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

jojojo said:
So far this week we've had the UK announce that double-vaxxed EU covid passport holders who've had a mixed dose pattern - like Angela Merkel who had one AZ and one Pfizer - don't count as fully vaxxed under the terms of the UK's amber "no-quarantine if you're vaxxed" country scheme. I suspect this is partly down to the EU and UK failing to agree to the general principle that the EU and UK passes are considered equivalents.

And now we've got countries playing "guess how long vaccines last" games with travel.


Honestly, vaccines and test technology should mean people are making travel simpler - not thinking up increasingly bizarre sub-clauses to make it more complex and more unreasonable.
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How come Croatia and Austria both came up with 270 days- presumably there's some research behind why they came up with this on the face of it arbitrary expiry date? Also they've set a blanket cut-off, regardless of which vaccine you've had?
Travelling is getting way more complex and expensive.
 
Jippy said:
How come Croatia and Austria both came up with 270 days- presumably there's some research behind why they came up with this on the face of it arbitrary expiry date? Also they've set a blanket cut-off, regardless of which vaccine you've had?
Travelling is getting way more complex and expensive.
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Italy set an expiry date of 9 months when the green pass was launched here, which is also 270 days give or take a day. No idea how that figure came about.
 
Penna said:
Italy set an expiry date of 9 months when the green pass was launched here, which is also 270 days give or take a day. No idea how that figure came about.
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I understand they err on the side of caution but if Pfizer says its vaccine is still 84% effective after six months, then they must be factoring in a massive potential drop off after nine months.

Not sure how much data there is on this across the different vaccines.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
@Massive Spanner

Ireland currently has second highest incidence of covid in Europe. Despite being much less open than most of the countries below us in that table. And having vaccination rates that are among the best by far. All of which explains why we’re less open then other countries. Far too many people not doing the right thing. Been our biggest problem throughout this pandemic.
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I dont know if that's the right approach though. How long can you stay less open even when 90% of your population (or a high number like that) is vaccinated?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
The contrast between our amazing compliance with vaccination and terrible compliance with social distancing is interesting. I think we’re just VERY sociable. Can’t cope without piling into pubs and house parties with mobs of strangers every weekend.
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Being social is a nice way of saying as a country we don’t like drinking alone
 
mav_9me said:
I dont know if that's the right approach though. How long can you stay less open even when 90% of your population (or a high number like that) is vaccinated?
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Nobody has any idea. I presume they were hoping for community spread to die down a bit before allowing even more mixing. Which is realistically not going to happen, with the kids back at school next week.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Nobody has any idea. I presume they were hoping for community spread to die down a bit before allowing even more mixing. Which is realistically not going to happen, with the kids back at school next week.
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Exactly. I am surprised that's the official plan.
 
Penna said:
Italy set an expiry date of 9 months when the green pass was launched here, which is also 270 days give or take a day. No idea how that figure came about.
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It looks like Italy and Croatia (and probably elsewhere) are similar pulling figures out of their arse.
 
So I have another question for the experts here as we’re confused in my house!

Both my daughters and I have had Covid recently taking positive PCR tests after positive rapid antigen home tests. I had it really badly, I dread to think what it would have been like without the vaccines.

Anyway my youngest’s 10 day isolation period ends today, she’s had no symptoms for 7 days and is desperate to go out, but she is just tested positive still on one of the home rapid antigen tests. Is this normal, because she has just had the virus and is now over run with antibodies. I’ve read one article that suggested you shouldn’t test again for 90 days after a positive PCR test.

Or do we need to keep her in until she tests negative? There is no real advice on this that we can find.
 
The Boy said:
So I have another question for the experts here as we’re confused in my house!

Both my daughters and I have had Covid recently taking positive PCR tests after positive rapid antigen home tests. I had it really badly, I dread to think what it would have been like without the vaccines.

Anyway my youngest’s 10 day isolation period ends today, she’s had no symptoms for 7 days and is desperate to go out, but she is just tested positive still on one of the home rapid antigen tests. Is this normal, because she has just had the virus and is now over run with antibodies. I’ve read one article that suggested you shouldn’t test again for 90 days after a positive PCR test.

Or do we need to keep her in until she tests negative? There is no real advice on this that we can find.
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Don’t know the answer to that but just wondering if you can take her out for fresh air somewhere away from other people?
 
golden_blunder said:
Don’t know the answer to that but just wondering if you can take her out for fresh air somewhere away from other people?
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We’d love to, I can’t as I am still ill and in my isolation period, but my wife has tested negative everyday and we live opposite a park so it would be easy to get her out while maintaining social distancing.

But we don’t want to do it if it is still dangerous to others or not allowed.
 
