SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Wibble said:
It would have been harder but quite possible if the political will and competence was there. At the end of July Australia (mainly Victoria) and the UK both had just over 700 daily infections. Australia got that down to zero even though the outbreak started during winter and the UK went the other way due to doing almost nothing in summer and autumn and far too little/too late in winter.



The UK looks like a bit of a basket case from outside now so I can't see any chance of decisive proactive decision coming from this government. Their best hope is getting as many people as possible vaccinated during this belated and rather half arsed lockdown and hope the public forget the death toll come the next election.

I think their covid response isn't far off a Yes prime Minister script

Sir Richard Wharton: In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.

Sir Humphrey Appleton: Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.

Sir Richard Wharton: In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we *can* do.

Sir Humphrey Appleton: Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.
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Whilst I agree the UK response has been nothing short of atrocious; why do you think no European country has gone down the AU/NZ route if it was "quite possible" (especially given that almost every country has adopted a somewhat different approach)?
 
finneh said:
Whilst I agree the UK response has been nothing short of atrocious; why do you think no European country has gone down the AU/NZ route if it was "quite possible" (especially given that almost every country has adopted a somewhat different approach)?
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Because it would have been harder and more painful than it was for NZ or AU so nobody was prepared to take bold enough action early enough. As usual politicians are worried about votes rather than doing the right thing. Many like the UK (initially) and Sweden were seduced by the idiotic idea of letting the virus run riot to get get herd immunity when it was fairly obvious how flawed that thinking was.

Others just tried to muddle through. Australia would have done almost the same but our Federal government weren't allowed to make a cock up by the state premiers who could shut borders etc and sell it as looking after "my people" which was and is hugely popular in the main.
 
Wibble said:
3 day lockdown ends but masks and distancing still mandated. No transmissions from the 1 case of community transmission (quarantine hotel worker with the UK variant) and they have tranced the 370 people they had contact with while infectious - some tests still to come back but looking good so far.

NSW is down to a handful of daily infections with known sources so again fingers crossed NSW will be covid free again soon especially as the Northern beaches cluster that started it all has been stamped out most likely. The worrying thing is that we don't known how this cluster escaped from the quarantine hotel where is was genomically traced to.
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This is extremely interesting IMO. The latest variants popping up are supposed to be much more transmissible. However, there seems to be minimal transmissions (if any) to 370 contacts. Were masks and social distancing mandatory at the time?
 
Wibble said:
Because it would have been harder and more painful than it was for NZ or AU so nobody was prepared to take bold enough action early enough. As usual politicians are worried about votes rather than doing the right thing. Many like the UK (initially) and Sweden were seduced by the idiotic idea of letting the virus run riot to get get herd immunity when it was fairly obvious how flawed that thinking was.

Others just tried to muddle through. Australia would have done almost the same but our Federal government weren't allowed to make a cock up by the state premiers who could shut borders etc and sell it as looking after "my people" which was and is hugely popular in the main.
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It would never have been possible in Europe. Closing all the borders would be fundamentally against what the EU is about, and there are too many countries with differing levels of will and competence to make it work. The infrastructure to close internal borders is just not there. They could have attempted to close external borders (and have now done so, sort of) but it's still haphazard. You might expect Germany could effectively close its borders to the world, but how confident are you Greece and Bulgaria would lock Turkey out?

With Brexit already underway the UK as an island could possibly have done it and got away with it.
 
11101 said:
It would never have been possible in Europe. Closing all the borders would be fundamentally against what the EU is about, and there are too many countries with differing levels of will and competence to make it work. The infrastructure to close internal borders is just not there. They could have attempted to close external borders (and have now done so, sort of) but it's still haphazard. You might expect Germany could effectively close its borders to the world, but how confident are you Greece and Bulgaria would lock Turkey out?

With Brexit already underway the UK as an island could possibly have done it and got away with it.
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Think an interesting question is whether the UK will close all external borders for the next pandemic given what we have learned from this one. There is a greater flux of people between the UK and the world than for Aus/NZ so it would likely be an unpopular/divisive policy. Would have been a very hard call to make at the beginning of the pandemic and given that it took the government a while to take it seriously it was never going to happen.

I vaguely remember that that the dogma when all this kicked off was that closing international borders wasn’t necessary (and community use of masks wouldn’t help!).
 
