@jojojo absolutely brilliant, thanks for that. All makes sense now.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Yep to both sides - especially as we know 'long COVID' seems to vary in people (at least I think so anyway). We are all educated people who are relatively successful in our fields of work, but none of us are scientists. So for us, I think in part with our age/life stage, we all immediately thought what if it impacts our ability to have kids (it's a general concern we would have but ramped up a bit due to all this)
We would all take the vaccine as needed, but that doesn't make it illogical to have slight concerns. It could be jumping onto a massive bouncy castle with pillows as high as Big Ben surrounding it so you are guaranteed a soft landing, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't have a slight concern naturally (or for some people).
Not you necessarily, but when people who are happy to take a vaccine and trust the scientists ask even a slight question (not because they doubt the scientists, but because we are just genuinely not knowledgeable enough and want to know) getting jumped on and being labelled and anti-vaxxer doesn't help the situation. It stops people asking questions/being convinced and definitely pushes them to the other side - you aren't exactly going to side with people who call you a moron and generally insult you for wanting to know an answer, especially if it's a genuine attempt to understand. Imagine if teachers did that at school
You get in a car everyday without knowing the safety protocols required for the car to pass to be sold
You still ask when you buy a car if there are any problems, check online reviews for safety etc.
This is no different. Asking questions doesn't make you an anti vaxxer. Saying you won't take it because you believe conspiracies or make your question a belief does
I don't think there's any way to close the UK borders for a sustained period of time due to the interconnectedness of Europe and the practicalities of our supply chains.
No chance they’re studying to be doctors of medicine though, let’s be honest. The ones in the know are the only cnuts we should listen to and not made up/misinformed bollocks from anyone whether it’s yer da the brickie or someone with a childcare studies doctorate.Most of them are PhD students
And the people in the know are the ones slaving away in hospitals, making videos pleading with people to take it seriously and are mind blown about the stupidity of people regarding a simple vaccine just to get called paid actors. It’s fecking embarrassing, hilarious and depressing at the same time.
The % of idiotic conspiracy theorists in even the UK and USA alone is probably* way higher than any other country, especially the Far East, and it’ll show. They’ll be responsible for many more deaths.
*I don’t make bold claims without a source
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It should be noted that what qualifies as “fantastic” compliance is very subjective. Your view isn’t one you should expect everyone to align with. Wearing a mask is piss easy. It’s something we should expect everyone to do, all the time. They have that expectation in many Asian societies in less severe situations because they know it is easy and requires such a small sacrifice.
It is because our expectations as a society are lower that we perform worse on some of these key elements, which clearly make disease control more difficult. Most people can wear their mask most of the time they’re supposed to and everyone can feel like they’re doing fantastically well. Big Sam can get a thumbs up for at least trying to wear a mask, even though the way he wore it is more dangerous than helpful.
True.
What we need is a safety rating for vaccines.
Pfizer-Biontech - 4* (not suitable for those with severe allergic reactions)
Oxford-Astrazeneca - TBC (expected 5*)
Moderna - TBC (expected 4*, not suitable for those with severe allergic reactions, approved in the US)
Yeah says it all, fecking governmentsGovernment’s fault, plain as day...
Its a real difficulty, I think if I remember right huge amounts of fresh produce arrive from Holland to supply your supermarkets each day.
I agree. I know people will say it shouldn't be needed but the fact these things are even questions shows it does. So many people are afraid of asking questions because it will come across wrong or will get jumped on - I am sure if 100 people were asked to write down questions there would many that overlap.
As stupid as it sounds, I wish there was a website (or hope there is) that has a list of all the vaccines and general questions answered. And like you say, when it is safe/not safe for you to take one (obviously a doctor should be asked though)
I just find it odd people are being treated harshly for having a slight concern/wanting to ask a question. It naturally puts people on the defensive and far less likely to agree with you if you just insult them. You can always tell when a question is from someone just concerned or an anti-vaxer, they are not framed the same way.
