COVID Being brought under Control

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, wowzz said:

Actually the UK vaccination rate is slightly ahead of the US. 

Is that for fully vaccinated people (both of their shots), or just have had at least their first shot?

[wowzz]

8 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

Is that for fully vaccinated people (both of their shots), or just have had at least their first shot?

Total number of people that have had at least one injection.

As you probably know, the latest findings indicate that the longer the period between the first and second injection,  up to 12 weeks, the greater the effectiveness, so it makes sense to vaccinate as many people as possible,  with the second vaccine scheduled for 12 weeks later. 

The more people you vaccinate as quickly as possible, the sooner you will see a corresponding reduction in deaths and hospitalisations,  as evidenced in the UK over the last four weeks. 

[frantic36]

4 hours ago, njhorseman said:

According to the American Hospital Association it is. 

 

I'm done discussing this. 

 

Sometimes it is just not worth discussing. This ongoing notion that Covid deaths are hyper-inflated to make doctors richer  is one I just continue to shake my head over. Also the notion that the whole world is in on a conspiracy to make Covid appear worse than it is.

[cruisingguy007]

Yes, very good news coming down everyday. A lot of counties here in California will be in the orange tier in as little as two weeks and yellow two weeks after that. Things have moved so fast that they are now scrambling to come up with a green tier because they hadn't even considered it and figured it would be much further down the road. Numbers are only rising and plateauing in a few states, the rest are seeing steady declines in case rates/infections. The second phase of child vaccine tests (for the youngest youngins) are now under way and that will be a game changer! It's also looking like the USA will hit 100 million doses in as little as 58 days, as opposed to 100 that the current administration promised to deliver. This should put us on track, with the stepped up production that was worked out with manufacturers, to hit 200 million in 100 days! This is all great news! Fantastic in fact! Millions of doses will also be going to our NAFTA allies so this should improve numbers there as well. Things are certainly looking up!      

[CruiserBruce]

28 minutes ago, cruisingguy007 said:

Yes, very good news coming down everyday. A lot of counties here in California will be in the orange tier in as little as two weeks and yellow two weeks after that. Things have moved so fast that they are now scrambling to come up with a green tier because they hadn't even considered it and figured it would be much further down the road. Numbers are only rising and plateauing in a few states, the rest are seeing steady declines in case rates/infections. The second phase of child vaccine tests (for the youngest youngins) are now under way and that will be a game changer! It's also looking like the USA will hit 100 million doses in as little as 58 days, as opposed to 100 that the current administration promised to deliver. This should put us on track, with the stepped up production that was worked out with manufacturers, to hit 200 million in 100 days! This is all great news! Fantastic in fact! Millions of doses will also be going to our NAFTA allies so this should improve numbers there as well. Things are certainly looking up!      

Lets clarify things a bit here...

 

Yes, numbers are doing very well in California. But numbers are raising in 15 states. And the Spring break craziness is at its peak...

 

The 100  million doses was Biden's promise for his first 100 days...he states it will be achieved tomorrow. Prior to that, about 14 million doses were injected prior to his swearing in. So we are at about 115 million people with at least one dose on board. 200 million is probably doable.

 

The child vaccine testing is in progress, but everybody I heard today doubted any EUAs would happen before about Thanksgiving, if everything goes well. The normal process there is to start with the lowest dose possible to see if results are achieved, and then increase as needed. So it takes a while.

 

The situation with the AZ doses with Canada and Mexico is complicated...it probably will become more common, as we have commitments from the 3 current provides to vaccinate all eligible adult adults without AZ's 300 or 400 million dose commitment...we bet all the horses in the race, and many won. But AZ is a little tarnished right now, and given the hesitancy out there, this won't help. The vaccine hesitancy is probably the biggest problem out there. Second is the supply/demand issue, but I suspect that will diminish rapidly in April.

[ldubs]

3 hours ago, BritsAbroad said:

...really...what Worldwide? Obvs all the countries of the world have their communities pretending to die....solely so people can put their tin hats on? 🙂

 

I was referring to the US.  Please read all of my post before dropping such a silly conclusion on what I said.    

