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MASS VACCINATION WILL be needed for populations to reach herd immunity and prevent further resurgences of the pandemic, a new study based on data from Wuhan has found.
Published in The Lancet, the study suggests that 6.9% of the population of the Chinese city had Covid-19 antibodies by April 2020.
Of these, 40% of people had developed neutralising antibodies – which protect against future infection – and these remained stable for at least nine months.
Further, 82% of participants who had tested positive for Covid antbodies had not experienced any symptoms of the disease.
Wuhan was where the first cases of a “pneumonia of unknown origin” were reported in December 2019.
The study involved sourcing data from over 9,000 participants. Blood samples were taken to test if antibodies were present in mid-April 2020, mid-June and between October and December.
Of the 9,542 participants, 532 had antibodies against Covid-19. Four in five participants who had antibodies were asymptomatic cases. The study’s authors said this is much higher than other estimates reported around the world. They said this may be due to recall bias where a person is asked to report their own symptoms months later.
Due to the relatively low presence of the disease among the population, researchers said that is unlikely that herd immunity will be achieved without effective mass vaccination campaigns.
Its lead author Dr Chen Wang, from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, said: “Assessing the proportion of the population that have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 and who are immune is of utmost importance for determining effective prevention and control strategies to reduce the likelihood of future resurgence of the pandemic.
Given that individuals with mild infections might not seek medical care and that asymptomatic individuals are not usually screened, there may be large discrepancies between the reported Covid-19 cases, and actual infected cases, which has been proven by the experiences and data from other countries.
In a linked comment on the study, Professor Richard Strugnell and Dr Nancy Wang from the Doherty Institute in Australia said: “Given the relative paucity of neutralising antibodies through natural infection, the study by He and colleagues reinforces the need for effective Covid-19 vaccines in the population-level control of the disease.
“The extraordinary, rapid, and effective control measures implemented in Wuhan might have restricted the spread of the virus, but also reduced naturally-acquired herd immunity by truncating the development of sustained neutralising antibodies.”
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Absolutely right. Property prices are determined entirely by demand and ability to pay.
Increasing the amount of money have access to through this copy-paste of the UK scheme will do exactly what it did in the UK: inflate prices even more.
@Gerard: Eoin O Broin at last is a person that has got his teeth into this scandalous mess perpetrated by successive governments run mainly by the two main parties then. It’s very obvious that the buyer is very much the loser in all of their dealings in the housing market.
@Mick Andrews: As most people here will know I am not a great fan of Sinn Fein but I have to say Eoin is a very impressive figure who comes across really well.
He doesn’t shout or sound angry all the time, Pearse take note, and is really on top of his brief.
@Gerard: In theory higher prices should mean more profit which should attract more builders and increase supply. The problem is that in practice land prices just increase and swallow up future profit
@Gerard: previous shared ownership schemes helped individuals who might not have had the opportunity to do so to purchase their own homes. We had such a scheme 25 years ago so we’re hardly dependent on the UK for inspiration!
The problem is that house prices are subject to market forces. At one point, back in the 1970s, there was a section in the Dept of the Environment called House Price Control which applied some regulation to the prices of new build houses. Perhaps that might be the way to go n the future.
As to SFs call to invest the money into social and LA housing – not everyone will qualify for those schemes and those who wish to buy in the private sector also deserve support.
In the early 90’s average house prices were 3 times the annual industrial wage, now its over 10 times. Massive profiteering by developers and builders, as well as the banks, aided by the government and paid for by people who the government know at the end of the day won’t do anything about it.
@Brendan: I think you will find that increased building regulations for energy efficiency etc have contributed massively to this increase in price
@Michael Carty: older homes have increased in value at the same rate which has absolutely nothing to do with building regs.
@EillieEs: no that is to do with size a 3 bed built 20 years ago is bigger that a 3 bed today and a 3 bed built 40 years ago will feel like a palace compared to todays
@john s: I don’t agree; we live in an old house and rooms are far smaller than those in houses recently built by my siblings
@Brendan: nothing to do with 20 years of easy access to as much cash as you wanted beyond what people could afford? The vast majority of houses are privately owned, and taken by people who have borrowed to pay for them. People need to cop on – prices shot up because people bought them; that was the main driver!
@Brendan: Mortgage rates in the 90′s were 4 to 6 times higher than now so you can’t really compare income v house price v affordability. The issue is that we hit a Global meltdown in 2008, all social construction stopped and slowed for years…. We are feeling that now, the answer is to build more and build faster. But have no mistake about it, the private sector has a huge role to play in providing social housing and it always will unless you want social injustice and area like the old Ballymun re-appearing.
