This type of shit is exactly what not only fuels the conspiracy theorists but allows them to sow seeds in other people's heads.
I like playing tennis so I feel similar to you right now, surely the rewards outweighs the risk here?
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
I like playing tennis so I feel similar to you right now, surely the rewards outweighs the risk here?
It isn't certain yet, but more than possible, that the variant is more transmissible due to insufficient data. Human behaviour could well account for some or all of the increased in infections. If I were a betting man I'd say it probably will turn out to be more transmissible, if no more severe in symptoms, but perhaps not by as much as the 70% Boris has kept bashing on about, like a drowning many grasping a safety bouy.
If it is more infectious it will be due to changes to the make-up of the protein spike that means it binds to human cells more easily. The mechanism of how increased transmissability may occur is unclear at this stage but may include factors such a higher viral load in nasal and bronchial tissues.
So far there is no suggestion that this variant is more harmful or won't be protected against by vaccination.
As for reinfections I don't think that it is a major concern. They do happen but no more, and possibly less, than with most viruses.
but you spend all your time in this thread defending them. And did I say you were approving their actions? No. Just that you choose not to focus on it, rather the things people do wrong. So shove your bullshit back up that dark passage where it came from yourself 
.It's what virus' do isn't it? Mutate to survive.
It’s more that the Nightingale hospitals were set up before the virus was truly understood. It means they can’t actually administer the required medicines there eg. ventilators. They’re not equipped for it. At best, those hospitalised but are treatable with oxygen are the only ones who could go there.
You’re right though too, staffing is also an issue.
I was trying to say the stress about it can be downplayed a bit. The forecasts on long term doom are for the most part overplayed.
Schools are probably struggling given the flip flopping by the government. So give them a break. Be pissed off by Bojo et al. but when it comes to helping schools to teach your kids remotely I'm afraid you just have to suck it up for your kid's sake no matter what you already do.
I quit teaching because I though it was essentially broken and requires redesigning from the ground up. But like you I had to just deal with what is for my own kid.
I've been very pissed off with my son's schools from time to time but often in the end you just have to cope.
I'd hope this would be a catalyst for modernising education so that we emphasise critical thinking and problem solving over memorisation and bullshit standardised testing, but I'm not holding my breath.
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I have watched Mass online from all over the country since March. Catholic churches aren't empty, no idea how it looks in the CofE.
Since people have been allowed back in the churches, they are sitting apart from each other in the pews, there's no singing, everyone is wearing a mask, the services are kept as short as possible and no-one shakes hands.
There's no sharing of the wine and many priests are distributing the communion wafers as people leave, so they actually don't leave their seats during the service.
At the end of the service you see volunteers wiping down the pews with disinfectant. I don't think they could do much more to stay safe.
I agree, my dad plays golf and will struggle staying at home as he usually works long hours- if he could just play golf he would be fine. Even if they made it a rule they can only play on their own or with someone in their house/ only use their own clubs/ toilets are shut- it's technically a glorified walk!
? The number in brackets is cases per 100K isn’t it? So 600-800. Which incidentally is less than here in London
feck sakes.Because they want to be furloughed?
I think he is just ranting but there is, in fairness, logic to the argument he makes. The overarching point as you say is, for the greater good/reward, it makes sense just to close everything to reduce risk. But Regarding golf, you don’t share balls or clubs. You can play the whole round without being near each other or touching anything that the other is using. It’s basically akin to meeting someone to do exercise together (which I believe is still legal) and hence logically, it doesn’t make sense. I think we all get the bigger picture and this is a tiny thing in the grand scheme of things but is a clear example of how everything this government does makes no sense.
I really don’t though. It just surprises me when the focus is all on the government when I view it slightly differently. I’ve said repeatedly that I think the government have screwed up many times and Boris himself has been awful, I doubt there is one post of mine here where I’m a cheerleader for the government, my point though is always the same.