[cruisingguy007]

8 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

Lets clarify things a bit here...

 

Yes, numbers are doing very well in California. But numbers are raising in 15 states. And the Spring break craziness is at its peak...

 

The 100  million doses was Biden's promise for his first 100 days...he states it will be achieved tomorrow. Prior to that, about 14 million doses were injected prior to his swearing in. So we are at about 115 million people with at least one dose on board. 200 million is probably doable.

 

The child vaccine testing is in progress, but everybody I heard today doubted any EUAs would happen before about Thanksgiving, if everything goes well. The normal process there is to start with the lowest dose possible to see if results are achieved, and then increase as needed. So it takes a while.

 

The situation with the AZ doses with Canada and Mexico is complicated...it probably will become more common, as we have commitments from the 3 current provides to vaccinate all eligible adult adults without AZ's 300 or 400 million dose commitment...we bet all the horses in the race, and many won. But AZ is a little tarnished right now, and given the hesitancy out there, this won't help. The vaccine hesitancy is probably the biggest problem out there. Second is the supply/demand issue, but I suspect that will diminish rapidly in April.

 

200 is all but certain IMO, i suspect it may very well be somewhere closer to 300 with the ramp up. The first round of child trials (of older youngins) went much faster than anticipated, I suspect this round will be similar. Folks are wanting their kids vaccinated before the next school year and political pressure may very well help move things along. Either way, lots to be thankful, happy, and excited about! Certainly going much better than many thought possible. I'm stoked!  

[cruisemom42]

6 hours ago, Mary229 said:

It is true, however, that the government will pay more to hospitals for COVID-19 cases in two senses: By paying an additional 20% on top of traditional Medicare rates for COVID-19 patients during the public health emergency, and by reimbursing hospitals for treating the uninsured patients with the disease (at that enhanced Medicare rate).

 

Source:      https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/hospital-payments-and-the-covid-19-death-count/

 

adding it includes Medicaid also

 

I just read the linked article twice -- am I missing where it says Medicaid is included? 

[ldubs]

9 hours ago, Hlitner said:

I will tiptoe on this topic and stay away from inflammatory politics :).  Arguably, the best COVID data has been coming out of Johns Hopkins University (they actually have contracts with the US government) where there is no agenda and they simply deal in facts.   Consider that in the USA back in Jan we had nearly 250,000 new COVID cases per day.  Most recently that number has dropped to around 50,000.  And most of these 50,000 are in lower risk groups.  

New COVID-19 Cases Worldwide - Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center (jhu.edu)

 

 

 

Hank

 

 

That is certainly an improvement in case counts from the Winter peak.  But, unless I am mistaken, it is not really a change from the case counts we were experiencing last year for several months before the winter peak began.   And back then most cases were in lower age groups too.  

 

I would like to think that COVID deaths are declining, and they have compared to the winter peak which started about last November.  But the current daily death averages are no better than we were in May - Oct of last year before the peak began.  

 

So have we really gained?  I sincerely hope I'm missing something.   

[jfunk138]

44 minutes ago, ldubs said:

 

That is certainly an improvement in case counts from the Winter peak.  But, unless I am mistaken, it is not really a change from the case counts we were experiencing last year for several months before the winter peak began.   And back then most cases were in lower age groups too.  

 

I would like to think that COVID deaths are declining, and they have compared to the winter peak which started about last November.  But the current daily death averages are no better than we were in May - Oct of last year before the peak began.  

 

So have we really gained?  I sincerely hope I'm missing something.   

I think this chart shows the gains fairly well:

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=40..421&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=~USA

 

The absolute value is still high but the _direction_ is clear:  down steeply.

It's also worth noting that it's unlikely vaccination is playing a big role YET.  Israel has vaxxed 4x as many and their case curve looks almost exactly like the US.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=335..421&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Vaccinations&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=USA~ISR

As many have already pointed out, counting methods and "who counts as Covid" vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction which would mess with the absolute values but the "curves" don't lie.

