Covid-19 Updates & Info

[ponchi101]

Down here, we went to our local health provider to see how my GF could get registered for the vaccine. Just a few elderly people were in line.
The GOV has decided this: they import the vaccine but then hand them over to the health providers, all of which have good vaccination programs and are better equipped to handle that process. But the bottleneck is still the quantity: the amount of doses available is laughable. So no real progress is being done.
I was able to register us both on the website which simple gave me a reply: "You will be contacted when your turn is set". One interesting "detail": the registration has to be validated via CAPTCHA, and when I did so, the question is IN ENGLISH. Wonder how many people will not be able to answer.

Cuban vaccine. Venezuela will start getting it too, as part of an exchange. I am starting to really worry about my family there. Heck, I do not even trust Cuban RUMS, much less a vaccine.

[Suliso]

Which vaccine is Colombia getting even in small amounts? Astrazeneca?

[ponchi101]

Both Chinese and Pfizer/BioNTech. But I really can't tell you the percentages.
We already had the first news of big shots skipping the line. You know, we are who we are. Those are getting Pfizer.

[Deuce]

Vaccination rates, except in 3-5 countries, are still very low.

Low rates of vaccination is still considerably higher than no vaccinations, which is obviously what we had prior to people first being vaccinated.
My point is that the rate of infections is increasing at the same rate as before the vaccinations. Here in Canada, we have a little over 10% of the population who have received at least one dose. That's a significant proportion. Yet our rates of infection are rising and will presumably soon be at the same level as they were prior to anyone being vaccinated. The infection rates are already higher now than they were at certain times in 2020.
Some major European countries are having to lock down again, despite vaccinations...

It doesn't look good to my eyes.
It's going to get worse than people thought before it gets better - and is going to take considerably longer to get better than people thought when the vaccines began.

[Suliso]

Actually 10% is virtually nothing as far as population protection is concerned. Obviously very good for those 10% mostly old people who're now unlikely to die. If you don't believe me you can play around with math yourself. Take R number of 1.2 (means 10 sick people will infect 12 new ones) and just 10% probability of these 10 encountering a vaccinated person...

To show any serious statistical effect at least 30% should have had the first dose, for a serious protection 60-70% (including children). Only Israel has reached the latter, perhaps UK and parts of US the former.

[Suliso]

Just for clarity I should add - if 80% of 70+ population is vaccinated but nobody else you would expect lower fatalities since that is the most vulnerable segment but not really have any effect on the overall spread. That's assuming vaccine is incredibly effective, if it's not then vastly higher spread might compensate protection.

[Deuce]

Vaccines are not supposed to protect only against severe symptoms and death, they are also supposed to protect against being infected. If 10% of a population have been vaccinated, one would expect that approximately 10% less of the population should become infected. But we're seeing more people being infected, not less. I assume this is due to the variants being more easily transmitted.

I agree that obviously the more people who are vaccinated, the more that a city, country, etc. will be protected.
But, again, my point is that virtually everyone was saying that once we get the vaccines rolling out, the number of infections will begin to slowly but surely decrease. And instead, the number of infections is increasing. Many countries are well into a third - or fourth - wave now, and these third/forth waves have begun months after vaccinations began.
I didn't hear this being predicted by anyone.

Most 'experts' are saying now that it is literally a race between the vaccines and the variants. That is, the number of people being vaccinated vs. the number of people being infected with a variant. And in many countries, the variants are winning.

[ti-amie]

If anyone is watching the Andreescu/Martincova match and watched the Sloane Stephens/Amanda Anisimova matches taking place in Florida you'd get a good idea of why things are how they are. The coaches of Stephens and Andreescu just stopped wearing their masks during their players matches.

It's so frustrating.

[Suliso]

Vaccines are not supposed to protect only against severe symptoms and death, they are also supposed to protect against being infected. If 10% of a population have been vaccinated, one would expect that approximately 10% less of the population should become infected. But we're seeing more people being infected, not less. I assume this is due to the variants being more easily transmitted.