@Michael Carty: This has something to do with rising prices, but when the banks started taking two salaries i.e. a couple both into account when applying for a mortgage, this left single people unable to bid for the same quality house and drove prices up.
Anybody who doesn’t see the big picture here is blind. FF are again trying to line the pockets of bankers and developers. This needs to be stopped or nobody on the average industrial wage will ever be able to own their own home again.
@John Killeen: line the pockets again…and again and again..never ending story with those 2 parties.
@John Killeen: it seems like a disastrous policy for them given what happened last time but here we are. Leopards and spots. I wish there were a viable opposition to the two in government. Might have to hold my nose and vote SF.
@John Killeen: Keep singing that hymn and you might convert a few more gullibles…. Well done
I don’t normally agree with SF but they’re right. It’s moving from one trap into another. The housing situation in Ireland is a shocking clearly visible display of power and greed. People just want homes and a roof over their head and the security that gives. It’s not a game.
The government have been pushing ahead with this in the face of fairly damning evidence that it is a bad idea. It makes you wonder who they are trying to please – first time buyers or property developers?
@Ned Gerblansky: there’s no “wondering” about it
STOP BUILDING UNAFFORDABLE HOMES
After the last election I was excited that Irish politics might actually be competitive. I thought that the two main parties would realise that they can’t rely on the votes like they used to. When the government was formed I was actually hopeful that they’d have more cop on than ever before and would actually try to improve the situation. But instead here we are with the same old $hite. No leadership or innovative thinking on this issue. The only solution they offer conveniently transfers taxpayer funds to private developers and actually makes the situation worse than if they did nothing.
Irish politics will be increasingly volatile in the coming years and it’s entirely due to the failings of FF and FG.
@Podge: anyone who ever even considers voting for the shinners just needs to look at they’re record in the north. It’s shambolic and you should not need any more evidence they would be incredibly incompetent but on the off chance you were still on the fence it’s easy to just remember the past and present links to terrorism and morally it’s also a no brainer to never vote for them really.
@guineon: Yeah to be honest I won’t be voting for Sinn Féin but honestly it’s due to their current setup as opposed to their history. I think a lot of people will vote for them because they can’t bring themselves to vote for FF or FG anymore.
But what politicians need to remember is that people care about the basic things – putting a roof over their family’s head, putting food on the table, and a health system that works. I’m not saying that’s all that matters or that Sinn Féin will solve these things (I think even if they improve one area they’ll feck up a lot of others) but it’s not enough anymore to point to the IRA or to highlight how bad the opposition is when those in power show such distain and incompetency.
@guineon: The good Friday agreement was signed nearly 23 years ago now. Looking backwards has never served this country well. Its time to let your hate go. I appreciate that FG would rather live in the past but there’s whole generation of voters who neither remember nor care about a conflict that ended before they were born. They do however care about that fact that they’ll never own a house under a FFG government.
@guineon: At the same time undecided voters should recall that since the foundation of this state F.G./F.F. between them have been in power. It 100 years of boom followed by bust a continuation of the same failed policy, scandal after scandal. F.F. facilitated in economic crash that brought this country to it’s knees. F.G. just made matters worse. Now the same two parties are in power together , and it’s the same politics. F.F./.F.G. we’re formed from a violent past , a past they conveniently fail to mention. The fact went independence was gained in the 26 counties, Irish conservatives replaced British conservatives. That’s the legacy of FF/FG.
@Declan Doherty: well looking at the state of the north right now and what a shambles Sinn Fein have been doesn’t exactly require going back in the past?
@Donal Desmond: the house thing is a generational issue. Exact same problem is seen around the world, millennials are struggling to own houses at the same rate as older generations. Have never voted FG but I think it’s hard to argue the current government is wholly at fault for a problem seen all around the world. Are all government’s incompetent? Seems like it’s a different issue
@guineon: yes many governments around the world are facing the same issue. But some are trying to find much better solutions (such as New Zealand tackling their property bubble by restriction foreign purchases, or Texas for keeping relaxed laws and greater approval for housing which is in contrast to places like San Francisco). All our crowd have done is make the problem worse by throwing money at it while doing nothing to tackle the issues in bringing supply to market.
And yes this issue is a global problem but in the recent past Ireland has had a very manageable fertility rate which means the fact that we can’t plan for a small population increase is entirely to do with planning.
What’s more this entire problem was caused by the boom which was facilitated by FF. The boom lead to a bust and the bust directly lead to a serious lack of housing being built in the aftermath which caused this crisis. What we need is a steady housing market.
