Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Vaccination update

I went for my first jag & waited in the car till 5 minutes before my appointment time. Got inside the exhibition hall & joined a shuffling queue, it took 30 mins to get to the front. Not offered a mask I wore my own, just had to sanitise hands. The nurse wore mask, gloves & plastic apron. After my injection she discarded the gloves & apron. I have seen plenty of vaccination centres on the telly & most dont wear aprons. The French PM was jabbed by a nurse not wearing gloves or apron. It seems my centre is contributing to plastic pollution unnecessarily. After the jag I was given no proof of vaccination or appointment for 2nd dose only a general info leaflet.
I fill in daily the C-19 Zoe symptom tracker app & because I reported minor symptoms not on the list after the jag & have twice been asked to take a virus test. Ordered online & delivered to my home next day. PCR test registered online, conducted & put back in post with results - negative next day via text & email. I was impressed considering all the reports in early days folk waiting 5 days or more for results.

This is a good article about how the number of cases in schools are already escalating: Covid in School

On the plus side, the vast majority of kids are asymptomatic. They have 10 days at home, and then come back in.

On the minus side, it all adds to the figure, so may affect potential 'release dates' for lockdown, and they go home to infect family members.

Can't offer any solutions - I much prefer having the kids in school, and teaching face to face (or is it mask to mask )

interesting, thanks for the link Phil

As you say although thankfully the vast majority of young people infected by SARS-Cov2 have an asymptomatic infection they do contribute to overall numbers, the major downside of which is raising the risk of a new virus variant that shows reduced sensitivity to the immunity induced by current vaccines arising thereby increasing the possibility of both increased levels of Covid19 based hospitalisation and death in those over 50 who have accounted for all but ~1200 of the deaths seen in the UK to-date. It is important to remember that whilst current vaccines have very good levels of efficacy it is not 100% and it is still not clear the precise degree to which a fully vaccinated person is protected from being infected as opposed to being protected from disease. This means that as the fantastically successful vaccination programme in the UK reaches its conclusion any spread of infection from asymptomatic children will be into vaccinated adults where the major selective pressure on the virus will be for virus variants able to escape the immunity induced by the vaccines in the current vaccines.

It is also important to remember that all of the current licensed vaccines induce immunity against a single virion protein, the external peplomer or spike protein, using a variety of technologies that have in some cases only become available in the last few years (<5). This contrasts with traditional vaccine development strategies of the type used in Jenner's original smallpox vaccine or current poliovirus vaccines, where immunization is with whole virions, either live attenuated (Sabin's oral polio vaccine) or chemically inactivated (Salk's original polio vaccine). Whilst the new technologies used have crucial advantages in terms of speed and simplicity of modification and there is strong evidence from earlier work on both the original SARS-1 virus, MERS and some animal coronaviruses (eg: feline perotinitis virus) that spike is the predominant target that induces a protective immune response (what is often referred to in vaccine literature as the correlate of protection); it is also true that if you broaden the spectrum of viral proteins used in a vaccine formulation then you have a better chance that the broader immunity induced will be able to continue to provide protective immunity particularly if it transpires that some of the protective immunity generated by infection is directed against viral proteins other than spike protein. This is particularly true when detailed characterisation of the protective immune response to SARS-Cov2 infection has not yet been completed.

Finally with daily new infections seemingly having stabilised under current levels of lock-down at ~5000 a day, it is almost certainly unrealistic to expect any track/trace/isolate, much less the still only partially effective UK system, to be able to contain the spread of a new vaccine resistant virus variant if and when it is generated. Hence the importance of sticking to the 'slow and steady' roadmap for relaxation of restrictions.

Hope you find this information from a retired virologist useful.

Keep calm and stay safe.

Malcolm

Many thanks TBM for the schools article and Malcolm for the explanation - all very interesting with one very frightening line:

We're hoping the two week Easter holidays will give us a 'fire break' so we can start back at square one when they come back. That is obviously dependant on every family following the rules, which unfortunately very wishful thinking. We were informed by another school of a large party that took place on Friday that some of our students went too (Yrs 8 and 11) - the other school took the decision to continue inschool testing for another week. We had to waste time getting in touch with parents and double checked that they have done the correct tests at home and had negative results.

how likely is this? Seems like vaccines are essentially as effective against all variants as the "original variant" thus far?

The vast majority of these folks have all been vaccinated with the 1st dose, and over 2.5m with both doses, so the risk of NHS being overwhelmed is eliminated, isn't it?

So far the vaccines seem to work to protect against all the mutations... but that cannot be taken for granted.
Over the next 5 or more years we will see new strains appear and revised vaccines introduced, meaning an annual COVID jab.
The third wave across the EU could throw up another mutation that the existing vaccine doesn't protect from. Should that happen the only thing the UK government can do is follow the New Zealand model, close the borders as best they can until there is a new vaccine

Until all our neighbours have everyone over 16 vaccinated we cannot relax in any way. Even then until the world has been vaccinated there will remain significant risk associated with travel. The free movement of people almost anywhere on the planet we have enjoyed since the late 1960s is, in my view, over for the rest of my lifetime.

Invest in biotech, sell leisure and hospitality travel shares.....

The bottom line is that at some point there will be a risk level that will have to be carried and lived with. Variants that are occurring in the virus will vary from those that current vaccines will deal with whilst some will require vaccine modifications to deal with them. There will have to be monitoring of virus strains so that vaccines can be “tweaked”.
As time passes more data on long term vaccine effect will determine future needs for re-vaccination based on testing and checking on new strains of virus to see how vaccines cope with them.
My hope is that an organisation like WHO or similar are globally backed to watch for and investigate future outbreaks. I seem to remember Obama being keen for this but could be wrong.
I think we are in for a couple of years (maybe more) of readjustment to living with this virus. A global effort is needed, hence a logical move for a suitable overseeing organisation with as much depoliticising as possible.