I have had three work colleagues absent in the past 14 days, variously reporting fever, G-I, and Insomnia symptoms.
It is heartening that the incoming Labour government appears to be taking public health much more seriously, with the appointment of Sir Patrick Vallance. Wes Streeting as Health Secretary, however, is a retrograde step.
My elderly father was hospitalised for 3 weeks with symptoms similar to covid, abnormal chest x ray and requiring oxygen, it was 4 weeks after onset of symptoms that he was hospitalised and that a PCR was done and negative, I'm not sure if this excludes covid as a diagnosis and makes me wonder if tests might not be picking up all hospital admissions ( he had had all vaccinations but not the spring booster)
Thank you again for your work in producing these reports. Wastewater monitoring would seem to such a cost effective, simple approach to detect and follow viruses in the population. Perhaps it should be added to the required remit of the water companies.
In Portugal, the curve of (confirmed) notifications of COVID new cases is also slowing down (decreasing slope). The value of Rt is still slightly above 1, but I expect that we might be passing the peak next week (variation 0%, Rt=1).
Assuming that the level of underreporting remained stable in the past 2 months, a few things can be said regarding the Portuguese KP* wave.
Cases started to increase in early May. The rate of variation hit the peak in middle May (approxim +13.5% a day) with an estimated Rt ~ 1.5, which means cases were doubling every 5 days.
By the end of May, Rt ~ 1.3 (doubling every 12 days), and by the end of Junhe, Rt~1.05.
What might have caused this? The Portuguese reference lab reports that throughout May, the KP.3 lineage became dominant in samples. Simultaneously, humoral population protection was probably already very low in April, as the last vaccine campaign took place more than 5 months ago (with a coverture of only 56% in 60+).
What amazes me is that this virus manages to have an Rt ~1.5 in the middle of a sunny springtime! when most other respiratory virus have already Rt <<1. SARS-Cov-2 has such an high transmissibility that it cares very little for weather seasonality. What appears to determine whether we will have another wave or not is the combination of the ability of new sublineages to evade antibodies with how long ago was the last vaccination campaign (or the last wave).
If humoral population protection is low, a big wave is only a matter of mutational chance and therefore almost unpredictable. Manuel Gomes, Portugal
The amount of virus detected in wastewater is likely sensitive to the presence of immune compromised individuals shedding more virus for longer periods of time.
How will Streeting and Starmer deal with UKHSA and public health incompetence?
And an NHS that has abandoned IPC responsibilities - what would John Snow and others make of what we have become?
A virus cannot become endemic unless there is sufficient sterilizing immunity in the population for the virus not to be significant for the vulnerable. Until that happens there will not be a seasonal infection pattern.
~50% of the original naïve population were immune to this virus. So they are wondering what all the fuss is about, and resent their lifestyle being curtailed.
The issue is the other 50% and those of the immune that got vaccinated. There is no evidence that the innate immune system has been trained by mRNA vaccines AND the humoral immune system is producing only weakly neutralising antibodies, and if anything boosters make that worse.
What will happen next is Antibody Dependent Enhancement of disease facilitated by those weak antibodies, with a FLiRT descendant, or another convergent evolutionary super-variant. That will be the avenue to an endemicity of minor variants spilling over occasionally from animal reservoirs, in a population with sterilising immunity conferred by the final super-variant.
But a lot of deaths before that with a health and public health system asleep at the switch.
In a pandemic, it is a feature of Nature to have an equilibrium achieved between the disease-causing virus and the host’s immune system. SARS CoV-2 is what is called an obligate parasite, meaning it is obliged to find a host. All it does is replicate inside the host’s cells, making an identical copy of itself. It has no human attributes like planning, strategy or tactics, just endless replication if given the opportunity. It makes mistakes doing so and has an ability to repair those mistakes. That repair is not always successful leading to what is called a new variant, due to the presence of a mutation different from its parent.
If the new variant can successfully replicate and get transmitted to a new host, it may continue to infect the host population. If it is able to infect another vaccinated host it is regarded as a vaccine breakthrough infection. That can only happen if the antibodies generated by the vaccine, are non-neutralising. It has been apparent from the beginning that the vaccination programme did not confer sterilising immunity.
