 2p to rub together, with future “national heath service” purchasing contracts being “reviewed” unless they supply more vaccine to the said country, if necessary by shafting other countries which may or may not have placed orders earlier. This is now dog eat dog territory, total-national-interest stuff, to hell with decent commercial behaviour and to hell with the EU’s combined project, or whatever. Well, it is a crisis, and throwing money at it is cheap at 10x the price.
Good to see the UK is doing something right 
and getting AZ to make the Oxford stuff was clearly the right decision! But I am amazed they managed to get so much stuff out of Pfizer, too.
Israel also managed to get way more than was expected, by doing some sort of clever “joint research linked to getting the vaccine later” Now, that Israel did something clever does not surprise me at all.
LeSving wrote:
Exactly, and it’s now here as well, and existing vaccines have no effect on it. Good job UK !
Ive come across Norwegian deadpan humour before, so not sure if this is a “joke post” or not, but did you actually read that link? Its not about the strain found in Kent (which research so far suggests the vaccine works against), but the South African strain – Im all for bashing the UK, France, China, and anywhere else over the events of the last year, but do try to get the facts marginally right when doing it, even if its for comic effect!!
Regards, SD..
Peter wrote:
But I am amazed they managed to get so much stuff out of Pfizer, too.
I think if you place a good-sized firm order (and probably pay upfront) quite publicly before most other governments do, then it is quite hard even for Pfizer under US Government pressure to shaft what might be considered the launch customer. Being first with regulatory approval helped, because there was a period of a week or two where no other country was able to take delivery because they’d not approved it for use.