Just because our government is stupid, and allows us to do stupid things, does that mean we have to be stupid and do stupid things? No! But I see it every day. I live somewhere that is popular with visitors and usually I have no problem with it but all I see now is stupidity and selfishness and judging by the numbers there’s a lot of it about.
That’s not correct, I’ve had many a rant to my Mrs about the government and their weak actions but it is the things people are doing wrong that is the main driver in what is happening ... in my opinion.
Judging one doesn’t mean you aren’t judging the other but I don’t like posts where the public seem to be completely absolved of blame, it really annoys me. The government are doing a bad job throughout but sections of the public are being complete idiots, displaying all the worst aspect ms of human behaviour, that is my view and it will take a lot to shift that.
I just don’t like being @Volumiza’d making out I’m defending the government, I’m not, but the population are largely to blame ... again, in my opinion. If everyone behaved as I have behaved (and I’m sure a lot on here too) then the numbers may not be so high.
So shove your bullshit back up that dark passage where it came from yourself
Touché
Ah ok thank you that's really interesting, good to know at least one works with their new timescales. Why don't they just keep the Astra one at the timescales it's supposed to be, get those people completely vaccinated then they're "out the way" technically fully sorted.... as won't this mass vaccination program be pretty ineffective if it turns out that specific vaccine doesn't work if the doses are too far apart?
What Glory?
The AZ vaccine, which will broadly be the vaccine that the mass population will get, is still effective at immunising with 12 week gaps. The critical point that they're working to is whilst the production of the vaccine gets up to speed, they're utilising as much volume of the vaccine as possible to get first doses into the target groups. This is because after a single dose, the hospitalisation rates drop significantly, which is the biggest problem at the moment. By 11-12 weeks (which is end of March), they expect to have production volumes in a place to administer second doses, and hospital admissions much lower than what they are currently.
In fairness I probably shouldn’t have called you out. And on that basis I probably don’t have a foot to stand on.
I guess where I am, when I go to the supermarket etc. I actually see really good compliance with masks etc. Also I’ve barely noticed anyone on my street who have had people over. Maybe I’m just lucky. I know rule breaking is happening but I haven’t really witnessed it at such a large scale that we should be focusing on it vs the government. I guess my overall point is that whilst not the intention, calling out the public in effect partly absolves the government. And we should not in any way be absolving them. And I had a lot of sympathy for Boris, gave him the benefit of the doubt given how tough the situation was. But the last few months in particular that have been shamefully bad.
A number of pubs local to me were doing delivery pints in plastic cups usually with a meal though
Personally I think opening shops for Christmas and opening up the household mixing was always going to lead to a spike that required a lockdown in January, and it was a stupid trade-off for the government to make and the public to take up. Short-term gain for long-term pain is rarely a good strategy.
It's undoubtedly true though that the new strain has had an impact, and has significantly changed their plans. Without the new strain we may have repeated the "circuit-breaker" from November: stabilise cases across the country and bring the worst areas back into levels the government think are manageable. I don't think they would have considered another lockdown for an indefinite period to even be a last resort if it wasn't for this variant.
I think their idea of what was a manageable level was always misguided though. They were letting things get out of control and mistiming the responses consistently in Winter. They were moving closer to the US' perspective than Germany's, without properly communicating that to the public. Boris on Sunday was the closest to that in a while.
I think the UK is in such a mess what should have happened back in March/April doesn't now need to be stated. I still very unhappy with all governments, Australia's included, for various reasons. We have fecked up vaccine purchase by the look of things so will be a 2 or 3 months late starting as things now stand.
Missing the 15 weeks did reduce his ATAR (Uni entry score derived from A level equivalent exams) for sure, partly as we chose "easy" subjects that don't scale well and he was never very academic anyway. But he got through with a half decent result. He could have got into some courses at some Unis here, assuming he wanted to, and there are so many alternative pathways to almost any career these days as well.
