COVID19

[Doobs]

Yes it's more serious than the flu, but the uptake on vaccines  and their efficacy will ensure hospitalisations, deaths from covid will be lower than typical death rates from flu.

An extension to or future covid related lockdowns surely can't ever be a serious consideration now that we have effective vaccines that can be adapted in relatively short timescales. Also, we're real outliers with our testing approach now so it's not obvious why we are taking this path.

Take all these things together and the mass testing just seems like performative stuff.

I don't think we are disagreeing on much, I think the schols testing is a bit of a shambles too.

I don't think there will be any more lockdowns any time soon, certainly not in August.  I just think they have to be prepared for if it, or something similar sparks up, so keep good stocks of PPE, keep intensive care capacity high enough, and don't lose thousands of doctors and nurses.  And be prepared to act quicker next time, doing whatever is needed early.

[nirvana]

Yep, just talking not arguing. Do think you worry too much about resurgences/reinfections of this specific virus though. Definitely prepare in case but feels to me like it shouldnt have any influence on the process around lifting restrictions, irreversibly of course

[Marky147]

You'd like to think that once we get opened up this time, unless hospitals end up like they were in the early part of this year, we're done with lockdowns.

Though I find it annoying how long it has gone on for, I placate myself watching the smileys go beserk on Twitter.

[tikay]

I saw this on BBC news today, suggesting a nasty surge in COVID & "third wave" in many parts of Europe.



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56361840


I know we are well ahead of the curve thanks to the Vaccine programme, but it can't be good news, can it?

[Marky147]

Hopefully they help themselves, and stop dithering with the vaccines.

[tikay]

Hopefully they help themselves, and stop dithering with the vaccines.

Ha, yes, but the point is whilst COVID is raging in Europe, our life can't really return to normal. A wave three in Europe would be ghastly in so many ways.

More news here, with some ugly looking graphs;


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56382608

[Marky147]

I'll wait until the boffs on Twitter start panicking.

BBC are fucking awful*

*As are all the mainstream media

[nirvana]

Hopefully they help themselves, and stop dithering with the vaccines.

Ha, yes, but the point is whilst COVID is raging in Europe, our life can't really return to normal. A wave three in Europe would be ghastly in so many ways.

More news here, with some ugly looking graphs;


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56382608

After doing so much wrong, we are pretty much world leading with the vaccines. Gonna be some interesting political fallout in Europe over their failure on this.

In other news, outrageous policing at Clapham common this evening , somewhat unexpected despite it being a logical extension of massively anti libertarian lockdown rules.

I blame the Government for not giving the police a clear ' keep out of this' direction. The police for being incredibly brain dead and cowardly on this.

Also pretty happy to point fingers at the 80% of Brits who seemed to support all of the the ludicrous restrictions regarding associating with others outdoors.  Outrageous denouement to the madness of telling people they can't meet outside in groups.

Outrageous twice in one short post. That's how outraged I am.

[Doobs]

Hopefully they help themselves, and stop dithering with the vaccines.

Ha, yes, but the point is whilst COVID is raging in Europe, our life can't really return to normal. A wave three in Europe would be ghastly in so many ways.

More news here, with some ugly looking graphs;


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56382608

After doing so much wrong, we are pretty much world leading with the vaccines. Gonna be some interesting political fallout in Europe over their failure on this.

In other news, outrageous policing at Clapham common this evening , somewhat unexpected despite it being a logical extension of massively anti libertarian lockdown rules.

I blame the Government for not giving the police a clear ' keep out of this' direction. The police for being incredibly brain dead and cowardly on this.

Also pretty happy to point fingers at the 80% of Brits who seemed to support all of the the ludicrous restrictions regarding associating with others outdoors.  Outrageous denouement to the madness of telling people they can't meet outside in groups.

Outrageous twice in one short post. That's how outraged I am.

I have been banging on about the relative safety of meeting outdoors for some time.  In countries where contact tracing is much stronger virtually all infections are caught in indoor settings.  Seems crazy my daughter is supposed to wear a mask outside with a bunch of other low risk kids, but it used to be even stranger; she could take it off in the classroom when stuck with others inside for a considerable time, but had to wear it outside as she was fleetingly walking past kids outside her bubble (Each year group has it's own area outside, so it isn't like there is any real mixing).

Would also agree on Clapham Common if ever there was a time to not send the police in; not because of the fact they may be lefties, but simply because of the event that led to it.  Just leave them be for a couple of hours; cases have dropped massively too so it is way safer than it was at the turn of the year.

I think we also lead Europe on our ability to track variants, so we could spot the new variant, saw the ramifications and acted quickly.  A lot of European countries have been acting as if it still is only prevalent in Kent.  Our current performance on most things Covid has been quite a turnaround form last year.  Last year I kept thinking why aren't we learning from what is happening elsewhere?  This year it is very much the opposite.   

Obviously we are screwimg up Brexit in the background so we shouldn't get too smug.

[nirvana]

I do think it's a bit early to talk along the lines of screwing up Brexit. Lots of issues for sure but can't really see how any sensible conclusions can be drawn for something like 5-10 years.

In the meantime, the sense in the UK and in countries like Germany/Austria (which I'm very familiar with) is that in the first existential crisis since Brexit, UK exceptionalism has worked rather well.

A bit of disruption in balance of trade and the logistics of trade is not really very concerning measured over such a very short period. Huge benefit to Brexiteers and I'd say the nation's mental health that Covid has proved such a distraction from focus on the minutiae of trade flows post Brexit

[nirvana]

https://twitter.com/DouglasCarswell/status/1371064968079106049?s=19

[Doobs]

https://twitter.com/DouglasCarswell/status/1371064968079106049?s=19

Against a policy that will no longer exist in a few months?

Seems another architect of Brexit has left the Country.  Fucked it up and fucked off.  WP all.

[Doobs]

Another country struggling with maths

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56391818

On one side we can see hundreds of thousands of European deaths, on the other we can see a few handfuls of blood clots, which may well be at the same level as normal.    Precautionary principle my arse.

[Marky147]

Glenn just needs a 'reject bad science' smiley and he's away

[Marky147]

https://twitter.com/Coronavirusgoo1/status/1371062416390361088

The UK has given over 10 million doses of both the Oxford and Pfizer vaccine.

Number of blood clot related events:

Oxford = 13

Pfizer = 15

These numbers are no higher than what is seen in the general population (no increased risk).



First post under it -

Funny I know nobody that was seriously ill with covid or hospitalised during the whole year yet I personally know 2 people who are very ill, one in critical care with blood clotting on the brain from the vaccine. She's a perfectly healthy 42 year old.

https://twitter.com/LucasArcady

No shock when you spend 30 seconds reading his feed