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Covid-19 #25: The Prisoner’s Dilemma


Fragile Bird

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8 minutes ago, Impmk2 said:

I can guarantee this will not happen. Even if the vaccine does completely block transmission where it is effective (unknown), a 90% efficacy still means 1:10 infected will still become symptomatic and potentially infectious. With a still completely unvaccinated high risk population in those countries it'd be negligent to the extreme to risk an outbreak at this stage (quite aside from also being politically suicidal). 

Once vaccinations of those high risk populations happen it'll be a different story.

Maybe, hopefully it will allow us to establish a travel bubble between AU and NZ sooner rather than later. Leakages from quarantine notwithstanding, we have an extremely low risk of passing the virus between our two countries even without vaccination. So with vaccination added, we should be able to establish a travel bubble pretty quickly and fairly soon. So long as we have common quarantine policies for arrivals from outside the bubble we should be good to go fairly soon.

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Just now, The Anti-Targ said:

Maybe, hopefully it will allow us to establish a travel bubble between AU and NZ sooner rather than later. Leakages from quarantine notwithstanding, we have an extremely low risk of passing the virus between our two countries even without vaccination. So with vaccination added, we should be able to establish a travel bubble pretty quickly and fairly soon. So long as we have common quarantine policies for arrivals from outside the bubble we should be good to go fairly soon.

Yeah I would like this to happen soon, the main problems at the moment seem to be political. Australian states seem intent on slamming shut borders with each other when minor outbreaks occur. The NZ government didn't seem happy when Australia as a whole did that during the NZ quarantine leakage late last year.

With regards to vaccinations and travel I imagine there'll be a gradual relaxation of the rules over time as vaccinations roll out here - in the first instance quarantine free travel of vaccinated individuals from lower risk countries (mostly Asian ones), but still with some mandatory testing in the couple weeks after arrival.

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NZ radio personality promotes COVID anti-vax/anti-mask website, then whines about free speech when a newspaper starts asking him about it, and he says "I'm only asking questions".

I don't like swearing, but I think it is fair to say gosh darn him to heck!! Apologies for the outburst, but I feel that strongly.

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On 2/9/2021 at 3:51 PM, Fragile Bird said:

Question: will governments mandate vaccine usage? I assume China will, who else?

I don't think it will happen, even if it's in the mind of many politicians who misunderstand what these vaccines do. As far the evidence goes, vaccines are unlikely to stop transmission chains. As noted above, vaccines have still a 1-in-10 chances to fail. And there is the whole issue with the mutants...

I think many politicians are extrapolating the success of the classic vaccines (smallpox, polio, measles, etc) to any vaccine. Which is wrong. I've read for example the efficacy of the flu vaccine is anywhere between 15% to 50%. I got myself a bad case of the flu a year ago despite vaccination.

Also, do not forget the political aspect aside. Forcing them down the throat will only enrage the population. How long until another populist take the lead and get elected based on that platform? I think it will be counterproductive, but with politicians one never knows.

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Well the talk in the UK is potentially having vaccination passports, and I think this is something already being developed in other countries.

So even if having a vaccine isn’t mandatory, by compelling people to have the jab if they want to travel, it sort of will be mandatory for a lot of people

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16 hours ago, Zorral said:

Thank you, that was a really fascinating article. The point about the advantage of everyone knowing if they had it was great.

And I also very much believe in the seasonality of this virus. What I liked about this article was that it more or less also said, that not only that the virus is seasonal, but also that a wave takes about 3 months. If this were true, we (Europeans and North Americans) should be at the end of the winter wave now, and save (more or less) till fall. Until then a large proportion of the population is vaccinated, - hopefully with a vaccine that works about the variants of the next winter wave. We will then hopefully fall into a balance with the virus, like with the flu (with a new vaccination every year) and learn to live with it.