We took a deliberate choice to prioritise his sport, led by what he wanted, and it turned out well. Post school he was offered a sports scholarship in the US almost out of the blue but didn't have a SAT score and he needed quite a high one to get in. Somehow he crammed for a month with our help and liberal use of The Khan Academy and got a good enough score to get in. My wife's reaction when she saw his result was "is that your score?"
He then found the first year of Uni hard as he hadn't enough practice with independent learning but scraped through. It scared the shit out of him as you can't fail a semester or have an overall GPA below 2 and still play/get a scholarship but he knuckled down and worked hard and is now getting straight B's which is more than good enough.
We are both former academics and teachers who still work in education so we were quite relaxed about it all as we know getting in to Uni to a very competitive course isn't really necessary straight out of school and is often a bad idea. We both have done things career wise that didn't even exist when we went to Uni and we know Uni isn't for everyone anyway. Our biggest stress was that he was 100% confident that he was going to get selected for the junior and youth national sides and we knew that it was far from certain as politics is often a huge factor and he had previously been repeatedly overlooked. But he was right which was a relief.
The next stress was that once he aged out of the junior ranks he was still in the state Institute of Sport on a scholarship but too young to have a chance of going to Tokyo and would therefore be a bit aimless for the next 4 years. Then the US offer arrived and he is motivated to get a degree (from a great Uni) in a way he wouldn't have been if he stayed here.
We were of course lucky that it all worked out despite the huge amount of effort from all concerned and it could all have fallen flat on it's arse, but the only way to not fail is to not try (platitude of the day contender).
The biggest issue with closed schools is a) social issues and hopefully a 3 month closure won't be that bad for most and b) kids who rely on school for far more than most, often from the lower socio-economic end of the scale. Special arrangements should be made but it is Boris and the Tories so they won't give a feck.
Glad it worked out! Although it does sound a bit like academically he might have faced some disadvantages from missing that much school, and having sports achievements compensated for that both in short-term self-esteem and long-term prospects. It is hard to see how that maps onto a bookish young person at this time, they rely more on academic growth for their short-term self-esteem and long-term prospects than your son would by nature, and they don't even have the option of another outlet like sports in this moment. It seems reasonable to worry they might suffer more than your son did, in ways we don't quite understand.
Yeah, I suppose that was my point. They didn't take the right measures at the right time - that's the assessment now, after the fact. But you also could easily have said they should've taken harsher measures earlier, and many did. It inevitably would've cut transmission more, and prevented more medical harm. That was a valid viewpoint that Merkel and co. had to consider. But they also had to consider the damage of taking harsher measures too early. The damage to the economy and society are obvious, so the government is required to limit that as much as possible, by doing things as late as possible. It's just difficult to know when that is.
Merkel's assessment of "as late as possible" was much earlier than much of Europe's in spring, which led to better case management. But like you say it also got a strong pushback from many citizens and regional governments. It weakened her ability to do that a second time, and it would've changed her calculations somewhat too. Maybe she did things too early, maybe Germany could cope with more, maybe the damage to the economy is too severe. So Merkel's assessment of "as late as possible" in autumn was different to spring, and even right up to November, there was a desire to leave some things open for longer because it was thought that things could be managed as they are.
In spring the majority of the UK saw Germany and Merkel as a shining light, they reacted quickly and assertively and appeared to reap the benefits of that. That success was ascribed to their regional governance, their testing program, their medical excellence, their community togetherness and all sorts of other things that the UK was evidently missing. It was a clear-cut description: German government is good, UK government is bad, therefore Germany has good outcomes and the UK has bad outcomes. That's how it has been and that's how it will continue to be, because those fundamentals are what dictate the outcomes.