A few warning signs for the US:  New Jersey and Michigan.  Cases have been going up, not down, in these 2 states:
https://covidactnow.org/share/29572/?redirectTo=%2Fexplore%2F29572

 

 

[Shmoo here]

2 hours ago, wowzz said:

the latest findings indicate that the longer the period between the first and second injection,  up to 12 weeks, the greater the effectiveness,

Source?

[ldubs]

10 minutes ago, jfunk138 said:

I think this chart shows the gains fairly well:

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=40..421&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=~USA

 

The absolute value is still high but the _direction_ is clear:  down steeply.

It's also worth noting that it's unlikely vaccination is playing a big role YET.  Israel has vaxxed 4x as many and their case curve looks almost exactly like the US.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=335..421&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Vaccinations&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=USA~ISR

As many have already pointed out, counting methods and "who counts as Covid" vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction which would mess with the absolute values but the "curves" don't lie.

A few warning signs for the US:  New Jersey and Michigan.  Cases have been going up, not down, in these 2 states:
https://covidactnow.org/share/29572/?redirectTo=%2Fexplore%2F29572

 

 

 

Thanks Jfunk138.  It is the data in your first link that has me concerned.  Yes, it shows we have recovered from  the winter spike.  But we are still worse than we were from May through Oct of last year.  It will only be an improvement if the trend continues.  We don't appear to be there yet.     

 

You make a very good point about the vaccinations not yet kicking in.   

 

I actually hope I'm somehow looking at this incorrectly.     

 

Take care.  

[Hlitner]

26 minutes ago, ldubs said:

 

That is certainly an improvement in case counts from the Winter peak.  But, unless I am mistaken, it is not really a change from the case counts we were experiencing last year for several months before the winter peak began.   And back then most cases were in lower age groups too.  

 

I would like to think that COVID deaths are declining, and they have compared to the winter peak which started about last November.  But the current daily death averages are no better than we were in May - Oct of last year before the peak began.  

 

So have we really gained?  I sincerely hope I'm missing something.   

Again, just sticking with the numbers (in this case put out by the CDC) we are seeing week over week drops of about 11% across the board when it comes to COVID.  Death rates are dropping about 19% week over week,  new cases are dropping about 11%, hospitalization rates have dropped significantly (you no longer hear about running out of hospital beds) etc.  All the numbers are heading in the right direction and the rate of  decline should accelerate as we are now accelerating our nationwide vaccination program.  But for some reason (use your own imagination) there are certain folks within our government who continue to paint a negative picture...contrary to all the data.   We are told to be very weary of new variants, but the actual numbers do not support the rhetoric.  

 

We do hear about a surge in parts of Europe (in EU countries) but these countries are all having problems with their vaccination programs.  So why is the USA and the UK doing a decent job with vaccines.  Lots of credit should go to the respective governments for making a commitment last year while doubters continued their negative ways.  When Trump said there would be vaccines by the end of 2021 the press said "no way" and Governors such as Cuomo and Newsom tossed out their doubting words.  But not only did the vaccines arrive in late 2021, the Trump folks made sure we had contracts to obtain huge amounts of vaccine (some of it guaranteed because of Government subsidies and NIH help).   The Biden folks ran with the ball and contracted for even more vaccine supplies.  I will admit that I could not imagine any vaccine developed in 9 months when our history was that no completely new vaccine had ever made it to market in less then 5 years.  But the Trump folks proved all of the doubters wrong and a few of the pharm companies came through in the clutch.  It is a miraculous story that has been blunted because of negative politics.  

 

The politics of COVID are really a sad commentary.  You do not have to like (or even respect) Donald Trump to acknowledge that he deserves a lot of credit for pushing Operation Warp Speed and pushing both the CDC and FDA to eliminate the usual bureaucratic delays.  My goodness, President Biden actually said there "were no vaccines when I took office" and yet he himself was vaccinated in December and there were more then a million shots given the very day he came to office.  The week before Biden took office over 10.6 million Americans had already been vaccinated!  

