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Most Care Home Vaccine Rates below Government Guidance

The Government has launched a consultation into making Covid vaccinations mandatory for care home staff working with elderly residents, as NHS England data has revealed that vaccine rates among staff at older adult care homes are below SAGE’s recommended level in more than half of England’s local authorities. Sky News has the story.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) today announced the five-week consultation on making a jab a “condition of deployment”.

Staff, care providers, residents and their families, and other stakeholders are being asked to take part, with officials hoping to find out potential impacts on staffing and safety.

The DHSC is also looking to see how the scheme could be implemented and who could be exempt.

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi told Sky News: “Our consultation is very focused on the condition of deployment.” …

Some providers have already made a coronavirus vaccine a requirement.

Following the report, a decision is expected to be made this summer.

SAGE has said that 80% of carers and 90% of residents need to be vaccinated for a minimum level of protection against outbreaks of the virus.

Nearly half of care homes for older people in England have not hit this target, according to the Government.

The latest numbers show that 78.9% of care staff for elderly people have had a jab in England.

The Telegraph has more on vaccination rates among care home staff in England.

Figures published by NHS England… show that 86 out of 149 local authorities have not reached an 80% immunisation threshold for employees, and in 22 areas less than 70% of staff have had a first jab.

Lambeth in south London had the lowest uptake at 50.1%. The figures show the proportion of employees in older adult care homes who have been vaccinated has risen just 10 percentage points in two months.

More than 96,000 eligible staff have not received a vaccine, the figures suggest.

Last month, leaked Cabinet plans revealed that both the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary had requested a change in the law to make Covid vaccination mandatory for care home staff. The leaked document read:

The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State [Mr Hancock] have discussed on several occasions the progress that is being made to vaccinate social care workers against Covid and have agreed – in order to reach a position of much greater safety for care recipients – to put in place legislation to require vaccinations among the workforce.

The document noted that similar requirements were also being considered for healthcare workers, such as those who work on hospital wards.

The Sky News report is worth reading in full.

By Michael Curzon  /  15 April 2021 • 17.51
   
36 comments

AstraZeneca No Worse Than Other Vaccines for Blood Clots, Study Finds

A new pre-print from a team at the University of Oxford has found that the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is being restricted or banned around the world over links to blood clots, does not appear to cause the rare side effect at a much greater rate than the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. However, on the basis of current reporting rates, the same complications are many times more likely to be caused by the disease itself, they say. The Independent has the story.

The risk of developing a rare brain clot from COVID-19 is about eight times greater than from the AstraZeneca–Oxford vaccine, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Oxford, who are not linked to the vaccine, also found that people infected with coronavirus are “manyfold times” more likely than normal to develop the rare clotting disorder, known as cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT), where blood clots in the veins that run from the brain.

“There’s no doubt that Covid is a much greater risk of this [condition] than any of the vaccines,” said Professor Paul Harrison, a co-author of the study.

The research, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, drew comparisons between more than 500,000 COVID-19 patients in the US and 34 million people in Europe who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine, as well as the background level of CVT in the general population.

For COVID-19, the incidence rate of CVT stands at 39 cases per one million people, the study showed. But for a million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca jab, there will be just five cases of CVT over a two-week period. …

The study also suggested that four cases of CVT are likely to occur in one million people vaccinated with either the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech jab. However, the scientists warned that the data on this is too thin to establish any firm conclusions.

The researchers acknowledge a number of limitations in their research.

The scientists warned that all comparisons must be interpreted cautiously since data are still accruing and drawn from different sources. They added that their research was unable to determine the relative risk of developing CVT after vaccination due to uncertainty around the baseline rate for this condition.

Nor did the study address the incidence rate of thrombocytopenia in COVID-19 patients and people who had been vaccinated. This condition, where a patient presents abnormally low levels of platelets, has been detected alongside CVT in the cases of concern reported to date. …

The Oxford researchers drew their COVID-19 patient data from a US-based electronic health records network which had recently been used by the team to show the neurological and psychiatric consequences of coronavirus.