Yes, but at any given time vast majority of us are NOT infected. Imagine a virus walking on a street in Toronto with a virus gun and shooting people on random, 10% of these people have body armor (vaccine) and thus maybe hurt but not so badly unless there is a lucky shot (correlates to vaccine effectiveness). Now imagine that the old version has 10 bullets, with 10% protected 9 people will be hit. The new variant is more virulent and gets 15 bullets, - despite 10% protection 13 people will be hit. Now add another complexion - virus only has 30 min to do all the shooting. If the street is very crowded (zero social distancing) very easy to get his 13 targets, now if street is nearly deserted (masks, good social distancing) he'll not get all 13 targets before time is over.

Let me know if I what I wrote makes sense. I understand statistics myself to some extent, but explaining without graphs or formulas tough...

[Suliso]

Menwhile Zverev lost to Ruusuvuori. Color me surprised...

[Deuce]

If anyone is watching the Andreescu/Martincova match and watched the Sloane Stephens/Amanda Anisimova matches taking place in Florida you'd get a good idea of why things are how they are. The coaches of Stephens and Andreescu just stopped wearing their masks during their players matches.

It's so frustrating.

Yes - the people in Sloane's camp seemed to be taking turns throughout the match as to who would take the mask off. There were 3 of them, and there always seemed to be a different one who had the mask off at different times.
It's obviously hot and humid, which makes wearing a mask more uncomfortable... but still - if you're going to be sitting together for an extended period of time, keep the mask on. Otherwise, just sit 10 feet apart from each other.

I do wonder, though, why anyone sitting alone in an outdoor match - with no-one within 20 feet of them - keeps the mask on. I've seen that too. Bizarre.

[Deuce]

Vaccines are not supposed to protect only against severe symptoms and death, they are also supposed to protect against being infected. If 10% of a population have been vaccinated, one would expect that approximately 10% less of the population should become infected. But we're seeing more people being infected, not less. I assume this is due to the variants being more easily transmitted.

Yes, but at any given time vast majority of us are NOT infected. Imagine a virus walking on a street in Toronto with a virus gun and shooting people on random, 10% of these people have body armor (vaccine) and thus maybe hurt but not so badly unless there is a lucky shot (correlates to vaccine effectiveness). Now imagine that the old version has 10 bullets, with 10% protected 9 people will be hit. The new variant is more virulent and gets 15 bullets, - despite 10% protection 13 people will be hit. Now add another complexion - virus only has 30 min to do all the shooting. If the street is very crowded (zero social distancing) very easy to get his 13 targets, now if street is nearly deserted (masks, good social distancing) he'll not get all 13 targets before time is over.

Let me know if I what I wrote makes sense. I understand statistics myself to some extent, but explaining without graphs or formulas tough...

Yeah - I get what you're saying. I even understand it . But I didn't hear this being predicted, except after it had already begun.
I suppose the joker in the equation is the variants being more transmissible, and thus overriding (for now, at least) the effect of vaccine protection. I don't mean that the variants are still infecting those who've been vaccinated (which may or may not be the case - only time will tell on that), but that, as in your shooting explanation, the vaccine isn't protecting as many people as the variants are infecting, relatively speaking.

[Suliso]

Yeah - I get what you're saying. I even understand it . But I didn't hear this being predicted, except after it had already begun.
I suppose the joker in the equation is the variants being more transmissible, and thus overriding (for now, at least) the effect of vaccine protection. I don't mean that the variants are still infecting those who've been vaccinated (which may or may not be the case - only time will tell on that), but that, as in your shooting explanation, the vaccine isn't protecting as many people as the variants are infecting, relatively speaking.

Yes!!! That's exactly my point.

As for predicting these things a lot has to do with poor understanding of exponential growth by decision makers and also many doctors. The confusion also arose because we eventually had two epidemics going on at the same time - old variant which was declining (mostly due to social distancing but also vaccines) and the new one which is expanding. While the new one was only 20% or less data was obscured, particularly if no genetic analysis took place.

Watch the animation below for exponential growth

[Suliso]

Maybe an even better graph - the red line is a standard linear growth. An example would be you filling your bathtub at a constant x l/min. The green line is an exponential growth. That relates to things like nuclear explosions, population growth, compounding interest and also unfortunately viral infections.

[ti-amie]

Menwhile Zverev lost to Ruusuvuori. Color me surprised...

That makes two of us.