2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2736732 30-Jun-2021 15:44

PolicyGuy:

It seems we are either much ahead of, or lagging seriously behind out Aussie Mates

Yes, I know those are different measures - one is designed to show the NZ government in a bad light and the other to cast shade of the Australian government - but it does go to show how confused and confusing the vaccination situation is.

The reality is as of today Australia have 25.82% of their population who have had at least a single dose, with smaller states having a much higher percentage. Remember all these stats are on total population, and we know that 100% of the population will never be vaccinated (there are no vaccines approved for those under 11 for example).

Here in New Zealand that figure sits at 13.78% as of midnight last night who have had their first dose and 8.68% who have had their second and are fully vaccinated.

Comparing both is fraught isn't that simple.

The reason Australia's total two dose numbers are so low and half of ours is because so many people have had the AZ vaccine with a 12 week period between doses. In coming weeks their second dose numbers will really start ramping up due to so many second doses of AZ being given, and their move to Pfizer for most people. They will potentially get to around 12% fully vaccinated around the same time as us looking at their data.

But.. And the big "but" is that a single dose does offer protection. It's not as good as two doses, but the reality is it's waaaaay more protection than no dose at all. Just look at the Sydney super spreader party where so far there have been 24 positive cases - but the 6 people present who were fully vaccinated and the person who had only had a single dose have tested negative.

In that respect Australia is way ahead of New Zealand with their rollout.

At the end of the day we can argue about who is actually better, but the simple fact is we're doing doing terribly compared to the rest of the world.

wellygary

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#2736744 30-Jun-2021 16:06

sbiddle:

In that respect Australia is way ahead of New Zealand with their rollout.

At the end of the day we can argue about who is actually better, but the simple fact is we're doing doing terribly compared to the rest of the world.

Yip, we are both pretty rubbish, and we have got 2 more weeks of thumb twiddling as we plod along at ~120K a week, and during that time Aust will likely surpass us in those fully vaccinated (% wise)...

But once we get to the 3rd week of July we can crank up to pretty much as many as we can jab (50K a day) and then all going well we should start to catch up to (and potentially pass) OZ in both doses/100 ppl, and those fully vaccinated, -

[unless things become so politically heated in OZ they pull out the cheque book and make pfizer an offer they can't refuse]

and for all the stupid opposition politicians out there running round going "When are the vaccines arriving!!!"

Its pretty easy to workout that its

6 July ~150K
13 July ~150K
30 July ~350K
27 July ~350K

and from then on it doesn't really matter because we simply don't have the ability to inject much more than 50K/day 350K/week....

Handle9

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#2736846 30-Jun-2021 16:21

sbiddle:

The US really is a real world experiment right now - they probably won't hit their target of 70% of all adults having had their first jab by 4th July and sit at under 50% fully vaccinated but the US is fully open and operating as normal.

If Delta really is this supercharged mutant strain that's going to infect us all even if we've vaccinated (as some experts would have us think) we're certainly going to know within the next month.

For highly vaccinated countries like the UK, US and here in the UAE the impact of covid isn't that severe at the moment. It bears keeping an eye on but the world is moving on with returning to a more sustainable pattern of life. It won't be what it used to be but it likely won't be what it has been for the last year either.

Fred99

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#2736903 30-Jun-2021 16:47

There's a big variation in state to state vaccination rates in the US.

75% of 18+ fully vaccinated in Vermont through to 38% in Mississippi. In the latter, only 45% have had a first dose.
The stats correlate pretty closely with what I'd expect from political and religious affiliation.

CDC data shows that Delta was about 5% of new cases a month ago, it's >20% of new cases now, and the states where Delta variant is becoming dominant most quickly are the states with the lowest % fully vaccinated.

Gamma variant (P1 - Brazil) is also increasing rapidly.

wellygary

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#2736953 30-Jun-2021 16:55

sbiddle:

The US really is a real world experiment right now - they probably won't hit their target of 70% of all adults having had their first jab by 4th July and sit at under 50% fully vaccinated but the US is fully open and operating as normal.

If Delta really is this supercharged mutant strain that's going to infect us all even if we've vaccinated (as some experts would have us think) we're certainly going to know within the next month.