 

So now we continue to hear negative stuff from some "experts" within our own government that seem to baloney in the face of the numbers and science.  There is no evidence that folks who have been vaccinated (with the appropriate 1-2 weeks waiting period after shots) have spread COVID.  I cannot find any evidence of a single vaccinated person being hospitalized for COVID in the USA.   The vaccines do work and they work well!  Real evidence to the contrary simply does not exist!   And here is the interesting part.  Try to find real evidence of a vaccinated person getting COVID (after a 2-3 week waiting period) or spreading COVID!  I think you will find nothing!   There were some published cases of folks in the UK getting COVID after vaccination but it appears they only had 1 shot (it was the Pfizer vaccine where 2 shots are the norm) and they contracted COVID before even that one shot had sufficient time to generate enough antibodies (at least 2-3 weeks after the first shot).  They tell us that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccinations are about 95% effective, but try to find those 5% who contracted COVID more then 2 weeks after getting either of those vaccines.  

 

So paint me an optimist.  I wish I could also be optimistic that the CDC will enable the cruise industry to begin operations in the USA, but I have little faith in the CDC where politics seem to have torpedoed what once was a great agency.  Eventually the CDC will authorize the resumption of cruises but not without unnecessary delays.

 

Hank

 

 

 

 

[jfunk138]

8 minutes ago, ldubs said:

 

Thanks Jfunk138.  It is the data in your first link that has me concerned.  Yes, it shows we have recovered from  the winter spike.  But we are still worse than we were from May through Oct of last year.  It will only be an improvement if the trend continues.  We don't appear to be there yet.     

 

You make a very good point about the vaccinations not yet kicking in.   

 

I actually hope I'm somehow looking at this incorrectly.     

 

Take care.  

One more datapoint to feel good about.  It's been a full year since the first people in the US recovered from Covid.  Though none of the aggregators is tracking it, there have only been a handful of reinfections reported, despite 50,000 infections per day still occurring.  Immunity appears to be real and it appears to be long lasting.

This appears to be an elephant in the room in that the media and government doesn't like to talk about.

[ldubs]

3 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

Again, just sticking with the numbers (in this case put out by the CDC) we are seeing week over week drops of about 11% across the board when it comes to COVID.  Death rates are dropping about 19% week over week,  new cases are dropping about 11%, hospitalization rates have dropped significantly (you no longer hear about running out of hospital beds) etc.  All the numbers are heading in the right direction and the rate of  decline should accelerate as we are now accelerating our nationwide vaccination program.  But for some reason (use your own imagination) there are certain folks within our government who continue to paint a negative picture...contrary to all the data.   We are told to be very weary of new variants, but the actual numbers do not support the rhetoric.  

 

We do hear about a surge in parts of Europe (in EU countries) but these countries are all having problems with their vaccination programs.  So why is the USA and the UK doing a decent job with vaccines.  Lots of credit should go to the respective governments for making a commitment last year while doubters continued their negative ways.  When Trump said there would be vaccines by the end of 2021 the press said "no way" and Governors such as Cuomo and Newsom tossed out their doubting words.  But not only did the vaccines arrive in late 2021, the Trump folks made sure we had contracts to obtain huge amounts of vaccine (some of it guaranteed because of Government subsidies and NIH help).   The Biden folks ran with the ball and contracted for even more vaccine supplies.  I will admit that I could not imagine any vaccine developed in 9 months when our history was that no completely new vaccine had ever made it to market in less then 5 years.  But the Trump folks proved all of the doubters wrong and a few of the pharm companies came through in the clutch.  It is a miraculous story that has been blunted because of negative politics.  

 

The politics of COVID are really a sad commentary.  You do not have to like (or even respect) Donald Trump to acknowledge that he deserves a lot of credit for pushing Operation Warp Speed and pushing both the CDC and FDA to eliminate the usual bureaucratic delays.  My goodness, President Biden actually said there "were no vaccines when I took office" and yet he himself was vaccinated in December and there were more then a million shots given the very day he came to office.  The week before Biden took office over 10.6 million Americans had already been vaccinated!  