This database, which is made up of a total of 81 million US patients, provided clear detail on CVT cases that had been detected among people infected with coronavirus, the experts said – though they acknowledged there may be under-reporting of the condition in medical records.

As for the incidence rate of CVT among people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca jab, this was taken from the European Medicines Agency’s database, which covered more than 34 million individuals at the time of publication.

A further observation is that the COVID-19 patients in the study are drawn from a “federated electronic health records network recording anonymised data from healthcare organisations, primarily in the USA”. This suggests they are hospital patients, or at least those who have sought medical assistance, and so are not representative of all Covid infections but only the more serious. This contrasts to the vaccinated group, which is the healthy population as a whole, albeit with more vulnerable groups often vaccinated first. This may skew the comparison considerably, making blood clots among those infected with Covid appear much more common than they are.

How will regulators respond, having restricted one vaccine over this issue (and increasingly the Johnson & Johnson one as well), will they not have to be consistent? Will they remove the restrictions from AZ and J&J, or apply them equally to the other two, or somehow justify the discrepancy? Will be interesting to watch this play out.

By Will Jones  /  15 April 2021 • 15.08
     
55 comments

Let’s Show the Red Card to Vaccine Passports for Football Fans

In today’s Spectator, I’ve set out the case against making sports fans produce a ‘Covid Status Certificates’ as a condition of allowing them into stadiums after May 17th. I’m going to set out the case in full for Lockdown Sceptics tomorrow, but in the meantime here’s an extract from the Spectator article:

The first and most obvious objection is that it’s a breach of my liberty. It’s an inversion of the Common Law principle that everything should be permitted unless the law specifically prohibits it. Under this scheme, I am only allowed to do something if permitted to do so by law, which is the principle underlying the Napoleonic Code. As a freeborn Englishman, I prefer the Common Law tradition, which was one of my reasons for supporting Brexit.

It’s also discriminatory. I don’t just mean it will discriminate against those who haven’t been vaccinated or can’t otherwise demonstrate they are ‘safe’, but against those groups more likely to be suspicious of vaccines and who cannot afford alternative forms of certification. We know that vaccine hesitancy is higher among the UK’s black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi populations. Do we really want to see fewer of these spectators at sporting events? True, there are alternative ways of demonstrating you’re not an infection risk, such as getting a PCR test, but if you don’t want to jump through a lot of hoops they cost a minimum of £120. And an unvaccinated sports fan would have to get it redone before every fixture. For those who’ve had COVID-19, there’s the option of getting an antibody test, but you can’t get those on the NHS unless you work in primary care, social care or education.

In short, if the Government makes entry to sporting venues contingent on having a vaccine passport, it will be discriminating against minorities and the less well-off.

You can read the whole article on the Spectator‘s website.

Stop Press: The Guardian had a story on its front page today saying the Equalities and Human Rights Commission thinks a general certification scheme could fall foul of anti-discrimination law because it would restrict access to essential services for those groups less likely to get vaccinated – including migrants, those from minority ethnic backgrounds and those on low incomes.

By Toby Young  /  15 April 2021 • 14.56
     
22 comments

Vaccines the Cause of Britain’s Drop In Covid Cases, Not Lockdown, Says KCL Epidemiologist

A King’s College London epidemiologist has said that Britain’s “exemplar vaccine programme” – which has seen almost 40 million first and second doses administered – is behind the drop in Covid cases since January. Professor Tim Spector’s view contrasts with that of the Prime Minister who believes lockdown – not the vaccine – has delivered “this improvement in the pandemic“. The Mail has the story.

Vaccines are behind Britain’s sharp drop in coronavirus cases since January, top experts claimed today – despite Boris Johnson insisting lockdown was the reason for the fall.  

