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To: arun gera who wrote (176607)	8/17/2021 3:09:20 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217770

The masked person also know well enough to wash hands regularly, especially after touching elevator buttons and escalator belts, and whenever doable, avoid hand-touching surfaces touched by others, and also aware to sneeze into own elbow, and never in elevator. I would guess that such masking / hand-washing protocol might reduce infection / transmission by ~30-50% or more, depending on diligence. Avoiding crowds altogether / staying at home likely takes away another ~30-50% chance of infection / transmission. Vaccination might reduce infection / transmission by ~30-50%. Stop kids from going to school reduces infection by ~10% In an ideal world, the entire world can do all of above over a short elapsed duration on agreement, and that ought to do the job of eradication, except for the deers and such reviving infection. But, as in alas, no way. Letting the virus burn-through the population several times might also work. Who knows.

To: arun gera who wrote (176607)	8/19/2021 8:01:50 AM
From: TobagoJack	1 Recommendation Recommended By maceng2 Respond to of 217770

I wonder how the deactivated-virus flavor of vaxx, Sputnik and Coronavac compares to the AZ and BnT flavors. And then there is always the natural immunity gained via catching a whiff of the disease. I suspect the natural immunity is best of all, but I wait for the studies still must happen, whether by science or by trial by viral storm. ft.com Are vaccines becoming less effective at preventing Covid infection? Researchers puzzle over suggestions that jabs do not stop transmission as well as first thought August 19 2021 Minnesota research showed protection against infection from the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine fell from 89% to 42% between February and July © FT montage/AFP/GettyA rise in vaccinated people becoming infected with coronavirus has cast doubt over the lasting efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines, according to new studies, including one that found protection gained from the BioNTech/Pfizer shot declined more rapidly than that from the AstraZeneca jab. An Oxford university study published on Thursday found that the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine against symptomatic infection almost halved after four months, and that vaccinated people infected with the more infectious Delta variant had as high viral loads as the unvaccinated. Two research papers from the US and Qatar have also fuelled debate over the need for top-up booster shots as they found higher numbers of “breakthrough infections” than anticipated, even though protection against serious cases of the virus appears to hold. Natalie Dean, a biostatistics professor at Emory University, said the spread of the Delta variant had made it “a lot harder” to stop transmission. “The situation has changed with respect to how far we think vaccines can take us,” she said. “We’ve been brought back to a more modest — but still critical — goal: to prevent severe disease, hospitalisations and deaths.” What do the latest studies show? The Oxford scientists showed vaccine efficacy falling since the Delta strain became dominant in the UK in May. While the Pfizer shot was more effective at first, by four to five months after the second dose its efficacy was roughly the same as AstraZeneca’s jab, as the protection offered by the latter has barely budged. The paper’s authors were not involved in the creation of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which originated at Oxford university. Tomas Hanke, professor of vaccine immunology at Oxford’s Jenner Institute, speculated that the AstraZeneca shot generates longer-lasting immunity because its spike protein sticks around for more time, promoting a bigger immune response. “When you deliver RNA, like the Pfizer vaccine, you deliver a finite number of mRNA molecules which are eventually cleared from the system,” he said. “But when you deliver the adenovirus, as AstraZeneca does, you deliver a template which then keeps producing these mRNAs that then produce the spike protein, so there’s no ceiling.” A preprint based on evidence collected at the Mayo Clinic hospital chain in the US state of Minnesota showed protection against infection fell from 91 per cent to 76 per cent between February and July for the vaccine made by Moderna, and from 89 per cent to 42 per cent for the Pfizer jab. It is unclear how much of this was a result of the Delta variant, which was absent in Minnesota in February but dominant by July, and how much was owing to waning immunity as the months passed after people were inoculated. A separate Qatar study focusing on the Delta variant found that two doses of Pfizer were 60 per cent effective at stopping infection, whether