I am stunned so few governments publish such "in the wild" data.
The only way to judge the effectiveness of measures is to see how many people have actually been infected, not to count "confirmed" cases.
For instance, it seems only 8.8% is confirmed (or 88k out of 1 million) [1] . Add that to the 69% vaccinated with at least one dose [2], and you get 77.8% accounted for, which is less than the 95% quoted.
Your implication is correct that the CDC chart is mostly incomparable to the OP. The chart tries to combine incomparable data, which annoyingly requires interpretation of the legend to understand correctly.
The circles indicate nucleocapsid (i.e., infection only) while the squares indicate spike (i.e., infection or vaccination).
So, Puerto Rico is 70% infected and/or vaccinated (a square). Whereas NY is 13% infected (a circle).
Note that the recent numbers in the CDC chart all seem to be measuring antibodies that only appear from infection, not vaccination (indicated by a circle instead of a square in the chart), while the numbers from the article appear to be measuring antibodies that appear from either infection or vaccination, so they are not directly comparable.
Yes. Which is annoying. Both can be measured, but apparently the commercial lab data only runs one of the two antibody tests.
There's also a blood bank antibody test. That's useful as a crosscheck. People who have blood drawn for medical purposes are in general sicker than average, and those who donate blood are healthier than average. So those set bounds on the measured values.
> I am stunned so few governments publish such "in the wild" data
[warning: tinfoil hat...] Can you think of an incentive for governments to be honest with such "in the wild" data?
If you were a senior politician trying to assist your government in driving up the vaccination rate, then publishing hard data that 94% of your population already have the antibiodies is hardly going to help, is it?
> The only way to judge the effectiveness of measures is to see how many people have actually been infected
Can anyone provide links to recent peer-reviewed primary sources that estimate the number of individuals who have been infected in the U.S.?
If ~70% of people are asymptomatic, and we assume just about everyone has been exposed to and infected by the virus - haven't we already achieved herd immunity in the U.S.?
EDIT: Answered in solid source provided by animats - the seroprevalance estimate for the U.S. is 21.6% (95% CI - 21.2% to 22.22%). I also found a couple recent primary sources regarding the asymptomatic rate, see thread below.
N=1, but I now know many people who have been vaccinated that have since been infected, where as up until recently I knew 2 people who got it this entire time (I'm in SF). One of these new people is a co-worker who got covid last year, then got Pfizer vaccinated, then got it again and almost was hospitalized. He's 29 and fit, and as far as I know, is not immunocompromised.
All the data shows that vaccination provides protection, but with all these new variants coming out (expect more over time), I don't believe herd immunity is any more possible than herd immunity with the flu or common cold.
> I don't believe herd immunity is any more possible than herd immunity with the flu or common cold.
This seems to me to be a very strange thing to say.
We know precisely what the pattern is for herd immunity in the case of a coronavirus, because four of them cause what you are calling a "common cold". It's endemic equilibrium. To my knowledge, there is no dispute among experts on this point.
So to say that we can't achieve herd immunity because of its similarity to a virus against which we are indeed herd immune is, at best, begging the question.
I know three people who got it twice and another who is a friend of a friend. Only one of those is known to be immunocompromised. Two of those got it the second time after also being vaccinated. I do wonder though if some of the second cases aren't people going in with the flu and having some covid fragments in their nose.
though nations like Australia that did flu checks last year estimated it was almost absent, and of those that tested positive very small percentages were vaccinated, so if its the flu, the covid vaccine is the best flu vaccine ever.
It's the default assumption given practically every other known virus, and is the core assumption of all epidemiological modeling. Somehow all what is known from epidemiology and virology has been thrown out of the window during COVID. If SARS-CoV-2 is somehow involved the sky is falling on us on any moment unless otherwise proven. Bizarre.
Don't know if they have a part in this, but at least it's extremely profitable for pharma to assume there's no immunity but what they provide.
I did some digging, here is the paper outlining the methods and data sources for the numbers on the page you linked to [1]. That paper cites two other papers used to estimate the asymptomatic proportion [2][3].
Here is a more recent systematic review [4], which estimates that at least 33% of infections are asymptomatic.