The basic vaccination regimen of two or three vaccinations succeeded in preventing severe disease, but it soon became apparent that the descendants of Omicron were able to complete a breakthrough infection that can put the host in the ICU. The population-wide immune system the virus faces now, is very different than the original Wuhan variant. It is under extreme population wide pressure from the newly vaccinated (non-naïve) immune system profile, and so for a variant to escape that immune system and replicate in another host it has to be fitter to transmit. The more hosts infected, the more opportunity for a new variant to emerge. So, in a manner of speaking, we are putting it through a training boot-camp and only the fittest variant survives. Basic Darwinian evolutionary theory.
Survival of the fittest, does not mean the strongest survive, it means only those who can adapt to a new environmental challenge survive. The more challenge the variant has to overcome the fitter it will be. There is a high probability that a variant that is not only highly transmissible but also highly disease causing emerges. So “living with it” is a huge lab experiment.
We know that some viruses exhibit what is called Antibody Dependant Enhancement of Disease (ADED). Dengue fever caused by a mosquito transmitted virus, may on first infection be a mild illness and more deadly upon second infection because the original antibodies actually aid the cell entry of the virus. Research reports suggest that this may also be a feature of SARS CoV-2.
Vaccines are not Smarties or Maltesers, they should be respected. I would not have used your word weakening, but boosters are certainly not enhancing anything, and at worst are coaching the virus. The focus should have been on antiviral therapy development, but people are just sitting on their hands.
Stay well and watch your back! There are a lot of highly qualified stupid people running the show. Little has changed in years.
Thank you for your report. I just hope this new Govt will take the points you and other reputable scientists have raised and consider the importance of public health. A healthy nation is a productive nation in every respect. I don’t ever want to hear a repeat of the views held by the previous Govt!
I have had three work colleagues absent in the past 14 days, variously reporting fever, G-I, and Insomnia symptoms.
It is heartening that the incoming Labour government appears to be taking public health much more seriously, with the appointment of Sir Patrick Vallance. Wes Streeting as Health Secretary, however, is a retrograde step.
My elderly father was hospitalised for 3 weeks with symptoms similar to covid, abnormal chest x ray and requiring oxygen, it was 4 weeks after onset of symptoms that he was hospitalised and that a PCR was done and negative, I'm not sure if this excludes covid as a diagnosis and makes me wonder if tests might not be picking up all hospital admissions ( he had had all vaccinations but not the spring booster)
Thank you again for your work in producing these reports. Wastewater monitoring would seem to such a cost effective, simple approach to detect and follow viruses in the population. Perhaps it should be added to the required remit of the water companies.
In Portugal, the curve of (confirmed) notifications of COVID new cases is also slowing down (decreasing slope). The value of Rt is still slightly above 1, but I expect that we might be passing the peak next week (variation 0%, Rt=1).
Assuming that the level of underreporting remained stable in the past 2 months, a few things can be said regarding the Portuguese KP* wave.
Cases started to increase in early May. The rate of variation hit the peak in middle May (approxim +13.5% a day) with an estimated Rt ~ 1.5, which means cases were doubling every 5 days.
By the end of May, Rt ~ 1.3 (doubling every 12 days), and by the end of Junhe, Rt~1.05.
What might have caused this? The Portuguese reference lab reports that throughout May, the KP.3 lineage became dominant in samples. Simultaneously, humoral population protection was probably already very low in April, as the last vaccine campaign took place more than 5 months ago (with a coverture of only 56% in 60+).
What amazes me is that this virus manages to have an Rt ~1.5 in the middle of a sunny springtime! when most other respiratory virus have already Rt <<1. SARS-Cov-2 has such an high transmissibility that it cares very little for weather seasonality. What appears to determine whether we will have another wave or not is the combination of the ability of new sublineages to evade antibodies with how long ago was the last vaccination campaign (or the last wave).
If humoral population protection is low, a big wave is only a matter of mutational chance and therefore almost unpredictable. Manuel Gomes, Portugal
Thank you for giving such a detailed explanation of the Portuguese situation! And I agree with you on COVID waves.