 

So now we continue to hear negative stuff from some "experts" within our own government that seem to baloney in the face of the numbers and science.  There is no evidence that folks who have been vaccinated (with the appropriate 1-2 weeks waiting period after shots) have spread COVID.  I cannot find any evidence of a single vaccinated person being hospitalized for COVID in the USA.   The vaccines do work and they work well!  Real evidence to the contrary simply does not exist!   And here is the interesting part.  Try to find real evidence of a vaccinated person getting COVID (after a 2-3 week waiting period) or spreading COVID!  I think you will find nothing!   There were some published cases of folks in the UK getting COVID after vaccination but it appears they only had 1 shot (it was the Pfizer vaccine where 2 shots are the norm) and they contracted COVID before even that one shot had sufficient time to generate enough antibodies (at least 2-3 weeks after the first shot).  They tell us that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccinations are about 95% effective, but try to find those 5% who contracted COVID more then 2 weeks after getting either of those vaccines.  

 

So paint me an optimist.  I wish I could also be optimistic that the CDC will enable the cruise industry to begin operations in the USA, but I have little faith in the CDC where politics seem to have torpedoed what once was a great agency.  Eventually the CDC will authorize the resumption of cruises but not without unnecessary delays.

 

Hank

 

 

 

 

Again, you are looking at improvements from an all time high number of cases & deaths.  But we are still no better off than we were last year before the spike.  I also think of myself as an optimist and look forward to seeing the trend continue.  We just are not there yet.  I guess I might be painting a negative picture but I think we have more work to do before we are out of the woods.   

 

BTW, I agree, as you and others say, the vaccination program should have a positive impact.  

[ldubs]

5 minutes ago, jfunk138 said:

One more datapoint to feel good about.  It's been a full year since the first people in the US recovered from Covid.  Though none of the aggregators is tracking it, there have only been a handful of reinfections reported, despite 50,000 infections per day still occurring.  Immunity appears to be real and it appears to be long lasting.

This appears to be an elephant in the room in that the media and government doesn't like to talk about.

 

That is an excellent point.  I had not given that much thought.  Thanks.   

[jfunk138]

9 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

I cannot find any evidence of a single vaccinated person being hospitalized for COVID in the USA.   The vaccines do work and they work well!  Real evidence to the contrary simply does not exist!   And here is the interesting part.  Try to find real evidence of a vaccinated person getting COVID (after a 2-3 week waiting period) or spreading COVID!  I think you will find nothing!   There were some published cases of folks in the UK getting COVID after vaccination but it appears they only had 1 shot (it was the Pfizer vaccine where 2 shots are the norm) and they contracted COVID before even that one shot had sufficient time to generate enough antibodies (at least 2-3 weeks after the first shot).  They tell us that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccinations are about 95% effective, but try to find those 5% who contracted COVID more then 2 weeks after getting either of those vaccines.

My apologies for playing devil's advocate here (because I agree with virtually everything you say).  However, I don't think the US is actually tracking infections of vaccinated individuals.  Israel is however.

I don't speak Hebrew, so I have to rely on Twitter to translate:
https://twitter.com/dvir_a/status/1367129061458382852

 

 

They are seeing ~10% of Covid deaths have been fully vaccinated with both doses, so clearly infections are still occurring in the vaccinated.

[2wheelin]

1 hour ago, jfunk138 said:

My apologies for playing devil's advocate here (because I agree with virtually everything you say).  However, I don't think the US is actually tracking infections of vaccinated individuals.  Israel is however.

I don't speak Hebrew, so I have to rely on Twitter to translate:
https://twitter.com/dvir_a/status/1367129061458382852

 

 

They are seeing ~10% of Covid deaths have been fully vaccinated with both doses, so clearly infections are still occurring in the vaccinated.

Our medical institution, and I believe most hospitals in the US, do a covid test prior to all invasive or possible droplet producing procedures. We found a positive test in 1% of these asymptomatic individuals. This was reported to confirm a large Israeli study which was published in the NEJM. Certainly if there were deaths among the vaccinated, we would hear about it.

If a vaccine is >95% effective in preventing disease there is no way 10% of deaths could occur in vaccinated people.

[wowzz]

3 hours ago, Shmoo here said:

Source?

