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

[goboatingnow]

I don’t think very few scientists paraded that the vaccine would reduce transmission , in fact I distinctly remember various scientists suggest caution while “ hoping “ it would.

What everyone agrees is the vaccine prevents excessive illness and death. It’s the ICU issue and death that plays in public health policy not actually getting Covid. The U.K. is a clear case in point. It’s essentially ignoring infections.

What remains to be seen is if ignoring infections is viable. .

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

I don’t think very few scientists paraded that the vaccine would reduce transmission , in fact I distinctly remember various scientists suggest caution while “ hoping “ it would.

What everyone agrees is the vaccine prevents excessive illness and death. It’s the ICU issue and death that plays in public health policy not actually getting Covid. The U.K. is a clear case in point. It’s essentially ignoring infections.

What remains to be seen is if ignoring infections is viable. .

Exactly.

We are in unknown territory, and we shall see.


A minor quibble -- the vaccines DO reduce transmission, to the extent they prevent infection. The vaccines -- naturally -- are less effective at preventing asymptomatic and mild infections than they are at preventing hospitalization and death, but they are not ineffective. So of course a vaccinated population has much less transmission than an unvaccinated one.



The Brits are holding firm so far, and the numbers are going sort of the right way. Deaths are reasonably low. But notwithstanding their loudly announced "freedom day", they never took off ALL the restrictions like happened up here.

The Danes (getting back to the topic) are doing a course correction -- bringing back covid passports and limiting access to restaurants, bars, and public events to people who are either vaccinated, recenty tested, or recovered. Since virtually the entire adult population of Denmark is vaccinated, i guess this won't change much, but it certainly is at least a symbolic step back from "the pandemic is over in Denmark", which we were hearing last month.

I fear that Finland is very vulnerable because of almost total lack of natural immunity in the population.

We'll see what's next. Interesting times (and not in the good sense). Everybody is wondering what kind of a Christmas we will have this year.

[Dockhead]

Uptick in the death rate in Denmark, as cases continue to rise, now approaching 600 per million, a high rate. The daily death rate has now passed 1 per million:





Nothing much in the news about it; life goes on.

This is still a low death rate; it's half the rate in the UK or Germany. Hospitals are not under any stress.

Norway has passed 300 daily cases per million; also a significantly high rate.

Germany having its biggest outbreak ever:



From Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellsc...-17638113.html with highest rates of hospitalization ever by far, including the rate of hospitalization of people over 60 (from the same article in FAZ).

The federal government is intensifying its support of the Bundesländer for vaccination. There is some kind of program in works to use heated tents as additional vaccination points. The Ministerpräsident of one of the Bundesländer, Baden Württemburg, has just said that renewal of some of the restrictions is "not excluded" if the situation continues to worsen.

Germany's pandemic measures were somewhere between the Nordic style measures and measures in the rest of Europe -- no national lockdown (defined as stay at home orders), but two of the 16 Bundesländer did have regional lockdowns at one point.

Germany, with less than 1200 deaths per million so far, is by far the least affected large country in Europe -- so far -- but that also means Germany has the lowest amount of natural immunity in the population. At the moment the death rate is the highest among large European countries, but still well below the EU average.

[goboatingnow]

Ireland has re introduced some measures “ work at home where possible “ , this tends to affect state agencies the most , all hospitality must close by midnight , it’s expected further measures are likely to be announced in particular restrictions on indoor gatherings

This is in the face of 91.8% of the adult population fully vaccinated.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Ireland has re introduced some measures “ work at home where possible “ , this tends to affect state agencies the most , all hospitality must close by midnight , it’s expected further measures are likely to be announced in particular restrictions on indoor gatherings

This is in the face of 91.8% of the adult population fully vaccinated.

Ireland is doing pretty well -- the death rate is slightly more than 2 and stable, slightly less than the UK or Germany, despite a very high daily infection rate which is working towards 1000. Hospitalization rates are reasonable and steady, there are relatively few ICU patients.

I think this is what it looks like when the population is well vaccinated. It's not such a bad picture. I think this is what it looks like to "live with the virus". We shall, of course, see, how it progresses from here.

