Share this page!

John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
Twitter logo
26 Feb, 3 tweets, 2 min read
You love to see it.

Vaccine effect clearer every day in the UK. Amazing how much faster hospital admissions & deaths are falling in older groups than younger.

These are on a log scale, so steepening descent means rate of decrease among vaccinated groups grows every day 📉💉😀
Here’s our latest on rollout in the UK, as the government confirms that it will continue to prioritise based on age ft.com/content/f7decd…
Some asking how this compares to last year:

Last spring we actually saw the opposite: rates fell more *slowly* among older groups.

Caveat: testing regime was very very different back then (and these are admissions and deaths following a positive test), so interpret with caution

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with John Burn-Murdoch

John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @jburnmurdoch

John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
25 Feb
NEW: it’s a while since I’ve done a big international Covid thread, but this one feels important.

The first six weeks of 2021 have gone rather well in terms of humanity’s fight against Covid.

As well as the rollout of vaccines, global cases halved(!) between Jan 11 and Feb 18
It’s worth looking beneath the surface at what has driven that steep decline, as it’s far from a one-size-fits all explanation.

In some countries — the UK being the most striking — restrictions have done a lot of the heavy lifting, and this is about adherence as much as policy.
But elsewhere — particularly India & South Africa — the scale of previous waves means levels of natural immunity are *much* higher than anything we’ve seen in UK or elsewhere in developed world.

In these areas, antibodies & T-cells will have done a lot more of the heavy lifting.
Read 17 tweets
John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
22 Feb
Brief thread on vaccine passports and combatting hesitancy:

There’s been lots of chatter lately about vaccine passports. I get why lots of people think they’re a good idea, but one thing in particular strikes me as a big problem:

The stark racial divide in vaccine hesitancy.
Knowing what we do about rates of hesitancy (and measured vaccination rates 👇) among different ethnic groups, vaccine passports would amount to telling lots of non-white people "sorry you can’t come in here".

I don’t know about you, but that feels ... not good.
This is not to condone vaccine hesitancy, or to condescend and say "well it’s okay for them, considering everything".

Obviously we need to continue combatting vax hesitancy wherever we find it, *especially* among ethnic minorities among whom infection risk is also higher
Read 6 tweets
John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
22 Feb
NEW: data from Scotland shows a single dose offers very strong protection from hospitalisation, including among people aged 80 and over.

Vaccinated elderly people 81% less likely to be admitted to hospital than their unvaccinated peers

This is very good news(!)
More good news: data from @PHE_uk on people in England aged 80+ shows solid and rising protection from a first dose of BioNTech/Pfizer, with second dose boosting efficacy to over 85%

These data are for protection against infection, not hospital. The latter will be even higher 😀
Finally, more PHE data, this time from healthcare workers (aged under 65) shows very strong and long-lasting protection from infection among this age group after a single dose.

As before, protection against hospitalisation will be even stronger.
Read 5 tweets
John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
21 Feb
NEW with @ChrisGiles_:

UK vaccine effect is now clear in data on hospital admissions & deaths, but harder to see in cases

Some have seen this as a worrying sign, but I’m here to tell you it’s the opposite: a sign of how effective UK lockdown has been

ft.com/content/6d4ff1…
Israel’s vaccine effect is as clear as it is because cases and hospital admissions among younger, un-vaccinated groups kept rising there despite restrictions, or fell more stubbornly.

Low adherence to Israel’s current restrictions has been well-documented.
Overall, cases in the UK have actually fallen further and faster than in Israel despite that elusive vaccine effect being less clear over here.

So what’s going on?
Read 8 tweets
John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
17 Feb
NEW: the UK is currently on course to deliver a first dose to all over-50s by the end of March, even assuming no increase in vaccine supply or pace of delivery.

At current rates *all adults* could have 1st dose in August, and 2nd dose early Sept.

Story: ft.com/content/3e4a5e…
Even with very modest increases in supply and delivery, that date comes forward considerably, with all adults fully vaccinated in July.

The scenario shown below assumes a 2.5% weekly increase.
This echoes comments made to @SamCoatesSky by the head of the UK's Vaccine Taskforce, saying all adults could be double-dosed by Sept, or maybe Aug, or even sooner if needed
Read 6 tweets
John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
5 Feb
NEW:

Cases & hospital admissions in Israel are falling steeply among vaccinated age groups, in the first clear sign worldwide that Covid-19 jabs are preventing illness 💉🎉

Rates are falling much more slowly (if at all) among under-vaccinated groups.

ft.com/content/0cdc85…
We’ve seen very promising data from trials, but this is first evidence 'in the wild' that vaccines are working as hoped.

Data are from @segal_eran’s team at @weizmannscience, who compared case & hospital rates in 60+ age group (heavily vaccinated) and under-60s (less vaccinated)
That age group split is especially useful because of how Israel has phased its vaccination roll-out.

Between Dec 20 And Feb 2, vaccination rates rocketed from zero to 80% at age 60+. Rollout among under-60s began later and is climbing more slowly.
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @jburnmurdoch has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @jburnmurdoch!

Read all threads by @jburnmurdoch