The UK followed the regional governance model and now people point to the flaws of it. The UK went on to test more per capita than their major neighbours and then people pointed to their inability to trace contacts. Germany were doing the right thing, but they were also doing it the right way. The UK were finally doing the right thing, but clearly they were doing it the wrong way. Germany went on to face exactly the same problems. Contact tracing cannot keep up with this volume of cases, it doesn't matter which country that happens in. And regional governance leads to more responsive government when things go well, and more fragmented government when things go badly, with lots of time wasted on political in-fighting.
Throughout all of this, every government left things as late as possible. They just had different perceptions on how late that was, anchored against different sets of priorities at different times. The UK choosing to leave things as late as possible isn't the problem, the problem was what they used to judge how late that shoud be.
I think you mean the Pfizer one! The Oxford one and Astra one are the same, Oxford designed it and Astra Zeneca are manufacturing it. I think AZ were something like Oxford's fourth choice too, which does give you some pause about how likely we are to meet their production targets without delays...
We shouldn't be too worried about the vaccines not working overall. Pfizer's vaccine after dose 2 will be very effective. It might be less effective if we spread out the doses over 12 weeks rather than the recommended 3 weeks, but it doesn't need to be 95% effective anyway. Even if it was 30% less effective by spreading out the doses - which seems unlikely - it would still be better than Oxford's. If Oxford sees no hospitalisations from a 62% effective vaccine, then it is reasonable to expect Pfizer's vaccine to prevent the vast majority of hospitalisations on this adjusted vaccination schedule too. But that's after dose 2.
The problem is the period between dose 1 and dose 2. People will get infected then, from both Oxford's and Pfizer's. We can guarantee that.
Oxford's data tells us that we should expect few, possibly no hospitalisations of healthy people in the interim period between dose 1 and 2. Their data on this adjusted dosing schedule had very poor coverage of older people and other vulnerable populations, so one of the reasons they got no hospitalisations is because few of the people that got covid in their trial would typically be hospitalised anyway. We know it is less effective at preventing people getting covid in the interim period, so lengthening that interim period and exposing it to more vulnerable people means some people might be hospitalised after it. But we know it still cuts case numbers quite a lot, even in that long interim period. And after that interim period it works as well, maybe better. So I don't think we could call it ineffective.
Pfizer's data tells us we should expect no hospitalisations for 3 weeks, and they have better data on older populations and other vulnerable populations, but we don't know if it holds true for 6, 9 or 12. After people get that second dose on week 12, we can reasonably expect almost all severe cases of covid to disappear...for an unknown but limited time period. But before people get that second dose, it's possible that a significant number of people - at-risk people - get hospitalised because the immunity after dose 1 is short-lived.
So I'd say we shouldn't be quite as broadly concerned as you are, it shouldn't fundamentally maim the mass vaccination program. It just might put more people taking the Pfizer vaccine at personal risk than they otherwise would have, for a limited period. And it exposes more people to longer risk during that interim period for Oxford's vaccine than each of those individuals would ideally want. And that risks harming public trust. Because of that, I think we should just stick with the 2 doses over 3 weeks for Pfizer and the flexible vaccination strategy for Oxford, like you say. Technically that is left up to the discretion of vaccination providers, and I do know people that got the first Pfizer dose that have been told they are still getting the second dose 3 weeks later. So maybe that will happen in a lot of cases anyway?
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Boris has been weak, indecisive and slow to act, no doubt. Three of the worst traits possible in the current situation. There! See? My view of the government.
But we have all known how the virus spreads, the conditions it loves to find a new host. We all know what we need to do to slow it down and mitigate the spread, and we have all known since last March pretty much so why are we here? At some point we, the people, have to take responsibility and behave in a manner that will help keep the numbers down. We know how to do it, so, if lots of people aren't being stupid and either ignoring or flat out disobeying the rules, then why are we seeing such rapidly rising numbers?
Make sure to disinfect the bench first
An interesting thread on why this new "lockdown" might not be as effective as it could be. Millions of people are still going to work, without enough protection or support for isolation.