symptomatic or not, while Moderna was 86 per cent effective. How does this compare to what we knew already? Public Health England’s real-world studies in May painted a rosier picture: a double Pfizer vaccination was 88 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic infection with the Delta variant. Studies in Canada and Scotland put efficacy at 87 per cent and 79 per cent, respectively. But the new studies appear more in line with research in Israel, which found the Pfizer jab was just 41 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic infection in June and July. The Oxford study was the first to suggest that the efficacy of the Pfizer shot may be waning faster than AstraZeneca’s. Making direct comparisons between the different studies is difficult, however. The US and Qatari papers included people who did not develop symptoms — which is known to produce lower estimates for efficacy. Yet Laith Abu-Raddad, an author of the Qatar paper and a professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, part of Cornell University, said the results were “quite surprising” because scientists had been more concerned about efficacy against the Beta variant rather than Delta strain. Is this the waning of immunity over time? It could be that declining efficacy is caused by waning immunity, supporting the argument for a third shot. Studies have shown antibody levels decline over time although scientists have not identified the level where they stop being protective. Other parts of the immune system, such as the harder-to-monitor T-cells, also play a role in fighting the virus. Abu-Raddad said his study suggested waning immunity but cautioned that the “sky is not falling”, given that vaccines still prevent severe illness. Koen Pouwels, lead author of the Oxford study, said they had taken into account a “long list” of complicating factors, so it was reasonable to assume the decline was because of waning immunity. Pfizer has said for some time that a third shot would be necessary, probably about eight to 10 months after the second dose. It has applied to several regulators for approval for a booster shot. Adam Finn, a member of the UK’s joint committee on vaccination and immunisation, said there was “no clear evidence” of the need for a booster and urged caution, especially when some companies had a “strong financial incentive to propose boosting”. Does the Moderna vaccine offer more protection against Delta? The studies also appeared to show that the Moderna vaccine may be more effective at tackling the Delta variant than the Pfizer jab. In the Minnesota study, Pfizer’s efficacy against infection dropped much more sharply as the Delta variant rapidly replaced Alpha as the dominant strain. One complication is that the Pfizer jabs were given first and Moderna’s rollout has been more recent, but the researchers tried to compensate for this by only comparing groups vaccinated in the same month. The Oxford researchers only had enough data to study the impact of the first dose of Moderna but found it enjoyed efficacy similar to or greater than a single shot of the other vaccines. The Qatar study showed a far lower efficacy rate for the Pfizer jab but it did not adjust for how long each individual had been vaccinated. However, Abu-Raddad said he did not believe that could be the sole explanation. “Both are really great vaccines but it might be a difference related to the dose,” he said. Moderna’s vaccine has more than three times the mRNA — the genetic instructions that teach the body to recognise the spike protein — than the Pfizer jab. Are these studies game-changing? Experts have been reluctant to draw dramatic conclusions from these new studies because there are so many other variables. People who were vaccinated early tended to be more vulnerable, so they might have been less likely to have robust immune responses anyway. “How old you are, the underlying risk factors that predict that you had the vaccine a long time ago could also be the reason behind the vaccines failing and you getting sick,” Professor Finn said. Muge Cevik, an infectious disease researcher at St Andrews University in Scotland, said it would be increasingly challenging to interpret such studies owing to complicating factors including changing behaviour, such as after the lifting of lockdowns, or immunity developed in the wake of infection. Even without these shifts muddying the waters, it is possible that vaccines may be less effective simply because over time, vaccinated people come into contact with the virus again and again. “The more transmission you have, the more likely it is that you get a breakthrough case,” said Yaniv Erlich, a computational geneticist. “Someone rolls the dice once, twice, three times and maybe the third time they roll the wrong number and get [infected].” Additional reporting by Oliver Barnes in London Sent from my iPad