And another recent paper which estimates the lower bound for asymptomatic proportion (AP) to be 37%, with an upper bound of 67% [5]. "The estimated AP varied with age, from 74% (95% CI 65–90%) for < 20 years, to 61% (95% CI 57–65%) for the 50–59 years age-group." [5]
Asymptomatic is kind of a fuzzy concept so the numbers will vary based on methodology. If you test positive and then have a bit of diarrhea one day is that a COVID-19 symptom or the consequences of a bad burrito? In mild cases there's no way to be sure.
To clarify your point: this leads you to the conclusion that the asymptomatic proportion is likely under-estimated? And conversely, the symptomatic proportion is likely over-estimated?
If we assume everyone has been infected? Why would we assume that? The estimates I've seen (including asymptomatic) are around 1/3 infected. The source you cited is from 2020, so it doesn't tell us much about today.
Yup good catch about the old source, I removed that from my comment.
The source provided by animats puts the seroprevalence at 21.6% for the U.S. I think that should be a lower bound of the number of individuals who have been infected, given antibody levels wane over time (even though immunity does not necessarily wane).
The fact that more people are in the hospital in Florida right now than at any time in the last two years would seem to disprove any speculation of here immunity.
> The fact that more people are in the hospital in Florida right now than at any time in the last two years
THIS IS NOT TRUE.
The metric you are describing is hospital census, which is _not_ at an all-time high right now.
What is at an all time high? The percentage of people in the hospital who have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, regardless of their presentation.
The roundtable just yesterday confirmed that there are hospitals which have near 100% positivity, despite 80% presenting for things unrelated to a respiratory infection.
Some people are there for blunt trauma or routine surgery, but have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
I just don't understand the point of constantly misrepresenting this metric. It muddies the waters of actual concerns about the spread of the virus by making it seem like those are are concerned are dishonest.
I think the media is at least partly to blame for this. I have the greatest respect for the BBC, but look at this headline: Covid third wave: Florida surpasses all-time record for hospital admissions. Totally unsupported by the article. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58077209
With regards to metrics that are peaking, FT reports that "Occupancy in the south-eastern US state’s intensive care units is on course to hit an all-time high by this weekend." (But then again, I've no idea whether this is actually accurate since they don't cite their source. Besides, it's clearly an extrapolation.) https://www.ft.com/content/21ed4e9c-2b20-4a9d-bf38-6b76212be...
The first line of the article is "The number of Covid patients in Florida hospitals has risen to a new high, breaking records set during previous waves before vaccines were available."
Then, there's a quote to that effect from a doctor, specific to their hospital.
Right. The headline is about hospital census; the article does not support that point, and instead is about a different (and much less important, from a public health perspective) metric - admissions which are coincident with a positive test for a specific pathogen.
>I just don't understand the point of constantly misrepresenting this metric. It muddies the waters of actual concerns about the spread of the virus by making it seem like those are are concerned are dishonest.
>Stop it.
It's hopeless. The exact same thing happened last year, driven off of media that loved talking about how the local hospital is at the brink of collapse because "the ICU is 90% full". The few voices that pointed out that 90% ICU occupancy is a) normal and b) what hospitals plan for were overwhelmed.
The only time US hospitals anywhere were actually overrun with patients was a brief time in NYC in March 2020. Even that cleared up quickly; the US military hospital ship sent to NYC was barely used and soon left, and I don't believe the one sent to LA was used at all. All those tents built in hospital parking lots everywhere? Not used either.
> I just don't understand the point of constantly misrepresenting this metric. It muddies the waters of actual concerns about the spread of the virus by making it seem like those are are concerned are dishonest.
> Stop it.
That must be this "projection" I keep hearing about.
This probably explains the previously mysterious drop in Delta cases in the UK.
In the U.S. why shouldn't we just shoot for herd immunity now? Not sure how effective restrictions and mandates will be in slowing things down and the costs to mental health and quality of life are so high.
The US is absolutely shooting for herd immunity now. Its just a question of how individual members of the herd want to achieve their immunity. They can take the easy way (vaccination) or the hard way (get Covid).
I don't know why you're being downvoted. Established, tenured experts from every single one of the world's top medical institutions have expressed agreement with this statement (and also some in apparent opposition).
