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

Lj82 said:
Actually i think there was also some misjudgement from the Taiwanese side initially. They were banking on developing their own vaccines earlier on which did not succeed. Hence they were slow to procure vaccines. When they decided to do so, the link that you shared happened.
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This is what Australia did. They bet the bank on AZ (locally manufactured) and the locally developed UQ vaccine that failed. They were planning to announce a great Aussie victory with at least 12 huge Aussie flags behind them but are now in the shit through not treating this as a health issue but a party political issue. I hate them with a passion. Our Health Moron ... erm ... Minister yesterday even managed to tell the over 50's that they could hang off and not get the AZ vaccine and wait until the end of the year or 2022 to get Pfiser or Moderna. Before back-tracking when the idiocy of his own statement was pointed out to him. The utter feckwit.
 
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FootballHQ said:
How come it didn't really happen last summer until well into September out of interest? Pubs and retail opened up at start of July, mandatory mask wearing in public spaces and transport only became mandatory in middle of June and plenty of meet ups with BLM protests and all that around that time. And Vaccine still 6 months off being introduced.

I don't for a second think masks will just be scrapped and social distancing also axed on that day in June, I can certainly see things being delayed for a few weeks into July which by then adult population will all have been offered the vaccine.

Danger period is of course start of November again, hopefully boosters been out for a few months by time that comes around.
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At low levels of cases it takes a while for exponential growth to come through into big numbers.
 
FootballHQ said:
How come it didn't really happen last summer until well into September out of interest? Pubs and retail opened up at start of July, mandatory mask wearing in public spaces and transport only became mandatory in middle of June and plenty of meet ups with BLM protests and all that around that time. And Vaccine still 6 months off being introduced.

I don't for a second think masks will just be scrapped and social distancing also axed on that day in June, I can certainly see things being delayed for a few weeks into July which by then adult population will all have been offered the vaccine.

Danger period is of course start of November again, hopefully boosters been out for a few months by time that comes around.
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Because the original variant was much less infectious. Last summer wouldn’t have happened if the Kent variant was dominant. And the Indian variant could be more infectious still
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Kind of. Well compared to mainland Europe. Badly compared to their neighbours. Which is a fairer comparison. Although it’s hard to quantify the improved quality of life for Swedes who’ve had schools, amateur sports, bars, restaurants etc up and running throughout the pandemic.

Anyhoo. It’s been done to death. Just saw the article and thought I’d share. Feel like I just said Candy Man five times in front of a mirror now.
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Well, yeah, exactly. So their health service was never overwhelmed and they mostly got to live their lives they way they want, sounds pretty... great?

Obviously it's highly unlikely Sweden's approach would've worked in Ireland but anyone who tries to call that a failure was probably one of the ones saying they'd end up with an enormous death toll early on. So I'm with Jose on this one.
 
Massive Spanner said:
Well, yeah, exactly. So their health service was never overwhelmed and they mostly got to live their lives they way they want, sounds pretty... great?

Obviously it's highly unlikely Sweden's approach would've worked in Ireland but anyone who tries to call that a failure was probably one of the ones saying they'd end up with an enormous death toll early on. So I'm with Jose on this one.
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It does sound good but, like I said, hard to quantify. How many avoidable deaths are acceptable for you or I to have been able to keep going to pubs over the last 18 months? If you’ve lost loved ones to covid, you might argue that one is too many.

It’s really hard to unpick all the pros and cons of the various different approaches and work out what’s the “best” one. Especially with different countries having so many different variables that an identical strategy could cause dramatically different outcomes.

Whatever, hindsight is definitely showing that Sweden’s response wasn’t the complete and utter disaster many predicted it would be. And that’s even after the vaccines surpassed all expectations. Sweden decided to hedge against the possibility of vaccines either never being available or taking several years. So rapid rollout of extremely effective vaccines is the scenario which should be making them look most foolish. Yet that isn’t what’s happened.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
It does sound good but, like I said, hard to quantify. How many avoidable deaths are acceptable for you or I to have been able to keep going to pubs over the last 18 months? If you’ve lost loved ones to covid, you might argue that one is too many.

