Oxford/ONS study:
• Viral load similar vaccinated vs unvaccinated, no measure of actual transmission
• Significant vaccine effectiveness vs Delta but …
• reducing over time, esp for AZ

What are implications for Govt policy to sack unvaccinated carers?
ndm.ox.ac.uk/files/coronavi…

[I’ll refer mainly to comparisons based on PCR test Ct values < 30, i.e. higher viral load. The paper also provides comparisons based on all +ve PCRs & +ve PCRs with self-reported symptoms] …

Overall, having a prior infection provides a similar level of protection to being vaccinated (Table 1a/2a). Protection is lower relative to Pfizer (statistically significant difference), higher than AZ (statistically insignificant). However .,.
... they find VE reduces over time, especially for Pfizer. So 100 days from vaccination, immunity from either vaccine seems to be lower than from prior infection (Fig S3 & Table 2a) …
...
(Vaccination does increase immunity even further for those with a prior infection, but the marginal effect of prior infection is much bigger) ...

So there really is zero case for sacking unvaccinated care workers with a prior infection.

In fact, if you were really wanted to lower infection risk of care workers, you would be better off sacking those vaccinated with AZ (at least a few months post-vaccination) …
But can we be sure there is any public health benefit at all from sacking unvaccinated care workers? …

Vaccines still reduce infections overall but:

1. The vaccinated still have a significant risk of getting infected. E.g. VE looks to be about 60-70% after 100 days (Fig S3) …

2. Oxford/ONS find VE reduces consistently over time, especially for AZ. So by the time unvaccinated care workers are sacked in the autumn, VE will presumably be even lower for many workers & the difference in risk vs unvaccinated even less …

3. VE overestimates the increased risk of transmission by unvaccinated:

If unvaccinated are tested (as happens now) & isolate when they have symptoms, the practical additional risk of transmission within care homes from having a small % of unvaccinated carers will be tiny …

4. Even worse, there may be unintended behavioural effects:
As the Oxford/ONS paper points out, there is a danger those vaccinated perceive their risk of transmission to be lower than it is, meaning, e.g., they may be less likely to take note of symptoms …

Taken together, we simply don’t know if sacking unvaccinated care workers will actually reduce transmission in care homes at all ...
...
Further, now most care home residents are themselves vaccinated, even if sacking unvaccinated carers did lead to a small, marginal reduction in transmission the benefit in terms of death/serious illness will be even smaller …

Against that we have to factor in:
• risks of side effects (known & unknown) in carers unwillingly vaccinated.
• serious infringements of carers' human rights.
• worse care for residents from sacking thousands in a sector already experiencing a staffing crisis …

Sacking unvaccinated care workers is unlikely to bring any significant benefits, will worsen care for the elderly & unnecessarily targets thousands of hard-working carers.

It’s a dangerous, ill-thought through policy. Ministers need to rethink urgently ...
...
And of course much of the above applies also to US mandates for nurses, students etc., to the proposed law banning unvaccinated from English nightclubs & football as well as other vaccine passport laws in places like France & NY City.
esp for *Pfizer* Sorry!

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More from @cricketwyvern

15 Sep
Update to various Covid-19 indicators for England:
• Deaths up again (data to 9 Sept) but looks like will turn back down from tomorrow.
• Admissions coming down faster now.
• Positive tests also falling quite fast, both school age & others.
• Triage & Zoe steady. Image
What is particularly encouraging for future hospitalisation and deaths data is that positive tests are at long last falling steadily in the 60+ and 90+ groups ...
...
Encouraging also that school age rates are decreasing *despite* (!) no masks.
Mass school testing makes interpreting trends a little tricky, but no obvious signal from the positive tests data of any significant increase in infections after schools opened in England ...
Read 4 tweets
14 Sep
The Govt seem to have authorised vaccinating 12-15 year olds on the basis of modelling suggesting the programme will avoid the loss of about 15 minutes schooling per pupil over a 6 months period.

But even that 15 minute benefit assumes ...
gov.uk/government/pub…
...
1. No vaccinated children have been previously infected.

But we know a high % of children have been infected & hence already have high immunity. Allowing for this wd mean estimated schooling saved is much lower even than 15 mins /pupil.

But also ...
...
2. The modelling assumes no school time is lost administering the vaccine.

If children are vaccinated at school & then observed for 15 minutes (as advised), the whole 15 minutes benefit would be more than wiped out.

But it gets worse ...
nhs.uk/conditions/cor…
Read 6 tweets
13 Sep
As far as I can see and quite remarkably, the modelling uses vaccine effectiveness estimates vs unvaccinated but not previously infected.
Their mid-point VE is 55%, close to 57% in the Oxford study which definitely has not previously infected as the reference group ...
... those previously infected have a high level of immunity. There may be an additional effect from vaccines, but it will much, much smaller for this group ...
.. the higher the % of children previously infected, the lower will be potential school absences prevented. Knowing this % is essential to the modelling but I can't find any reference to their estimate of this ...
Read 5 tweets
3 Sep
We know vaccine passports:
• are unethical & discriminatory.
• are unlikely to have any beneficial effect on infections.
• will create huge costs to firms & individuals.
• will entrench anti-vax sentiment.

but how bad is the problem they are actually trying to solve?
...

The Govt says they want to introduce vaccine passports for nightclubs, football matches & other crowded events as they think, otherwise, those will cause big rises in infections …

Well, since 19 July, we have been running an experiment:
England opened all these events in full & with no legal obligation for vaccine passports/tests.

We've had full sports stadia for #100, T20, Tests, Premier league etc, packed nightclubs & loads of festivals …
Read 13 tweets
2 Sep
The new Lancet Infectious Diseases study finds vaccination reduces risk of infection relative to unvaccinated who have not previously been infected (they don’t compare risk to unvaccinated with a previous infection) but ...
thelancet.com/journals/lanin…
...
crucially the study also finds “increased incidence of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic infection in vaccinated participants”

The researchers warn of the potential risk this creates from vaccinated workers like carers who interact with vulnerable people ...
...
i.e. to the extent asymptotic transmission occurs, vaccinated carers who get infected may pose a bigger risk to residents than unvaccinated.

More evidence the Government's policy of sacking unvaccinated carers may have all sorts of unintended consequences ...
Read 6 tweets
30 Aug
It is not just 40,000 unvaccinated carers that the Government is planning to sack.

Hard-working social workers & many others who work with the elderly are receiving notice that they may also be sacked ...
gov.uk/government/con…
...
Many of these people have worked throughout the pandemic, the nation applauding them each week.

Now they are going to be sacked because they choose not to have a particular medical intervention ...
Not only is the new law unjust & unethical ...
Read 6 tweets

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