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n326

[Mary229]

8 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

I just read the linked article twice -- am I missing where it says Medicaid is included? 

I will get the citation for you.  It is drawn from my own knowledge.  I actually at one time muddled through the cares act the best I could.  I will do that later for you

[CruiserBruce]

8 hours ago, jfunk138 said:

My apologies for playing devil's advocate here (because I agree with virtually everything you say).  However, I don't think the US is actually tracking infections of vaccinated individuals.  Israel is however.

I don't speak Hebrew, so I have to rely on Twitter to translate:
https://twitter.com/dvir_a/status/1367129061458382852

 

 

They are seeing ~10% of Covid deaths have been fully vaccinated with both doses, so clearly infections are still occurring in the vaccinated.

Read the tweet again...it doesn't say the deaths are from Covid. It just says deaths amount people who are vaccinated. Their oldest population is highly vaccinated...so people who die in their old age are going to be highly vaccinated.

 

I know Hawaii is tracking infections in vaccinated people. About a week ago they had 3 "breakout" cases.

[ontheweb]

12 hours ago, wowzz said:

Total number of people that have had at least one injection.

As you probably know, the latest findings indicate that the longer the period between the first and second injection,  up to 12 weeks, the greater the effectiveness, so it makes sense to vaccinate as many people as possible,  with the second vaccine scheduled for 12 weeks later. 

The more people you vaccinate as quickly as possible, the sooner you will see a corresponding reduction in deaths and hospitalisations,  as evidenced in the UK over the last four weeks. 

I  was going to ask for the source, but I see someone else already did that, and you posted a link. I read the link and it seems to be for the AstraZeneca vaccine which was not the one people in the USA are receiving. Do you know if there is any similar research on Moderna (which we received) or Pfizer? We actually got our second shots after 38 days; we were scheduled for 4 weeks later, but due to weather related distribution problems, the vaccine was not available in our county.

 

I do understand the strategy of at least getting everyone their first shot to get the maximum number of people at least some immunity.

[jfunk138]

41 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

Read the tweet again...it doesn't say the deaths are from Covid. It just says deaths amount people who are vaccinated. Their oldest population is highly vaccinated...so people who die in their old age are going to be highly vaccinated.

 

I know Hawaii is tracking infections in vaccinated people. About a week ago they had 3 "breakout" cases.

I've read it multiple times.  "Counts of COVID-19 deaths in Israel in last two months by vaccination status".  Because I, like you, was skeptical, I asked a Hebrew speaking colleague about it.  It is definitely COVID-19 deaths, not "all cause" deaths.  

Obviously there is some question about how a "COVID-19" death is determined, as has been mentioned many times here.  But, at a minimum, these appear to be someone who:

 

1.  Tested Covid-19 positive more than a week after dose #2.

2.  Died

[jfunk138]

7 hours ago, 2wheelin said:

Our medical institution, and I believe most hospitals in the US, do a covid test prior to all invasive or possible droplet producing procedures. We found a positive test in 1% of these asymptomatic individuals. This was reported to confirm a large Israeli study which was published in the NEJM. Certainly if there were deaths among the vaccinated, we would hear about it.

If a vaccine is >95% effective in preventing disease there is no way 10% of deaths could occur in vaccinated people.

1.  US has vaccinated one quarter the number in Israel.  There are a very small number of people who have been fully vaccinated.  At this point, it's going to be rare.

 

2.  Keep in mind that reporting something that does not align with "the science"™ gets one accused of eating at Olive Garden and staying at the Holiday Inn, so there is so hesitancy to even investigate something like this in the US.

 

3.  Studies aren't always a good indicator of what happens in the real world.  We've seen that again and again with this pandemic.  How many times has the "the science"™ evolved?

[wowzz]

25 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

Do you know if there is any similar research on Moderna (which we received) or Pfizer?

I'm sure there is, but to be frank, I haven't the time at present to track it down. The UK is taking the same approach with the Pfizer as with the AstraZeneca vaccine, with the same rationale.  Overall results are excellent, especially when you compare to the increase in cases in continental Europe, which has barely started a significant vaccination programme.