The Boy said:
So I have another question for the experts here as we’re confused in my house!

Both my daughters and I have had Covid recently taking positive PCR tests after positive rapid antigen home tests. I had it really badly, I dread to think what it would have been like without the vaccines.

Anyway my youngest’s 10 day isolation period ends today, she’s had no symptoms for 7 days and is desperate to go out, but she is just tested positive still on one of the home rapid antigen tests. Is this normal, because she has just had the virus and is now over run with antibodies. I’ve read one article that suggested you shouldn’t test again for 90 days after a positive PCR test.

Or do we need to keep her in until she tests negative? There is no real advice on this that we can find.
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I would ignore the lateral flow test (well, strictly speaking, I wouldn’t have done it). You can shed viral debris (dead viruses and bits of viruses) for a while after being infected. Which will give a false positive result. Just follow whatever local guidance you have re duration of self isolation/symptoms etc and pretend the test never happened.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I would ignore the lateral flow test (well, strictly speaking, I wouldn’t have done it). You can shed viral debris (dead viruses and bits of viruses) for a while after being infected. Which will give a false positive result. Just follow whatever local guidance you have re duration of self isolation/symptoms etc and pretend the test never happened.
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Thank you, I’m surprised more people are not caught out with this, testing to see if she was negative seemed the most obvious thing to do!
 
The Boy said:
So I have another question for the experts here as we’re confused in my house!

Both my daughters and I have had Covid recently taking positive PCR tests after positive rapid antigen home tests. I had it really badly, I dread to think what it would have been like without the vaccines.

Anyway my youngest’s 10 day isolation period ends today, she’s had no symptoms for 7 days and is desperate to go out, but she is just tested positive still on one of the home rapid antigen tests. Is this normal, because she has just had the virus and is now over run with antibodies. I’ve read one article that suggested you shouldn’t test again for 90 days after a positive PCR test.

Or do we need to keep her in until she tests negative? There is no real advice on this that we can find.
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No point in testing again. The PCR test only detects Viral RNA and the antigen test detects viral protein both of which can persist for weeks. Doesn't mean that viral RNA is viable or infectious. I've had patients test positive 7 weeks later.

That is why quarantine is recommended based off days since first symptoms and not testing negative.

So once the recommended quarantine period is over, I wouldn't worry.
 
The Boy said:
Thank you, I’m surprised more people are not caught out with this, testing to see if she was negative seemed the most obvious thing to do!
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In Sweden, you’re considered non-contagious if 7 days has passed from onset of symptoms and you’ve been free from fever for two days and are “generally improved” as far as other symptoms go. A positive test doesn’t say anything about the risk of transmitting disease to others. The positive test is from the infection and genomic mass can be present for a while afterwards.

The transmission of disease is based not only on presence of virus but on the viability of the virus itself. Like I read elsewhere, if you perform a PCR test on a steak you’ll find DNA but that doesn’t mean that the cow’s alive

I agree with Pogue, I would’ve gone with local guidelines and not taken the test at all, and pretend it didn’t happen.
 
SmashedHombre said:
Interesting. So, just out of curiosity, what would be an acceptable number of cases and innocent deaths for you before you'd be willing to accept a lockdown? Because if freedom of the people is what you're worried about then you'll be very impressed to learn that, thanks to NZ's quick and decisive actions, we've had far more freedom and than pretty much the entirety of the world put together given that the cumulative length of our LDs so far have reached a total of 2 weeks. You know, since our leaders are acting quickly and decisively and listening to science and not weird, misplaced hysteria.
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If masks/tests are available and if the healthcare system is capable to absorb an increase of patients, then I am just against any form of lockdown

It is not appropriate to punish 5 million people because some individuals happened to have caught a contagious disease, misplaced political hysteria.

Now, if you are saying that everyone in NZ is happy and supportive of the political measures, then I would be just happy to hear that.
 
Ecstatic said:
If masks/tests are available and if the healthcare system is capable to absorb an increase of patients, then I am just against any form of lockdown

It is not appropriate to punish 5 million people because some individuals happened to have caught a contagious disease, misplaced political hysteria.

Now, if you are saying that everyone in NZ is happy and supportive of the political measures, then I would be just happy to hear that.
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Of course not everyone in NZ is happy. There will always be a small proportion of feckwits who value their free dumb over public health measures that keep everyone,, even the idiots, safe.
 
Ecstatic said:
If masks/tests are available and if the healthcare system is capable to absorb an increase of patients, then I am just against any form of lockdown

It is not appropriate to punish 5 million people because some individuals happened to have caught a contagious disease, misplaced political hysteria.

