Coronavirus - Part Two.

[Flanker7]

11 hours ago, whiteowl said:

Cases were always going to rise once any restrictions are lifted. It's the hospitalisation and death numbers that are more important now, to see if this vaccine has got us out of the hole.

 

 

Hospitalisations and deaths follow the rise in positive cases by about 2 and 4 weeks respectively.

The vaccine to stops people getting Covid19.  Does that include symptoms and contagion?

Stand by.

[Guest]

14 hours ago, nikki-red said:

They’ve never said children can’t get it, just that they’re much less likely to be ill with it.

They may be less likely to be very ill with it but they can, and do,  still spread it to adults who will be ill.

That's a really big problem for the Government and I don't envy them but, they must stop saying that schools must be open "no matter what"

It should depend only on circumstances at any given time.

Virus's don't work according to childrens  educational needs.

[Delbow]

13 hours ago, Thirsty Relic said:

Yes, many of us expected this, and it will get worse.  How come the Government couldn't see this was the inevitable consequence of sending the kids back?

 

As the timeframe for other easing is supposedly being led by data, presumably the dates for easing our way out of lockdown will be put back.... except for holidays and elite sport of course.

 

My guess is that free access to pubs and clubs will not happen in June/July, neither will family gatherings, non-elite sport, day trips out, travel to the coast etc.  I also forecast that international sport will be exempt - even though it is mixing with people of other nationalities.  I'll also suggest that it will prove too difficult to stop people going on foreign holidays, having allowed companies to sell these holidays in the first place.

 

I hope I'm wrong.  I hope that I'll spend a few summer nights in my local with mates, doing the weekly quiz and watching the sport on the tele while queuing at the bar.

One of the differences this time is that secondary school kids are being given lateral flow tests, this will highlight some positive asymptomatic cases that previously went undetected. As long as parents are not mixing with adults outside their household it shouldn't make much difference to the infection rate, especially as more parents get vaccinated (they're on to the under 50s now in Sheffield)

[Becky B]

16 hours ago, Anna B said:

Just a thought on the Oxford vaccine which has been suspended in France, Germany, Spain and Italy because of fears about blood clots. 

Millions of women happily take birth control pills every day of the week knowing that they have a (slight) risk of blood clots and breast cancer, but it's a risk they are willing to take.

Every medication comes with risks attached, it's just a case of weighing up the risks against the benefits. The benefits usually win. 

 

Any chance of dying from a blood clot caused by the vaccine, is way way lower than dying from covid itself.

Yes.  And Covid-19 is associated with increased clotting itself...

9 hours ago, Thirsty Relic said:

Great idea - but with gyms, pools closed, most sport closed down and joggers yelled at for not wearing masks, what can you do?  Staying at home instead of going to work, can't even pop out for a pint, only leaving home to shop - of course most of us are less healthy!

 

 

It's possible to exercise at home, you know.  And you can go out running,  I've only been yelled at once, in the first lockdown and I got over it.

I think I'm at least as fit as I've ever been, if not fitter.  It's a case of making the time and effort if you want that to be a priority.

[Becky B]

We are going to have to live with this virus now, just like we do with flu.  The difference has been that this is a new virus in humans and we didn't have any resistance to it.

Now there is a vaccination programme which can reduce the severity of symptoms, and is reducing transmission, we can start the return to normal as there will be less impact on society.

 

Whilst I've struggled a lot with my mood in the past year, often with a very negative outlook, it is slowly starting to feel there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I don't have the definite numbers, but it has been feeling lately that we've been discharging more people in transport rather than the mortuary trolley.  I think I'm seeing less high oxygen requirements day to day.

Bear in mind this is in a very small area, but it's one with the higher risk people in it.

 

I don't think I'll be back to "normal" this year, but at least I might be able to see my parents in the next few months...

[Mister M]

No 10 refuses to deny PM said about Covid in early days 'best thing would be to ignore it'

The Downing Street lobby briefing has just finished. There were questions about Laura Kuenssberg’s long read about what happened behind the scenes in government in the first year of the pandemic (see 10.45am), and the spokespeople repeatedly refused to deny that, at one point in the very early days, when the virus had just been confirmed in the UK, Boris Johnson was heard saying: “The best thing would be to ignore it.” We were told that Johnson’s comments at the start of the pandemic were a matter of record.

This is what Kuenssberg wrote about this anecdote.

Ministers and officials had already been meeting to discuss the virus in China - but it felt thousands of miles away. There was a “lack of concern and energy,” one source tells me. “The general view was it is just hysteria. It was just like a flu.”

The prime minister was even heard to say: “The best thing would be to ignore it.” And he repeatedly warned, several sources tell me, that an overreaction could do more harm than good.

 

Boris Johnson says UK wants to work with China, though it poses 'great challenges for an open society' – as it happened | Politics | The Guardian

[hobinfoot]

What a mess the EU has made of it’s roll out in vacations against COVID-19. Now Ursula  von der Leyen is threatening other Nations to cover their mistakes up.

[convert]

19 minutes ago, hobinfoot said:

What a mess the EU has made of it’s roll out in vacations against COVID-19. Now Ursula  von der Leyen is threatening other Nations to cover their mistakes up.

Agreed so glad we voted for Brexit.

[L00b]

According to the FT, the “crisis” is about the EU threatening to block exports of vaccine to the UK and the US, after the EU sent 9m vaccines to the UK and 4m to the US, and got none back from either country, in breach of cross-supply agreements.

The EU paid into the pot for AZ’s  2 UK production sites, lest we forget, on the basis that it would get a share of the output (same as UK paid into the pot for AZ’s Belgian production site on the basis of getting a share of that output...which it has got).

 

Hard to not see the point of VdL’s message. Unless one doesn’t want to see it, of course.
 

All the same, never mind. It will get tallied up in the end 😏

Edited March 17, 2021 by L00b

[tinfoilhat]

7 minutes ago, L00b said:

According to the FT, the “crisis” is about the EU threatening to block exports of vaccine to the UK and the US, after the EU sent 9m vaccines to the UK and 4m to the US, and got none back from either country, in breach of cross-supply agreements.

The EU paid into the pot for AZ’s  2 UK production sites, lest we forget, on the basis that it would get a share of the output (same as UK paid into the pot for AZ’s Belgian production site on the basis of getting a share of that output...which it has got).

 

Hard to not see the point of VdL’s message. Unless one doesn’t want to see it, of course.
 

All the same, never mind. It will get tallied up in the end 😏

But theyre literally chucking loads of AZ vaccines in the bin in parts of Europe (Germany definately). Also saw a report of a big vaccination centre in Belgium offering AZ and there's nobody there. Given the "scare" with the "blood clots" they'll be throwing away even more.