Coronavirus

[B4ev6is]

3 hours ago, Sith Happens said:

must be hes not posted here yet ?

If mean borris 

He does not have guts to come on here.

[rammieib]

It’s sad and disappointing when you read articles of ex nurses/doctors who volunteered to come back and never received the call and then you see the hospitals which quite obviously are under pressure at the moment.

Appreciate it’s never black and white but for the NHS to not take advantage of any qualified person who wanted to come back is downright bad management.

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

9 hours ago, Eddie said:

The problem has always been half-measures, implemented too late, administered by people who thought that rules are for little people - and observed loosely when it suited people.

Then when restrictions were lifted somewhat, a large proportion of the population taking tabloid newspaper headlines about "freedom" literally and all doing the things they weren't allowed to do before all at the same time.

There have always been two reasons - the same two reasons right from the start - why the pandemic has raged out of control for so long:

1. The density of the population
2. The density of the population

Hong Kong,  been there a  few times. They controlled it despite the density and density in Hong Kong is on another level. Lack of discipline you mention complemented by government ineptitude are major factors for the mess we are in.

[jimmyp]

4 minutes ago, rammieib said:

It’s sad and disappointing when you read articles of ex nurses/doctors who volunteered to come back and never received the call and then you see the hospitals which quite obviously are under pressure at the moment.

Appreciate it’s never black and white but for the NHS to not take advantage of any qualified person who wanted to come back is downright bad management.

The amount of paperwork required to volunteer again in a front line role is a major problem, even then after completing the paperwork it is taking ages for it to be approved.

They are just using current NHS employees from different roles instead as it’s much quicker. Government definitely need to fix this. 
 

Lots of retired doctors and nurses are currently being used, we need more though, and we needed them yesterday! 
 

[Eddie]

5 minutes ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

Hong Kong,  been there a  few times. They controlled it despite the density and density in Hong Kong is on another level. Lack of discipline you mention complemented by government ineptitude are major factors for the mess we are in.

I agree. I lived in Singapore a lifetime ago - Hong Kong was a place I wanted to visit but mum and dad opted for the Cameron Highlands instead. Singapore had similar success, of course, as did Taiwan. 

So many people cite so many reasons on here excusing the appalling performance of this country in controlling the virus using such ridiculous terms as 'uniqueness' or 'global hub', and it's all complete tosh.

[BIllyD]

33 minutes ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

Hong Kong,  been there a  few times. They controlled it despite the density and density in Hong Kong is on another level. Lack of discipline you mention complemented by government ineptitude are major factors for the mess we are in.

Whilst I won't argue that our government got things wrong, Hong Kong I beleive had the infrastructure from previous epidemics. Europe was totally unprepared, it was new to us, we made mistakes based upon advice from scientists that underestimated the power of this virus. 

[Rev]

6 hours ago, Archied said:

oster ,,,,just for clarity I don’t buy and eat 40 for £2 burgers ?

I'd do anything to eat one of them soon, outside the East Stand before going in and watching some (probably) crap footie!

[Albert]

7 hours ago, GboroRam said:

I suppose I'm thinking it's a side effect, whereas some people think it was the main aim. 

Not to go full conspiracy theorist myself, but honestly, given how good the failed responses in the UK, USA and the like have been for certain businesses, I honestly wouldn't blame people for thinking that once this is all over. I still, personally, think it's incompetence over anything sinister, but more out there ideas have turned out to be true. 

7 hours ago, GboroRam said:

@Albert, is 2021 any improvement on 2020 so far? ?

Well, NSW are turning a small cluster into a state wide disaster at record pace at the moment, which has seen most states slam their borders shut over night. They went against the processes used in every other state, refusing to lockdown, special rules for Christmas, etc, and the results have been, unfortunately, as expected. It's not out of control yet, but what was a problem in one corner of Sydney's north shore, one cluster is now three, and they never figured out where it came from in the first place. 