However, the idea of "living with the virus", which is the express policy now being followed all over Europe (and even in Australia and New Zealand), is not universally supported. I found this article to be very interesting despite its Marxist slant: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/202.../herd-o21.html. The thesis is that we can't live with the virus because Delta is too contagious, vaccines are not effective enough, and natural immunity not strong or long lasting enough. A policy of "global eradiction" is argued for, on the theory that it is only evil capitalists who want the end of restritictions, and that we should ignore them: "The principal barrier to the elimination of COVID-19 off the face of the globe is the profit-driven system of health care, and the division of the world into rival nation-states: in other words, capitalism." The same outlet published recently a bitter attack on the existing European policies: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/202.../euro-n17.html, equating them with Boris Johnson's so-called "herd immunity" strategy.


We shall see whether our current policy of "living with the virus", that is, recogizing that the virus is endemic (which Marxists call a "herd immunity strategy"), will result in acceptable hospitalization and death rates. I certainly hope so. We do need for this to be over.

[Baronkrak]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-...mise/100616706
Paxlovid may be the future.

[boatman61]

Guys...
Just accept what I said over a year ago on one of the earlier threads...
This is going to be an ongoing thing like influenza with regular periods of heightened infections and deaths.. another shot against a virus but likely twice a year going on current 'success'.... as opposed to the annual Flu shot.
Just another fact of life.. get used to it..

[Dockhead]

Norway has reintroduced the covid pass (restricting unvaccinated, untested people from restaurants, bars, and public events), and has reintroduced voluntary self-isolation for people arriving from other Nordic countries. This as Norway experiences the highest case numbers since the pandemic began. https://www.thelocal.no/norways-news-in-english/.



Interesting things happening in Germany. Power is about to be handed over from the conservative CDU/CSU, headed by Angela Merckel, to the "traffic light coalition" -- red, green, yellow -- socialists, greens, and libertarians in coaltion. The traffic light folks have decided that first thing, they will end the Emergency Situation which gives the government power to implement extraordinary pandemic measures. See: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/...-17638563.html. Instead of this, they plan to introduce a new pandemic law which gives regular (non-emergency) powers to the government. I'm not quite sure why Angela Merckel is against this -- this move simply recognizes that we are in a long-term situation where short-term emergency powers are not constitutionally permissable. A permanent law will bring the powers of the government to implement measures in line with the Constitution. If this is not done soon, the federal Verfassungsgericht is going to throw out the emergency powers anyway.



A clue to the importance of this can be seen in Spain, where a bunch of the pandemic measures were declared unconstitutional, and where millions of euros of fines for violating pandemic measures are being refunded. The Germans correctly don't want to go there. I like Merckel, who is the one actual scientist in charge of a European government, and who has been a leading voice in advocating moderate, science-based approaches to the pandemic, but I think she's wrong here.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Guys...
Just accept what I said over a year ago on one of the earlier threads...
This is going to be an ongoing thing like influenza with regular periods of heightened infections and deaths.. another shot against a virus but likely twice a year going on current 'success'.... as opposed to the annual Flu shot.
Just another fact of life.. get used to it..

Out of the mouths of salty dogs . . .



You're right, Phil.

[El Pinguino]

I don't think you get much out of simple 'new cases/ daily deaths' numbers.
You need lots more detail than that.
In the state of Victoria, Oz. We are just shy of 90% of over 12 year olds fully vaccinated.
With quite light restrictions - primarily mask wearing - details here https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/c...dsafe-settings
we have falling daily new case numbers.
These limited restrictions are due to ease further in a few days when we hit 90%
https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/victorias-roadmap
Relevant bit here
'Phase D: 90% fully vaccinated (12+ years)
Indicative date: 24 November 2021

Once 90% of Victorians aged 12 and over are fully vaccinated, all gathering limits, capacity and density limits will no longer apply.

Social:

No limits to number of people who can gather in the home and outdoors.
Masks are not required except in limited high-risk or low vaccinated settings and where is it difficult to socially distance.
Work:

On-site work can return for anyone fully vaccinated.
Retail, hospitality and entertainment:

Venues can operate at maximum capacity subject to vaccination requirements and COVIDSafe measures.
Major Events:

Events may proceed with no attendee caps or density limits for the fully vaccinated.
State significant venues hosting major events will need to have one-off approval of their COVIDSafe venue plan. Events with significant numbers of children may not be able to operate at full capacity while vaccines remain unavailable for children.'

Meanwhile, back to our daily stats
Full details here
https://www.theage.com.au/national/c..._redirect=true
Almost 50% of new infections are under 29 years old and only 12% are amongst the over 60's where about 95% are fully vaxxed.
Despite almost 1000 new cases a day numbers in hospital and ICU are both falling.