It’s really hard to unpick all the pros and cons of the various different approaches and work out what’s the “best” one. Especially with different countries having so many different variables that an identical strategy could cause dramatically different outcomes.

Whatever, hindsight is definitely showing that Sweden’s response wasn’t the complete and utter disaster many predicted it would be. And that’s even after the vaccines surpassed all expectations. Sweden decided to hedge against the possibility of vaccines either never being available or taking several years. So rapid rollout of extremely effective vaccines is the scenario which should be making them look most foolish. Yet that isn’t what’s happened.
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It's funny you mention the pub there when just above you mentioned the schools stayed open throughout. Weren't you clamouring for schools to be the first thing open in Ireland and that educating our children as a society is fundamental, and that it was arguably the biggest travesty of Covid? Why not use that as a barometer vs lives lost instead? I mean technically you did want schools to reopen when cases went low so isn't that still, sort of, saying.. ok, I'm all right with a few more deaths now as long as the kids go back to school, no?

I won't even attempt to go into the "oh what is life worth to you" nonsense, it's what people always brought up throughout whenever anyone said anything about maybe not being in an endless lockdown and it's a load of shite.
 
Massive Spanner said:
It's funny you mention the pub there when just above you mentioned the schools stayed open throughout. Weren't you clamouring for schools to be the first thing open in Ireland and that educating our children as a society is fundamental, and that it was arguably the biggest travesty of Covid? Why not use that as a barometer vs lives lost instead? I mean technically you did want schools to reopen when cases went low so isn't that still, sort of, saying.. ok, I'm all right with a few more deaths now as long as the kids go back to school, no?

I won't even attempt to go into the "oh what is life worth to you" nonsense, it's what people always brought up throughout whenever anyone said anything about maybe not being in an endless lockdown and it's a load of shite.
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Easy tiger. I said pub because assumed you’d find that more relatable.

From my perspective I’m most envious of amateur sports (for kids and adults) not closing. Followed by schools. Then pubs. Lots of individuals would have pubs lower down their own list. Some would have them at the top.

Then you have to think about what a society should prioritise. What’s the trade off that is best for society as a whole, even though it will piss off many individuals.

Trying to find balance between deaths vs keeping society open is right at the heart of all these discussions. And it’s very very hard to work out where the sweet spot is. I certainly don’t think we can say that Sweden got it spot on and we didn’t. Or vice versa. In two or three years the dull grind of lockdown will be an unpleasant memory but the dead will still be dead. That’s the reality behind these tough decisions and countries that prioritised saving lives could certainly argue that theirs was a better strategy in the long term.
 
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Pogue Mahone said:
Easy tiger. I said pub because assumed you’d find that more relatable.

From my perspective I’m most envious of amateur sports (for kids and adults) not closing. Followed by schools. Then pubs. Lots of individuals would have pubs lower down their own list. Some would have them at the top.

Then you have to think about what a society should prioritise. What’s the trade off that is best for society as a whole, even though it will piss off many individuals.

Trying to find balance between deaths vs keeping society open is right at the heart of all these discussions. And it’s very very hard to work out where the sweet spot is. I certainly don’t think we can say that Sweden got it spot on and we didn’t. Or vice versa. In two or three years the dull grind of lockdown will be an unpleasant memory but the dead will still be dead. That’s the reality behind these tough decisions and countries that prioritised saving lives could certainly argue that theirs was a better strategy in the long term.
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Well, neither did I, though. I clearly stated that Sweden's approach wouldn't work here, that's quite obvious. We needed lockdowns, even with them our health service nearly got overwhelmed at least one. But that's the thing, most European governments haven't actually focused on deaths, they've tried balancing a fine line between keeping society open and avoiding their health services getting completely fecked, right? If Sweden managed to achieve that without locking down at all, I'd call that a success for them.

There was an article in the IT a while ago from an Irish woman who lives in Sweden, it had all the usual tropes about higher death rates than neighbours and failure to actually achieve herd immunity, but funnily enough, the average Swede didn't seem to care.

But ask any Swede today and surprisingly most would say they are happy with the status quo and the freedom it allows.
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So yeah, um, I still don't get how it wasn't a success for them?
 
