Northern Europe during Pandemic -- Summers 2020 & 2021 & onwards

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by GordMay

“New Zealand's COVID 19 elimination strategy” ~ by Michael G Baker, Amanda Kvalsvig, and Ayesha J Verrall
➥ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7436486/

“Elimination could be the optimal response strategy for covid-19 and other emerging pandemic diseases” ~ EDITORIAL by BMJ [British Medical Journal]
➥ https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4907

“The COVID-19 exit strategy—why we need to aim low” ~ EDITORIAL by The Lancet
➥ https://www.thelancet.com/action/sho...2821%2900080-3


Where are the Moderators, when various members are [continuously] slagging various politicians/parties?

[capn_billl]

I've said this before.

Any disease with this high of contagion, we will ALL get it.

Fortunately 99.7% of us will live through it.

The countries with the harshest lockdowns just delayed the inevitable.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

“New Zealand's COVID 19 elimination strategy” ~ by Michael G Baker, Amanda Kvalsvig, and Ayesha J Verrall
➥ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7436486/

“Elimination could be the optimal response strategy for covid-19 and other emerging pandemic diseases” ~ EDITORIAL by BMJ [British Medical Journal]
➥ https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4907

“The COVID-19 exit strategy—why we need to aim low” ~ EDITORIAL by The Lancet
➥ https://www.thelancet.com/action/sho...2821%2900080-3

Those are really good articles; thanks for posting.


From the second article, this is a very good graphic explanation of how the different strategies are supposed to work:





I don't see anything wrong with pursuing "Elimination" -- IF you are able to start early enough to pull it off. The measures in New Z and Oz were NOT harsher than what was implemented in California or France; they just started earlier. The really good thing about elimination is that if you pull it off, and if you can manage to keep the virus out after you've eliminated community spread, then life really goes back to normal, at least within the confines of closed borders, so you minimize the social and economic damage. A month or two of harsh lockdown is -- as we see now, that we've had a year of experience -- much less harmful than lockdown after lockdown after lockdown like in France, Italy, California, New York, etc. And UK.


The tricky bit is how do you get out of it? As SWL was saying. For this to work well you need to be on top of vaccination, which neither Oz nor NZ is. To keep the borders shut hermetically for years will cause immense damage. Less than having years of lockdowns, but a few industries will be destroyed, and there will be serious damage to trade and investment. Why are they not vaccinating faster? If Oz and NZ had been vaccinating as fast as the UK, this would be just about over -- these countries would be sitting mighty pretty.



But in general I think you have to say that these strategies were very successful. A great deal of luck was involved -- as one of the linked studies emphasized. Both NZ and Oz got their first community spread months later than most other countries, so had time to figure it out.


The other strategy which I think has had very good results (so far) is the "sustainable suppression" used in the Nordic countries. Suppression of community spread as much as possible with sustainable measures, measures which are not so disruptive or costly that you can't keep them up long term. "This is a marathon, not a sprint", was what Teignell in Sweden said at the beginning of this -- how right now we see he was.



Through some combination of culture, luck, and competent implementation of these strategies, the Nordic countries have been least affected of any region of Europe, and have gotten through the whole first year of this without any lockdowns and very few closures of schools or businesses. Far better outcome than other European countries -- far less disruption of life, and less infection and death too. An absence of the atmosphere of fear and loathing which is so prevalent elsewhere -- which means less social and psychological damage. Part of that is just social trust and strength of Nordic societies, but I think the choice of strategy is also key. I just flew into Helsinki airport a couple of hours ago, and was struck again at how friendly and pleasant and efficient the whole process is. Instead of locking you in quarantine prison for two weeks, the smiling ladies say "please avoid unnecessary social contact, as much as you can, for 10 days".



It's a shame though that vaccination is not being rolled out as fast as it could. This will prolong the agony.


Why did the UK and U.S. do so well with vaccination? This bit has been puzzling me and I've been reading about it.


Where Europe went wrong apparently was to just negotiate contracts and wait for the pharma companies to deliver. Whereas the U.S., with Operation Warp Speed, poured $18 billion into it and closely managed the pharma companies' work like a military operation. $18 billion is only $55 per capita, and is apparently being recovered through lower vaccine prices. I wonder how much one week of the pandemic costs us? One day of GDP is $60 billion. This is just a stupendously successful operation; unbelievable. Kudos to all involved. I was surprised to see the Biden administration dismiss Moncef Mohamed Slaoui, the mastermind of Operation Warp Speed. This guy deserves a Nobel Prize, as far as I'm concerned.



How did the UK do it? According to this: https://www.theguardian.com/society/...d-vaccine-race it was similar to what happened in the U.S. -- vigorous, proactive engagement of pharma companies, abundant early funding, early contracts.