To: arun gera who wrote (176607)	8/19/2021 8:15:19 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217770

I understand there are many variables to consider, but intuitively guess that vaxx w/o other accompanying measures to thwart the virus range from a being a waste of vaxx, to in the worst case, waste of precious time. Should the vaxx turn out to be both pointless as well as useless, than the issue of jab #3 automatically settled, also for jabs 4, 5, 6, … n-1, and n. The accompanying measures require (i) consideration for the greater good, (ii) high savings rate, (iii) offsetting officialdom monetary support, and (iv) unity of purpose and discipline of society, and a cooperating media, because compared to the senseless Afghanistan misadventure, Covid is real war. Professor Davidovitch, the Israeli public health expert, got a third shot. But he is now convinced of the necessity of a multilayered strategy, including mask wearing, limiting access to public venues to the vaccinated or those who have recovered from the virus, and measures to strengthen the health care system. nytimes.com Israel, Once the Model for Beating Covid, Faces New Surge of Infections One of the most vaccinated societies, Israel now has one of the highest infection rates in the world, raising questions about the vaccine’s efficacy. Aug. 18, 2021 A coronavirus isolation ward last week in Safed, Israel. Infections have more than doubled in the last two weeks.Jalaa Marey/AFP — Getty Images JERUSALEM — Last spring, Israel’s remarkably swift vaccination campaign was seen as a global model. Coronavirus infections plummeted, an electronic pass allowed the vaccinated to attend indoor concerts and sporting events, and distancing rules and mask mandates were eventually scrapped. Israel offered the world a hopeful glimpse of the way out of the pandemic. No longer. A fourth wave of infections is rapidly approaching the levels of Israel’s worst days of the pandemic last winter. The daily rate of confirmed new virus cases has more than doubled in the last two weeks, making Israel a rising hot spot on the international charts. Restrictions on gatherings and commercial and entertainment venues were reinstated this week, and the government is considering a new lockdown. “I believe we are at war,” Israel’s coronavirus commissioner, Prof. Salman Zarka, told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday. Scientists are still assessing how Israel’s pandemic response plunged from shining example to cautionary tale, and the stunning reversal has provided a crucial test for Israel’s new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, who staked a claim for leadership partly on the strength of his manifesto, “How to Beat a Pandemic.” But some experts fear that Israel’s high rate of infections among early vaccine recipients may indicate a waning of the vaccine’s protections over time, a finding that contributed to a U.S. decision Wednesday to begin offering booster shots to Americans starting next month. Waiting to receive a third dose of the vaccine last week in Jerusalem. More than a million Israelis have already received a booster shot.Ammar Awad/Reuters The vaccine may be less effective at preventing infection with the highly contagious Delta variant, now the primary version of the virus in Israel. And the first cohort to be vaccinated was an older group whose immune systems may have been weaker to begin with. By June, Israelis, convinced the worst was over, had abandoned social distancing and other precautions. “Everyone went about the business of trying to put the memory of a very difficult year and a half behind them,” said Prof. Ran Balicer, chairman of an expert panel that advises the Israeli government on Covid response. “At that point in time,” he said, “the paradigm for many was that Israel is the most vaccinated country in the world, that vaccinated people rarely become infected, that even more rarely do they become severely ill and that basically, with very few precautions in place, the population was very close to herd immunity, all things considered. That was not a mistake.” The problem, he said, was that what was true for the original virus “did not necessarily hold true for future variants coupled with waning immunity.” The vast majority of Israel’s older population had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the end of February, and by now about 78 percent of the population 12 and older are fully vaccinated. At a cinema in May in Jerusalem. By June, the government had lifted most antivirus restrictions.Abir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock The vaccine is still believed to help prevent severe illness in those who do become infected, though some Israeli data suggests the possibility of an increased risk of severe disease among those who received early vaccinations. The number of deaths in Israel has climbed in the past month as the infection rate increased. Seeing infection levels dropping in the spring, and determined to reboot the economy, Israel retired its electronic pass system, eased travel bans and lifted all other restrictions. The last to go was the indoor mask mandate on June 15. Days earlier, however, a family had returned from a Greek vacation to the central city of Modiin, a middle class commuter hub between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. More than 90 percent of its residents 12 and over are vaccinated, according to its mayor, Haim Bibas, making it one of Israel’s most vaccinated cities. But the family included a child too young to be vaccinated, and who should have spent at least 10 days in home quarantine pending a negative PCR test, according to the regulations at the time. Instead, the parents sent the child to school. Ultimately, about 80 students were infected with the Delta variant. “The child wasn’t to blame,” Mr. Bibas said, indirectly pointing a finger at the parents. A second outbreak occurred almost simultaneously in similar circumstances in a school in the north. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, left, in Jerusalem last month, was slow to respond to the resurgent virus, favoring an approach that kept businesses operating at full capacity. Pool photo by Ronen Zvulun The Delta variant has since taken over in Israel, and now mainly comes from within the country. Professor Balicer had warned in May that despite the early success, Israel’s pandemic was not over. There was the continuous risk of variants that could be more impervious to the vaccine. Out of a population of nine million, about a million eligible Israelis have so far opted not to get vaccinated at all. And among the fully inoculated, Israeli scientists have found growing evidence of waning immunity, particularly among the older population who were vaccinated first. Data published by Israel’s Ministry of Health in late July suggested that the Pfizer shot was just 39 percent effective against preventing infection in the country in late June and early July, compared with 95 percent from January to early April. In both periods, however, the shot was more than 90 percent effective in preventing severe disease. Experts warn that these early assessments have not been scientifically proven: The small numbers of cases involved, Israel’s testing policies and a host of other biases could have skewed the results. Still, as summer approached, infections began to spiral. School was out, families crowded local hotels and up to 40,000 people a day were flying abroad, even as the Delta variant was rampaging across the globe. After many days of zero Covid deaths in June, at least 230 Israelis have died so far this month. Israelis and vaccinated tourists arriving in Tel Aviv airport in May. As infection levels dropped in the spring Israel eased travel restrictions.Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Unlike previous epicenters of infection in Israel’s crowded, less-vaccinated ultra-Orthodox communities, this scourge primarily took hold in well-vaccinated, middle-class suburbs. Understand the State of Vaccine and Mask Mandates in the U.S. Mask rules. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July recommended that all Americans, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks in indoor public places within areas experiencing outbreaks, a reversal of the guidance it offered in May. See where the C.D.C. guidance would apply, and where states have instituted their own mask policies. The battle over masks has become contentious in some states, with some local leaders defying state bans.Vaccine rules . . . and businesses. Private companies are increasingly mandating coronavirus vaccines for employees, with varying approaches. Such mandates are legally allowed and have been upheld in court challenges.College and universities. More than 400 colleges and universities are requiring students to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Almost all are in states that voted for President Biden.Schools. On Aug. 11, California announced that it would require teachers and staff of both public and private schools to be vaccinated or face regular testing, the first state in the nation to do so. A survey released in August found that many American parents of school-age children are opposed to mandated vaccines for students, but were more supportive of mask mandates for students, teachers and staff members who do not have their shots. Hospitals and medical centers. Many hospitals and major health systems are requiring employees to get a Covid-19 vaccine, citing rising caseloads fueled by the Delta variant and stubbornly low vaccination rates in their communities, even within their work force.New York. On Aug. 3, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York announced that proof of vaccination would be required of workers and customers for indoor dining, gyms, performances and other indoor situations, becoming the first U.S. city to require vaccines for a broad range of activities. City hospital workers must also get a vaccine or be subjected to weekly testing. Similar rules are in place for New York State employees.At the federal level. The Pentagon announced that it would seek to make coronavirus vaccinations mandatory for the country’s 1.3 million active-duty troops “no later” than the middle of September. President Biden announced that all civilian federal employees would have to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or submit to regular testing, social distancing, mask requirements and restrictions on most travel. Some experts have accused the new government of having been slow to respond. The resurgence of the contagion coincided with the swearing in of Mr. Bennett’s government in mid-June. After three Israeli lockdowns, Mr. Bennett came in with a new approach, determining that the country had to live with the virus and keep business operating at full capacity. He called the policy “soft suppression.” An indoor mask mandate was reinstated on June 25, but compliance was lax. Alarmed medical experts began to urge stricter measures, including curbs on all gatherings. The government advisory panel called twice — in July and again on Aug. 1 — for the immediate reinstatement of the electronic Green Pass system. “It was only in the last two weeks that a sense of urgency returned,” said Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, a public health expert and a member of the advisory panel. “What we are doing now, we needed to do in July.” But after the premature euphoria of the spring, virus fatigue has made returning to strict antivirus protocols difficult. “It’s a matter of discipline,” said Prof. Galia Rahav, the head of the Infectious Disease Unit and Laboratories at the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv. “People are sick of masks. They want to live.” Officials worry that many Israelis are still oblivious to the rising danger. “The Israeli public has not yet absorbed that we are in a fourth, significant wave,” said Tomer Lotan, director general of the Ministry of Public Security, which is responsible for enforcement. “We are still in routine mode, with the feeling that we are vaccinated. It’s hard to make the switch in public discourse and say, ‘Listen, we are in a catastrophe.’” Playing in a water fountain this month in Jerusalem. “People are sick of masks,” one expert said. “They want to live.”Abir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock Israel is now pinning its hopes on booster shots. Beginning with those 60 and older, and quickly expanding the drive to those 50 and above, more than a million citizens have already received a third dose this month. Israeli researchers say there are preliminary signs that new infections among older vaccinated people may have begun to drop. A preliminary study released Wednesday by Maccabi, an Israeli health-care provider, found that a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine provided 86 percent effectiveness against infection in people aged over 60, a week or more after receiving the third dose. A global debate is raging over boosters. The Biden administration announced Wednesday that Americans who received the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines would be able to obtain booster shots eight months after receiving their second doses. But the World Health Organization contends that available vaccines would be better used to inoculate high-risk people in poor nations where few have gotten the shots and where new variants could emerge. Most Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza remain unvaccinated after Palestinian officials rejected a vaccine-exchange deal with Israel in June. Professor Davidovitch, the Israeli public health expert, got a third shot. But he is now convinced of the necessity of a multilayered strategy, including mask wearing, limiting access to public venues to the vaccinated or those who have recovered from the virus, and measures to strengthen the health care system. “The vaccinations were supposed to solve everything,” he said. “We now understand that the vaccines are not enough.” Sent from my iPad