I hope I got my point across that I do understand the questions/concerns. I just find it interesting the way people seem less inclined to have the same questions/concerns about the vaccine alternative i.e. eventually catching covid. At the end of the day, any adverse consequences of the vaccine will be due to the response of your immune system to a novel antigen. Which is exactly the same process that everyone who catches the virus goes through (with added risk of imminent ICU admission/death etc)
Yes, we're reliant on a huge number of trucks passing through Dover-Calais (and other crossings) each day. Not just the UK either - Ireland is hugely reliant on trucks going across the UK 'land bridge' too.
Fecking tell me about it. Santa had some explaining to do in my house after the poxy UK variant caused a go slow on a bunch of presents.
Yeah don't worry, I got your point, sorry if it came across I didn't or thought you were 'attacking me'. And you're right, I do think that many people don't think of the alternative - but I think it's because, especially in this case, people have got into their mind COVID is 'just' the flu so would take that chance
I think my main point is more that I've seen so many situations where people get shouted down for asking legitimate questions (legitimate in the sense they are curious to learn/understand). I genuinely believe this type of 'debating' has what helped lead to things like Brexit, Trump etc. People get very much forced into a corner and then stuck there because the side they were happy to join, demeaned them for even asking questions to understand a topic better.
Congrats!! I wish you and your wife all the best. Stay safe!!
Oh FFS, it's just one after another. This makes it how many incidents with UK tourists overseas this year?
Rungis wholesale market is where supermarkets generally get their supplies from.
So are schools gonna open or not... because as a parent and somebody who runs a business its getting pretty difficult to plan even a week ahead
The communications throughout covid have been pretty shambolic
The communications throughout covid have been pretty shambolic
We closed international borders without stopping freight. However, we don't depend on truck traffic for imports.
And not a brain cell between themMost of them are PhD students
Why would anyone even suspect that a vaccine would affect fertility?
Ok, yeah, that definitely happens. The toxicity of social media. Choose a side and abuse “the enemy”. Everyone wants to score points. Nobody wants to find common ground. It’s a huge problem and is going to hinder the roll out of the vaccine.
There's already very little non-essential international travel going on.
Much reduced but still as much as 15% of normal. The good thing is that as it is much reduced already moving to only returning citizens and residents with compulsory guarded quarantine would be less of a big deal than before.
Still unworkable. As well as the obvious issue re freight, people travel within the EU for all sorts of essential reasons that wouldn’t function with compulsory quarantine. Commuting to and from another country to work, for example.
In Ireland we have some major power stations that require regular maintenance by engineers that live in the UK. How does that work with guarded quarantine every time they cross a border?
There is a big difference between allowing freight transport and allowing a load of fecking idiots to go skiing or backpacking. Especially when said idiots can't be trusted to follow instructions and behave while they are away. As usual a group or twats spoil it for those who would follow the rules.
Why not? Not that it would, but why wouldn't it be a legitimate question? I am sure there were times many people thought certain things had no links but later found they did. Some people, like me, are not educated enough in the field and are (perhaps selfishly) thinking about things only from their perspective. Yes saving people is of course important, but also one of the things high on my list is hopefully starting a family soon so it's on my mind. Maybe if you asked me last year or after a kid I wouldn't have even had this thought.
There will be many people who have other questions that don't even cross my mind. For example, people asked about allergic reactions which never for a second crossed my mind as I assumed they'd be OK and also I am not allergic to anything. There was also a story about people who had some form of cosmetic surgery, again it doesn't impact me so I never for a second thought about it - but those people would have had questions.
People will have questions based on what is happening with their lives, I don't think it's wrong to ask questions for peace of mind. It is wrong though to not ask and either blindly follow or blindly go against. The other important thing is to ask the right people, and several of them - this is another battle of legitimate vs fake news of course
I despise social media, I am on it but out of necessity it feels. Not to derail the topic, but it's why I despise cancel culture or trial by social media. There is never any room for debate. Everything is black and white, nothing is grey.... unless it involves them of course
I keep hearing this. Why can’t they close it to everything apart from supply chain?
International travel is not allowed from a Tier 4 area, other than for one of a few limited reasons.