There was apparently also luck involved (isn't there always?) -- Europe has been hobbled not only by late contracts and lack of engagement, but also made a big bet on AstraZeneca production in France -- which has had huge yield problems because of some kind of process problem. the AstraZeneca plant in the UK has no such problems and has been cranking out millions of doses. The European are suing AstraZeneca for refusing to deliver out of their UK production, but the deal the UK made, 3 months before the EU made its deal, was that UK plant production goes to the UK first.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by GordMay

“New Zealand's COVID 19 elimination strategy” ~ by Michael G Baker, Amanda Kvalsvig, and Ayesha J Verrall
➥ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7436486/

“Elimination could be the optimal response strategy for covid-19 and other emerging pandemic diseases” ~ EDITORIAL by BMJ [British Medical Journal]
➥ https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4907

“The COVID-19 exit strategy—why we need to aim low” ~ EDITORIAL by The Lancet
➥ https://www.thelancet.com/action/sho...2821%2900080-3


Where are the Moderators, when various members are [continuously] slagging various politicians/parties?

Sorry, I did go into a bit of a rant. My bad. But is it slagging when you quote someone? https://amp.rnz.co.nz/article/704c69...d-2b62d3970168

The fact remains that an eradication strategy aims for absolutely no infections and no deaths, and stomping on any infections that do occur to minimise deaths. Sure, this was quicker and likely less expensive than that of the suppression strategies over the past year. So far so good.

We are told that the eradication strategy, which relies on closed borders and strict quarantine of infected people, is only needed until an effective vaccination result is achieved.

But no infections and no deaths, even with full vaccination and herd immunity, is not achievable with any of the current vaccines, AFAIK.

So, how does an eradication strategy change to a suppression “live with it” strategy and accept levels of infection and deaths that up to now have been vociferously denounced?

That’s the problem with an eradication strategy.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Sorry, I did go into a bit of a rant. My bad. But is it slagging when you quote someone? https://amp.rnz.co.nz/article/704c69...d-2b62d3970168

The fact remains that an eradication strategy aims for absolutely no infections and no deaths, and stomping on any infections that do occur to minimise deaths. Sure, this was quicker and likely less expensive than that of the suppression strategies over the past year. So far so good.

We are told that the eradication strategy, which relies on closed borders and strict quarantine of infected people, is only needed until an effective vaccination result is achieved.

But no infections and no deaths, even with full vaccination and herd immunity, is not achievable with any of the current vaccines, AFAIK.

So, how does an eradication strategy change to a suppression “live with it” strategy and accept levels of infection and deaths that up to now have been vociferously denounced?

That’s the problem with an eradication strategy.

I think the logic is that you can allow some community spread after all the vulnerable are vaccinated. And that zero community spread - IF you can achieve that - is less costly and destructive to maintain than long-term suppression.

And I think clearly that's valid compared to repetitively locked down places like France or California, which paid the awful price of months of lockdown PLUS had millions of deaths and overflowing hospitals. Worst of both worlds.

I would take Australia over France any day. But Australia over Finland? No.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

.....For this to work well you need to be on top of vaccination, which neither Oz nor NZ is. To keep the borders shut hermetically for years will cause immense damage. Less than having years of lockdowns, but a few industries will be destroyed, and there will be serious damage to trade and investment. Why are they not vaccinating faster? If Oz and NZ had been vaccinating as fast as the UK, this would be just about over -- these countries would be sitting mighty pretty.

I don’t know about NZ, but Australia has simply not had sufficient vaccine available.

Australia initially entered into 4 agreements directly with pharmaceutical companies for the following doses:

Pfizer: 10 million (now increased to 20)
Astra-Zeneca: 53.8 million (3.8 mil from overseas and 50 to be manufactured in Australia in monthly batches in 2021)
Novovax: 51 million
University of Queensland: 51 million

As 2 doses are needed per person, this should have covered roughly 3 x our population.

So what went wrong?

- Very limited amounts of Pfizer and overseas AZ vaccine have been available so far and the EU actually blocked one shipment of 0.25 mil doses of AZ to Australia.
- The domestic AZ is in early stages of production. First doses only available late March.
- Novovax initial trials have not yet been completed.
- The University of QLD vaccine did not proced to Phase 2, as the subjects tested positive to HIV following vaccination in Phase 1. This was due to a protein from the HIV virus being chosen as a stabilising agent in the vaccine. The order was cancelled in December. This did not seem to be widely reported.

For the last few months the Australian government has repeated that they were being “cautious” and making sure the vaccines were “safe” instead of rushing approval (the implication being other countries have rushed this without taking due care). We apparently had the luxury of doing this as (despite the states of emergency in place) we were “not in a hurry”.

