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

pocco said:
What do you all make of these reports this morning that immunity may only last 5 months?

If thats the case, will there ever be an end to this? Is this the beginning of the end for humanity? :lol:
Click to expand...

The study in the news today found immunity lasted “at least” 20 weeks. They couldn’t prove it lasted any longer because the study was only 20 weeks long.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Almost every other country is also in the shit though. Having to lock down hard to try and stop their hospitals going under. So the factors behind rampant community spread are a) not unique to the uk and b) more complex than sick pay.
Click to expand...
enhanced payment of 350 euro a week in Ireland is a massive differential when compared to 95 stg

My wife has been of with an unrelated illness and I'm lucky enough to have savings but I can fully understand how it can devastate families when I'm seeing them dwindle away.

I personally know loads of people not using the app for this very reason, they can't afford to be of work.

It has to play some part in spread.
 
arnie_ni said:
enhanced payment of 350 euro a week in Ireland is a massive differential when compared to 95 stg

My wife has been of with an unrelated illness and I'm lucky enough to have savings but I can fully understand how it can devastate families when I'm seeing them dwindle away.

I personally know loads of people not using the app for this very reason, they can't afford to be of work.

It has to play some part in spread.
Click to expand...

That’s exactly my point. I’m glad we have better sick pay than the UK during the pandemic because that’s the moral/compassionate thing to do. But we experienced the exact same horrendous recent surge as them. Which shows that people aren’t just failing to self isolate because they can’t afford to.

Anyway, based on what we know now about how the virus can be spread before any symptoms I’m not even sure sick people not self isolating is a big driver. The single biggest factor is the number of close contacts each one of us has, day to day, whether or not we’re sick or know we’ve been exposed. The UK and Ireland both got this badly wrong in the run up to Christmas and are both paying the price now. With the poxy UK variant making a bad situation much worse.
 
Last edited:
pocco said:
Honestly that's terrible reporting and not even news worthy really then. I woke up to messages from family saying it had been on the BBC. More scaremongering.
Click to expand...

Didn’t see those headlines. Not great if they were as misleading as you say. They did find that not everyone had 5 months immunity, mind you. And there were quite a few reinfections during the time period studied. So you can see how journalists might put a negative spin on it.
 
I thought bi-annual jabs were the commonly assumed position anyway? At least for the at risk who will get whatever is needed.

I do wonder what the future will look like for everyone else though. If the vaccines don't stop spread then are we in a situation of yearly jabs for all being the new normal? Or just an acceptance that some will get hospitalised.
 
Smores said:
I thought bi-annual jabs were the commonly assumed position anyway? At least for the at risk who will get whatever is needed.

I do wonder what the future will look like for everyone else though. If the vaccines don't stop spread then are we in a situation of yearly jabs for all being the new normal? Or just an acceptance that some will get hospitalised.
Click to expand...

I’d be very surprised (and pleased) if we don’t all need yearly jabs from now on. I just hope yearly is frequent enough.

I’ve been getting a yearly flu jab (get it free with work) for ages now. It’s not much of an inconvenience tbh.
 
pocco said:
What do you all make of these reports this morning that immunity may only last 5 months?

If thats the case, will there ever be an end to this? Is this the beginning of the end for humanity? :lol:
Click to expand...

How long does immunity to Influenza last? Influenza also continually evolves which is why we have different vaccines for it every year, see what happened with H3N2 over time.

SARS-CoV-2 can be similar, we don't know yet though we'll have a much better idea by the end of this year.
 
pocco said:
What do you all make of these reports this morning that immunity may only last 5 months?

If thats the case, will there ever be an end to this? Is this the beginning of the end for humanity? :lol:
Click to expand...

No solid data on it so not much to make of it.
 
Latest case rate data by region based on yesterday's numbers.

EroWf0sXAAAUKVt
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’d be very surprised (and pleased) if we don’t all need yearly jabs from now on. I just hope yearly is frequent enough.

I’ve been getting a yearly flu jab (get it free with work) for ages now. It’s not much of an inconvenience tbh.
Click to expand...

Yeah we can get it free through a work voucher but you would assume government funding for this scale. Take up is so low on flu jabs that this will be in a whole different ball park.

Obviously this past year has been rather dystopian itself but moving to a reality where globally people need annual jabs to avoid wide societal harm. It's a shift.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’d be very surprised (and pleased) if we don’t all need yearly jabs from now on. I just hope yearly is frequent enough.