Traub said:
This is extremely interesting IMO. The latest variants popping up are supposed to be much more transmissible. However, there seems to be minimal transmissions (if any) to 370 contacts. Were masks and social distancing mandatory at the time?
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The contacts could mean anything though. Does it include everyone at the hotel whose room they entered, plus everyone whose trays they might have touched, or food they may have prepared, plus all the other staff at the hotel. In which case it might give us some reassurance about fomites (surfaces/objects carrying infection).

Depending on their household/family situation they may not have that many indoors close contacts.

How they caught it is interesting as well of course.
 
Tony Babangida said:
Think an interesting question is whether the UK will close all external borders for the next pandemic given what we have learned from this one. There is a greater flux of people between the UK and the world than for Aus/NZ so it would likely be an unpopular/divisive policy. Would have been a very hard call to make at the beginning of the pandemic and given that it took the government a while to take it seriously it was never going to happen.

I vaguely remember that that the dogma when all this kicked off was that closing international borders wasn’t necessary (and masks wouldn’t help!).
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Depends entirely on the government. This government wouldn’t change a single thing about their response given the chance to do it all over again. How am I so sure about this? Because at every single turn they have ignored expert advice until it is too late and they learnt absolutely nothing from the first wave. They also failed to implement sensible measures like requiring a negative test when you arrive in the country for months and months with absolutely no explanation as to why.
 
Traub said:
This is extremely interesting IMO. The latest variants popping up are supposed to be much more transmissible. However, there seems to be minimal transmissions (if any) to 370 contacts. Were masks and social distancing mandatory at the time?
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Only 10 were considered close contacts and one of those (her husband) just tested positive.

I'm not sure what restrictions Qld had at the time. Distancing regs for sure but not sure if masks were compulsory. Probably only advisory.
 
Pexbo said:
Depends entirely on the government. This government wouldn’t change a single thing about their response given the chance to do it all over again. How am I so sure about this? Because at every single turn they have ignored expert advice until it is too late and they learnt absolutely nothing from the first wave. They also failed to implement sensible measures like requiring a negative test when you arrive in the country for months and months with absolutely no explanation as to why.
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Scary to think they could have been even worse if it hadn’t nearly killed fat Boris.
 
11101 said:
It would never have been possible in Europe. Closing all the borders would be fundamentally against what the EU is about
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Yet France closed its border with UK late last year. Each country can still close its borders it would seem.
 
Tony Babangida said:
Think an interesting question is whether the UK will close all external borders for the next pandemic given what we have learned from this one. There is a greater flux of people between the UK and the world than for Aus/NZ so it would likely be an unpopular/divisive policy. Would have been a very hard call to make at the beginning of the pandemic and given that it took the government a while to take it seriously it was never going to happen.

I vaguely remember that that the dogma when all this kicked off was that closing international borders wasn’t necessary (and community use of masks wouldn’t help!).
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Closing is genuinely difficult within Europe though, even for an island. France implemented a temporary border closure with the UK just before Christmas - within two days we had 10000 lorries + drivers waiting at the port.

People living in one country, working in another is common in Europe. Maintenance teams often work across the whole of Europe.

Improved testing, with faster (and more reliable) turnround times might be practical, but closures? I'm sure we'll hear the politicians announce them in the future, but the exceptions list will be big.
 
Wibble said:
Yet France closed its border with UK late last year. Each country can still close its borders it would seem.
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The fact that's a sea border makes it easier though right?

For example, I can't see how it'd be possible for Switzerland and Germany to close their border. There's a heap of road crossings between the two, as well as towns and cities built on the border. A lot of people live in one and work in the other (usually live in Germany and work in Switzerland).

And that's just one border, I guess the same is true for most countries on the continent.
 
My gf is awaiting some results because she's felt light-headed and nauseous the last few days. I've felt fine but woken up today quite off-balance and dizzy, also got a bit of nausea but none of the symptoms they tell you to keep an eye out for. I know they can be wide ranging though.

Should get my gfs results soon and my test is on the way I think.
 
Tony Blair giving his thoughts and advice to Hancock and Dido Harding.

I hate Blair. But, I hope he told that useless shit Dido Harding to get Track & Trace up to scratch.
 
BD said:
The fact that's a sea border makes it easier though right?

For example, I can't see how it'd be possible for Switzerland and Germany to close their border. There's a heap of road crossings between the two, as well as towns and cities built on the border. A lot of people live in one and work in the other (usually live in Germany and work in Switzerland).

And that's just one border, I guess the same is true for most countries on the continent.
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Closing borders within the EU is a non-starter. I wish people would stop pretending it’s an option (or ever was an option). It won’t ever happen. For obvious reasons.

