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THE LATEST SEARCH for a Co Down woman who went missing 15 years ago is set to end, police have confirmed.
The large-scale search operation to find Lisa Dorrian was launched in April at the caravan park where the then 25-year-old was last seen alive.
New technology was used during the effort at a disused airfield beside Ballyhalbert Caravan Park on the Co Down coast.
Dorrian has been missing since 28 February 2005. Police believe she was murdered.
PSNI Detective Superintendent Jason Murphy said the latest searches will end soon.
“Those searches are likely going to come to a conclusion in the fairly near future and I suppose the question for us and for the Dorrian family is what next? That’s the answer that at the minute I just don’t have,” he told UTV.
“I’m going to take some time at the end of these searches to reflect and see what, if anything, needs to be done next.”
Murphy went on: “I’ve said to Lisa’s family many times, that money and resources won’t be the obstacle to seeking and finding Lisa’s body.
“Equally, what I can’t do is go looking for a needle in a haystack without some degree of science, or some degree of confidence, that tells me that the haystack is the right place to be looking.”
Police have pursued more than 3,500 lines of inquiry and carried out almost 400 searches including extensive air, land and sea operations since Dorrian’s disappearance in 2005.
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Interesting semantics…
‘…will need to be fully vaccinated in order to take part in activities from getting a haircut to watching a concert…’ and then
‘…Ardern and her liberal government..’
Liberal??
@Raymond Scott:
The virus and it’s consequences for health care delivery is indifferent to the half baked, illiterate and innumerate rantings of a minority of credulous noisemakers waffling on about “freedom”.
@Kevin: ah yeah, go on, we lover to hear that
@Kevin: perfect response.
@Kevin: That’s a hell of a lot of words with actually saying anything, nada – impressive.
@Kevin: I am afraid Raymond and his ilk are just happy to be outcasts!!
@Kevin: oh get you…
Someone dived into their dictionary before they made a BS wanna be smart as s comment.
Anybody pointing out that the game of making promises for people to hit 90% vaccinated is great motivator but will followed up with eh we may have been a bit naieve to think that would be a solution stuff that NPHET are now saying kinda undermines that whole strategy in practice – plus world has seen the reality that boosters are required since last June and only in November in Ireland are the masters now scrambling to get everyone to do that because ya know just being vaccinated isn’t enough yada yada
@Dave Hammond: yeah but boosters were only approved by the EMA in Oct so should Ireland have been ploughing boosters into people in June, difficult anyway given the 6 month gap required between second dose and booster. Also there is a difference in having 90% of the population vaccinated versus 90% of the eligible population vaccinated.
@Dave Hammond: By Nov 16th we administered 600,000 boosters and the booster rollout is on schedule. There is no scrambling.
The 21 day or 28 day gap between the first and second dose was a compromise between getting the vaccine out as fast as possible versus faster waning immunity, it was known that a shorter gap between doses would provide less durable immunity. Delta shortened the timeline further, with immunity dropping after only 4 months (against infection) and protection against hospitalisation and death diminishing after 6-7 months (Reference 1).
However, there is accumulating evidence that the booster, months after initial vaccination, may generate enhanced immunity quantitatively different from the original vaccination, that mimics the hybrid immunity (super immunity) seen in people vaccinated months after an initial infection (Reference 2).
People who have hybrid immunity have far stronger immunity against the Delta variant and other variants, and immunity appears to last far longer, possibly years, due to higher levels of memory B Cells. The effect appears to hinge on the long gap between the initial infection and vaccination, which provokes a strong durable immune response.
These Memory B cells are also generated at higher numbers if there’s at least several months spacing between vaccine doses (first and second, or two doses and booster). Canada spaced out their vaccination program to 16 weeks due to a vaccine shortage, this gap generated much stronger immunity, almost as robust as hybrid immunity:
“Extending the interval between vaccine doses could also mimic aspects of hybrid immunity. In 2021, amid scarce vaccine supplies and a surge in cases, officials in the Canadian province of Quebec recommended a 16-week interval between first and second doses (since reduced to 8 weeks).”
“A team co-led by Andrés Finzi, a virologist at the University of Montreal, Canada, found that people who received this regimen had SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels similar to those in people with hybrid immunity[10]. These antibodies could neutralize a swathe of SARS-CoV-2 variants — as well as the virus behind the 2002–04 SARS epidemic.
“We are able to bring naive people to almost the same level as previously infected and vaccinated, which is our gold standard,” says Finzi.
Also, new information from Israel (Referemce 4) indicates that immunity after the booster dose will likely last 9-10 months and possibly longer.
“By analyzing the antibody levels, researchers have concluded that the third shot could be effective for 9 – 10 months, or even longer, the researchers predicted.”
These observations of longer lasting antibodies agrees with in the previous observations of people with hybrid super immunity and those in Canada who had an extended gap between vaccine doses.
Refs.:
(1) Chemaitelly, H., Tang, P., Hasan, M.R., AlMukdad, S., Yassine, H.M., Benslimane, F.M., Al Khatib, H.A., Coyle, P., Ayoub, H.H., Al Kanaani, Z. and Al Kuwari, E., 2021. Waning of BNT162b2 vaccine protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection in Qatar. New England Journal of Medicine.