I’ve been getting a yearly flu jab (get it free with work) for ages now. It’s not much of an inconvenience tbh.
Click to expand...

The other aspect to this is therapeutics will continue to improve over time (and it already has with mortality rates for serious infections halved since the start of the pandemic)

In a decade, we will likely get to a point where it will just be a flu but in the meantime, we won't return to full normalcy and everyone will have to take a call on what is reasonable for them.
 
Smores said:
Yeah we can get it free through a work voucher but you would assume government funding for this scale. Take up is so low on flu jabs that this will be in a whole different ball park.

Obviously this past year has been rather dystopian itself but moving to a reality where globally people need annual jabs to avoid wide societal harm. It's a shift.
Click to expand...

Yeah, big time. This fecking thing will change the way we live forever. I’m sure about that. It sucks but there you go. The way we live has never remained constant.
 
Very quiet on the roads today, seems like the telling off by Patel may have had some effect.
 
lynchie said:
The lockdown - it is so hard

Click to expand...


No easy answers though, right?

Essential workers are exactly that. Workers who need to be physically present at their jobs every day or society starts to fall apart. We run out of food or our amenities and hospitals start to fail. And these workers have to travel to/from work every day. In a massive city like London even a small % of the workforce needing to travel will cause crowds like this. Especially with a reduced tube service.

The absence of suits is good because people who wear suits to do their job should be able to work remotely. No excuses. It sucks that many essential workers are doing low paid jobs but how do you fix that?

EDIT: Maybe they should be paid more money for the increased risk of doing their jobs during a pandemic? I could get behind that. Wouldn’t make the tubes any less crowded though.
 
Last edited:
Pogue Mahone said:
No easy answers though, right?

Essential workers are exactly that. Workers who need to be physically present at their jobs every day or society starts to fall apart. We run out of food or our amenities and hospitals start to fail. And these workers have to travel to/from work every day. In a massive city like London even a small % of the workforce needing to travel will cause crowds like this. Especially with a reduced tube service.

The absence of suits is good because people who wear suits to do their job should be able to work remotely. No excuses. It sucks that many essential workers are doing low paid jobs but how do you fix that?
Click to expand...

The definition of "essential" has been widened to "anyone who's boss wants them in the office/on site" though, so this is inevitable. There's plenty of jobs going on that wouldn't cause society to fall apart if they were not done, or done from home, but there's no political will to enforce it or pay for people to not work for a bit.
 
lynchie said:
The definition of "essential" has been widened to "anyone who's boss wants them in the office/on site" though, so this is inevitable. There's plenty of jobs going on that wouldn't cause society to fall apart if they were not done, or done from home, but there's no political will to enforce it or pay for people to not work for a bit.
Click to expand...

Then the definition of “essential” needs to be clear, I agree. In Ireland we’re working off an actual list. There are people in my company who fit the criteria and they have to carry around a letter from HR to show to police if they’re stopped. Is that not the case in the UK?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
EDIT: Maybe they should be paid more money for the increased risk of doing their jobs during a pandemic? I could get behind that. Wouldn’t make the tubes any less crowded though.
Click to expand...

They might be able to wear expensive suits on the tube though.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Then the definition of “essential” needs to be clear, I agree. In Ireland we’re working off an actual list. There are people in my company who fit the criteria and they have to carry around a letter from HR to show to police if they’re stopped. Is that not the case in the UK?
Click to expand...

No - it's basically entirely on trust in the UK. I've got friends and family members who could be working from home, and have done previously, but are being told to come in for at least part of the week. There's even been people on this forum saying that they could be working from home, but they've been told not to. Also our "key worker" definition has been widened to include anyone important to the Brexit process, which shows you where our government's priorities lie.
 
lynchie said:
No - it's basically entirely on trust in the UK. I've got friends and family members who could be working from home, and have done previously, but are being told to come in for at least part of the week. There's even been people on this forum saying that they could be working from home, but they've been told not to. Also our "key worker" definition has been widened to include anyone important to the Brexit process, which shows you where our government's priorities lie.
Click to expand...

Feck’s sake.
 
lynchie said:
No - it's basically entirely on trust in the UK. I've got friends and family members who could be working from home, and have done previously, but are being told to come in for at least part of the week. There's even been people on this forum saying that they could be working from home, but they've been told not to. Also our "key worker" definition has been widened to include anyone important to the Brexit process, which shows you where our government's priorities lie.
Click to expand...