That said, it was the NSW government that allowed the plague ship to disembark freely right at the start, so nobody is all that surprised. 

So yeah, best of luck with the New Year everyone!

[Archied]

9 hours ago, jimmyp said:

The amount of paperwork required to volunteer again in a front line role is a major problem, even then after completing the paperwork it is taking ages for it to be approved.

They are just using current NHS employees from different roles instead as it’s much quicker. Government definitely need to fix this. 
 

Lots of retired doctors and nurses are currently being used, we need more though, and we needed them yesterday! 
 

You see for me those are the kind of areas that are astounding and make you cynical, as I’ve said before I have a family member fairly high up in nhs and am aware there are problems within nhs regards hospitals ,that being COVID on top of a system that is always under the cosh this time of year ,people are staying in beds longer, the need for quarantine areas of hospitals and staff numbers,

one would think taking back on retired or previously lost staff, utilising nightingale hospitals instead of dismantling them would be a very good way of reducing the burden but there seems to be little to no interest or will to do these kind of sensible things when we know better treatment is reducing deaths from this virus a lot and even as Albert is obviously beginning to see in Australia stopping the spread of the virus is no simple task long term,it just keeps popping back up and you can’t close the world forever 

[Archied]

More to be cynical about?  Vaccination gap between first jab and second changed from 3 weeks to twelve against the science of the people who researched and manufactured them ???? Ermmmmm ,

with the word being that vaccine probably does not prevent spread but does stop serious symptoms of catching it eg death ,hospitalisation, wtf would you not use the vaccine properly to the recommendation s of the people who developed and tested it? 
cant for the life of me understand where so called conspiracy theories spring from ,

could it be that we may see lots of people who have had the correct / recommended administered vaccine still catch COVID and die/ become very ill leading to many many people deciding to not bother having the vaccine? Better to get more people on the ladder with first jab and excuse for vaccine effectiveness if results are poor?

im sure I will now be labelled conspiracy theorist by the usual suspects but I’m getting the feeling and predicting we are about to see another clusterduck that’s hard to put down to just stupidity and or incompetence,

why shout from the rafters the fantastic work and genius of the people developing a vaccine in unheard of timescale then totally ignore they’re instructions on how it works best?

[Albert]

2 hours ago, Archied said:

You see for me those are the kind of areas that are astounding and make you cynical, as I’ve said before I have a family member fairly high up in nhs and am aware there are problems within nhs regards hospitals ,that being COVID on top of a system that is always under the cosh this time of year ,people are staying in beds longer, the need for quarantine areas of hospitals and staff numbers,

one would think taking back on retired or previously lost staff, utilising nightingale hospitals instead of dismantling them would be a very good way of reducing the burden but there seems to be little to no interest or will to do these kind of sensible things when we know better treatment is reducing deaths from this virus a lot and even as Albert is obviously beginning to see in Australia stopping the spread of the virus is no simple task long term,it just keeps popping back up and you can’t close the world forever 

I like the subtle dig at Australia. 

Given how well South Australia dealt with the last outbreak here, I'd say things have quite frankly gone swimmingly. 

NSW has some questions to answer, and thanks to that, Victoria now has their own cluster, but let's be honest, being incompetent is pretty much NSW's bread and butter. That said, they've managed to at least keep the breaks on that one, even if it hasn't been fully controlled yet. Still a good chance it all goes pear shaped for them, but that ultimately is because they're trying their damnedest to lose control of the situation. Our border with them has slammed shut as of last night. 

[GboroRam]

1 minute ago, Albert said:

I like the subtle dig at Australia. 

Given how well South Australia dealt with the last outbreak here, I'd say things have quite frankly gone swimmingly. 

NSW has some questions to answer, and thanks to that, Victoria now has their own cluster, but let's be honest, being incompetent is pretty much NSW's bread and butter. That said, they've managed to at least keep the breaks on that one, even if it hasn't been fully controlled yet. Still a good chance it all goes pear shaped for them, but that ultimately is because they're trying their damnedest to lose control of the situation. Our border with them has slammed shut as of last night. 