(2) Callaway, E., 2021. COVID super-immunity: one of the pandemic’s great puzzles. Nature, 598(7881), pp.393-394.
(3) Tauzin, A., Gong, S.Y., Beaudoin-Bussieres, G., Vezina, D., Gasser, R., Nault, L., Marchitto, L., Benlarbi, M., Chatterjee, D., Nayrac, M. and Laumaea, A., 2021. Strong humoral immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 Spike after BNT162b2 mRNA vaccination with a sixteen-week interval between doses). medRxiv.
(4) Pfizer booster shot could offer protection for 9-10 months — initial data
@GrumpyAulFella:@GrumpyAulFella: but we in Ireland started vaccinating last December – all the evidence emerged – firstly in Israel in the mid summer about waning vaccine and they quickly gave boosters – and it worked – the UK , the US and others followed- meanwhile we were busy congratulating ourselves that we had 0ver 90%vaccinated – we absolutely promised the public this was the way out – and in the past week NPHET have said maybe this was ‘ naive’ – so spare me the apologist nonsense – as for the approval process for boosters -it was implicit in my comment that we have been too slow on boosters including NIAC etc on approval process – we absolutely would not be where we are NOW and would have far far fewer people in. ICU at the moment if we administered boosters sooner – as a matter of fact they are saying 3 months after initial Jansen we should be boosting – so In my own case ideally I should have had have a booster last JUNE – not Nov / dec – people in Ireland are now showing up at centres looking for booster and they are being told to wait until they get their HSE text – so deflect all you like but the Pandemic Management here has been poor in some key aspects – very important aspects – including how sluggish they came to the table on the implementing the important boosters as part of the vaccine strategy – no need to rewrite what has happened. – the point stands – NZ are using the promise of 90% vax as ireland did but we in truth dropped the ball on our vaccine strategy as i said – some commentators here were slating those of us who pointed to israel in the summer and said we would absolutely be following suit – thats the fact of the matter actually
@David Jordan:
Four months into one of its worst Covid-19 outbreaks, Israel is seeing a sharp drop in new infections and severe illness, aided by its use of vaccine boosters, vaccine passports and mask mandates, scientists and health officials have said.
Israel was struck by its fourth coronavirus wave in June, fuelled by the fast-spreading Delta variant.
Rather than imposing new lockdown measures, the government bet on a third booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine for people age 12 and up, mandated face coverings and enforced use of a ‘Green Pass’ – proof of vaccination, recovery from the illness or a negative test for the virus – at restaurants and other venues, even for children.
Since peaking in early September, daily infections in Israel have fallen more than 80 per cent, with severe cases nearly halved.
“Day by day we are breaking the Delta wave,” prime minister Naftali Bennett said, crediting government policy for “close, smart and flexible management allowing life alongside coronavirus”.
Thanks to David and Dave for the intelligent updates. I initially thought that boosters were only needed for senior citizens & people with a struggling immune system; if they make such a difference in a population, it’s good to hear.
@Dave Hammond: yeah but I’m talking about the EU and you’re talking about the US, UK and Israel. Are any of these EU member states and do they take steers from the EMA? Israel started their booster campaign at the end of Aug. It wasn’t “soon after” they discovered waning vaccine cases in June, it was nearly 3 months after and at a time when they had over 80% of the eligible population vaccinated and they were not waiting for EMA approval either. You wanted yours in June?? We only had about 2m shots administered in June. Did you expect that Pfizer shots should be diverted at that point, without approval, to boosters and us with less that one third of vaccinations required for over 1/2s administered? That’s just nonsense.
Human hysteria is the real plague.
Gonna be some shock when numbers go up & up in a few months like they did here despite us having lot more natural immunity from infections, 93% +12 vaccination rate & near 600,000 boosters administered
Someone should tell them & spare them the heartache
@David Lee: Austria going to be a disaster with their mandatory vaccination. Good lab experiment in a way. See how public health will evolve there. According to many, ICU will be still (and more) occupied to the tilt. We will see.
@David Lee: yes just keep everyone locked down there would be the only alternative it seems.
@David Lee: ye they seemed to have the tactics right but they didn’t capitalise on their success. They’ll likely see their first wave now and it could be a real doozy. Their demographics are very different too with a large Pacifica population who already have a lot of health issues and preexisting conditions with diabetes, a lot of smokers and poor health generally. It could spread like wildfire in those areas and cause serious damage.
Covid is with us long-term. Arderns policy was short term, shut down the entire country for a short while and then open everything up when it’s gone. This policy has proven to be incorrect, lockdowns only work short term
@Alan Campbell: they saved thousands of lives in that time.
@Alan Campbell:
you do realize that to this week, they have 40 fatalities ascribed to covid19?
@Ixtrix Net:
as an addendum… for a population comparable to us
@Alan Campbell:
who proved it incorrect?
I have relatives there. I hope NZ is in a better position to beat Delta.
As of Monday Nov 22nd,
Ireland has 3,793,378 people who are fully vaccinated. That’s 76.13% of our population. Not bad going.
New Zealand has fully vaccinated 3,518,918 people against Covid. That’s only 68.69% of their population. Fingers crossed for them all that they keep up the testing and tracking.
We are heading full trottle into one
@sandra clifford: Agree with you…the word is that a lockdown is coming from December 17th to February 16th
have your say