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On 2/9/2021 at 9:21 PM, Caligula_K3 said:

I have a question for those of you who are more science-minded or up to date with research; I've looked in traditional media and can't find an explanation anywhere. Why have new COVID cases been dropping so dramatically across the USA and Canada in the past month? I get that we're past the Christmas bump, but the numbers are lower in many places than they've been in months, including in places that don't seem to have any social distancing measures in place, like Florida. It doesn't seem vaccination numbers are high enough (definitely not in Canada) to explain this, and kids have been back in school in most places for a month. Any ideas?

There is something called "heterogeneous herd immunity". In the case of COVID, when a big chunk of the most socially active population have gotten infected, it gets hard to create further transmission chains. This is of course unstable as people are changing their behaviour in response to the perceived threat.

The first projections back in March 2020 with millions of deaths until 70% gets infected are impossible, even if people and governments do nothing (which is also impossible). The reason is the period for infection is limited, people aren't instantaneously infected and people have a limited social circle. So, you have waves.

And there is a seasonality factor.

 

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43 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Well the talk in the UK is potentially having vaccination passports, and I think this is something already being developed in other countries.

So even if having a vaccine isn’t mandatory, by compelling people to have the jab if they want to travel, it sort of will be mandatory for a lot of people

I thought the UK government had ruled out covid passports, on the basis that you csn get proof from your GP (which is standsrd anyway when travelling to a country with specific vaccine requirements).

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9 hours ago, Impmk2 said:

I can guarantee this will not happen. Even if the vaccine does completely block transmission where it is effective (unknown), a 90% efficacy still means 1:10 infected will still become symptomatic and potentially infectious. With a still completely unvaccinated high risk population in those countries it'd be negligent to the extreme to risk an outbreak at this stage (quite aside from also being politically suicidal). 

Once vaccinations of those high risk populations happen it'll be a different story.

Yeah. Australia and NZ shouldn't loosen the grip until next spring, when they should have their risk population vaccinated. The risk of creating an outbreak is too high, vaccines or not.

It is different with S. Africa and S. American countries. There winter is approaching fast and the best way to face it is too have at least their risk population vaccinated. Chile and Argentina are going into that direction.

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1 minute ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

I thought the UK government had ruled out covid passports, on the basis that you csn get proof from your GP (which is standsrd anyway when travelling to a country with specific vaccine requirements).

Gove has said it’s not the plan, which means it probably is the plan.  Grant Schapps has mentioned the idea.

Im just going to assume it will happen at this point.

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2 minutes ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

didn't South Africa's second wave peak in the middle of their summer?

Yes. First wave peaked in mid winter (July) and the much worse second wave peaked in mid summer (January). Our health minister has already said that a third wave in winter is inevitable - we will not receive enough vaccine to vaccinate the high risk population by winter in addition to compliance to non pharmaceutical interventions being very poor.

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15 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Yes. First wave peaked in mid winter (July) and the much worse second wave peaked in mid summer (January). Our health minister has already said that a third wave in winter is inevitable - we will not receive enough vaccine to vaccinate the high risk population by winter in addition to compliance to non pharmaceutical interventions being very poor.

Interesting.  Seasonality seems very important but South Africa is definitely not tracking with that.  I wonder is the bigger wave happening in your summer due to this "South Africa" variant?  Being more transmissible.  This video blames Christmas also.

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Just now, Padraig said:

Interesting.  Seasonality seems very important but South Africa is definitely not tracking with that.  I wonder is the bigger wave happening in your summer due to this "South Africa" variant?  Being more transmissible.  This video blames Christmas also.

Most likely it was due to the increased transmissibility of the new variant which very quickly became the dominant variant circulating in the country in addition to the end of year partying at the coast which resulted in several super spreader events.

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2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I don't think it will happen, even if it's in the mind of many politicians who misunderstand what these vaccines do. As far the evidence goes, vaccines are unlikely to stop transmission chains. As noted above, vaccines have still a 1-in-10 chances to fail. And there is the whole issue with the mutants...