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbvO4sUg1eA (Gupta is a pioneer of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford and has broken ground on a new platform for generic influenza vaccination which is very exciting)
* https://twitter.com/MartinKulldorff/status/13716384856863580... (note: In addition to his decades at Harvard researching vaccine safety, Kulldorff served two terms on a CDC vaccine technical subgroup - he is certainly in the very top echelon of experts on the topic of your comment)
That seems like the stupidest lottery to enter into however.
Even people without an "underlying health condition" have died. And even those who haven't died are experiencing long term complications from having had COVID.
So you can either hope you don't have a hard time with COVID if you catch it. Or you can drastically reduce your chances of having a hard time and of catching it all by just taking a couple minutes out of your day to get vaccinated.
Sorry, while I do like to gamble in general, if the penalties include death and/or permanent disability, I'm going with the option that makes that less likely. Which is the vaccine.
I have two people on my team who are both in their mid-20s. Both have had covid in the last couple of weeks, one hadn't had his vaccine the other only his first dose. The one without ended up in hospital for 2 weeks and was very nearly intubated. The other had a mild cough and has happily worked through it. I know which one I'd pick.
And without in-depth diagnostics to know both parties health state (not just shallow visual "they look healthy/are active") then you're making huge assumption as to if it was result of vaccine or not; and that ideology, lack of critical thinking, is why society is in the state we're; this will get downvoted too if it gets any exposure, another sign society is askew - because I'm correct in my statement but people who are ideological don't like being proven wrong.
But based on statistical evidence alone, borne out by millions of data points, not a single solitary anecdote, the vaccine works to protect you from the worse of COVID if you catch it at all.
You decry a "lack of critical thinking", but don't apply any yourself. It's just a cudgel to you to use against people who don't agree with you. Consider the simple fact that you may be wrong.
And look at you, boosting every huckster claim but ignoring the one thing that is shown to work on a large scale. Would it soothe your feelings if we just said the vaccine was an ivermectin hcq cocktail?
Because it looks like you want to "them" to be wrong more than anything else.
From an individual point of view, where are you going to go for a in-depth health assessment? Presumably the same doctor who would recommend in the strongest terms that you get the vaccine unless you have a history of certain clotting disorders or are using particular medication. Unless you seek out a doctor on the fringes of established medical fact.
The fact is that contracting COVID is the worst possible way to achieve protection from COVID.
And at some point, you're just classifying everyone as having some sort of "factor". Which isn't useful either. If everyone has a factor, then factors don't matter. Especially if you have a factor that isn't obvious, like Vitamin D deficiency.
And like I implied, healthy, young people have been hospitalized with COVID and some of those have died. Just like some with "factors" have done ok.
But the one thing that reduces complications with a very, very high degree of success is the vaccine. It even reduces your chances of contracting the disease itself.
Not getting the vaccine is entering yourself in the stupidest lottery in history.
Vaccines are great and very effective at preventing bad outcomes, but let's be realistic about risks. Very few people without an underlying health condition have died.
94.9% of hospitalizations had an underlying health condition. Mainly high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes.
You do know that about half of all people in the U.S. classify as having hypertension, right? It's not uncommon. People who look perfectly healthy and feel like nothing is wrong can have it.
You probably have it.
So if we're being "realistic about risks", we have to acknowledge that roughly half of all people who get COVID are going to have at least one "underlying health condition".
Not really. Officially and unofficially they are pushing everyone to the vaccine. People who have antibodies are still getting fired from their jobs because they didn't take the vaccine. There's even talk of requiring the vaccine for some schools, regardless of prior infection status. So the US is not shooting for herd immunity through either means, but only through vaccination. Even federal employees are being required to attest to their vaccinated status without similar options for those with antibodies acquired by other means.
I'm saying that the parent's comment about pushing for herd immunity through both means is not exactly true. We are moving towards herd immunity by both methods unintentionally, but the only method being pushed is vaccination. So much so, that antibodies derived from infection are not even being counted, but rather those persons are being told they need the vaccine anyways.