They definitely could do more - they could cancel in-person services. I get that they're doing all the "covid-safe" stuff, but essentially they're bringing people together from a large number of households into one enclosed space. There'll be crowding around entry and exit, there'll be people having a chat together outside.
My mother in law who is a big church goer won’t go anymore because despite all the stuff they have in place within the church, outside the church in the car park everyone is greeting each other, having chats with no precaution shown. She believes the churches should be closed which is a big statement coming from her.
I should add she’s in Kent which is fecked
10 months too late, but Gove hinting that they’ll finally require people coming from abroad to have a negative test to enter the UK.
The guidance is "follow the rules of the Government", wherever you live. Churches were closed for a long time here in Italy, although they are open now. I don't go in person at present because we're high-risk, and we can participate in any one of hundreds of live-streamed Masses (not the same of course, but I'm being pragmatic because of our situation).
I know the ones I've watched have organised exit from the church to maintain social distancing, but I'm sue you're right about people stopping outside.
I'm not religious but my family go to two CofE churches, one local with a mixed age congregation and one very large and vibrant with predominantly young people. Both have been closed for months.
Cynical part of me thinks they wanted to wait until Brexit was done and dusted so they can use it to say "see we can control our borders now we're out the EU."
With all we know about the virus now there’s no way that spacing people out and wearing masks can guarantee safety. They’re putting the most vulnerable people from different households indoors together, for a long period of time. This won’t end well. They should absolutely stop in-person services.
Another press conference today with Johnson, Whitty and Valance.
I agree. I gave so much detail because I totally recognise that his experience doesn't apply to everyone. That said if his choices had failed it still would have been the right choice for him.
I hate the way stuff like this is worded. It’s not “covid restrictions“ that has pushed the poor man to breaking point. The word “restrictions” should be deleted from that sentence. We need to stop talking about the measures needed to keep our health services functional as distinct from the virus itself.
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The latter I would imagine. I bet they try and justify the (unjustifiable) schools u-turn.
Yeah makes sense! Maybe this disruption to education might come with the benefit of people doing things differently, whether that's a more flexible model of education (certainly in higher education) and less of a rigid fixation on the normal education path for students. More people focusing on practical, skill-based education post-GCSEs was a good idea anyway with the prevailing trends before covid, this might make that easier. But you know better than me whether changes in education models are even remotely plausible!
I don't think it's something to worry about. The situation is bad enough that another direct update from the health experts is necessary to provide more depth on the current situation, and doubles up as an opportunity to provide the evidence to justify yesterday's decision. Yesterday was about what comes next, this will explain a bit of the why.
My frustration through summer with the situation in Manchester was that for all the miscellany of lockdown measures (wobbling between tier 2/3 type controls) the rate never really came down low enough. Rather than looking at what was failing, we just got a "it's your own fault" from the government.
Questions like how you do you help key workers who also live in multigeneration homes just weren't addressed. Same with workers visiting multiple places with high risk clients - like carehomes, hospitals etc.
Everyone agrees that it's the right thing for people to self quarantine and get a test at the first sign of symptoms (where symptoms have become increasingly fuzzy as we've learned more about the disease). But that's hard if it costs you money, and money was already tight, or costs you your job, because you have no job security. It's hard if it interferes with informal care responsibilities. It's hard if you can't get a delivery slot and you need food or medicine.
In some areas/groups it reached the point where people were avoiding tests because they knew what it would immediately cost them, and their workmates/friends. Employers actually acknowledged that in a lot of places, by asking people to turn the covid app off on their phones. Hopefully the national nature of the measures and messaging will improve compliance, but it needs money behind it, and not just money to the same people who were protected last time.
I remain an optimist about where we're going - because I think the vaccines can have a massive impact. I'm not optimistic at all about how we'll get there though.
I agree, totally, that they're following the rules of the Government, and will feel they're doing the right thing. I'm just concerned that the Government rules are ridiculous.
Shouldn't we be back to daily briefings now? If nothing else to give us updates on the vaccine programme.