Now, if you are saying that everyone in NZ is happy and supportive of the political measures, then I would be just happy to hear that.
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That’s a weird conception of punishment. What New Zealand have experienced in the last year is much less punishment than France has experienced, precisely because they were able to prevent community transmission through quarantine procedures.

If they had chosen not to impose those procedures on the population, community transmission would have happened, and all of the necessary mitigation procedures would have burdened many more people for a much longer period than what they’re going through now. It’s not about protecting one group’s health by sacrificing the population. Those procedures have obviously protected the entire population from social, economic and medical harm. It’s not even questionable if you assess the evidence.

It’s not about some arbitrary objective of zero covid or some desire for government control. The proof is in the pudding. Their approach produced the best all-round benefits for the largest group of people, and it satisfied the majority of the population.
 
Ecstatic said:
If masks/tests are available and if the healthcare system is capable to absorb an increase of patients, then I am just against any form of lockdown

It is not appropriate to punish 5 million people because some individuals happened to have caught a contagious disease, misplaced political hysteria.

Now, if you are saying that everyone in NZ is happy and supportive of the political measures, then I would be just happy to hear that.
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Of course the system can't.
 
Ecstatic said:
If masks/tests are available and if the healthcare system is capable to absorb an increase of patients, then I am just against any form of lockdown

It is not appropriate to punish 5 million people because some individuals happened to have caught a contagious disease, misplaced political hysteria.

Now, if you are saying that everyone in NZ is happy and supportive of the political measures, then I would be just happy to hear that.
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I'd love to see the healthcare system (and even more so, work in one) that can absorb an influx of patients without affecting elective surgery queues or anything else.
 
Brwned said:
That’s a weird conception of punishment. What New Zealand have experienced in the last year is much less punishment than France has experienced, precisely because they were able to prevent community transmission through quarantine procedures.

If they had chosen not to impose those procedures on the population, community transmission would have happened, and all of the necessary mitigation procedures would have burdened many more people for a much longer period than what they’re going through now. It’s not about protecting one group’s health by sacrificing the population. Those procedures have obviously protected the entire population from social, economic and medical harm. It’s not even questionable if you assess the evidence.

It’s not about some arbitrary objective of zero covid or some desire for government control. The proof is in the pudding. Their approach produced the best all-round benefits for the largest group of people, and it satisfied the majority of the population.
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Thanks for your message and happy to read this.

What is happening in France is absolutely disguting with the foundations of a modern dictatorship.

On the other hand, I really like the current approach taken by the UK these days. Very enjoyable and sensible approach that makes sense to me. Think about the TfL: there is a strong guideline "Wear a face covering on public transport" followed by most of the population but it is technically possible not to wear a mask without being assaulted by a policeman or member of staff. There is a real return to a form of normality. Very enjoyable, really. :drool:
 
Anustart89 said:
I'd love to see the healthcare system (and even more so, work in one) that can absorb an influx of patients without affecting elective surgery queues or anything else.
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The same. I also would love to see the heathcare system properly funded, organised and respected.

The elephant in the room is that almost nothing has been done to prevent different healthcare systems from being understaffed, underfunded and mistreated. Burn-out observed among underpaid support staff.

For example, if the UK really wants to "Save the NHS", the only way is to increase wages, hire and support low-paid staff.

https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/nhs-burnout/112353/
 
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Would be so disappointing ffs. A bit simplistic, whats the point in getting people vaccinated, asking them to getting tested regularly with no symptoms and then shitting the bed when numbers go up.
 
Baxter said:


Would be so disappointing ffs. A bit simplistic, whats the point in getting people vaccinated, asking them to getting tested regularly with no symptoms and then shitting the bed when numbers go up.
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He obviously can’t rule out any restrictions ever again. What happens if a new variant takes off that the vaccines are even less effective against than they are against Delta? And even if Delta is as bad as it gets, what do you do if you get a really massive wave kicking off when schools/colleges reopen and bad weather drives everyone indoors?

Obviously we’re all desperate for this to be over and get back to ‘normal’ life but wanting something to happen isn’t always enough.

My personal opinion is that there’s at least one more big surge on the way and it will be touch and go as to whether the UK can get through it without reversing at least some of the freedoms that came with “Freedom Day”
 
We will go back to masks soon, and at least 1m social distancing have got to come back into play over the next 2 months, imo
 
Tibs said:
We will go back to masks soon, and at least 1m social distancing have got to come back into play over the next 2 months, imo
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I don't really see the point in not wearing masks now with the minimal hassle it causes and we have just kept wearing them when going somewhere. I think a decent rule would be if you're travelling somewhere wear a mask, when you get there and are in your group take it off.

Obviously, keep it on in supermarkets, shops and places like that.
 
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