gojko88

I'm not saying that new measures won't be instituted, but compliance will certainly be at a fraction of what it has been previously. People are just done with COVID.

shorthauldad

Q: How many countries other than the US and Canada actually recommend everyone get an annual flu shot, not just the older and/or vulnerable?

Going to be a dramatic policy change for Europe to start telling the young and fit they'll need a "flu+Covid" shot every year, when they weren't at risk enough to ever be recommended to get a flu shot until now. With the current Covid variants the stats seem pretty thin on whether the young and fit actually need an annual Covid shot either...

(See https://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/17/h...icy/index.html although that article is almost ten years ago and the latest Europe data appears to be https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/def...l-use-2018.pdf )

downinit

The cover story on the LA Times today is about how the current wave is not being reflected at all in hospitalizations. While the current wave's peak case count is actually higher than the last wave, the hospitalization rate is 1/3 what it was last time, while the ICU count has plummeted from a daily average of 2k last time, to a high of 300 this time around. The vaccines are doing exactly what they were supposed to do, and people are building an immunity to the virus. LA County has been pretty gung-ho on imposing health mandates, but they got rid of most of the restrictions last summer. The mask mandate was brought back for a while as Delta caused a spike in hospitalizations, but the omicron wave did not cause any restrictions or even a return of the general mask mandate. Some of these "blue" people are merely following the science, and the data is clearly moving in the right direction. The public health official in charge of the county has made is clear that restrictions will not be on the table again unless a new variant proves to defy vaccines and cause significant illnesses, which is a pretty logical position, politics aside.

invisible

Speaking from Nevada here - I went to a couple of meetings in Reno area with candidates in upcoming elections.

Every single candidate was asked about their opinion regarding masks and lockdowns and you can image what kind of response they would get from public if any of them said that they support masks/lockdowns.

invisible

There are sincerely held beliefs among some people, especially those who want to eliminate all risks for themselves (at the expense of all other people) that we should have a China-style approach until Covid is around.

My advice - ignore them like some kind of cult followers. Do you engage seriously and have a serious discussion with doomsday cult followers or flat earthers? Same here.

corporate-wage-slave

Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, South Africa spring to mind, chunks of Latin America and Asia.

Practice in Europe varies, so 65 years+ in France, 60+ in Germany, 50+ in UK, children in most cases, pregnant women, some pretty common health conditions and so on. In the UK's case, it's about half the population. In many countries, UK and Ireland for example, the way it works is that the vaccine is free to these recommended groups, but available for any adult, for about Ł10 / 12€ from Tesco pharmacies and elsewhere. Belgium is planning on vaccinating all adults.

Covid is different since in the UK - and I think all European countries - it is illegal to buy a COVID vaccine (whereas it's perfectly legal for flu). So to take the "Spring Booster" campaign, 4th dose for most people, this ends on 30 June, there is no legal way for me to have that vaccine dose despite being on the NHS' front line administering vaccines to some very vulnerable people and despite being a pensioner myself. I'm just not old enough or have any of the indicating conditions and there is currently no clinical case for me to be vaccinated. Are we ready to switch that to the influenza model where it's free to say those aged 50 plus, free to vulnerable groups, Ł10 for anyone else who wants it? I suspect not.

The preliminary advice for the UK from the JCVI is that for the 2022 Autumn booster it will be for those 65 plus but will include health workers. The 2022 Spring Booster was 75 plus. This could change.

DaveS

Before COVID the flu jab recommendation in the UK was I think for over 65's only. For those under that we were told it was better to catch the flu and get lifelong natural immunity. it was not a view I subscribed to having had a rough time when I was 18, so I paid for a jab each autumn for many years. It would have been good to go the same route with a COVID booster, but it appears that will be denied to most of us as things stand. It is going to be hard to say to someone that they should stay away from others if they have COVID when they have been prevented from being boosted.

shorthauldad

Thanks! Is that about half are recommended to get a flu jab, or half actually had one?

I wonder what the take-up is like across different risk groups, so what % of the old and vulnerable are getting protection from their annual jab, vs perhaps younger "worried well" types who are happy to pony up the cash but might - clinicically speaking - just possibly be wasting their time and money. Obviously different countries take wildly different approaches to stuff like this. How different are the clinical outcomes at the country level?

shorthauldad

If only our vaccines were as good at preventing infection and/or transmission as they are at reducing the severity of the outcome...

corporate-wage-slave

Half of the UK is eligible for free flu vaccination due to being over 50, under 16, pregnancy, employment (the NHS is the UK's biggest employer), health conditions (including mental health, diabetes and asthma (12% of population alone)). Take up has traditionally been around 60%, but last year was close to 85%. Older people, NHS staff and children over 90%, minority ethnic groups and low education attainment groups not much about 60%.

From a clinical perspective, flu jabs are actually more effective in the "worried well" since they typically have good immune responses, the reason they aren't offered a free one is that frankly if they got flu they wouldn't cost the NHS anything, using cost in a broad sense. That won't comfort anyone with a lousy flu episode and they would probably happily pay a tenner to avoid it. It's under reassessment at the moment, since one the strange twists of the last few years is that influenza, and influenza deaths, are so well down on historical averages that it may have changed the previously held view as to who should and should not get the flu jab. The "worried well" may be on to something.

KARFA

I think it is clear 85% take up is a high water mark and that number will slowly fall over the years as we move away from the worst points of the covid pandemic. Whilst the NHS may offer free flu jabs to a wider number of people than before, I doubt many outside the traditionally offered groups will take it up.

NewbieRunner

COVID-19 situation update worldwide

As of 20 June 2022, ECDC is discontinuing the data collection and publication of the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths worldwide. Please refer to the World Health Organization (WHO) data on COVID-19 and the WHO Weekly Epidemiological and Weekly Operational Updates page for the non-EU/EEA countries.

ECDC will continue providing weekly updates for EU/EEA Member States and report on an ad-hoc basis about significant events related to COVID-19 globally.

ECDC has been collecting data on the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths for all countries in the EU/EEA and globally for more than two years. The data collected by ECDC will continue to be available in an archived format.

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geogra...019-ncov-cases

corporate-wage-slave

And here is this week's data update, mainly ECDC, 14 days confirmed cases per 100,000 population.

As noted immediately above, getting this information is now very difficult since the ECDC has taken the decision that it no longer wants to collate data globally, something it doesn't do for other diseases under the ECDC's surveillance. So with a whimper rather than a bang I suspect that at least for the time being this is the end of the data updates from me. It's not just ECDC, many countries are no longer doing the leg work and the emphasis on recording cases is now reducing by the week. Again in line with other diseases such as flu, for which the UK only does a weekly update, and only effectively a sample of cases at that. My own professional role in England's public health response to COVID-19 ends in a week too, though as fate would have it, I spent much of today vaccinating people. But I'm back to the real world again, sort of. There is a bit of an irony in that COVID-19 hasn't gone away, indeed there is a BA.5 surge (BA.2 in some places) in many places shown above. Though Portugal has another big fall, going close to where it was with BA.2 before BA.5 struck, again suggesting that BA.5 should be a surge of about 5 weeks duration.

Until the next time.

invisible

CWS, thanks for all the info and updates you've been providing all this time.

Honestly, looking forward for this forum section to be closed - meaning that world has moved over.

GregWTravels

Thank you so much both for these weekly updates, as well as all the other information you have provided (and continue to provide) to the FT community.