All those ski trips are flying out from somewhere.
im on a Fuerteventura forum group. There were hundreds of people saying they were going for Christmas & January. It’s all closed to them now otherwise they would have arrived in massive groups
I cannot believe that Boris hasn't come out yet and said we are going into a national lockdown.
Some areas are in T4 yes, and in others this new variant is not going through the roof - YET....why wait another week or two for it to really get going? I can't help but feel that the Government have not learnt their lesson from March.
We keep hearing that the Vaccine is the way out, so I thought I'd check up on some numbers and see what that looks like.
According to Age Discrimination who got the info from the Govt, there are are around 8.7 million over 70s in the UK...and according to KingsFund.Org.Uk, there are 15m people in the UK living with an underlying health condition with no cure.
So, in a completely non-scientific manner, let's say that 12m people need to be vaccinated ASAP, and in that number let's include NHS front line, Care home staff, and I suspect soon, Teachers.
The first UK vaccine was given on 8th December, and to date, let's assume (going off official figures and time since) that 750,000 people have received their first dose.and they ha
Now let's say, Oxford Vaccine gets the greenlight tomorrow, and they have 20m doses ready.....we are looking a minimum 3 month window to get those 12m done, and be in a position where we can loosen restrictions more and not be worrying about number of hospitalisations and deaths....and that 3 months is ONLY possible if everything runs SUPER smooth and we increase the number of vaccines given per day.
Please note these are rough calcs based on nothing....but the point I'm making is, that from where we are, we are not in a position to be putting off lockdown because we think a magical solution is going to save us in a week.
If we had a political system where those in power were actually held accountable, the likes of Boris, Gove and Hancock should be facing long stretches in jail imo
Some areas are in T4 yes, and in others this new variant is not going through the roof - YET....why wait another week or two for it to really get going? I can't help but feel that the Government have not learnt their lesson from March.
We keep hearing that the Vaccine is the way out, so I thought I'd check up on some numbers and see what that looks like.
According to Age Discrimination who got the info from the Govt, there are are around 8.7 million over 70s in the UK...and according to KingsFund.Org.Uk, there are 15m people in the UK living with an underlying health condition with no cure.
So, in a completely non-scientific manner, let's say that 12m people need to be vaccinated ASAP, and in that number let's include NHS front line, Care home staff, and I suspect soon, Teachers.
The first UK vaccine was given on 8th December, and to date, let's assume (going off official figures and time since) that 750,000 people have received their first dose.and they ha
Now let's say, Oxford Vaccine gets the greenlight tomorrow, and they have 20m doses ready.....we are looking a minimum 3 month window to get those 12m done, and be in a position where we can loosen restrictions more and not be worrying about number of hospitalisations and deaths....and that 3 months is ONLY possible if everything runs SUPER smooth and we increase the number of vaccines given per day.
Please note these are rough calcs based on nothing....but the point I'm making is, that from where we are, we are not in a position to be putting off lockdown because we think a magical solution is going to save us in a week.
If we had a political system where those in power were actually held accountable, the likes of Boris, Gove and Hancock should be facing long stretches in jail imo
Why would you think that a vaccine would make you infertile? There is no history of vaccines making you infertile. You might as well worry that a vaccine would give you liver cancer or melanoma or any other random thing you can think of. Just odd to settle on that worry.
Wow
What's the overall case numbers for the UK now if it was 100k cases around March/April as speculated? 15m impacted in some way with covid who now have antibodies in some form?
But who's saying that is my 'only' worry? I worry about my liver as I am someone who has a weaker liver than most people and am constantly checked - I can't take certain medicine's cos of it. It's also not an odd concern, infertility I would imagine is not an immediate side effect but something that would be known about in a few years - hence the slight (even if ridiculous) concern. Again, I speak as someone who has no science background, so this is why I ask the questions. Rather than just blindly assuming that a vaccine which hasn't been trialled for years or whatever will cause it, I think it's fair to ask a question and be put to ease and explained why it's not an issue than not ask because I fear someone will think I'm stupid.