@guineon: Certainly not a different issue. To palm off the housing issue in Ireland as a generational issue or a world wide problem is a generalisation of the housing crisis. Since the bank crash which was facilitated by F.F./ Green government of the day. The billions that have left this country and the Billions more that is still owed is used as an excuse in the down grading of public services including housing. The agenda is been driven again by the same Politicians and their parties that caused the problems in the first place. Just the same shambolic policy that is geared in favour of developers and big business against the interests of the citizens.
While SF object to social housing on there own door step
@Lorrimore: wisht up will ya.
@Lorrimore: Do keep up, Dublin City Councilors have majority voted for Council houses on public land after a Majority of Councilors (Including Fianna Fail Councilors) voted down a motion to build Private houses at 400,000 on PUBLIC land
@Lorrimore: *their
@Lorrimore: What social housing have SF objected to ?
@Lorrimore: keep up dozy
It’s basic economics that prices would rise.
@Petulant mcbarity: abosolute greed being the main economics
@Gerard Heery: if you built a house lately you will find that the cost of material alone and Labour have increase significantly over the last 5 years
If I can find online, small business’s that sell prefab 3 bed wooden houses for around 60k. They are built within 6 weeks and last well over my lifetime. Why can they not build an estate of quick builds on free council land for around 100k after plumbing,sparking,service ect.not over 300k?
@Barney r: because some ungreatful pr*ck who got handed the house for half nothing would complain it wasn’t as good as they’re friends house which they also pay basically nothing for. Would end up taking a case against the council and suing if any ridiculous regulation was even half ignored in this type of build. It’s sad really
@guineon: ahhh showing ur true colours there now arent you?
You basically despise anyone who is in the need of sociol or council housing.
” Ungrateful P rick” remark says alot about ur FG views.
If the ambition was to house people the gov would spend the money in doing up the massive derelict housing stock every town, village and city in this country before touching green fields. People in Ireland don’t want to live another 10Kms out the road from their friends or family where new builds are happening. Most people would be happy in a renovated house where they have local supports. You can’t get a mortgage for renovations, only a high interest loan that most people can’t afford. Retrofitting might be marginally more expensive then building new but knowing how expensive land is in Ireland I doubt it. It’s a no brainer and if there was a want to house people it’s what the gov should be doing but unfortunately it doesn’t make big developers rich and so it’s not even on the table.
@dottiemac: True.
On a similar note the cost of direct provision in ireland is costing €175 million a year. There are currently 1700 people in this system. Taking the figure of 1700 as an average of how many people are in the system at any given time, the cost per head is approximately €100,000 a year. How in all honesty is it costing €100,000 a year per head to house and feed these people? Someone is getting fat of the tax payers money. And they are also exploiting refugees misery. Toxic from the top down. Only way to kill a snake (FFG) is to cut off the head.
@Andy mc Laughlin: On a similar note the cost of HAP over the last few years has been billions, yes billions, not millions. That’s us paying landlord mortgages rather than the money being put to affordable/social housing. Yes, FFG good at maintaining/worsening the social divide
@Fr. Fintan Stack: And driving up rents at the same time.
@Andy mc Laughlin: Wait until you see the numbers when the new Government policy of free housing after four months in Diect Provision comes through.
There will be thousands. I would do it myself.
Any initiative that increases supply of homes for people searching to but their own homes to be welcome. SF always Blocking! So Negative! They think they have the Holy Grail on housing but have never built any. Look at their record in Northern Ireland!
@anne: how exactly does this scheme increase supply? It increases access to finance but does nothing to address the chronic lack of supply in the housing market i.e leading to higher house prices.
@anne: This scheme does nothing to increase supply of homes.
@anne: thank god theres someone like SF always there to block this sort of help the rich developer culture and steal of the taxpayers money. Unfortunately for you Anne, you never seem to admit when SF produces concrete alternative housing policies, which your friends in FF and FG are quiet happy to block.
@anne: you call this notion to hand property dealers MORE tax payers money while putting a young couple into debt over their heads an
” initiative “…… and please explain how it “increases supply” ?
@anne: As iv said before on here comparing SF in Northern Ireland to SF in the republic is not the same. SF NI are in a power sharing government with the purse strings held by the British government in London. As I already pointed out in this thread the money wasted in most If not all schemes currently overseen by the FFG government here is obscene. Say what you want about SF proposals, if they could get to grips with these obscene over spends they would be well underway in growing this “magic money tree” everyone talks about when SF proposes anything. The tree is well and truly alive in this country already, it’s just being picked clean by the same fat cats backed by the same rotten to the core governments for generations.
