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

The delayed timing of the UK variant has really screwed mainland Europe where most countries finally "kind of" controlled their second wave and immidiately cases rose again due to the new variant
It`s clear to me that the fight against Covid on a political and social level is completely lost and the vaccines are (and will) be the only solution. Which is an embarassing admission because I still believe covid could have been contained even without a vaccine but neoliberalism is so engrained in our society and in our politics it`s just a lost cause. Even now, with Germany announcing its "hardest lockdown so far for Eastern" or something like that the only actions are once again interventions in personal freedoms while work places and industrial business remain untouched. No testing strategy, no legislative means to stop employers forcing their people to come in 20+ people offices or indoor work places but instead random curfews and the same message from a year ago "stay at home stay at home stay at home".

The pandemic really has shown what poison nationalism and neoliberalism are but I doubt we`ll learn lessons from it.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
And time. A lot time. While with each week these kids are kept out of school they fall further and further behind.

And that’s only considering the academic value of school which, as a teacher, you’ll know is only a small part of the value it provides. Especially for younger kids or only children. At a time when they’re not supposed to be interacting with other kids in any other context. And for the most underprivileged going to school can give them a break from dysfunctional circumstances at home.
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I agree but in a pandemic you need to prioritise the lesser of many evils. I also not comfortable forcing unvaccinsted teachers back to work.

Except for A level students, who may have Uni places riding on their performance, I'd not be too bothered about the academic loss. Kids learn so little per year catching up shouldn't be too hard.

The social is harder but here kids living in socially disadvantaged conditions and kids of essential workers were allowed back to school when most kids were still at home.
 
Am I really just reading Germany have reversed their decision to have another lockdown less than 24 hours after announcing it? What a shambles. Imagine if Boris had done this. If seems Europe is really panicking at the moment. I hope they get things settled ASAP.
 
TheReligion said:
Am I really just reading Germany have reversed their decision to have another lockdown less than 24 hours after announcing it? What a shambles. Imagine if Boris had done this. If seems Europe is really panicking at the moment. I hope they get things settled ASAP.
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They wanted to extend the easter holidays by a couple of days (in between) to effectively have a 5 day period with everything shut down. They decided on that yesterday and reversed their decision today. It is a shambles but not much changed regarding lockdown otherwise.
 
Abizzz said:
They wanted to extend the easter holidays by a couple of days (in between) to effectively have a 5 day period with everything shut down. They decided on that yesterday and reversed their decision today. It is a shambles but not much changed regarding lockdown otherwise.
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I'm quite surprised by Germany in this regard. Indecisive and making hasty decisions without doing the work before hand to check it was viable.
 
TheReligion said:
I'm quite surprised by Germany in this regard. Indecisive and making hasty decisions without doing the work before hand to check it was viable.
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Theres been a spike these past weeks that they didn't expect, i'm not sure how much work beforehand was to be done. It's all terribly politically though because health is a state issue, so the federal government can't do much by itself, and the individual states have very different opinions, so any nationwide decision is always some sort of compromise. This one sucked :lol:
 
Abizzz said:
Theres been a spike these past weeks that they didn't expect, i'm not sure how much work beforehand was to be done. It's all terribly politically though because health is a state issue, so the federal government can't do much by itself, and the individual states have very different opinions, so any nationwide decision is always some sort of compromise. This one sucked :lol:
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I think most of Europe should be in a tight lockdown whilst they get their people vaccinated. It seems the UK model is the way to go on this looking at the numbers.
 
TheReligion said:
I think most of Europe should be in a tight lockdown whilst they get their people vaccinated. It seems the UK model is the way to go on this looking at the numbers.
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I don't know, it's been to long to end normal life because of it, and I'm a very wary and careful person. Last year I didn't see my parents for 3 months despite them only being some 40 miles away (due to a closed border between us). My niece started school last fall and she's had like 2 months of schooling until now? We can't go on like that for another year if vaccinating will take that long. Going the UK/US route and strictly importing vaccines might be the only way to speed it up, but I can't currently see the entire EU agreeing to that (and am unsure if i'd want it).
 
