What does this mean in practical terms in terms of our lockdown, combined with the transmission being higher? These percentages especially after one dose seem very low.

This is another case of being wary of percentages being applied to percentages. That 30% is the final barrier on top of all the other percentages.

The number of people in the UK with COVID-19 - variant or otherwise - is now quite low. In England it's something like 1 in 1,100 people, using ONS figures. The R rates is not terribly useful when infection level is low, but still we can see from the daily figures that it's fairly flat, and so on average 1 person catches the disease, gets over it, but passes it within 2 weeks to one other person, hence the data is currently flatlining. Increasingly the profile is that both the old and the new positive case are unvaccinated. Every barrier you put in the way will help, vaccines are the biggest barrier and they have multiple benefits - some people get immune, some people don't get immune but get it mildlly, even if they don't they won't be hospitalised, a tiny minority who get hospitalised but don't die. And preventing transmission is just one of those barriers. along with social distancing, isolating if positive, masks and so on. So this 30 to 50% reduction in transmission is thoroughly good news! The working assumption at approval stage was that vaccines did not stop transmission at all. Obviously second vaccines take that further, but we all know the priority is older people.

Just to show how this is working, here is the Bolton Heatmap for January compared to May. This is the worst one in the UK, by far the worst place for infections, and yet with one glance you can see how vaccines have helped. Numerically Bolton is the only place in England where the current surge is as great as the January national surge.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/n2Bspk.jpg

The age ranges are on the left, the last full day of data in this heatmap is 17 May 2021 as the testing date. And as you can readily see, there is a transition down the age ranges. Yellow means no cases. light green is close to the current UK average (25 cases per 100k per 7 days).

Seeing what we're seeing here in terms of data and explanations the recent decision from the German government makes all the less sense. Unless they've made it by looking only at the British news. I don't know what happened to the news world but the headlines these days are on par with those trashy Latin American newspapers that show photos of dead people on the front page.

Deflection.

I think I have said this before and suggested it to many, I deleted all news apps on or around 23/3/20. Any exposure to it is accidental or with one arm forced behind my back. It serves no purpose other to sensationalise imho. They have a lot to answer for, but will never have to. [rant over].

Logically the German government should have introduced inbound controls to German residents rather than those vaccinated. But that's not how the real world works. To be fair, the epidemical impact of vaccines are only just becoming apparent, and in the case of variants this is even more recent data.

Patience is the word then.

Rather than what is being portrayed as a political decision here, the decision was made firmly on the recommendation of the RKI.

Having seen the data released by PHE overnight on the Indian variant (got to love an 11.30pm Saturday night embargoed release, really inspires confidence), with substantially reduced vaccine effectiveness for those with less than 2 doses (i.e. most of the German and U.K. population), it’s an understandable move.

I absolutely agree. It gives the impression that the government deliberately ensured that the news was too late for the Sunday papers and hoped that it would be old news by Monday. And you have to ask why they were trying to hide it.

On the contrary. It is the lead story on most newspapers today:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-57216018
and if you look even a tabloid like the Sunday People - which does not suport the government - has captured the totality of the news quite well in one front page.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/0YGZSF.png

This is standard procedure, the newspapers would have been told about the news around lunchtime Saturday, which gives them enough time to prepare stories, photos, get graphics (it takes several hours to design these front pages) and provide colour pieces - where individuals, doctors, newspaper pundits give their feedback. They know it's an embargo story so if it's important enough they know they will have enough bandwidth to carry the story. It thus avoids newspapers get the facts wrong or dripping in bits and pieces in a way which doesn't give a coherent account. I guess it is a form of news manipulation but it has been going on a long time. See for example how the assisted death of George V in 1936 was arranged for 11pm so that The Times could carry the story in respectful terms, rather than the more tawdry evening newspapers.

Daily data:

Cases 2,235 (1,926 last Sunday)
Deaths 5 (4)
People vaccinated up to and including 22 May 2021:
First dose: 37,943,681
Second dose: 22,643,417

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now up 11.3% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 43.2%. The addition of 762,000 jabs yesterday, the second highest so far, takes the total well above 60.5 million.

Update from the Islington business design centre, I've now been jabbed with a first dose of Moderna :)​​​​​​

I asked about walk-ins and leftover jabs, it was big no. They've apparently had small issues with people getting restless in the queue in the evening, so they're giving what's left in the evening to the staff and people going for appointments for the other activities of the centre (there's at least a physio in there).

There were 2 queues inside for Moderna and AZ for second doses. Very well organised, I was in and out within 40 minutes including the 15 minute wait at the end.

what was your batch number? I want to find a batch buddy. I was LOT 3002332.

Same :)

Well we're going to have to use different names now, I assume our Scottish posters will not use "Indian variant" any longer so everyone beware! :)

Nicola Sturgeon’s renaming of Indian Covid variant as ‘April-02’ dismissed as gesture politics

This is such crappy journalism, concocting a storm over nothing.

For a start, it isn't simply a "Nicola Sturgeon" thing: as the piece goes on to acknowledge, the government's official reports and documents refer them by date - in this case VOC21APR-02. The PHE data released on Saturday night did likewise, from memory (I can't find the right link now).

It has been the media which repeatedly calls variants by the name of the country they were first detected in, and that (alongside many politicians and commentators using it as shorthand) is what influences others.