The only possible radical response would have been the whole of the EU closing borders with the rest of the world. I hope that we have a lot of discussions now about how this might work in a future pandemic. Unfortunately, Brexit has complicated things (a phrase we’ll hear a lot in the years ahead)
 
Wibble said:
Yet France closed its border with UK late last year. Each country can still close its borders it would seem.
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The UK was not in the EU at that point.

The internal borders have been closed temporarily, but there has always been a long list of exceptions and it's always been a political and practical issue to keep them closed for more than a short time.


Pogue Mahone said:
The only possible radical response would have been the whole of the EU closing borders with the rest of the world.
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That has now happened. I don't remember when it came into effect, but the pre-Christmas response to the UK should have been done in March for the whole rest of the world. The West wanted to keep everything open for as long as possible, but it didn't take long for China to shut their borders once the shoe was on the other foot.
 
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Solius said:
My gf is awaiting some results because she's felt light-headed and nauseous the last few days. I've felt fine but woken up today quite off-balance and dizzy, also got a bit of nausea but none of the symptoms they tell you to keep an eye out for. I know they can be wide ranging though.

Should get my gfs results soon and my test is on the way I think.
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Anecdotally, nausea seems a very common symptom these days. Hoping it comes back negative mate.
 
Wibble said:
Because it would have been harder and more painful than it was for NZ or AU so nobody was prepared to take bold enough action early enough. As usual politicians are worried about votes rather than doing the right thing. Many like the UK (initially) and Sweden were seduced by the idiotic idea of letting the virus run riot to get get herd immunity when it was fairly obvious how flawed that thinking was.

Others just tried to muddle through. Australia would have done almost the same but our Federal government weren't allowed to make a cock up by the state premiers who could shut borders etc and sell it as looking after "my people" which was and is hugely popular in the main.
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We saw the carnage caused when France closed the UK border for a couple of days. I think it's absurd to assume this could have happened for months on end.

Likewise we've seen governments in the EU implementing very harsh lockdown measures and it's been met with the wholesale support of the electorate; you only need to read this forum and people have been clamouring for harsher measures, so I'm unsure how this would be electorally damaging. In fact I'd say Covid zero would have been a popular policy for the government to justify as they would point to the thousands of lives it would save (especially with the furlough scheme). Can you imagine Johnson's popularity if we were all celebrating Christmas with our families whilst our neighbours were all locked down?

The reason the strategy was only implemented in a handful of countries that are either isolated, self-sustaining and/or dictatorships; was because it was only be possible under those conditions. Even particularly Eastern European countries that were fortunately barely touched by the first wave and had severally months to prepare / implement such a strategy realised it wasn't possible.

We're unlikely to ever agree of course but I find your contributions to the thread often interesting/insightful all the same.
Pogue Mahone said:
Closing borders within the EU is a non-starter. I wish people would stop pretending it’s an option (or ever was an option). It won’t ever happen. For obvious reasons.

The only possible radical response would have been the whole of the EU closing borders with the rest of the world. I hope that we have a lot of discussions now about how this might work in a future pandemic. Unfortunately, Brexit has complicated things (a phrase we’ll hear a lot in the years ahead)
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Agreed. How feasible this would have been politically is another story - even abiding by EU rules at the time could you imagine back in March when Boris was bragging about shaking hands with Covid patients being told the UK had to shut down to the rest of the world? At the time it would have been music to the ears of the ERG that's for sure.
 
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BD said:
The fact that's a sea border makes it easier though right?

For example, I can't see how it'd be possible for Switzerland and Germany to close their border. There's a heap of road crossings between the two, as well as towns and cities built on the border. A lot of people live in one and work in the other (usually live in Germany and work in Switzerland).

And that's just one border, I guess the same is true for most countries on the continent.
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Both countries are separated by the Rhine river and lake Constance, I counted about 10 crossings on google maps, that border is probably one of the easier to police. And Germany actually has "closed" it's borders during the pandemic. The thing is that this isn't supposed to be airtight, to mess with lorries or people who work across the border. It's supposed to prevent spread via recreational visits and holiday makers and you can spot out most of them via license plates.
 
11101 said:
That has now happened. I don't remember when it came into effect, but the pre-Christmas response to the UK should have been done in March for the whole rest of the world. The West wanted to keep everything open for as long as possible, but it didn't take long for China to shut their borders once the shoe was on the other foot.
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To a varying extent. Lots of “please self isolate for 14 days if you travel from UK/South Africa” but not many countries (that I’m aware of) co-opting hotels to ensure every single international arrival is forcibly detained into quarantine.