I think those are the sort of numbers you need to be looking at in Northern Europe.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

I don't think you get much out of simple 'new cases/ daily deaths' numbers.
You need lots more detail than that.
In the state of Victoria, Oz. We are just shy of 90% of over 12 year olds fully vaccinated.
With quite light restrictions - primarily mask wearing - details here https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/c...dsafe-settings
we have falling daily new case numbers.
These limited restrictions are due to ease further in a few days when we hit 90%
https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/victorias-roadmap
Relevant bit here
'Phase D: 90% fully vaccinated (12+ years)
Indicative date: 24 November 2021

Once 90% of Victorians aged 12 and over are fully vaccinated, all gathering limits, capacity and density limits will no longer apply.

Social:

No limits to number of people who can gather in the home and outdoors.
Masks are not required except in limited high-risk or low vaccinated settings and where is it difficult to socially distance.
Work:

On-site work can return for anyone fully vaccinated.
Retail, hospitality and entertainment:

Venues can operate at maximum capacity subject to vaccination requirements and COVIDSafe measures.
Major Events:

Events may proceed with no attendee caps or density limits for the fully vaccinated.
State significant venues hosting major events will need to have one-off approval of their COVIDSafe venue plan. Events with significant numbers of children may not be able to operate at full capacity while vaccines remain unavailable for children.'

Meanwhile, back to our daily stats
Full details here
https://www.theage.com.au/national/c..._redirect=true
Almost 50% of new infections are under 29 years old and only 12% are amongst the over 60's where about 95% are fully vaxxed.
Despite almost 1000 new cases a day numbers in hospital and ICU are both falling.

I think those are the sort of numbers you need to be looking at in Northern Europe.

Drilling down that deep is really useful!

Unfortunately although the Nordic countries are in many ways like one country in loose confederation (a bit like Canada or Oz actually), there is no centralized source of health statistics, so it's tedious. I did post some age structure of infections upthread, and they look like the ones you posted from Oz -- indeed this wave is largely a wave of the unvaccinated and of the young. Like you, I concluded that the high vaccination rate among older and vulnerable people keeps the death rate down. And I guess that's what we would expect, right?

Your cautious go at coming off "zero covid" in Oz seems to be going very well.

[El Pinguino]

Just about all restrictions in Victoria end tonight. It will be interesting to see how things look in 4 weeks time.

[Greg K]

Interesting new paper out of Sweden that should be of interest to anyone who is vaccinated. It postulates that (full length) spike proteins such as those produced by vaccination affect the production of B and T immune cells and thus impair adaptive immunity.

"…we report that the SARS–CoV–2 spike protein significantly inhibits DNA damage repair, which is required for effective V(D)J recombination in adaptive immunity. Mechanistically, we found that the spike protein localizes in the nucleus and inhibits DNA damage repair by impeding key DNA repair protein BRCA1 and 53BP1 recruitment to the damage site. Our findings reveal a potential molecular mechanism by which the spike protein might impede adaptive immunity and underscore the potential side effects of full-length spike-based vaccines..."

Bottom line, if this research is correct, the current vaccines may be damaging your adaptive immune system.

Full paper:

https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/10/2056/htm

[boatman61]

So basically all the Booster is doing is to increase the damage..
Good ongoing business management by Big Pharma..
Kinda reminds one how Oxycodone was once the Wonder Drug..
Once taken your Done..

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Greg K

Interesting new paper out of Sweden that should be of interest to anyone who is vaccinated. It postulates that (full length) spike proteins such as those produced by vaccination affect the production of B and T immune cells and thus impair adaptive immunity.

"…we report that the SARS–CoV–2 spike protein significantly inhibits DNA damage repair, which is required for effective V(D)J recombination in adaptive immunity. Mechanistically, we found that the spike protein localizes in the nucleus and inhibits DNA damage repair by impeding key DNA repair protein BRCA1 and 53BP1 recruitment to the damage site. Our findings reveal a potential molecular mechanism by which the spike protein might impede adaptive immunity and underscore the potential side effects of full-length spike-based vaccines..."

Bottom line, if this research is correct, the current vaccines may be damaging your adaptive immune system.

Full paper:

https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/10/2056/htm

This paper is not about vaccinations or vaccinated people, it is about the effect of covid-19.