Absolutely not. The new Moderna vaccine divides in two, one targetting the original 2020 variant (which has pretty much vanished) and the other targetting the post Omicron variants, focusing on BA.1. There is quite an overlap between the two sides of this, but it's the same technique for both - and goes back to the original smallpox vaccine - introducing an agent which provokes an immunity response / reaction. So the human side of this is very old school, and the difference in the two components is merely what you are targetting in terms of response. Upstream the technology is radically new on the R&D side, as all the Covid vaccines are. The risks of unhelpful mutation are no greater with this bivalent vaccine, arguably less so due to the targetting of BA.1. One of life's ironies is that the main slate of vaccines are targetting a variant that had largely gone out of the frame by the time that Margaret Keenan got her first jab on 8 December 2021. On the other hand mutations come about through unchecked community transmission, vaccines do their best to restrain that.

We might say that about omicron too. For now we can think about the optimum time to get this one for those of us over 50. Late November perhaps.

I had my second booster end of May, so this would keep me on the 6-month interval, assuming a third booster will be approved on either side of the Atlantic. Late November is good because it will cover strongly December-Feb (peak winter and holidays).

England cases 4,899 (5,206 last Monday) - down 21.2% week on week
England deaths down 20.3% week on week
Patients admitted in England 861 (975 on the 8th)
Patients in hospital in England 7,486 (8,487 on the 10th)
Patients in ventilation beds 207 (216 on the 10th)
Vaccinated up to and including 16 August 2022:
First dose: 45,206,546
Second dose: 42,560,881
Booster: 33,465,300

Sorry to be pedantic, but her first vaccine was December 2020, not 2021.

Why are we targeting the original covid at all?

Because a lot of research went into the original configuration of COVID-19 and we know beyond question that it is overwhelmingly effective in stopping people dying or getting badly ill with it. The bivalent aspect is expected to improve immune response to the current slate of variants, in other words make it a less unpleasant experience, but we wouldn't want to lose the main ongoing benefit. It matters in terms of how the MHRA and similar bodies give approval, based on research evidence - tweaking is easier / faster than a new product. Plus in any case there is a big genetic overlap, which both sides of the new vaccine will address, getting rid of the 2020 version isn't proven to improve outcomes.

Today's weekly data from the ONS survey. In the week ending 6-8 August 2022:

One in 40 people in England had Covid (last week one in 25)
One in 40 in Wales had Covid (last week one in 30)
One in 50 in Northern Ireland had Covid (last week one in 17)
One in 30 in Scotland had Covid (last week one in 20)

The ONS data was missing last week. This weeks data covers what must be the steepest part of the downward trend that has been seen in England for two weeks now.

England cases 2.862 (4,161 last Monday) - down 25.1% week on week
England deaths down 28.2% week on week
Patients admitted in England 672 (861 on the 15th)
Patients in hospital in England 6,302 (8,088 on the 17th)
Patients in ventilation beds 150 (207 on the 17th)
Vaccinated up to and including 23 August 2022:
First dose: 45,219,800
Second dose: 42,595,894
Booster: 33,491,144

The reduction in cases continues across the UK with only Orkney being the only significant area having a bit of as blip. That of course is from very small numbers.

Today's weekly data from the ONS survey. In the week ending 16 August 2022:

One in 45 people in England had Covid (last week one in 40)
One in 45 in Wales had Covid (last week one in 40)
One in 70 in Northern Ireland had Covid (last week one in 50)
One in 40 in Scotland had Covid (last week one in 30)

Another weeks data and the situation continues to improve:

England cases 3,653 (4,493 last Monday) - down 19.6% week on week
England deaths down 38.2% week on week
Patients admitted in England 602 (670 on the 22nd)
Patients in hospital in England 5,658 (6,302 on the 24th)
Patients in ventilation beds 144 (150 on the 24th)
Vaccinated up to and including 30 August 2022:
First dose: 45,233,342
Second dose: 42,629,512
Booster: 33,514,047

1st of September, eek!

Well today is the first day in over 2 years that I'm not required to take asymptomatic tests for COVID, and that will apply to a lot of other people in health care, both patients and NHS staff. So the weekly testing numbers, which was until quite recently running at a million tests a week, will almost certainly slump now. The only times we need to get tested is work in prisons, residential settings and some specialist areas (e.g. oncology). I still have to wear a mask in many areas of work though.

Death rates have really fallen in recent weeks, we are now down to about 50 deaths a day UK wide, the lowest since July 2021 and it seems to be still falling. The peak day for morality, 19 January 2021, was 1370 deaths in 24 hours. which was nearly 30 times worse.

N-one is going to complacent, and Australia has had a bad flu season - something the UK hasn't seen for quite a few years now. But still I would say grounds for optimism.

That's quite the milestone!

I think it means it's time for thanks to both yourself c-w-s and also DaveS for the daily updates for so long!

I say this half in jest, mostly because I'm sure the word lockdown will be uttered this winter again, but does that mean we can close this thread?

Instead of looking at daily numbers, let's look at the same number but aggregated over a year. In England, in 2020 there was 67630 deaths, in 2021 63156 deaths and in 2022 so far there has been 33838 deaths. Assuming a growth rate of zero (which is one assumption as valid as any other), this will be circa 51000 deaths in 2022. Might be close to the final number, might not be, impossible to know right now. But the death rate in 2022 was quite flat so far compared to 2020 and 2021 which had lot of variability.
So suddenly it does not look like 30 times better.

I'm sure we all wonder what comes next. We made it through last winter with no lockdown which barring some new variant that is worse than omicron gives us reason to think we can survive this winter too. And importantly for us, hopefully we have seen the last of travel restrictions. The OBR report a month or so ago hopefully will help with that.

As for this thread, at some point the ONS and HMG will I suspect end the reporting of what little data they now give out. That would end what I have been doing which is already little compared with 6 months ago.

There was some reporting here a couple of weeks back on the rate of excess deaths. It is still well above the average before 2020, but those deaths are not coming from covid. The speculation I saw was that some of it was the result of delayed diagnosis/treatment for things like cancer.