I think it shows aggressive control works. Anything less is destined to fail. We've never tried to aggressively control this virus. I wonder if there was some mileage in the rumours in the press that Cummings wanted to go early for herd immunity, which meant that we immediately failed to get any type of control in. Attempts to turn the tide after failing to get started early just were doomed to fail.

Approaching a thousand deaths a day now. I hope that the usual statistical confusion around the holiday period has meant recording has got all out of skew, and it's not as bad as we're hearing based on daily numbers. If not, I don't know what will be next week, when the Christmas bubbles (baubles?) were as open as we've been since March.

[Albert]

17 minutes ago, Archied said:

More to be cynical about?  Vaccination gap between first jab and second changed from 3 weeks to twelve against the science of the people who researched and manufactured them ???? Ermmmmm ,

This is extremely concerning. 

17 minutes ago, Archied said:

with the word being that vaccine probably does not prevent spread but does stop serious symptoms of catching it eg death ,hospitalisation, wtf would you not use the vaccine properly to the recommendation s of the people who developed and tested it? 
cant for the life of me understand where so called conspiracy theories spring from ,

Source on this idea that the vaccine 'probably does not prevent spread'? Is this just a game of whispers? The point is that preventing spread isn't something they tested for in the trials, and but the expectation is that it would provide at least some. 

Equally, it's well known that asymptomatic cases are less likely to spread the virus anyhow, so by definition, if a vaccine is reducing viral loads and symptoms, it will reduce spread. The question isn't if it will, but rather, how much. 

17 minutes ago, Archied said:

could it be that we may see lots of people who have had the correct / recommended administered vaccine still catch COVID and die/ become very ill leading to many many people deciding to not bother having the vaccine? Better to get more people on the ladder with first jab and excuse for vaccine effectiveness if results are poor?

im sure I will now be labelled conspiracy theorist by the usual suspects but I’m getting the feeling and predicting we are about to see another clusterduck that’s hard to put down to just stupidity and or incompetence,

why shout from the rafters the fantastic work and genius of the people developing a vaccine in unheard of timescale then totally ignore they’re instructions on how it works best?

Don't attribute to malice what is better explained by incompetence. We've seen that the UK's government just isn't competent to handle this crisis from day 1, there's no need to think there is any malice in such mistakes at this point.

I suspect that they're looking for some good news, and having high vaccination rates in the first weeks of the year will achieve that, even if they're not that effective prior to the second dose. The issue they're facing though is getting enough to achieve that, but if you delay the second dose, then you can basically borrow from the stock from the second dose to give out more first doses. 

Personally, that's a dumb and risky plan that could potentially undo all their good work in getting the vaccines out this quickly, but again, given what we've seen from their management so far, I'm still satisfied that incompetence is a valid explanation of their actions. 

[ariotofmyown]

26 minutes ago, Archied said:

More to be cynical about?  Vaccination gap between first jab and second changed from 3 weeks to twelve against the science of the people who researched and manufactured them ???? Ermmmmm ,

with the word being that vaccine probably does not prevent spread but does stop serious symptoms of catching it eg death ,hospitalisation, wtf would you not use the vaccine properly to the recommendation s of the people who developed and tested it? 
cant for the life of me understand where so called conspiracy theories spring from ,

could it be that we may see lots of people who have had the correct / recommended administered vaccine still catch COVID and die/ become very ill leading to many many people deciding to not bother having the vaccine? Better to get more people on the ladder with first jab and excuse for vaccine effectiveness if results are poor?

im sure I will now be labelled conspiracy theorist by the usual suspects but I’m getting the feeling and predicting we are about to see another clusterduck that’s hard to put down to just stupidity and or incompetence,

why shout from the rafters the fantastic work and genius of the people developing a vaccine in unheard of timescale then totally ignore they’re instructions on how it works best?