It's a bit like measuring outputs rather than outcomes.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Are you saying that we should be “pushing for herd immunity through both means” as in we should be pushing for vaccinations and pushing people to spread the disease as fast as possible?
I'm simply stating the claim that US is pushing for herd immunity through the choice of infection of vaccination is not true. That only vaccination is being pushed, and it is not exactly a free choice if you're going to lose your job or be denied service over it.
What this shows is that a single dose administered to a previously infected person provides greater antibody production than a non infected person's recieving two doses. The study also says that they are unsure if those higher levels affect a patient's ability to get sick or transmit the virus.
What I would be looking for is a study showing that prior infection has x% effectiveness as measured against a vaccine on a similar timeline.
I have a link to one below. My guess is corporate lawyers who want to limit liability without any understanding of the underlying issues.
Even my job has said that you have to be vaccinated to return (limited medical and religious exceptions). They also said it wouldn't make sense to keep the unvaccinated people working remotely, implying that they will fire people. They are not accepting antibody tests.
You can reach herd immunity on any one strain - but as we've seen, the virus can mutate faster than we can reach herd immunity.
The arrival of delta (and the other four or five major strains) signal that that theory flat-out will not work, the virus is mutating faster than we are reaching herd immunity. By the time we actually reach full herd immunity, we will have strains that the vaccine only provides significantly diminished protection against - we are arguably already getting there with Delta.
> Why have all the field hospitals been destroyed as fast as they were put up?
Take your pick from:
a) They were a bit of a PR gimmick? Better for gov't to be seen to do _something_ than standing around wringing your hands and hoping things will improve...?
b) They couldn't be staffed and equipped to provide appropriate and useful additional care?
c) General hospitals were perhaps not quite as close to being overwhelmed as was reported?
There were stories that German hospitals may have been slightly economical with the truth in terms of obtaining additional funding for ICU beds, which perhaps weren't needed or even ever created[0]
I think the argument is a fallacy in general. For people that keep making this argument: Stop beating around the bush and just come out and say you want zero covid at all costs.
We don't have enough doctors and nurses to staff the ICU beds bolted to the floors of the hospital.
Those field hospitals are surge capacity; and work with hurricanes and earthquakes where a single part of the country is affected. You can bring in volunteers and reservists from other areas to create capacity.
When the emergency is everywhere, and on-going, all of your surge capacity is gone.
The emergency has been everywhere and ongoing for almost 2 years now. At what point do they make an effort and the government says "Hey, let's permanently bolster our hospital systems. We'll hire X amount of 'surge' staff, create X amount of 'surge' beds".
But we don't do that. Instead we act surprised every time there's a surge, the media feeds off it and everyone starts infighting. I'm not convinced hospital capacity is really the problem people say it is.
IMO an even more important question is, why aren't we pursuing early outpatient treatment with combinations of existing over the counter medicines?
Such techniques have proven to be very effective at preventing hospitalization and death for SARS-CoV-2 [1][2], yet you will rarely find anyone advocating for them.
The papers I've cited are some of the most highly cited in the literature, with world-wide support from experts at top institutions who are actually treating COVID-19 patients.
These alternatives to vaccination are likely more palatable for the anti-vax crowd, and can help prevent over-utilization of precious medical resources.
> why aren't we pursuing early outpatient treatment with combinations of existing over the counter medicines
Doesn't this come back (yet again) to the financial incentives?
Go to FDA.gov and read up on "Emergency Use Authorization"[0]:
> FDA may authorize unapproved medical products or unapproved uses of approved medical products to be used in an emergency to diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions caused by CBRN threat agents when certain criteria are met, including there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.
If it were to turn out that an existing (possibly cheap? maybe even a generic?
) over-the-counter medicine is a good treatment for C19 then that would undercut the business plans of Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and co.
Asking "cui bono" has never been more appropriate.
We can hope. Some people have already become ill from COVID more than once.[1] This is rare, but it happens. Immunity from vaccination seems to be stronger than immunity from having the disease, but it's too early to be sure. How long vaccine immunity lasts is an open question. So far, it's at least N months, where N is how long the vaccines have been in wide use. Beyond that is speculation.