Massive Spanner said:
Well, neither did I, though. I clearly stated that Sweden's approach wouldn't work here, that's quite obvious. We needed lockdowns, even with them our health service nearly got overwhelmed at least one. But that's the thing, most European governments haven't actually focused on deaths, they've tried balancing a fine line between keeping society open and avoiding their health services getting completely fecked, right? If Sweden managed to achieve that without locking down at all, I'd call that a success for them.

There was an article in the IT a while ago from an Irish woman who lives in Sweden, it had all the usual tropes about higher death rates than neighbours and failure to actually achieve herd immunity, but funnily enough, the average Swede didn't seem to care.



So yeah, um, I still don't get how it wasn't a success for them?
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Because you can’t judge success on what one person says about how “the average Swede” feels.
 
Why are you guys having a discussion about something neither of you know nothing about?
 
Wibble said:
Over 14000 people dead. Mostly avoidably.
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Which is still better than a lot of European countries that did lock down. So yeah, Sweden failed in the same way that a lot failed, they lost more than some countries, and less than others.
Pogue Mahone said:
Because you can’t judge success on what one person says about how “the average Swede” feels.
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Heh, it's funny because I keep being told that Sweden's approach was a failure by you and others yet nobody can actually pinpoint why. Sure, the facts won't be known for years, but again, Sweden have less excess deaths and most European countries don't they? I'm just really struggling to see what was so damn awful about their approach, certainly awful enough for you to continuously ridicule a certain Swede in here who, funnily enough, is defending his own countries approach.
 
Massive Spanner said:
Which is still better than a lot of European countries that did lock down. So yeah, Sweden failed in the same way that a lot failed, they lost more than some countries, and less than others.

Heh, it's funny because I keep being told that Sweden's approach was a failure by you and others yet nobody can actually pinpoint why. Sure, the facts won't be known for years, but again, Sweden have less excess deaths and most European countries don't they? I'm just really struggling to see what was so damn awful about their approach, certainly awful enough for you to continuously ridicule a certain Swede in here who, funnily enough, is defending his own countries approach.
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I think you’re confusing me with someone else. I never ridiculed “a certain Swede”. If anything, I’ve erred on the side of defending Sweden’s approach. It’s been obvious for ages that they definitely made mistakes but the outcome has been far from the apocalypse many predicted. My main argument throughout has been that works in one country won’t necessarily work as well in a different country. And working out the optimal approach is incredibly difficult.

My main beef has consistently been with back seat experts who are absolutely certain they know best, without any idea of the complexities involved in making these tough decisions (not aimed at you, personally!).
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I think you’re confusing me with someone else. I never ridiculed “a certain Swede”. If anything, I’ve erred on the side of defending Sweden’s approach. It’s been obvious for ages that they definitely made mistakes but the outcome has been far from the apocalypse many predicted.
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Fair enough Pogue. Like I said, I don't in any way advocate the Sweden approach here or in other countries because it probably wouldn't work but it's the idea that theirs has been a failure despite having less deaths and less excess deaths than many other Western nations that did lock down that irks me.
 
Massive Spanner said:
Fair enough Pogue. Like I said, I don't in any way advocate the Sweden approach here or in other countries because it probably wouldn't work but it's the idea that theirs has been a failure despite having less deaths and less excess deaths than many other Western nations that did lock down that irks me.
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It irks me too. Which is why I posted the link that started this discussion!
 
Lj82 said:
I think Taiwan was definitely too open. I watch Taiwanese variety shows fairly frequent and it always amazes me how little masks i see on the streets and how many large-scale events they have. Basically life was as per normal for them.

Singapore actually still has pretty strict restrictions, far stricter than many European countries. But we were a bit too eager to open up i guess. We were supposed to host both the Shangri-La Dialogue and the WEF special session, both are cancelled now.
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Looking from hindsight it's definitely too open. But considering Taiwan had 0 local case in 253 days, there was no reason or justification to put restriction on people. People had the right and deserved to live a normal life and the benefits couldn't be overlooked. If there had been no new case in your country for a few months, I bet you wouldn't be happy to wear a mask everywhere or be banned from large-scale events too.