Professor Tim Spector, a King’s College London epidemiologist who runs the UK’s largest Covid symptom tracking study, said the epidemic had “mainly” been squashed by the “exemplar vaccine programme”.

With more than 60% of the population jabbed with at least one dose and up to 10% protected due to prior infection, Professor Spector added Britain was “starting to see herd immunity take effect”.

His comments come after data from his symptom-tracking app showed a 17% drop in daily cases last week, with an estimated 1,600 new symptomatic infections a day across the country – down from 60,000 at the peak in January.

Separate Test and Trace figures showed new cases in England had dipped by 34% last week, with 19,196 positive tests recorded in the seven days to April 7th – compared to 29,178 at the end of March. 

Professor Spector said: “As the UK slowly exits lockdown, I’m encouraged to see Covid cases continue to fall with our rates among the lowest in Europe. 

“In fact, the UK closely mirrors cases in Israel with its exemplar vaccine programme. Based on our data and countries like Israel, I believe the fall in cases since January is mainly thanks to the vaccination programme and less about the strict lockdown the UK has been under since late December. 

“With up to 60% of the population vaccinated and around five to 10% with natural immunity due to infection, we’re starting to see herd immunity take effect. This should prevent future large-scale outbreaks.”

Professor Spector warned it was inevitable cases would pick up again as restrictions are eased over the coming months. But he said any outbreaks would be “smaller” and “manageable” and among groups yet to be vaccinated.

The Prime Minister has been underplaying the impact of the vaccine for some weeks. As well as pinning the fall in Covid cases on lockdown rather than on the vaccine rollout, he recently said that vaccinated people must not meet indoors because jabs “are not giving 100% protection” – this despite the fact that the risk of catching a symptomatic Covid infection for two people who have been vaccinated is about one in 400,000. His confidence in lockdowns has, however, stood firm, despite an increasing number of studies showing they’re ineffective.

The report by the Mail is worth reading in full.

By Michael Curzon  /  15 April 2021 • 14.08
         
29 comments

Government Pays Firm £90 Million to Check If Passengers Are In Quarantine After Arriving In UK

The Government has hired a private firm to carry out 10,000 home visits every day to check if overseas arrivals are complying with mandatory quarantine rules. Those arriving in the UK must self-isolate for 10 days. Arrivals from countries on the Government’s “red list” must isolate at a Government-approved hotel – and pay £1,750 for the privilege. Mitie has been awarded a contract by the Home Office allowing it to spend up to £90 million on home visits. The Mail has the story.

Priti Patel has stepped up the Government’s crackdown on mandatory quarantine for overseas arrivals by hiring a firm to do up to 10,000 house checks per day.

Mitie has been tasked by the Home Office to catch flouters failing to undergo their required period of isolation.  

Their extra manpower will dramatically increase the capacity for daily home visits, which at present number about 1,000 and are carried out by police. …

Under tight border rules to insulate from worrying variants and infection spikes in Europe, all overseas arrivals must go into self-isolation for 10 days, which can be shortened by testing negative.

For people arriving from countries on the Department for Transport’s red list, this self-isolation must be done in Government-approved hotels. Fines start at £1,000 and jump to £10,000 for repeated rule-breaking. 

Mitie enforcers will conduct checks on travellers who are required to self-isolate at home, but will not do hotel visits.

A Government source said: “The number of operatives will vary depending on the number of visits needed, and the locations of the visits.

“If appropriate, Mitie staff may visit certain travellers more than once, if they are suspected of breaching their requirement to self-isolate.”

Mitie has been handed a number of other Covid-related contracts over the past year and currently supplies testing sites with testing staff, security and cleaners.

Worth reading in full.

By Michael Curzon  /  15 April 2021 • 13.13
   
18 comments

People in England Waiting to Start Hospital Treatment Hits Record High

The number of people waiting to receive hospital treatment continues to rise, with 4.7 million people stuck on a waiting list by the end of February in England. This is the highest number since 2007, highlighting the impact of a year in which the NHS focused on Covid patients at the expense of many others. BBC News has the story.