Yup I can confirm this, basically through virtue of little change to traffic through nursery around school time.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Then the definition of “essential” needs to be clear, I agree. In Ireland we’re working off an actual list. There are people in my company who fit the criteria and they have to carry around a letter from HR to show to police if they’re stopped. Is that not the case in the UK?
Click to expand...

lynchie said:
No - it's basically entirely on trust in the UK. I've got friends and family members who could be working from home, and have done previously, but are being told to come in for at least part of the week. There's even been people on this forum saying that they could be working from home, but they've been told not to. Also our "key worker" definition has been widened to include anyone important to the Brexit process, which shows you where our government's priorities lie.
Click to expand...

It is/was the case, I just don't think it is being enforced. Key/critical workers are defined here (although this guidance is aimed at whether your kid can go to school still):
https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...horities-on-maintaining-educational-provision

I work in finance for a car parts supplier and fall under the transport category, I have a letter from HR incase I am ever stopped. Some of our delivery drivers were stopped during the first locked down and required to produce the letter. Not heard of any instances since then though.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’d be very surprised (and pleased) if we don’t all need yearly jabs from now on. I just hope yearly is frequent enough.

I’ve been getting a yearly flu jab (get it free with work) for ages now. It’s not much of an inconvenience tbh.
Click to expand...

I've been getting the flu shot for years, too, but free everywhere, whether it's been through a program at work or at the local pharmacy. This year I got the nasal one. Was interesting and it made me really tired that day.
 
pocco said:
Honestly that's terrible reporting and not even news worthy really then. I woke up to messages from family saying it had been on the BBC. More scaremongering.
Click to expand...
Not really. I saw it from the BBC news report and I understood it fine. I guess people just want to bash reporting and believe what they want to believe
 
What is it I'm not understanding about Boris saying that Rashford is doing a great job of showing up the tories as heartless, robbing cnuts, and that this is considered a smart bit of banter that makes Starmer look inept?

I mean, that was his argument essentially, right? "He's better at pointing out what cnuts we are than you"
 
Grinner said:
What is it I'm not understanding about Boris saying that Rashford is doing a great job of showing up the tories as heartless, robbing cnuts, and that this is considered a smart bit of banter that makes Starmer look inept?

I mean, that was his argument essentially, right? "He's better at pointing out what cnuts we are than you"
Click to expand...

They don't seem to care at this point, they are a single issue party that has achieved their goal already. Nothing else matters, not even re-election I'd bet.

They'll still stay in power though, "there's no viable alternative" tory voters tell me. The tory party isn't viable ffs.
 
Berbaclass said:
Click to expand...


It is truly incredible, how the Government continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. They're getting abuse from all sides over this issue, and yet, they go from one feck up to another.
 
Tibs said:
It is truly incredible, how the Government continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. They're getting abuse from all sides over this issue, and yet, they go from one feck up to another.
Click to expand...
God knows at this point.
 
Simbo said:
They don't seem to care at this point, they are a single issue party that has achieved their goal already. Nothing else matters, not even re-election I'd bet.

They'll still stay in power though, "there's no viable alternative" tory voters tell me. The tory party isn't viable ffs.
Click to expand...
They'll get re-elected because the vaccine rollout will be the one thing they get right and that combined with time being a healer will cause people to forgive and forget.
 
They’re reportedly close to 500k vaccinations per day. Do they have the supply to keep up with that rate?
 
SinNombre said:
The other aspect to this is therapeutics will continue to improve over time (and it already has with mortality rates for serious infections halved since the start of the pandemic)

In a decade, we will likely get to a point where it will just be a flu but in the meantime, we won't return to full normalcy and everyone will have to take a call on what is reasonable for them.
Click to expand...

I think it'll be quite a lot quicker than a decade, but it'll definitely be just another bug in our society. I'd bet our kids won't even know it by name, just another virus.
 
Tibs said:
What is the cnut saying?

Commit to a longer lockdown now to avoid giving people false hope - or ease restrictions?
Click to expand...

Assuming he's talking about easing restrictions the danger will be if the likes of Mogg reckon that the conservatives can be seen as the party to "give freedom back" whilst still continuing lockdown because the opposition and a few conservatives vote to continue it. They'd love to come out of this looking like the party who wanted a return to normal life (prematurely)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.