Now they are stating the rollout is slow because shipments have been blocked. Not quite lies, but also highly misleading. Wouldn’t it be nice if they were honest and stated “We gambled on the wrong horses”.

[Montanan]

How about we project forward from the present SNAFU.

I propose we amend the title of this thread to become:

Re: Northern Europe during Pandemic -- Summers 2020 & 2021 & 2022

[Pete7]

Talk this evening news of European countries going back into lockdown as a third wave of Covid spreads across the continent.

UK Prime Minister considering offering AZ vaccines destined for the UK from factories in Holland be donated to Europe to reduce the risk of a 3rd wave which would affect the UK both directly and indirectly as a neighbouring country.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-vaccines.html

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Talk this evening news of European countries going back into lockdown as a third wave of Covid spreads across the continent.

UK Prime Minister considering offering AZ vaccines destined for the UK from factories in Holland be donated to Europe to reduce the risk of a 3rd wave which would affect the UK both directly and indirectly as a neighbouring country.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-vaccines.html

EU does not need any "donated" doses all they need is for AZ to fulfil its contract with the EU.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Anders

EU does not need any "donated" doses all they need is for AZ to fulfil its contract with the EU.

All they need to do is unlock the 13million doses they have locked up in storage.. should be more than enough now they scared many away from AstraZeneca..

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by UFO

..........

As I have always said the only way to get back to any form of social and economic normality is to treat this as an endemic illness and accept that there will be casualties like we do with the flu, Cancer, Heart attacks and so on, it is simply part of the life, death cycle. Sure vaccinate those in need and look for new treatments, but from a social and economic perspective we need to start putting in place a realist exit plan to end the continual nightmare of lockdowns and restrictions.

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Golly ... who would have thunk it... I'm almost in agreement....
We need to vaccinate and reduce it from pan to simply epi....
.................!

Crikey lads, this thinking is contagious, I'm getting infected too; how can a bloke avoid this logic!

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Montanan

How about we project forward from the present SNAFU.

I propose we amend the title of this thread to become:

Re: Northern Europe during Pandemic -- Summers 2020 & 2021 & 2022

The pandemic will be long gone in Summer 2022, at least in this part of the world.

And I am still predicting that Summer 2021 will be fine cruising.


It's always darkest just before dawn.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

........

So what went wrong?

- Very limited amounts of Pfizer and overseas AZ vaccine have been available so far and the EU actually blocked one shipment of 0.25 mil doses of AZ to Australia.
- The domestic AZ is in early stages of production. First doses only available late March.
- Novovax initial trials have not yet been completed.
- The University of QLD vaccine did not proced to Phase 2, as the subjects tested positive to HIV following vaccination in Phase 1. This was due to a protein from the HIV virus being chosen as a stabilising agent in the vaccine. The order was cancelled in December. This did not seem to be widely reported.

For the last few months the Australian government has repeated that they were being “cautious” and making sure the vaccines were “safe” instead of rushing approval (the implication being other countries have rushed this without taking due care). We apparently had the luxury of doing this as (despite the states of emergency in place) we were “not in a hurry”.

Now they are stating the rollout is slow because shipments have been blocked. Not quite lies, but also highly misleading. Wouldn’t it be nice if they were honest and stated “We gambled on the wrong horses”.

I think that everyone that knew Qld university was working on a vaccine knew that the project was cancelled.

Meanwhile.... 'Look! Over there! A flood!'

That is Scotty's latest duck and dodge card....

I would have thought an inability to distribute in flooded areas would have meant more avaiable where it can be distributed.

And also.... doctors reporting they are only getting 50 doses a week...what is that ... 5 vials?
I am assuming they have found some old PMG telegram boys, brought them out of retirement , given them bicycles, and put them at the pointy end of the supply chain.....

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Crikey lads, this thinking is contagious, I'm getting infected too; how can a bloke avoid this logic!

If Ping’s statement is modified to “vaccinate the vulnerable” in line with UFO’s comments, I find myself nodding as well .

We have reached that stage with vaccinations in the UK. We are shortly to cover almost everyone who is in the groups responsible for 99% of deaths. This is 48% of the population. The AZ vaccine continues to offer close to 100% protection from severe illness plus chances are a fair chunk of younger people who are unvaccinated have acquired naturally immunity. Crisis over in my book. Yet we are still under “stay at home” lockdown .

If I wasn’t holding back with political comments I would have a fair bit to say .

SWL

[El Pinguino]

In case some are wondering of what I speak....

The pointy end of Australia's vaccine rollout.....

Note the rack that the eskie is secured to.