> Immunity from vaccination seems to be stronger than immunity from having the disease, but it's too early to be sure
Unless anyone can cite peer-reviewed sources that indicate otherwise, there doesn't appear to be any conclusive evidence on this point. In fact these publications provide evidence that naturally acquired immunity is just as effective as vaccination [1][2] ([2] hasn't been peer-reviewed yet).
> How long vaccine immunity lasts is an open question. So far, it's at least N months, where N is how long the vaccines have been in wide use. Beyond that is speculation.
I'm interested in recent peer-reviewed literature supporting this point, and would be grateful if anyone could share links.
It's unachievable in the US. Not enough people willing to get vaccinated. The bar for herd immunity is predicted at 80% or higher if covid keeps mutating to become more infectious. Measles had a 95% herd immunity threshold so who knows where covid could finally land.
Measles is one of the most infectious pathogens known to man with an R0 between 10 and 15. Even with the delta variant, COVID doesn't seem as transmissible so the threshold should be closer to 80 than 95.
The overwhelming majority of children in the US receive the MMR jab either due to public school pressure or immigration policy. It is unlikely that COVID vaccination will ever reach the same levels, despite sufficient abundance of vaccine supply to play vaccine diplomacy around the world.
Meanwhile we have Australia deploying the military to enforce acute lockdowns because they failed to secure enough vaccines early on.
Florida is threatening defunding schools that seek to require masks. Just masks. COVID vaccination has become a political expression of personal freedom.
I don't know, at the rate we're going it feels like they'll require 5 year olds to have the Covid vaccines to attend public school after finishing a five month, phase I trial in 3,000 kids.
The real answer is that schools probably should not open at all. They are basically ideal breeding grounds for the virus - kids are gross and spread everything to begin with, plus you have 30 kids sitting in close proximity, communal lunch-halls, crowded hallways, overcrowded bus transportation... and in higher grades you shuffle the contact groups an additional 7x per day as people change classes. It is literally the absolute ideal environment that you would design if you wanted to breed the disease - big groups, shuffled frequently, with no social distancing and kids who probably couldn't execute social distancing anyway.
The short answer is that schools probably should not be open at all. Even with the vaccine, you are talking about a disease that (even in mild cases) is known to cause subtle long-term damage to organs, it's really not a good idea to tempt fate in a growing kid, particularly with the potential for multiple recurring infections over time from different strains.
If you did want to re-open schools safely, you would have to require vaccinations, you would also have to restructure significant parts of the school "experience" - like having classes and bus transportation be significantly smaller and more spaced out, having class groups stay fixed and having teachers move between class groups rather than vice versa, etc. And all of that would be far more expensive - we would need more teachers, more classrooms, more busses, etc.
The reality is we're just throwing kids under the bus to die, because it would be expensive and inconvenient to do it right, and we can't not reopen schools because a lot of people depend on it as daycare and because a lot of people have decided we're "back to normal" regardless of what happens with future variants. Just like people have decided that we're done with masks and they're not putting them back on ever again, regardless of what the CDC says.
Every wave in Poland happened roughly 3 weeks of opening schools (with new school year or after a lockdown).
There were just 3 waves and there wasn't a 4th one after last opening, but this might be due to vaccinations (esp of teachers) and horrible first 3 waves that might have infected most children and their families.
> The reality is we're just throwing kids under the bus to die
What the hell are you talking about? The CDC has said children are at less risk of death from Covid-19 than they are from influenza. Were we "throwing them under the bus to die" when we opened schools in every year before 2020 without masks and "stay apart from your biohazard friends" social distancing?
> we can't not reopen schools because a lot of people depend on it as daycare and because a lot of people have decided we're "back to normal" regardless of what happens with future variants
No, it's because an education is a fundamental human right which is being denied to children, and the policy of closing schools has caused immense damage to their learning and mental health for practically zero benefit in reducing the harm caused by the virus.
Schools are no different from any other mass gathering - if you practice social distancing, it's relatively safe. On the other hand, various states are already hard at work banning schools from even requiring masks, and schools simply are not built for social distancing, and a mass return to school while maintaining social distancing would require substantial expansions of school buildings, buses, staff, etc. We don't want to spend that money so we are just going to give up on the social distancing instead.