8 years into the housing crisis no improvement
SF will stop at nothing, even to the detriment of their own stance on social housing to score political points over anything. Not once has SF ever put forward a logical, possible and plausible policy on housing. With SF, its always fairytale economics promising more magic money to their base of entitled people who want everything for nothing.
In this case, the ERSI and CBOI both cautioned that the plan could lead to increases in property values IF the plan wasn’t executed in its entirety so the volume output of participants in the plan (in a certain area) outweighed the demand to drive the price increase. With construction prices and regulation so high, something is badly needed to drive stimulus, to create volume and ultimately stabilise prices (supply and demand 101). This plan is designed to make homes MORE affordable and if rolled out correctly, will do just that.
People probably should be on the streets about this policy. Wait until after covid. Even hardened neo liberals believe this is mental. The outcome is 100% an increase in house prices. FF & FG are clearly hand in hand with developers. What other explanation is left. They will have been advised that this policy will drive up prices.
Moaning about the builders and developers is never ending and deserved in places, however nothing would get built with out them , it s not rocket science to estimate the cost of materials and labour , but the cost of land is always a variable from place to place not to mention planning objections , environmental costs, utilities ,sewerage, all come into play. It’s time for the government to get involved in controlling these costs to a managed level so that everyone wins. They profit on every aspect of the build and do absolutely nothing only have their hand out.
Instead of finding new ways of making the private building sector even more profitable, the government should rethink, act and build public housing at affordable rates for the most vulnerable in our society. For example in the UK after WW2 during the 50s, a huge program of public building was enacted, building 250K houses per year. Is it hard to imagine the Irish government setting a goal of building 100K affordable houses over 4 years to help our fellow citizens.
@Ken: totally different era land was cheap ,lots of cheap labor from exservice men as england was decimated and don’t forget the usa paid the for rebuild which the uk only paid back about 20 years ago. Btw about 45 % of a new build goes to the government.
Who did the study for the housing minister London House rises
Funny they say Government to pay, but in reality we are to pay them 30K.
This will do as SF predict, but the policy will go through.
Remember YOUR GOVERNMENT just let a Commsion with serious quetions to answer as to how testimony changed from audio to written. They let that Dissolve, a Commission that was investigating the darkest of horror stories involving child experiments,forced adoption and unexplained deaths.
You think they care if you rent forever or never buy a house. Its make sure Get the Expenses in lads.
At present the schemes for first time buyers are “help to buy incentive”, covers deposit up to 30k by refunding tax you paid over 4 years paid to developer of new house or self build.
And ‘Rebuilding ireland home loan’ available if you are refused mortgage for amount needed by two banks. Local authority offer morgage up to 320k at fixed low interest rate under 3%.
How does this scheme fit in? State owns 30% and banks owns 70%. two seperate loans.what happens on default? insurance policy and mortgage protection?
To fix the housing issues in any country you need several schemes and options as there are people in very different positions – some can afford this scheme and welcome this. Every developed country on earth has many schemes to tackle housing, but Eoin’s approach is to treat every proposal as it’s the only proposal (he’s a SF politician) and a huge number of people, like on this comment section, just say the same stuff: “lining developers pockets”, “robbing”, etc., etc.,
The housing issue in Ireland isn’t caused by the “developers”, it’s caused by the Irish, we just have to argue everything and say no to everything: “not here”, “not now”, “not near me”. There’s no actual issue with this scheme being one of several available bar politics and point scoring
Employ everyone you need directly from government. Maintain control and don’t give it to some chump. As soon as you approach, developers and ‘construction companies’ everyone is loosing.
@thesaltyurchin: ah yes the government will get it done no red tape stuff, bring it in on time and cost, ah yes the children hospital comes to mind.
@brendan o connell: But the childrens is as described in the original post, contractors, construction companies, etc.
@brendan o connell: That’s because they tendered to the snake pit, it’s not what I mean. Really it could be conveyed as sarcasm as yes a swamp of red tape would need to be cleared for the necessary transparency to prevail. I do think if we (the government) actually were the ‘contracting company’ that we would do better than we ever could in an ‘open market’
He wants to spend the €75 million on 1,500 hundred housing units. That’s SF banana economics
go luck getting public servants to get it done on time and budget .remember it’s the private sector that pay for the public sector salaries pensions and all .
@brendan o connell: It was private sector greed that got us in to the mess we’re in.
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