Abizzz said:
I don't know, it's been to long to end normal life because of it, and I'm a very wary and careful person. Last year I didn't see my parents for 3 months despite them only being some 40 miles away (due to a closed border between us). My niece started school last fall and she's had like 2 months of schooling until now? We can't go on like that for another year if vaccinating will take that long. Going the UK/US route and strictly importing vaccines might be the only way to speed it up, but I can't currently see the entire EU agreeing to that (and am unsure if i'd want it).
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Where abouts are you?
 
Abizzz said:
Southern Germany right on the border to France (Karlsruhe).
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Ah right I had no idea!

Well I hope things start picking up for you real soon. It's felt nice in the UK to have some positivity with things and I'm certain you will have some soon yourself. Would be great if we can all travel again soon and enjoy the football this summer together.
 
TheReligion said:
I'm quite surprised by Germany in this regard. Indecisive and making hasty decisions without doing the work before hand to check it was viable.
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That can happen when you get sideswiped by a new, much more contagious variant that developed in a country where the virus was allowed to spread freely without adequate lockdown measures. Which we’ve seen in places with large swathes of underprivileged people living in slums. Such as Brazil, South Africa or Kent.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That can happen when you get sideswiped by a new, much more contagious variant that developed in a country where the virus was allowed to spread freely without adequate lockdown measures. Which we’ve seen in places with large swathes of underprivileged people living in slums. Such as Brazil, South Africa or Kent.
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oi!
 
TheReligion said:
Ah right I had no idea!

Well I hope things start picking up for you real soon. It's felt nice in the UK to have some positivity with things and I'm certain you will have some soon yourself. Would be great if we can all travel again soon and enjoy the football this summer together.
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Thanks! I'm happy to see the UK getting into better shape now, it's proof positive to everyone that vaccination works and will benefit us all in the long term. I don't think we'll have mass travelling and thousands of fans for the Euros though but I'd be very happy if I'm wrong!


(The only other time I've revealed where I'm at was my first post after promotion so I can't blame you for having no idea ;). I'm a proud citizen of nowhere and a circumstantial one of the US and Germany)
 
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TheReligion said:
Am I really just reading Germany have reversed their decision to have another lockdown less than 24 hours after announcing it? What a shambles. Imagine if Boris had done this. If seems Europe is really panicking at the moment. I hope they get things settled ASAP.
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They realised they can't just make up new rules at 3 a.m. (such as closing the supermarkets) and get away with it. I'll give Merkel some credit for taking the blame and apologising though. It was quite a remarkable press statement for a politician. We'll have summer weather over Easter so people will go outside and gather around the beer gardens (as they are already doing even though you can't sit in them) and meet up with friends. I think they know that people aren't going to stay inside at this point. Might actually be safer as well as otherwise they'd just be meeting indoors.
 
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Today I had a PCR test which came back as negative but under observations it said I gave a positive result for competitive heterologous internal control. Can anyone explain exactly what this means because I'm at a complete loss.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That can happen when you get sideswiped by a new, much more contagious variant that developed in a country where the virus was allowed to spread freely without adequate lockdown measures. Which we’ve seen in places with large swathes of underprivileged people living in slums. Such as Brazil, South Africa or Kent.
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Was it developed there or just discovered there?
 
Forevergiggs1 said:
Today I had a PCR test which came back as negative but under observations it said I gave a positive result for competitive heterologous internal control. Can anyone explain exactly what this means because I'm at a complete loss.
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It seems to be a way to make sure that your PCR reaction worked, by amplifying a sequence with similar ends but a different length. it also seems to be a way to quantify the amount of viral sequence that may be detected by using the amount of amplification seen for this control sequence as a baseline.

in your case, i would guess that the control sequence got fully amplified while there was no amplification of viral sequence.
 
berbatrick said:
It seems to be a way to make sure that your PCR reaction worked, by amplifying a sequence with similar ends but a different length. it also seems to be a way to quantify the amount of viral sequence that may be detected by using the amount of amplification seen for this control sequence as a baseline.

in your case, i would guess that the control sequence got fully amplified while there was no amplification of viral sequence.
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Many thanks for that. Explained in a way my friend Google was incapable of.