I've always believed in asking questions if I don't understand or want some clarity, no matter how stupid they sound. I would never learn otherwise - I can either ask Google or someone who knows more in the field than me, whatever it is. It's how you learn at school, it's how you learn in a social environment, it's how you learn at work etc. There is nothing wrong with asking questions - I've had many people ask me questions which I think are ridiculous, obvious or odd but I always answer them sincerely if I can see they are genuinely curious/trying to learn. I actually appreciate that more than someone making up their own mind on something they don't understand and making mistakes.
In this case, as I have said, me and many of my friends expressed this concern separately. if none of us asked questions and just instead fed each other our fears it would be worse. I would rather go ask questions, find out and then share
March/April was a massive underestimation because only hospitalised patients were getting tested. That hasn’t been the case for a while now. Obviously the “true” number of cases will be a lot higher than the official stats but nowhere near to the same extent was it was in the first wave.
It is. Those that might not align with my thinking are free to disagree but I’d be well within my right to ask them: what exactly do you want? If you are to go shopping, then wearing a mask, forming orderly queues, keeping your distance and not acting like a cretin for (often stressed) staff is about as good as it gets. By and large, this is what I see.
I’m just not seeing this lack of compliance that others often express. I think it’s only right to highlight the positive choices people are making instead of actively seeking to highlight the negatives of a small minority. You will end up very angry otherwise; I’d rather save this anger for halfwits like Gavin Williamson, in truth.
Rates in Greater Manchester on the rise.
+24% for the region vs LW (Source: MEN, presuming they're more reliable on Covid reporting than United)
+24% for the region vs LW (Source: MEN, presuming they're more reliable on Covid reporting than United)
All I know is if I was to take a dozen random pictures of Belfast city centre just before Christmas you would not find 90% of people wearing masks in and out of shops, and if you have anyone in your family working in hospitality or retail you would have no shortage of stories every day of the pains they have to go to reminding people to put their masks on, keep their distance, etc. So again it's about the proportions you deem acceptable here. "By and large", "fantastic compliance" etc. are quite vague descriptions of quantitative measurements, so you might be seeing the same thing other people are seeing but describing it differently because they are imprecise descriptions on both sides, and you have different expectations.
Personally I would expect 100% adherence to masks by this point so 80%, while a big improvement on the summer, is still unacceptably poor. 90% is acceptable. 99% is fantastic. Imperfection is just a part of life. Social distancing is harder to say because they're context-dependent but I would say the majority in supermarkets I've been to don't make much effort to distance. There aren't mass crowds because there are fewer people but there are still people impatiently squeezing through busy aisles, some have no problem brushing up against you because they feel entitled to walk through that space at that time, and lots of people walk around as if they're unaware of their surroundings and the moment they're in.
I get the desire for normality. Many of the spaces we've been going to for years are shut off from us, so in the few places we're allowed to go back to we would like to act relatively normally, if we have to put on a mask then fine but I'm not going to space myself out on an escalator, wait for people to go past in the aisles, etc. That's how it comes across and it isn't an uncommon thing where I'm at.
The reality is we live in a global world and can see how other citizens have adhered. It is the case that many countries in the East have seen more rigorous adherence, and it has had a positive effect on transmission. They hold themselves to higher standards in this regard, in large part because the social pressure forces them to. That social pressure is uncomfortable but it isn't unkind. There is this idea that saying people are doing the wrong thing is unkind, but the counter-argument is that doing the wrong thing is itself unkind to other citizens.
I agree with you that there are a lot of people that seem unhealthily angry at the world, and seeking out that information verges on masochism at points. Then again I just assume that is mostly just their coping mechanism at the moment. We all have to have some kind of coping mechanism. It helps you cope to focus on most people complying but some people need a different kind of focus to help them get by. But I don't think pointing out the imperfections in society's response that you see in every day life are all like that. I'm not angry at people, but I think it's both necessary and healthy to expect more from our citizens at the moment. Things are getting worse so we need to make more sacrifices. That's unfortunate but true. You can blame the government while still demanding more from individuals.