Where people mask up, and when the area has low covid levels, students don't spread that much. Once the area takes off, the schools do indeed spread. (Which is kind of an obvious statement when you think about it, like of course kids don't magically have COVID when nobody else does, but also that they can spread it once an area starts getting a significant infection rate.)
I don't think going back to school in a state that has banned schools from masking up, during the surge of delta variant we're currently undergoing, is particularly safe at all, no.
> No, it's because an education is a fundamental human right which is being denied to children, and the policy of closing schools has caused immense damage to their learning and mental health for practically zero benefit in reducing the harm caused by the virus.
It's great that you have such strongly-held values! Then you won't mind spending the money to expand schools appropriately so a safe environment can be maintained, since the education of children is such a critical social outcome.
Like, I remember my high school and 25 kids was a small class, and hell no we weren't 6 feet apart. Explain to me how we get 2500 people 6 feet away from each other in a building that was designed to serve 2000 students that are 2 feet away from each other. That's the question that has to be answered to reopen safely.
Once schools are reopen en-masse, instead of just a limited basis (that allows spacing), we're going to have to address that capacity problem. Or more realistically, we just won't, and if the kids spread then oh well.
Just trying to imagine the thought process that leads one to conclude -- given everything we know about Covid and its (lack of) harm to children, and the widespread availability of protective vaccines to any teachers & staff who want one -- that the thing we should do is spend vast resources stretching the size of every school building, classroom, and bus to ensure people can remain 6 feet apart at all times, in perpetuity. And that we shouldn't reopen schools until we do this. It's really something!
We should scan their brains to enure there's no damage. Or we may find out with a crime wave in 20 years (like with lead) that we didn't protect our children adequately.
The idea that children can be prevented from contracting SARS-CoV-2 in perpetuity is a scientific/technological fantasy tale. We don't even have sterilizing vaccines.
That would be child abuse. A lack of socialization and proper education is a greater risk to children than a minor respiratory virus. Remote learning isn't an adequate replacement.
So far 55% or so have been fully vaccinated. 83 million, or 25% of the population, is estimated by the CDC to have been infected. I would guess we are getting fairly close to 70%, but it's hard to say what the overlap between those two numbers is. If it's really as contagious as they say, then it's only a matter of time before we hit 80%. The issue will then be the distribution by location and how long the protection lasts.
Isn’t that what is happening? I was just in the US for a couple weeks (Portland, OR) and rules were minimal and optional everywhere. Not the kind of thing that would drive mental health issues, as best I could tell.
We seem to be trying to "flatten the curve" and "slow the spread" to needlessly take extra long to get to the same final place - natural herd immunity.
I wouldn't say needlessly. There are people in towns near my city that would normally be transported to the cities ICUs, but they can't because there is no room. People say the tests or the vaccine don't work but no one claims more than 3 percent of their hospitalized covid cases have been previously vaccinated. So, whatever the test tests for, the vaccine mostly prevents, and that thing is taking up way too many of my counties hospital beds. We can call it the flu, or the cold, or the vapors, but I wish everyone would go get their vapors vaccine so people who get in car wrecks could get fixed up in a timely manner.
It makes sense to impose restrictions where vaccination rates are low and ICUs are being filled up (or will be filled up due to continued growth in cases over the coming weeks in the absence of restrictions).
That's not the case in the SF Bay Area where vaccination rates are very high, keeping hospitalizations and ICU use low, yet mask mandates were reimposed here. We have plenty of ICU capacity.
Come on. It's because when we were trying to flatten the curve, there were far too many people who denied it was anything more serious than the flu and didn't take any precautions.
Same with slowing the spread. People did not listen.
Because they were "free critical thinkers who can reach their own conclusions thank you very much". And they were wrong. And now they've put us here.
> there were far too many people who denied it was anything more serious than the flu and didn't take any precautions.
Well apparently quite a number of people must have taken precautions, because that's the explanation for why the flu has basically disappeared off the face of the earth.
Great source and includes the downloadable data, thanks for sharing.
> While antibody positivity in the oldest age groups remains high, it decreased slightly in some regions and countries. This means that some people in these groups did not have enough antibodies to be detected in the test, not that they do not have any immune protection against the virus.