To: arun gera who wrote (176607)	8/19/2021 5:43:48 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217770

Covid watch & brief today, HK morning Looking at UK, about as expected, but folks seem to be oblivious that cases now might be poised to sharply rise as we enter ... the flu season the MSM appears to be feeding the folks a 'all as expected, it's okay' tale, when the tale might change 'as expected' I fear a disaster, and one that is not priced-in. I hope all works out and the kids can get on with their lives. I doubt AstraZeneca vaxx + Freedom Day works. I am not agnostic on the 'works'. It is not working, because the numbers state so. I am agnostic on whether allowing the virus to burn-through has efficacy. So, UK battle front might work out despite AZ + Freedom Day. edition.cnn.com England dropped most of its Covid restrictions in July. One month on, here's how it's going London (CNN) — It's been a month since England dropped most of its coronavirus restrictions, a move that was welcomed by much of the country's hard-pressed business sector but criticized by thousands of scientists as a " dangerous and unethical experiment." In an open letter published in the Lancet medical journal, they argued that a rising number of Covid-19 cases, the new Delta variant and the fact that a large part of the UK population was not yet fully vaccinated made the move too risky. But the government was determined to push ahead. It removed all limits on mixing and allowed venues like nightclubs and sports stadiums to open at full capacity starting on July 19. Face masks are no longer required apart from in a few specific locations, such as airports and hospitals. And as of Monday, fully vaccinated people are no longer required to quarantine after coming into contact with someone who has tested positive for coronavirus. A month on, it's becoming clear that while vaccination works, the reopening has come at a cost. "The UK is averaging around 90 deaths a day from Covid. Our reopening has been far from an unqualified success," said Kit Yates, co-director of the Centre for Mathematical Biology at the University of Bath. While the death toll is much lower than it was at the peak of the pandemic, when as many as 1,300 people were dying every day, experts like Yates say it's still unnecessarily high. And with roughly 800 Covid-19 patients ending up in hospital each day, the UK's public health system is once again under pressure and unable to provide non-emergency care at the level that is needed, Yates said. "There isn't capacity to carry out all the routine treatment that's necessary. As a result people are missing out on lifesaving treatment," he said. The number of people waiting for routine hospital treatment has risen to 5.5 million in July from 4.4 million in February 2020, according to NHS Providers. "If there was one lesson I wish other countries would take from watching the UK's attempt to reopen is that vaccines are not the whole solution to the problem," Yates told CNN. "Yes, they make a huge difference, but if you want to keep on top of this disease then you need to back vaccines up with other tried and tested public health measures: Mask mandates in indoor public spaces, ventilation in schools and work places, a functioning, locally-driven test, trace and isolate system in combination with support for isolation," he added. Cases dropped, then rose again Epidemiologists expected the reopening would lead to an increase in the number of people becoming infected with the coronavirus -- but this didn't happen, at least not immediately. While the number of new cases increased just before the restrictions were lifted, it went down in the first few weeks after the reopening. This unexpected drop was likely down to the fact that contacts between people didn't increase as rapidly as some predicted, and because the Euro 2020 football tournament, which led to a spike in cases, ended on July 11. "Thankfully, although technically we've lifted restrictions, the UK looks a very different place than it did before the pandemic. My workplace is still practically deserted. It's quite clear that people are not behaving as they were before the pandemic," said Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh. "There's an awful lot of scope for people to change their behavior more to allow more transmission of the virus in the future. Whether they will, we don't know -- predicting people's behavior in the face of an unprecedented pandemic is a fool's game, really," he said. The spike in cases before the reopening meant a large number of people were in quarantine after coming into contact with someone who tested positive. More than 2 million people were "pinged" by the track and trace app in July alone, according to the NHS. On top of that, the school summer vacation got underway in England on July 16. Christina Pagel, director of the Clinical Operational Research Unit at University College London, said it has now become clear that schools played an important part in the overall picture, adding that cases in children have been halving every week since the beginning of the holidays. But while the overall infection levels dropped in the first few weeks after the reopening, they have started creeping up again. "In the last two weeks, cases in adults have started going up again, and more than you would know just from looking at the numbers, because they're kind of masked by the big drops in cases in children," Pagel said. She said the increase in cases is worrying, because July and August are precisely the months when it should be