That said, it's unfortunate there's a loophole in the border control that leads to this outbreak and ruins their effort. They also should have done better in terms of vaccination.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
It’s been obvious for ages that they definitely made mistakes but the outcome has been far from the apocalypse many predicted.
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I say 14000 largely unnecessary deaths was an utter disaster even if places like the UK and US were far far worse.
 
Well my boy's starting his half term early. Apparently he coughed a couple of times so he has to have a covid test, the LFT variety.

He's autistic, 4 year old, and needed sedating last time he had to have a test before going in for minor surgery. We just about managed to test him the first time he needed one but now he knows what's coming and even with 4 of us we can't do it safely, for him or us.
 
Realist81 said:
Well my boy's starting his half term early. Apparently he coughed a couple of times so he has to have a covid test, the LFT variety.

He's autistic, 4 year old, and needed sedating last time he had to have a test before going in for minor surgery. We just about managed to test him the first time he needed one but now he knows what's coming and even with 4 of us we can't do it safely, for him or us.
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Man that’s tough for you. Good call not to retest though. Assume positive and behave accordingly. Sounds like by far the least stressful option.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Because the original variant was much less infectious. Last summer wouldn’t have happened if the Kent variant was dominant. And the Indian variant could be more infectious still
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Hasn't it already been determined that initial data is showing a very very good vaccine response to the latest variant? I reckon with current measures we'll be o.k for next few months.

From October onwards is still big unknown.
 
FootballHQ said:
Hasn't it already been determined that initial data is showing a very very good vaccine response to the latest variant? I reckon with current measures we'll be o.k for next few months.

From October onwards is still big unknown.
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Yeah, there is a good response. Although almost certainly not as good as the response to the original variant. Especially for people who have only had one dose.

I wouldn’t worry too much about October onwards. Once everyone has had two doses of vaccines even this new variant shouldn’t cause too many problems. The big risk is over the next month or two with millions of people either unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Man that’s tough for you. Good call not to retest though. Assume positive and behave accordingly. Sounds like by far the least stressful option.
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Yep and cheers, that's what we're doing, we did it over Christmas* so we can do it again.

*school phoned us on the Monday before Christmas to say someone in his class had tested positive and we should get a test, we decided to self isolate rather than pin and traumatise him. It actually turned out nice, no arguing with the in-laws/biting my tongue when talking to the mother-in-law because we wanted to spend some of Christmas with my family, no running around, just a nice chilled day with multiple meals delivered to us.
 
Realist81 said:
Yep and cheers, that's what we're doing, we did it over Christmas* so we can do it again.

*school phoned us on the Monday before Christmas to say someone in his class had tested positive and we should get a test, we decided to self isolate rather than pin and traumatise him. It actually turned out nice, no arguing with the in-laws/biting my tongue when talking to the mother-in-law because we wanted to spend some of Christmas with my family, no running around, just a nice chilled day with multiple meals delivered to us.
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definitely the best route to take there! My girlfriend was a carer to a boy who wasn’t autistic but presented that way in many ways and is non verbal. We had to take him to hospital once when he was 4 and for the blood tests given I’m 6’6” and 16 stone it took 3 other hospital staff to restrain him with me to be able to get blood from him. I don’t know where they get their strength from but frustrating they asked for a test over a couple of coughs
 
Pogue Mahone said:


:(

Have to say I get a bit judgey when I see anyone wearing disposable masks. No need for them. Wash and reuse everyone. Please.
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Yeah, in the early days of the pandemic, I got it a bit. But a year in, to see people still wearing these and to see so many lodged in hedges and discarded around bus stops is saddening as well as infuriating.
 
Snowjoe said:
definitely the best route to take there! My girlfriend was a carer to a boy who wasn’t autistic but presented that way in many ways and is non verbal. We had to take him to hospital once when he was 4 and for the blood tests given I’m 6’6” and 16 stone it took 3 other hospital staff to restrain him with me to be able to get blood from him. I don’t know where they get their strength from but frustrating they asked for a test over a couple of coughs
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My son was similar around that age. He had a worrying temperature but wouldn't take calpol, just kept spitting it out. So we took him to a walk in centre. They couldn't get him to take it, so we were told to strip him down to pants and get to the hospital. Obviously we're fearing something terrible like meningitis at this point, as he'd even started to get a rash. The hospital people couldn't get him to take anything orally, so they ended up with four people restraining him so they could administer a suppository... Which he immediately forced out. I can't even remember what it was that did the trick in the end!