I found this paper from the MoH Today (which is a weekly updates on variants - that they appear to have been publishing since May and conveniently not publicising)
https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/29-june-2021-variants-update-full-report.pdf

it indicates that double-pfizer is still a good vaccine against Delta (88%) , and 96% against hospitalisation

It notes

"Evidence indicates the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant is highly transmissible. WHO data estimates that compared with non-VOCs, Delta may be about 97% more transmissible, and approximately 50-60% more transmissible compared to Alpha (B.1.1.7), specifically.

• Delta is able to reduce vaccine effectiveness, but this is mainly seen with respect to one dose, and not with two doses. Vaccine effectiveness of Pfizer against symptomatic disease for Delta is high, approximately 88%. Estimates of vaccine effectiveness against severe COVID-19 disease requiring hospitalisation for Delta are 96% after two doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

• COVID-19 infection with the Delta variant is may be associated with twice the rate of hospitalisation compared to the previous alpha variant.

• New evidence suggests that Delta may be associated with increased viral load compared to alpha. The increased viral load, in addition to the immune evasion properties, may account for the increased transmissibility."

DS248

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#2736991 30-Jun-2021 17:41

Handle9:

...

For highly vaccinated countries like the UK, US and here in the UAE the impact of covid isn't that severe at the moment. It bears keeping an eye on but the world is moving on with returning to a more sustainable pattern of life. It won't be what it used to be but it likely won't be what it has been for the last year either.

UAE is one that has puzzled me.

As per the Worldometers plots below, the rate of daily infections has remained static at around 2,000/day over the last month, despite high levels of vaccination.

Population adjusted, that's equivalent to 1,000/day in NZ.

I doubt many in NZ would regard 1,000 cases/day here as not "that severe".

Daily deaths are 'relatively low' but have been increasing over the last few weeks.

By relatively low, I mean a CFR of ~0.35% (based on 3-day average deaths as at 27 Jun). And death numbers may still be rising.

But, given the high proportion of 'guest workers' in UAE (or whatever they are called) my guess is that the proportion of the population 70 and older is much lower than in typical western countries.

The (lagged) CFR in UAE has always been quite low; eg. only ~0.5 in mid-Feb (~3 week lag between peak cases and peak deaths). At that stage the vaccination programme had been running only just over a month so unlikely that it had much impact on the death rate (given a likely ~4 week average lag between infection and death).

So, even the impact of the vaccinations on deaths seems quite moderate (lagged CFR down from ~0.5 to 0.35)

With the likely much higher proportion of the population here that is over 70, deaths from 1,000 cases/day would be expected to be higher.

Handle9

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#2736996 30-Jun-2021 17:53

DS248:

Handle9:

...

For highly vaccinated countries like the UK, US and here in the UAE the impact of covid isn't that severe at the moment. It bears keeping an eye on but the world is moving on with returning to a more sustainable pattern of life. It won't be what it used to be but it likely won't be what it has been for the last year either.

UAE is one that has puzzled me.

As per the Worldometers plots below, the rate of daily infections has remained static at around 2,000/day over the last month, despite high levels of vaccination.

Population adjusted, that's equivalent to 1,000/day in NZ.

I doubt many in NZ would regard 1,000 cases/day here as not "that severe".

==

Daily deaths are 'relatively low' but have been increasing over the last few weeks.

By relatively low, I mean a CFR of ~0.35% (based on 3-day average deaths as at 27 Jun). And death numbers may still be rising.

But, given the high proportion of 'guest workers' in UAE (or whatever they are called) my guess is that the proportion of the population 70 and older is much lower than in typical western countries.

The (lagged) CFR in UAE has always been quite low; eg. only ~0.5 in mid-Feb (~3 week lag between peak cases and peak deaths). At that stage the vaccination programme had been running only just over a month so unlikely that it had much impact on the death rate (given a likely ~4 week average lag between infection and death).

So, even the impact of the vaccinations on deaths seems quite moderate (lagged CFR down from ~0.5 to 0.35)

With the likely much higher proportion of the population here that is over 70, deaths from 1,000 cases/day would be expected to be higher.

It's almost impossible to compare the UAE to "normal" countries. It's 85% non citizens and if you lose your job you have to leave the country. There are older people here but relatively not many.