easier to keep infection levels down. "We're still in a situation where we have a lot of cases and a lot of poor health from Covid, so I think there is kind of a bit of trepidation about what happens when we go back to school in September," she said. While hospitalizations in the UK are on the rise, the proportion of people who end up in hospital now is much lower than it used to be, thanks to vaccination. "In January, before the vaccination program really got into full swing we were maybe seeing upwards of 10% of cases going on to be hospitalized. Now that figure is down to between 2% and 3%, so vaccines are making a huge difference," Yates said. The data also shows that while overall vaccination rates matter, the key is in the detail. The UK has fully vaccinated 60% of its total population, according to Our World in Data, while in the US, that figure stands at 51%, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the overall rate is similar, the US has more unvaccinated elderly people who are more vulnerable to the disease. "In the over-50s, in our vulnerable populations, we have 90% to 95% fully vaccinated. And that's making a really big difference. So we do have a lot of hospitalizations, but it's nowhere near as high as it could be," Pagel said, referring to the UK population. "And if you look at places like Florida, which is seeing unsustainable hospitalizations, this is because they have a higher number of people who are still vulnerable, so even though they have high vaccination rates overall, it's not helping them as much because of how its distributed in their population," she added. According to the Florida Department of Health, 79% of people aged between 60 and 64 and 86% of people above the age of 65 have been vaccinated. Kids on the front line In England, next month's return to school is a major risk, because most kids won't be vaccinated against the disease. The UK medicines watchdog, the MHRA, has approved the Pfizer and Moderna shots for children and teenagers aged 12 and above, but only clinically vulnerable teenagers have been able to get the shots so far. The government said Sunday that 16- and 17-year-olds will be offered the vaccine by next week, but there has been no announcement on inoculation for younger children. "We will see lots of students meeting up indoors in schools at which few or no mitigations have been put in place ... we should expect to see further rises in transmission when this happens, which will inevitably lead to more cases, more hospitalizations and tragically more deaths," Yates said. Deepti Gurdasani, a clinical epidemiologist and senior lecturer in machine learning at Queen Mary University of London, has long been critical of the government's approach to the reopening, arguing that the plan put children at unnecessary risk. "They may not individually get hospitalized or die at the same rate, but if enough of them get infected, then a large number will still get hospitalized and sadly, some will die. And they do get long Covid," she said, pointing to data released by the Office for National Statistics earlier this month, which showed that 34,000 kids aged 17 and under are suffering from long Covid, with 22,000 of them saying their illness is having an impact on their day-to-day activities. "These are not mild cases ... 7,000 have had persistent symptoms for more than one year. That's not mild," she said. Pagel said that while schools don't appear to be major drivers of new infections when overall community transmission levels remain low, they become a problem when Covid levels are higher -- as they are right now in the UK. "Every other high income country is doing at least one of three things ... they are either vaccinating adolescents, or they're keeping in mitigation (measures) in schools such as masks and social distancing, isolation and (investing in) ventilation, or they're keeping community transmission low ... most of them are doing two of those things. We're not doing any of them," she said.

To: arun gera who wrote (176607)	8/19/2021 5:56:58 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217770

Covid watch & brief today, HK morning Looking at Israel, about as expected, but folks seem to be oblivious that cases now might be poised to sharply rise as we enter ... the flu season the MSM appears to be feeding the folks a 'third shot might do it, it's okay' tale, when the tale might change 'as expected' I fear a disaster, and one that is not priced-in. I hope all works out and the kids can get on with their lives. I doubt BioNTech vaxx + 'back to normal' works. I am not agnostic on the 'works'. It is not working, because the numbers state so. I am agnostic on whether allowing the virus to burn-through has efficacy. So, Israel battle front might work out should burn-through work. Either that or something new, like a cure.

To: arun gera who wrote (176607)	8/20/2021 5:17:40 AM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217770

<<Any engineer or chemist will tell you >> Ref: "The question should be: if each masked person can stop infection by a small percentage, is the cumulative reduction in the spread significant? " Any engineer or chemist with real world experience would say. "What are the "pluses" and are there any "minuses" regarding masks? And the answer is clearly obvious to some, but some reason... not all. I think percieved job security, or lack of it, makes the answer in many cases... and it has little to do with the truth as things stand. And what would real doctors say? Those who are genuinly interested in childrens health??