That’s the sort of measures that would have had to have been implemented in March (ideally much earlier) in every single EU country, bar none, if we we were to have had any chance of zero covid. And we don’t seem any closer to those sort of 100% coordinated measures now than we were then.
 
acnumber9 said:
It happened in December did it not? The UK didn’t actually leave until January.
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Technically we left in January 2020. The transition period kicked in after we had left.

Pogue Mahone said:
To a varying extent. Lots of “please self isolate for 14 days if you travel from UK/South Africa” but not many countries (that I’m aware of) co-opting hotels to ensure every single international arrival is forcibly detained into quarantine.

That’s the sort of measures that would have had to have been implemented in March (ideally much earlier) in every single EU country, bar none, if we we were to have had any chance of zero covid. And we don’t seem any closer to those sort of 100% coordinated measures now than we were then.
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Unless it's disjointed, it's my understanding that nobody is allowed to enter the EU unless you are resident or meet certain exceptions or come from one of a handful of 'safe' countries. Certainly that's the case for France, Switzerland and Italy.
 
11101 said:
Unless it's disjointed, it's my understanding that nobody is allowed to enter the EU unless you are resident or meet certain exceptions or come from one of a handful of 'safe' countries. Certainly that's the case for France, Switzerland and Italy.
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Yes, it’s disjointed. Summary here. Loads of loopholes for “essential reasons” and even countries that are usually on the ball like Germany are just asking arrivals to self-isolate for 10 days. Nothing even close to what happened in NZ/Aus.
 
do.ob said:
Both countries are separated by the Rhine river and lake Constance, I counted about 10 crossings on google maps, that border is probably one of the easier to police. And Germany actually has "closed" it's borders during the pandemic. The thing is that this isn't supposed to be airtight, to mess with lorries or people who work across the border. It's supposed to prevent spread via recreational visits and holiday makers and you can spot out most of them via license plates.
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do.ob said:
Both countries are separated by the Rhine river and lake Constance, I counted about 10 crossings on google maps, that border is probably one of the easier to police. And Germany actually has "closed" it's borders during the pandemic. The thing is that this isn't supposed to be airtight, to mess with lorries or people who work across the border. It's supposed to prevent spread via recreational visits and holiday makers and you can spot out most of them via license plates.
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Maybe we have different definitions, but I counted more than 10 corssings just between Kanton Schaffhausen and Germany?

But anyway that's beside the point. I generally agree that the border closures would ideally just make it more inconvenient for holidaymakers. But I don't think it's at all feasible.
 
The vaccine rollout is a bit of a mess in UK. A lot of people have got it despite not being health care workers or in high risk categories, non elderly etc.

So many people just turn up, nod to say they're healthcare, get the jab and leave. I don't know if that's because hubs might have had situations where vaccines are about to expire and loosened the requirement. Would make more sense if that's why.
 
Can any German posters here give some insight into how the vaccinations are going there? I've a few friends there who are presumably high up enough on the list (underlying conditions), but I don't really want to keep bugging them by asking them if they know any more about when they'll get it.
 
VP89 said:
The vaccine rollout is a bit of a mess in UK. A lot of people have got it despite not being health care workers or in high risk categories, non elderly etc.

So many people just turn up, nod to say they're healthcare, get the jab and leave. I don't know if that's because hubs might have had situations where vaccines are about to expire and loosened the requirement. Would make more sense if that's why.
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I mean, I get that we should be trying to vaccinate specific groups, but there seems to be a real issue in getting those people vaccinated quickly enough for a number of reasons.

I'm starting to think more and more that just doing as many as quickly as possible is the bet option for the UK, especially given how severe things have gotten here. It's sort of crazy to expect the most at risk to put themselves at real risk of getting the virus whilst in the process of getting a vaccine for that same virus.
 
BD said:
Maybe we have different definitions, but I counted more than 10 corssings just between Kanton Schaffhausen and Germany?

But anyway that's beside the point. I generally agree that the border closures would ideally just make it more inconvenient for holidaymakers. But I don't think it's at all feasible.
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You're correct, I had my eyes glued to the river. But still: you tell authorities to leave lorries and local license plates be and to pull out and check cars that aren't from places around and when you catch someone who doesn't have a good explanation you fine them. That sounds like a fairly reasonable deterrent to me. Plus a lot of regular people will probably not be planning holiday trips across borders they aren't supposed to cross. It's certainly a lot easier to police than the 15km containment zone around hot spots that is coming.
 