The amount of virus detected in wastewater is likely sensitive to the presence of immune compromised individuals shedding more virus for longer periods of time.
Is there any chance that the new UK government will improve monitoring, specifically wastewater?
Thank you for taking the time to write this update. It’s much appreciated.
"Diving into data and decision making"
No real data worth diving into.
What gets measured, gets managed.
How will Streeting and Starmer deal with UKHSA and public health incompetence?
And an NHS that has abandoned IPC responsibilities - what would John Snow and others make of what we have become?
A virus cannot become endemic unless there is sufficient sterilizing immunity in the population for the virus not to be significant for the vulnerable. Until that happens there will not be a seasonal infection pattern.
~50% of the original naïve population were immune to this virus. So they are wondering what all the fuss is about, and resent their lifestyle being curtailed.
The issue is the other 50% and those of the immune that got vaccinated. There is no evidence that the innate immune system has been trained by mRNA vaccines AND the humoral immune system is producing only weakly neutralising antibodies, and if anything boosters make that worse.
What will happen next is Antibody Dependent Enhancement of disease facilitated by those weak antibodies, with a FLiRT descendant, or another convergent evolutionary super-variant. That will be the avenue to an endemicity of minor variants spilling over occasionally from animal reservoirs, in a population with sterilising immunity conferred by the final super-variant.
But a lot of deaths before that with a health and public health system asleep at the switch.
Hi, please can you explain to this layperson why boosters would be weakening? Thanks.
In a pandemic, it is a feature of Nature to have an equilibrium achieved between the disease-causing virus and the host’s immune system. SARS CoV-2 is what is called an obligate parasite, meaning it is obliged to find a host. All it does is replicate inside the host’s cells, making an identical copy of itself. It has no human attributes like planning, strategy or tactics, just endless replication if given the opportunity. It makes mistakes doing so and has an ability to repair those mistakes. That repair is not always successful leading to what is called a new variant, due to the presence of a mutation different from its parent.
If the new variant can successfully replicate and get transmitted to a new host, it may continue to infect the host population. If it is able to infect another vaccinated host it is regarded as a vaccine breakthrough infection. That can only happen if the antibodies generated by the vaccine, are non-neutralising. It has been apparent from the beginning that the vaccination programme did not confer sterilising immunity.
The basic vaccination regimen of two or three vaccinations succeeded in preventing severe disease, but it soon became apparent that the descendants of Omicron were able to complete a breakthrough infection that can put the host in the ICU. The population-wide immune system the virus faces now, is very different than the original Wuhan variant. It is under extreme population wide pressure from the newly vaccinated (non-naïve) immune system profile, and so for a variant to escape that immune system and replicate in another host it has to be fitter to transmit. The more hosts infected, the more opportunity for a new variant to emerge. So, in a manner of speaking, we are putting it through a training boot-camp and only the fittest variant survives. Basic Darwinian evolutionary theory.
Survival of the fittest, does not mean the strongest survive, it means only those who can adapt to a new environmental challenge survive. The more challenge the variant has to overcome the fitter it will be. There is a high probability that a variant that is not only highly transmissible but also highly disease causing emerges. So “living with it” is a huge lab experiment.
We know that some viruses exhibit what is called Antibody Dependant Enhancement of Disease (ADED). Dengue fever caused by a mosquito transmitted virus, may on first infection be a mild illness and more deadly upon second infection because the original antibodies actually aid the cell entry of the virus. Research reports suggest that this may also be a feature of SARS CoV-2.
Vaccines are not Smarties or Maltesers, they should be respected. I would not have used your word weakening, but boosters are certainly not enhancing anything, and at worst are coaching the virus. The focus should have been on antiviral therapy development, but people are just sitting on their hands.
Stay well and watch your back! There are a lot of highly qualified stupid people running the show. Little has changed in years.
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng191/chapter/4-Therapeutics-for-COVID-19#antivirals
"We are still in three to four waves a year" 📢
Thank you for your report. I just hope this new Govt will take the points you and other reputable scientists have raised and consider the importance of public health. A healthy nation is a productive nation in every respect. I don’t ever want to hear a repeat of the views held by the previous Govt!