I found that sentence intriguing, here is the link they recommend for more information to explain why people might still have immune protection even with low (undetectable) levels of antibodies [1].
Useful overview for the UK.[1] This is the Financial Times chart of cases and deaths by state and country, updated daily since early 2020. Things to notice:
* UK cases spike. They go from 3 cases per 100K people in May to 71 cases per 100K in mid-July. That's the increased R0 of the Delta variant in action. Now they're declining rapidly, down to 39 cases per 100K people. Keep watching that graph; that shows herd immunity starting to take effect.
* US cases are way up, too, but started later than in the UK. The US curve is still going up, following the UK curve, but about a month behind. That's why medical authorities are saying the next two months will be really bad in the US.
* The US has about the same case rate as Tunisia, but a far lower death rate. Without good medical care, this is a killer disease.
Amazing to see that the UK has >90% positive vaccine sentiment, and close to 90% with at least one dose of vaccines now. Am I reading that right? How did they manage to avoid the politicization of the issue that is keeping people from getting the shot in other Western countries?
There were a few things that strike me (I'm British) as being quite relevant.
The first is that from very early on the PM was flanked by medical professionals who appeared to be apolitical and were considered by all 'sides' on the vaccine debate to be honest (even if their opinions were sometimes contentious). That credibility meant they were listened to.
The second is that the NHS is almost a religion over here - this contributes to the medical profession being extremely well trusted.
In many places in the world the frontline medical staff are trusted but the system isn't. We're lucky here in that largely both aspects retain their respect. Note that I'm not commenting on other nations health systems or their population's opinion of it. We (the UK) are not unique in having reasonable healthcare; this is more about our high perception of the system providing it.
Finally, as a society we are very compliant, and also with the not-for-profit AZ vaccine there was a certain feeling of a national champion who was also helping to save the world.
They had Wakefield creating antivaxxers and then they had a journalist that got to the bottom of his BS. This expose was highly publicised so people got through into their heads that antivaxx is BS.
Wakefield then ran away to US and Brits lived happily ever after ... till Brexit.
I think the number is more like 50 odd percent of the population? I think the 90% number is of some limited subset like "adults who have received at least shot"?
... actually implies that we do not need widespread vaccination campaigns.
But guess what stocks the members of your government have in their depot and you bet they make sure you get your jab and the booster and the update and another booster ...
this data arguably shows that the choice really is between vaccination (+possibly weak infection) and infection. We can't hide from the virus.
This doesn't mean that the only choice is opening up everything, but eventually... yes. Concious governments should first try to get more people vaccinated. Long covid is too frequent, otherwise. (400k have it in UK, see: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/01/almost-400000-ha... )
Q: Is there something about this that we need to worry about particularly?
I ask in the context of having had the Epstein-Barr virus in my late 30s and having been essentially knocked completely flat by it for the best part of a month, and not having recovered to full fitness for several months more.
When I was a child, my Dad had shingles (apparently for the first time) in his late 40s, he was really quite poorly, that also took him months to get over.
Endemic viruses already do this stuff, if you've even had a proper dose of seasonal flu you'll know what I'm taking about.
Is there a reason (and non-anecdotal data...) to specifically worry about the long-term effects of C19 _more_ than all the other endemic viruses?
Wait… who has the bad haircuts? The UK or the rest?
Because as a rural-by-birth American who has travelled a bit, I’d say Berlin beats London or even urban USA in their awful haircut percentage by a wide margin. But nobody can top central Indiana, USA for sheer quantity of nasty-ass mullets with scraggly mustaches.
Now it begins the game of how many times will everyone get it, and every bit of immunity and slowing the spread helps so when we arrive at a variant that spreads as easily as chicken pox that is also accidentally as lethal as SARS, we will have vaccine for this specific variant delivered faster than people die.
The only way to judge the effectiveness of measures is to see how many people have actually been infected, not to count "confirmed" cases.
For instance, it seems only 8.8% is confirmed (or 88k out of 1 million) [1] . Add that to the 69% vaccinated with at least one dose [2], and you get 77.8% accounted for, which is less than the 95% quoted.
[1] - https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
[2] - https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...