BristolUK

English football grounds are packed with maskless people. It's outdoors but you've got 20 to 30 people within 6 foot when seated and bottlenecks at entrances and queues in enclosed areas.

Last week I saw a game from Madrid on TV and another from Sevilla. Spain dropped their mandates about a month ago but the majority of people in all the crowd shots at both venues were masked up. Except for the West Ham fans.

Pulaski

As both cases and hospitalizations are rising sharply again in the UK after the covid restrictions were almost entirely lifted (who saw that coming? ), I wonder which group is going to be the first to complain that "this was caused by the lifting of restrictions" and/or that "the government should have warned us"?

printer

Well of course they are blaming it on the latest Omicron sub variant which is according to some professor as contagious as measles which is the most contagious of all diseases. The problem with these super spreader variants is that masks don't really do much to cut down the numbers unless everyone is wearing a N95 or equivalent and wearing them correctly, however wearing something like that for an entire shift in Tesco, Waitrose or any business for that matter is a hard sell. I know nurses who are not keen on wearing masks at all times while at work and find them stuffy and irritating for long periods but of course they don't have a choice. Some people have criticized those that complain and likened it to wearing safety gear on a work site, except when you apply for that construction job you know hard hats and steel toes are quite possibly mandatory. How many medical professionals would have thought that they would ALL be mandated to wear masks at ALL times during their shift when they applied for their job all those years ago, let alone cashiers in banks and grocery stores where the whole idea would have been laughable 3 years ago.

Pulaski

I suspect that with around 75% of the population vaccinated, the lifting of masking requirements and other restrictions, was a calculated decision made knowing full well that the virus would likely run free among the unvaccinated population. More fool them.

ArthurBrit

The vaccinated seem to have a dwindling protection.

Studies have shown that the effectiveness of the vaccine, at least as a prevention to contracting COVID is not as long lasting as they would like, and you are about 33 times more likely to contract COVID than someone that has natural immunity.

I don't mean to frighten people or start any kind of bad information with this post but in my opinion it seems to me that the governments/medical decision makers feel that it's time to get the general population, natural immunities as the risk is relatively low with this strain combined with the vaccination rate. In other words, expect to get sick, don't expect major illness.

Protective immunity after recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection - The Lancet Infectious Diseases

Interpret this data as you see fit.

Almost Canadian

How dare you rely upon science!

BristolUK

I had to read this about three times to try to understand what you're saying. It looks like you mean a person recovering from covid infection (not having died from getting it and hopefully not having long covid to cause them problems later) has a 33 times better protection rate than a vaccinated person. I can't see anywhere in the link that says that.

I am, however, aware of a very limited study - just California if memory serves - where some people had slightly better protection having survived covid than those having the vaccine but the researchers pointed out that the numbers studied skewed the results because more of them had covid recently than had vaccines recently and vaccine protection had more time to wane.

bats

The referenced literature review says this

Acquired immunity from vaccination is certainly much safer and preferred. Given the evidence of immunity from previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, however, policy makers should consider recovery from previous SARS-CoV-2 infection equal to immunity from vaccination for purposes related to entry to public events, businesses, and the workplace, or travel requirements.

so they are about equal but vaccine created immunity is safer and preferred

ArthurBrit

Yeah, the review is still favorable of people getting the vaccine, that's not what I'm getting at.

What I mean is when we apply this data to current governments policies it seems that after encouraging a booster shot followed by the easing of restrictions. Unless they come up with another round of booster shots, or come out with another plan, the chance of reinfection will grow with time, as it's long term effectiveness wanes.

Please don't forget that the data they have is limited as most people have only had the vaccine for about a year anyway, but as the data is already showing drop off in effectiveness I doubt there would be a turnaround and it's more likely to drop off further and quicker with time (again this is a prediction not backed up by data).

Pulaski

I am reasonably certain that we are heading for a future with annual covid booster shots, like the annual flu shots which have long been popular in the US.

Another booster is already in development which is an actual improvement over the existing vaccines, and is designed to give better immunity for the known variants, and possibly future variants.

ArthurBrit

Yeah the trick with the booster approach though is that it wont have the same amount of social pressure over it. They wont mandate it, have vaccine cards for it, fire people for not getting it, or socially persecute people for not getting the booster. Therefore uptake won't be at 90% levels and probably similar (maybe a little more after this) than the regular flu shot.

Almost Canadian

Time will tell but I don't think that annual booster shots will be required.

It appears that the large parts of the world are now in the endemic stage, whereby new variants are more transmissible but less potent. If people have been able to survive to this point, they will likely be able to survive any future variant. Of course, there will be individual exceptions but society at large is unlikely to need boosters and their immunity will be "boosted" each time they come into contact with it.

bats

well thats obvious isnt it? Where did you get your x33 number from?

ArthurBrit

Apologies that was actually a legitimate typo. it's actually 13x. It comes from an Israeli study.

Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections | medRxiv

Again the theory of diminishing return is valid and (again my personal opinion) will only get worse with time (which the data simply doesn't have at the moment).

BristolUK

As it also will with immunity following infection and recovery. That was the point made in that Californian study. The group infected and recovered had slightly better protection than the vaccinated but likely because some of that group's acquired immunity in becoming infected/ill was more recent than some of the vaccinated group's immunity; there had been less time for it to wane.