The local population does have a fairly high level of genetic disorders and health issues.

This got released a couple of days ago which gives some context as to where the issues lie.

Edit: resized picture and removed redundant graph

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DS248

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#2737088 30-Jun-2021 22:52

Handle9:

... [ex UAE]

This got released a couple of days ago which gives some context as to where the issues lie.

Nice illustration of the effect of the vaccines.

If my maths are correct, implies the CFR for vaccinated is ~1/3rd of that for unvaccinated (on top of lower chance of being infected in the first place).

The significance depends though on any potential bias due to the respective populations vaccinated vs unvaccinated; proportionately fewer citizens vaccinated? Or the reverse?

Handle9

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#2737089 30-Jun-2021 23:07

DS248:

Nice illustration of the effect of the vaccines.

If my maths are correct, implies the CFR for vaccinated is ~1/3rd of that for unvaccinated (on top of lower chance of being infected in the first place).

The significance depends though on any potential bias due to the respective populations vaccinated vs unvaccinated; proportionately fewer citizens vaccinated? Or the reverse?

I don't, and will never, know the proportion of locals to non locals vaccinated. This isn't a democracy so data transparency isn't very high. We run counter cyclical to Europe and the US as our winter is when everyone is outside and summer you are forced to stay indoors.

You also need to take into account that a high proportion of the vaccinated population has had sinopharm, which while effective in clinical trials, isn't as effective as Astrazeneca or the RNA vaccines. Combined with some fairly cramped living conditions for many people and delta and beta being predominant it's an interesting time.

What I can say is that anecdotally we aren't seeing the same number of people getting really sick. In January things we pretty bad and everyone knew someone who had been in ICU. It's very different now, while people are getting infected they aren't getting really sick like they were. For example a casual acquaintance tested positive last week. She was fully vaccinated with Sinopharm and while she felt a bit under the weather for a few days she's fine now. Things aren't out of the woods yet but life is very much improved.

I talk multiple times a day to Europe and a lot to the US colleagues as well and things are very much on the improve there. Everyone is cautious but things are much much better than at the beginning of the year. Of course it's summer now so we'd expect things to improve as they did last year, the test really will be October-January when winter comes and everyone is forced inside again.

tdgeek

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#2737105 1-Jul-2021 06:49

I don't see how we can compare ourselves to other countries or be called rubbish if we have actually vaccinated literally almost every vaccine we have been supplied. We could not have doubled what we have done as there is not the vaccines supplied per month to do that. If our stocks were building up as we aren't jabbing enough that would be an issue but there aren't the jabs available. The only argument is that we decided to use Pfizer and not a mix of others. Given that generally Covid is not here, we have decided to use the best vaccine. Will the entire world open up by Christmas? Maybe it will, but by then we will be there as well, vaccine wise.

GV27

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#2737117 1-Jul-2021 07:49

tdgeek:

I don't see how we can compare ourselves to other countries or be called rubbish if we have actually vaccinated literally almost every vaccine we have been supplied. We could not have doubled what we have done as there is not the vaccines supplied per month to do that. If our stocks were building up as we aren't jabbing enough that would be an issue but there aren't the jabs available. The only argument is that we decided to use Pfizer and not a mix of others. Given that generally Covid is not here, we have decided to use the best vaccine. Will the entire world open up by Christmas? Maybe it will, but by then we will be there as well, vaccine wise.

I think by now most of the heat about our vaccine roll-out is purely based on the government making promises about our rollout relative to the rest of the world last year that it probably shouldn't have - I don't think the Covid response is any different to many other areas that the government has promised something that they have ultimately not been in a position to deliver/make that assurance at the time because they don't have the information they need to make it, but that's getting close to a derailment and probably belongs in another thread.

In the Alpha variant world this probably would have been fine for a few months slippage here and there, but I think it's more important that we scale things up as we're being told will happen now that the Delta variant is likely to make an appearance in the community at some point - the stakes for further delays are a bit higher now that we have a new variant to worry about, and who is to say there won't be another in a few months time.

Further slippage of our rollout could be catastrophic.

sbiddle

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#2737123 1-Jul-2021 08:01

What's obviously going to be the real issue in NZ now is MIQ again. RNZ discussed this fairly extensively last evening and I know two people at present who are in similar situations.