Around 4.7 million people were waiting for routine operations and procedures in England in February – the most since 2007, NHS England figures show.

Nearly 388,000 people were waiting more than a year for non-urgent surgery compared with just 1,600 before the pandemic began.

During January and February, the pressure on hospitals caused by Covid was particularly acute.

NHS England said two million operations took place despite the winter peak.

However surgeons said hospitals were still under huge pressure due to the second wave of Covid, which had led to “a year of uncertainty, pain and isolation” for patients waiting for planned treatment.

Tim Mitchell, Vice-President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, has asked how much longer those whose treatments have been delayed can be expected to wait.

Although the most urgent operations for cancer and life-threatening conditions went ahead, hundreds of thousands of patients waiting for routine surgery such as hip and knee operations, cochlear implants and vascular operations had their treatment cancelled or postponed.

People have been patient as they’ve seen the battering the pandemic has given the NHS, but how much longer can they be expected to wait?

This news again highlights the importance of Professor Karol Sikora’s oft-repeated, yet consistently ignored proposal for a Government press conference to be held which is entirely dedicated to non-Covid related illnesses.

Worth reading in full.

By Michael Curzon  /  15 April 2021 • 12.10
       
32 comments

News Round Up

By Jonathan Barr  /  15 April 2021 • 01.36
 
94 comments

Seven Peer-Reviewed Studies That Agree: Lockdowns Do Not Suppress the Coronavirus

Many people still struggle to accept the idea that lockdowns don’t have any appreciable impact on Covid cases and deaths. After all, it’s obvious, isn’t it, that keeping people apart will stop the virus spreading?

Tom Harwood, formerly of Guido Fawkes now of GB News, tweeted a typically incredulous response to the idea: “Cannot understand how some can claim ‘lockdowns don’t work’ with a straight face. As if stopping people from mixing wouldn’t hit transmission? Sure argue the cost is too high, imposition on liberty too extreme, just don’t invent a fairytale denying the basics of germ theory.”

Even some die-hard lockdown sceptics will say that lockdowns work, in the sense of suppressing transmission for a time, but they just delay the inevitable so are pointlessly costly.

The models churned out by university academics and relied on by the Government to set policy all assume lockdown restrictions work, and even claim to quantify how much impact each intervention makes.

But what does the data say? What do the studies show that actually look at the evidence rather than just making a priori assumptions about how things “must surely” be?

There have been at least seven peer-reviewed studies which look at the question of lockdowns from a data point of view, and all of them come to the same basic conclusion: lockdowns do not have a statistically significant relationship with Covid cases or deaths. Here is a list of them with a key quote for ease of reference.

Many of these studies attribute a large part of the drop in infections and deaths to the voluntary measures introduced prior to the legally-enforced restrictions. However, this is typically introduced as an assumption with no robust evidence provided in support of it, and with no consideration of the other possible reasons that infections might have fallen, such as seasonality or growing population immunity. On the rare occasion that rigorous analysis is applied to this question as well, as with Savaris et al in their article in Nature looking at whether people staying at home (measured using mobility data) is associated with Covid deaths, the finding is similarly negative. Voluntary measures make little difference either.

This may seem to defy “the basics of germ theory”, as Mr Harwood put it. But it doesn’t, it just means we need to understand better how the virus is getting round.

Seven Peer-Reviewed Studies That Agree: Lockdowns Do Not Suppress the CoronavirusRead More

By Will Jones  /  15 April 2021 • 01.18
       
51 comments

Physical Inactivity Doubles Risk of Covid Death, Study Suggests

US researchers have linked physical inactivity to an increased likelihood of Covid leading to hospitalisation and, ultimately, death. Their study suggests that the odds for death were 2.49 times greater for patients who were consistently inactive compared with patients who were consistently active. The Telegraph has the story.