I think many politicians are extrapolating the success of the classic vaccines (smallpox, polio, measles, etc) to any vaccine. Which is wrong. I've read for example the efficacy of the flu vaccine is anywhere between 15% to 50%. I got myself a bad case of the flu a year ago despite vaccination.

Also, do not forget the political aspect aside. Forcing them down the throat will only enrage the population. How long until another populist take the lead and get elected based on that platform? I think it will be counterproductive, but with politicians one never knows.

I might be wrong, but most democratic countries have laws that require informed consent for any medical procedure, so despite what some types of people say, all of the countries in which those types of people live will almost certainly have laws that prevent the govt from forcing us to do anything. Of course, many businesses and govt departments that operate in high risk situations, like hospitals, rest ho,mes and at the border (in our case at least) may make vaccination a condition of employment. Those people will still have a choice not to be vaccinated, but it will mean at least reassignment away from frontline positions if they chose not to.

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9 minutes ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

vaccinations are already mandatory in a lot of countries. Except that some don't have any sanctions for failure to comply. But some ban unvaccinated children from schools etc.

The issue is how low or high should be the bar for those mandatory vaccines. If it's against polio, measles, mumps, etc is a story. It's against the flu quite another.  In the first set of diseases vaccines have been extremely successful, in the second their performance is quite mediocre. We don't know yet in what category covid19 vaccines will fall.

Again, by mandating vaccines this early, they might shooting in the foot and giving a false sense of security.

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5 hours ago, JoannaL said:

he virus is seasonal, but also that a wave takes about 3 months.

I 'feel' a seasonal connection too, but still -- here, the huge surge in wake of the August, Sturgis, South Dakota motorcycle rally, following the July Mt. Rushmore rally.  

And earlier in 2020, the massive surge following New Orleans Mardi Gras, which is when that theory says infection slows down?  This year the New Orleans mayor has shut the whole shebang down.  Nothin'.  Nothin' at all.  Bars closed.  Bourbon Street closed.  No parades.  Nothin'.  She's not having that again.

 

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A little warning about what can happen when you aren’t looking.

Canada’s 4 Atlantic provinces have had the best success keeping Covid-19 at bay. They have small populations and are relatively isolated. PEI is an island, Newfoundland is an island and their mainland portion, Labrador, is northern and isolated, Nova Scotia is a peninsula, and New Brunswick is bordered by forests or ocean.

Newfoundland, until Monday, had reported about 440 cases to date. The majority of the cases happened in the spring, when an infected person came home from travels, asymptomatic, and attended two large funeral services, infecting more than 150 people. After a few days of a dozen cases, infections slowed to ones and twos and zero days. Four days ago all of a sudden they reported 11 cases, the highest number since the spring, then three days ago 30 cases, then 53 cases two days ago and 100 cases yesterday. I assume today will be another big number. Of the first 94, 44 are people under the age of 20. They went from 16 active cases in the province on Sunday to 210 on Thursday.

I caught an interview with their chief public health officer, and she said almost everyone has been asymptomatic. They fear Covid-19 has been silently spreading throughout the south western area of the province, in and around the capital city, St. John’s, and the Avalon peninsula. They have a provincial election on Saturday, but polling station workers have quit in droves, so the election is being held in two parts because you can’t hold an election without workers. And of course, Canada has no vaccine, Newfoundland has received 17,475 doses so far, 1.89% of the population is vaccinated.

ETA: another 50 cases today.

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6 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

I thought the UK government had ruled out covid passports, on the basis that you csn get proof from your GP (which is standsrd anyway when travelling to a country with specific vaccine requirements).

I think they meant there were no plans for 'vaccine passports' to give people who've been vaccinated license to no longer follow lockdown restrictions. In terms of international travel that's obviously down to whatever restrictions the destination country wants to put in place but it seems pretty likely vaccination requirements are going to become pretty widespread.

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