Scotland lockdown from midnight.

[cromwell]

Well, well, well.
Now Professor Doom aka on the spectrum little weirdo Chris Whitty has just said.....
that the virus might be back next winter.
And we should be locked down again.
What a surprise - I must be psychic.

[Workingman]

We should both be called up.

I'll do my Prof. Ferguson numbers bit and you can do your Chris (not very) Whitty. We can get Mr Blobby to do the introductions.

Oh..... hang on.....

[TheOstrich]

......Then the virus or another version of it shows up in November.

I believe there's already some concern that the South African mutation is going to problematic - it is thought it might be more resistant to the current vaccines.
Hence the existing complete ban on flights to and from that country.

[Suff]

Ah, the "might" word. A bit like the 100m that "might" have died being banded about at the beginning of the pandemic.

Viruses mutate, it is a natural part of the virus ecology and the ability to fight that mutation is a natural part of the human immune system. Show the immune system something which is even close to the original and the human immune response will start to trigger.

Whilst an excess of caution is warranted in a pandemic; histrionic responses which jump the shark, ignoring both normal virology and the human immune system mechanisms, is not helpful. Earlier in this pandemic it was reported that people immunised with BCG were significantly less prone to serious infection than people who had not had BCG.

I wasn't aware that BCG was a covid-19 vaccine. So if that can work, why would a vaccine, specifically designed to target this virus, be totally ineffective against it?

I keep expecting to turn around and bump into Alice.

[Workingman]

Earlier in this pandemic it was reported that people immunised with BCG were significantly less prone to serious infection than people who had not had BCG.

True, so long as it was a fairly recent vaccination. The BCG vaccine has beneficial nonspecific effects on the immune system as was discovered with SARS where it reduced the severity of sepsis, pneumonia and other resiratory tract infections. It is not and never was a Covid vaccine. It is one of a group of other treatments and drugs being used alongside specific Covid -19 vaccines to aid recovery..

why would a vaccine, specifically designed to target this virus, be totally ineffective against it?

That depends on how the virus mutates and is why we have to tweak the influenza vaccines because year-on-year the two human strain variants, A/H3N2 and A/H1N1, mutate so efficiently. In the longer term this tweaking is what we might have to do with Covid vaccines. That work is already underway.

It is journalists looking for a headline who are turning it into a scare story.

[Workingman]

So, mid February has become March the 31st followed by a "gradual unwrapping" back to tiers.

That's more like it!

We can handle the truth even if is not what we would really like hear. It is far better than shuffling the deckchairs and moving the goalposts every few weeks. We as individuals can at least now make better plans for how we do things over the next three months or so.

What we now need are regular and truthful weekly updates so we can see the direction of travel and work out what to expect next. What we do not need, especially from the media, is this constant barrage of information covering every minute detail and analysing it to the nth degree. There are other things going on out there.... some are even of the 'good news' type.

[Suff]

It is journalists looking for a headline who are turning it into a scare story.

My thoughts exactly.

[cromwell]

......Then the virus or another version of it shows up in November.

I believe there's already some concern that the South African mutation is going to problematic

They are losing public trust Os. Too many lies have been told already. What next, a martian mutation?

[Workingman]

If you Google "South African variant of coronavirus" lots of links turn up..... then the fun begins.

All the press ones focus in on potential problems - 'we're all gonna die!'

The scientific ones then have to go into detail as to how and why it will probably not be the case and that we shouldn't make assumptions.

Unfortunately the scientists are not getting heard as much as the über medically qualified journalists who get paid by headlines. The headlines then make it to social media and so that particular virus spreads.