Inactive coronavirus patients are more than twice as likely to die from the disease compared to people who exercise for the recommended 150 minutes a week, a new study suggests. 

Researchers from the Kaiser Permanente Fontana Medical Center in California, studied the medical records of nearly 50,000 people who were diagnosed with coronavirus between January and October last year.

They found that being consistently inactive more than doubled the odds of hospitalisation compared with being regularly active.

Patients who were consistently inactive were 73% more likely to be admitted to intensive care than fit patients. 

The odds for death were 2.49 times greater for patients who were consistently inactive compared with patients who were consistently active.

The researchers found that inactivity was the biggest risk factor for the disease after age, and having a history of organ transplant. 

Even patients who were inconsistently active had lower odds for severe Covid when compared to those who were consistently inactive, suggesting any amount of physical activity has benefit.

Dr Robert Sallis, a sports medicine physician at the medical centre that conducted this research, said that the findings should act as a “wake-up call”.

This is a wake-up call for the importance of healthy lifestyles and especially physical activity…

People who regularly exercise had the best chance of beating Covid, while people who were inactive did much worse.

Walk 30 minutes a day, five days a week at a moderate pace and that will give you a tremendous protective effect against Covid.

Around half of those studied had no underlying health conditions.

Worth reading in full.

By Michael Curzon  /  14 April 2021 • 18.16
     
27 comments

Hospitality Leaders Tell Boris Johnson They Will Not Force Customers to Show Vaccine Passports

The pushback against vaccine passports continues to gather momentum. Earlier, we published a report on an open letter sent to the Prime Minister – signed by over 1,000 of the UK’s Christian leaders – warning against the introduction of “medical apartheid” under a vaccine passport scheme. Now, a new charter, “Open for All“, has been signed by more than 60 restaurant owners and other hospitality figures, telling Boris that they will not force customers to show Covid Status Certificates as a condition of entry. The Telegraph has the story.

In a letter to the Prime Minister… the signatories make clear their opposition to Covid status certification being used in hospitality settings. 

“We will not be forcing our patrons to show us any documentation referring to health status to gain entry,” one line of the letter reads.

The intervention is a shot across the bows of the Government as ministers consider whether to require restaurants and pubs to check the Covid status of customers.

Among the signatories are the CEOs of Rekom UK, which runs 42 nightclubs, and Tokyo Industries, which runs clubs, festivals and bars. Others backing the letter include senior figures at venues such as The Hippodrome Casino, Electric Star Pubs, Bocca de Lupo, Proud Cabaret, Brindisa and Burger&Lobster.

Alan Miller, the co-founder of Night Time Industries Association, who organised the letter, said: “The British people have been diligent and remarkable over this last year, and we’ve all waited for so long to get back to normal.

“We were told in January that vaccines were our way out, and that we were on a one-way road to freedom. It is a far cry from freedom if we are put in the position where pubs, clubs, festivals, shows and venues of any kind are forced to demand health papers. We won’t be doing it.”

The letter congratulates the Government for its successful vaccine rollout but insists that there are many reasons why some people may choose not to get a Covid vaccine, adding that it would be wrong for venues to ask customers to present health-related documents. It reads:

We have no axe to grind politically and many of us think the vaccine rollout has been tremendous for those who wish to take it.

We also know that for many reasons some will not have a vaccine.

Furthermore, we do not believe it is right that we, as premises and promoters, should demand to see proof of medical records or health status. The majority of people in the UK have chosen to be vaccinated.

There are many practical and logistical issues for us alongside civil liberty and discrimination considerations more broadly for society if venues or events insist on seeing any kind of health-related documents.

The Telegraph‘s report is worth reading in full.

Stop Press: Julia Hartley-Brewer has urged all hospitality business owners to sign up to the declaration to “[ensure] vaccine passports never happen”.

By Michael Curzon  /  14 April 2021 • 16.00
   
43 comments