Right now MIQ space is chokka until the end of Nov, but there will be some spaces appear as they bring properties back online again.

The world is opening up, and within the next two months the UK, Europe and North America will be back to their new normal. This means that travel from New Zealand is going to be essential for many businesses. The government and MBIE need to address this issue, but I feel they're simply going to put it in the too hard basket like so many other things.

tdgeek

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#2737125 1-Jul-2021 08:04

GV27:

tdgeek:

I don't see how we can compare ourselves to other countries or be called rubbish if we have actually vaccinated literally almost every vaccine we have been supplied. We could not have doubled what we have done as there is not the vaccines supplied per month to do that. If our stocks were building up as we aren't jabbing enough that would be an issue but there aren't the jabs available. The only argument is that we decided to use Pfizer and not a mix of others. Given that generally Covid is not here, we have decided to use the best vaccine. Will the entire world open up by Christmas? Maybe it will, but by then we will be there as well, vaccine wise.

I think by now most of the heat about our vaccine roll-out is purely based on the government making promises about our rollout relative to the rest of the world last year that it probably shouldn't have - I don't think the Covid response is any different to many other areas that the government has promised something that they have ultimately not been in a position to deliver/make that assurance at the time because they don't have the information they need to make it, but that's getting close to a derailment and probably belongs in another thread.

In the Alpha variant world this probably would have been fine for a few months slippage here and there, but I think it's more important that we scale things up as we're being told will happen now that the Delta variant is likely to make an appearance in the community at some point - the stakes for further delays are a bit higher now that we have a new variant to worry about, and who is to say there won't be another in a few months time.

Further slippage of our rollout could be catastrophic.

What was that promise? "government making promises about our rollout relative to the rest of the world last year"

How can there be slippage if we have no vaccines to administer? Is supply not relevant? Pfizer has supplied exactly what they said they would, I think there was one instance where one shipment was two days late as stated in a recent standup or article. If there was a need to vaccinate faster due to variants, do we just ask Pfizer to double each shipment?

Our rollout is governed by what we get supplied, its that simple.

GV27

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#2737134 1-Jul-2021 08:40

tdgeek:

How can there be slippage if we have no vaccines to administer? Is supply not relevant? Pfizer has supplied exactly what they said they would, I think there was one instance where one shipment was two days late as stated in a recent standup or article. If there was a need to vaccinate faster due to variants, do we just ask Pfizer to double each shipment?

Our rollout is governed by what we get supplied, its that simple.

That didn't stop people making assurances last year they probably shouldn't have been making assurances about, given our rollout was always going to be constrained by supply. But that's not entirely true either as the software for tracking the actual vaccinations didn't exist until very recently either, so even if they had all shown up at once, we couldn't deliver them - at least that was the excuse a few months ago.

Whatever, it doesn't really matter now. We're in a race against the clock to beat the Delta Variant getting a foothold - we've already had one known incursion, likely more, but so far nothing that has triggered measurable spread. We may not be that lucky forever, and our insurance is now nailing our vaccination targets that we've finally set.

tdgeek

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#2737157 1-Jul-2021 08:52

GV27:

tdgeek:

How can there be slippage if we have no vaccines to administer? Is supply not relevant? Pfizer has supplied exactly what they said they would, I think there was one instance where one shipment was two days late as stated in a recent standup or article. If there was a need to vaccinate faster due to variants, do we just ask Pfizer to double each shipment?

Our rollout is governed by what we get supplied, its that simple.

That didn't stop people making assurances last year they probably shouldn't have been making assurances about, given our rollout was always going to be constrained by supply. But that's not entirely true either as the software for tracking the actual vaccinations didn't exist until very recently either, so even if they had all shown up at once, we couldn't deliver them - at least that was the excuse a few months ago.

Whatever, it doesn't really matter now. We're in a race against the clock to beat the Delta Variant getting a foothold - we've already had one known incursion, likely more, but so far nothing that has triggered measurable spread. We may not be that lucky forever, and our insurance is now nailing our vaccination targets that we've finally set.

I'd still like to see these locked down assurances, which seems unlikely given last year there were so many unknowns, as there are now. More likely to be goals. Do you have a link?

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