Ended up spending 10 hours in medical facilities that day for what turned out to be a simple fever just because of a three year old's stubbornness.
 
Wibble said:
Rise in kids with serious covid

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...e-cases-and-deaths?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
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Don’t think there’s much more to this than a numbers game.

It was never the case that kids were 100% protected against severe illness. A very tiny % have always been ending up in hospital. What was interesting/unusual is that it was a smaller % than, for example, children who catch influenza.

When you have the type of wild, completely out of control, surge we saw in Brazil and India even that tiny % will add up to fairly significant numbers.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Don’t think there’s much more to this than a numbers game.

It was never the case that kids were 100% protected against severe illness. A very tiny % have always been ending up in hospital. What was interesting/unusual is that it was a smaller % than, for example, children who catch influenza.

When you have the type of wild, completely out of control, surge we saw in Brazil and India even that tiny % will add up to fairly significant numbers.
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Maybe not or perhaps new varients combined with overwhelmed medical facilities are making it worse. Or a combination of both.
 
Wibble said:
Maybe not or perhaps new varients combined with overwhelmed medical facilities are making it worse. Or a combination of both.
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Overwhelmed medical facilities will affect mortality rates among those who get very unwell but unlikely to have much of an impact on the % who get sick enough to need admission.

Re the new variants we still don’t have any convincing evidence that they make adults sicker than “original covid”. So we’re even further off being able to come to any conclusion re kids, due to the smaller numbers involved.

I still think increased transmissibility is driving all of this. The bigger the % of a population infected the bigger the numbers of young healthy people ending up hospitalised/dead, prompting articles like this.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Overwhelmed medical facilities will affect mortality rates among those who get very unwell but unlikely to have much of an impact on the % who get sick enough to need admission.

Re the new variants we still don’t have any convincing evidence that they make adults sicker than “original covid”. So we’re even further off being able to come to any conclusion re kids, due to the smaller numbers involved.

I still think increased transmissibility is driving all of this. The bigger the % of a population infected the bigger the numbers of young healthy people ending up hospitalised/dead, prompting articles like this.
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I wouldn't disagree and as with so many things it won't be until later when we get good data that we will know for sure.

In an academic sense teasing the nuance and detail out if all this will be fascinating and no doubt a few surprises will be found.

It is also going to be interesting to see how Australia handle opening up. The idea that we closed borders and effectively eradicated covid was only the plan to allow us to vaccinate has now been a bit lost and now the Feds are talking themselves into a corner about longer term closures to hide their vaccine purchase stuff up.

My evil self almost wants a major outbreak to remind people of the need to vaccinate. Almost.
 
Wibble said:
I wouldn't disagree and as with so many things it won't be until later when we get good data that we will know for sure.

In an academic sense teasing the nuance and detail out if all this will be fascinating and no doubt a few surprises will be found.

It is also going to be interesting to see how Australia handle opening up. The idea that we closed borders and effectively eradicated covid was only the plan to allow us to vaccinate has now been a bit lost and now the Feds are talking themselves into a corner about longer term closures to hide their vaccine purchase stuff up.

My evil self almost wants a major outbreak to remind people of the need to vaccinate. Almost.
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Haven’t you been vaccinated already? I assumed that meant they had rattled through the older age groups before you. So you’re getting there, albeit a bit more slowly than the rest of the world.

There are some really tough decisions ahead for Aus/NZ. The virus is here to stay and the vaccines will never be 100% effective. So it’s a big call to open your borders up again knowing that many will die as a result.
 
I see there was a demonstration in support of Palestine in Bolton yesterday, hundreds of people gathering in the town centre and then in a park. It may be a valid thing to protest about, but with the situation as it is in Bolton right now, it's very ill-advised.
 
Penna said:
I see there was a demonstration in support of Palestine in Bolton yesterday, hundreds of people gathering in the town centre and then in a park. It may be a valid thing to protest about, but with the situation as it is in Bolton right now, it's very ill-advised.

12634430
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The situation in Palestine is much worse though
 
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