BD said:
Can any German posters here give some insight into how the vaccinations are going there? I've a few friends there who are presumably high up enough on the list (underlying conditions), but I don't really want to keep bugging them by asking them if they know any more about when they'll get it.
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The federal goverment has a detailled priority list on its homepage. Unfortunately the English translation, as always, is the bare minimum. The distribution is up to the states to organize, so depending on where one lives things might move faster or slower.

Here's a DW article on it:
https://www.dw.com/en/covid-german-regulations-on-who-gets-vaccine-first/a-55987647

As far as I know they are still at groups 1.1 and 1.2 on the list.
 
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BD said:
The fact that's a sea border makes it easier though right?

For example, I can't see how it'd be possible for Switzerland and Germany to close their border. There's a heap of road crossings between the two, as well as towns and cities built on the border. A lot of people live in one and work in the other (usually live in Germany and work in Switzerland).

And that's just one border, I guess the same is true for most countries on the continent.
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We were discussing the UK and obviously being an Island helps although Australia locked state borders. Distance helped but they still did it and lots of people live in one state and work in another. Albury/Wodonga on the NSW/Vic border and Tweed Heads/Coolangatta on the NSW/Qld border.

And import/export didn't stop and transport between states continued. It was just regulated.
 
I know two people in London now who have gotten their first doses but won't get the second till March. This is quite ridiculous. Even the WHO said 6 weeks it the maximum gap. Moderna/Pfizer have both said to not delay the second doses and yet the UK is on their own trip here.
 
Wibble said:
We were discussing the UK and obviously being an Island helps although Australia locked state borders. Distance helped but they still did it and lots of people live in one state and work in another. Albury/Wodonga on the NSW/Vic border and Tweed Heads/Coolangatta on the NSW/Qld border.

And import/export didn't stop and transport between states continued. It was just regulated.
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And we saw that cases jumped from state to state in Aus, repeatedly. What worked very well was the restrictions around air travel from other countries. Making land borders impermeable to the virus hasn’t worked anywhere.
 
finneh said:
We saw the carnage caused when France closed the UK border for a couple of days. I think it's absurd to assume this could have happened for months on end.
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A closed border doesn't mean no imports or exports. It means safely regulated ones. The interconnectedness of Europe makes things harder but the UK could have locked their borders if they wanted to and could organise a piss up in brewery. But they can't and it is well past any possible opportunity now anyway.

Likewise we've seen governments in the EU implementing very harsh lockdown measures and it's been met with the wholesale support of the electorate; you only need to read this forum and people have been clamouring for harsher measures, so I'm unsure how this would be electorally damaging. In fact I'd say Covid zero would have been a popular policy for the government to justify as they would point to the thousands of lives it would save (especially with the furlough scheme). Can you imagine Johnson's popularity if we were all celebrating Christmas with our families whilst our neighbours were all locked down?
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Has anywhere in Europe had very strict lockdowns? Border closures or even real quarantine didn't seem to happen in any/many places.

The reason the strategy was only implemented in a handful of countries that are either isolated, self-sustaining and/or dictatorships; was because it was only be possible under those conditions. Even particularly Eastern European countries that were fortunately barely touched by the first wave and had severally months to prepare / implement such a strategy realised it wasn't possible.
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The biggest, but not only, factor was political will and leadership. You need politicians bold enough (or for who the political stars align) and once you make the wrong choice it is very hard to go back. Australia had some luck at the beginning and then closed borders just fast enough and then state governments were given the political capital to do what was needed as it played very well to their home electorate. The state government started well but have been very lucky that the state government rs curbed their worst instincts. It would be virtually impossible to do now in the UK and while any restriction that can get the UK through the next few months of mass vaccination is probably a good idea no way will a full lockdown happen.

We're unlikely to ever agree of course but I find your contributions to the thread often interesting/insightful all the same.

Agreed. How feasible this would have been politically is another story - even abiding by EU rules at the time could you imagine back in March when Boris was bragging about shaking hands with Covid patients being told the UK had to shut down to the rest of the world? At the time it would have been music to the ears of the ERG that's for sure.
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With the Tories in charge (and probably any UK political party) it was a non-starter no matter what I think anyway. But think how many of the 80,000 we could have saved with more to come?
 
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