As a footnote it also said that while it wasn't obligatory to take another test it was suggested that I did. My problem is I'm flying on Friday and I didn't want to be
A) turned away at the airport even though the PCR was negative
B) More importantly, risk infecting people if there was even a miniscule change of having covid.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That can happen when you get sideswiped by a new, much more contagious variant that developed in a country where the virus was allowed to spread freely without adequate lockdown measures. Which we’ve seen in places with large swathes of underprivileged people living in slums. Such as Brazil, South Africa or Kent.
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:lol:
 
golden_blunder said:
Ireland still struggling

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0325/1206166-covid-figures/
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A guy I know was on a zoom call at work - all fairly senior people - and one of them was boasting about the craic he’d had at a shibeen in Wexford the previous weekend. Said it was jam packed. Not an ounce of shame.

Doesn’t help that the category 4 vaccine roll-out has been an utter fecking shambles. 100k AZ doses promised next week, so hopefully they’ll get their shit together and you’ll get a call. Fingers crossed for you.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
A guy I know was on a zoom call at work - all fairly senior people - and one of them was boasting about the craic he’d had at a shibeen in Wexford the previous weekend. Said it was jam packed. Not an ounce of shame.

Doesn’t help that the category 4 vaccine roll-out has been an utter fecking shambles. 100k AZ doses promised next week, so hopefully they’ll get their shit together and you’ll get a call. Fingers crossed for you.
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I’ll believe it when I see it. Only 9k this week.

as for your man at the shibeen, I tell ya it’s worse with the families from the school, having days out together or sleep overs. They really don’t care
 
Pogue Mahone said:


This is... not great...

EDIT: Not sure why she mentions P1. It’s the South African variant that would worry me, as that’s the one with the most evidence of vaccine resistance. Could be selective pressure from vaccines in action.
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Christ this thread is such a rollercoaster from day to day. When I checked it at lunch timeO’m sure it was you saying how great some other data set was. Check back on the evening and it’s the opposite
 
Penna said:
Italy's now moving on to their priority group, people with serious or chronic illnesses (any age). It's taken them this long to do the over-80s.
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Ireland at the same stage. Although also doing 70-80s. Turns out identifying the high risk younger cohort is a complete nightmare. They’re leaving it up to secondary care and the lack of electronic records is causing the mother and father of all admin chores. Hopefully Italian health records in better nick.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Ireland at the same stage. Although also doing 70-80s. Turns out identifying the high risk younger cohort is a complete nightmare. They’re leaving it up to secondary care and the lack of electronic records is causing the mother and father of all admin chores. Hopefully Italian health records in better nick.
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I doubt it! The arrangement is that people with one of the conditions (and there's a detailed list) who are under a hospital consultant will get automatically called. For other people with the same conditions who aren't seeing a specialist in hospital, you book online or by phone. There are always extensive forms to complete which you have to take with you.

The way they've been doing it in Italy is different from the UK - you don't get a letter or a text, it's up to you to keep an eye on the announcements and make the booking when your category is open. It's like this with a lot of things here - you don't get reminders for things , you have to remember yourself.

edit - there has been a parallel vaccination programme running for teachers, police, firefighters etc, with the AZ vaccine.
 
I do not know if this has been posted before, but there is a new variant in India too:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56507988

Too little data so far but first impressions are that it is not as bad as other known variants.

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Also, Michael Osterholm had some sobering thoughts here a day or two ago:

“We’re going to need to test people who have potentially clinically compatible symptoms with Covid-19 forever,” Osterholm said during a webcast on the state of Covid-19 testing hosted by Axios.

"This virus is not going away around the world,” he said. “Remember, we have billions of people in low-income countries, some in middle-income countries, who will never have access to vaccines, and where those cases are occurring in those countries, we’ll also see variants spread out.”

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My thought is that we somehow need the world to come together and massproduce vaccines in such numbers that there is enough for all humans and give away freely to the nations that cannot afford it.
I doubt that will ever happen though..
 
The experts here can answer this.
Don't artificial diseases have markers that tell us it wasn't a natural occurrence?
 
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