You won't get labelled as a conspiracy theorist for these concerns are they are being raised by doctors and the medical establishment. Not, for example, by some dude banned from youtube for spreading mis-information that contradict nearly all scientific opinion.

[Albert]

3 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

I think it shows aggressive control works. Anything less is destined to fail. We've never tried to aggressively control this virus. I wonder if there was some mileage in the rumours in the press that Cummings wanted to go early for herd immunity, which meant that we immediately failed to get any type of control in. Attempts to turn the tide after failing to get started early just were doomed to fail.

Approaching a thousand deaths a day now. I hope that the usual statistical confusion around the holiday period has meant recording has got all out of skew, and it's not as bad as we're hearing based on daily numbers. If not, I don't know what will be next week, when the Christmas bubbles (baubles?) were as open as we've been since March.

By date of death still looks pretty flat at this point, but the issue is that we won't know what we're actually looking at for up to a week, before even considering, as you note, the impact of Christmas and the New Year. 

The worry I have is that the hospitalisation rate generally tells the story of what's coming with deaths, and it's currently spiking. Not only has the total number of people in hospital now eclipsed the first wave, but the hospitalisation rate isn't far off. It's up to 2,433 at last release, which isn't far off the ~3000 day mark set by the first wave. Assuming the growth is arrested enough to remain linear, rather than exponential, that point could well be within 2 weeks. 

Let's hope for good news soon. 

[Archied]

4 minutes ago, ariotofmyown said:

You won't get labelled as a conspiracy theorist for these concerns are they are being raised by doctors and the medical establishment. Not, for example, by some dude banned from youtube for spreading mis-information that contradict nearly all scientific opinion.

 

4 minutes ago, ariotofmyown said:

You won't get labelled as a conspiracy theorist for these concerns are they are being raised by doctors and the medical establishment. Not, for example, by some dude banned from youtube for spreading mis-information that contradict nearly all scientific opinion.

You will when you really struggle to not think there is something very wrong behind actions that are just totaly bewildering and beyond ludicrous,, no one is that stupid and or incompetent to pull this latest one

[ariotofmyown]

5 minutes ago, Albert said:

By date of death still looks pretty flat at this point, but the issue is that we won't know what we're actually looking at for up to a week, before even considering, as you note, the impact of Christmas and the New Year. 

The worry I have is that the hospitalisation rate generally tells the story of what's coming with deaths, and it's currently spiking. Not only has the total number of people in hospital now eclipsed the first wave, but the hospitalisation rate isn't far off. It's up to 2,433 at last release, which isn't far off the ~3000 day mark set by the first wave. Assuming the growth is arrested enough to remain linear, rather than exponential, that point could well be within 2 weeks. 

Let's hope for good news soon. 

My worry is that we have around twice as many cases now than we did around a month ago, but hospitalisations look only 30% or so up so far.

Hopefully we aren't comparing apples with apples and there are other factors meaning a higher proportion of less risky people are having positive tests. Although, with more mixing over Christmas Day, the opposite of this could be true.

The next couple of weeks seem critical in terms of hospital's ability to cope.

[alexxxxx]

8 minutes ago, Albert said:

This is extremely concerning. 

Source on this idea that the vaccine 'probably does not prevent spread'? Is this just a game of whispers? The point is that preventing spread isn't something they tested for in the trials, and but the expectation is that it would provide at least some. 

Equally, it's well known that asymptomatic cases are less likely to spread the virus anyhow, so by definition, if a vaccine is reducing viral loads and symptoms, it will reduce spread. The question isn't if it will, but rather, how much. 

Don't attribute to malice what is better explained by incompetence. We've seen that the UK's government just isn't competent to handle this crisis from day 1, there's no need to think there is any malice in such mistakes at this point.

I suspect that they're looking for some good news, and having high vaccination rates in the first weeks of the year will achieve that, even if they're not that effective prior to the second dose. The issue they're facing though is getting enough to achieve that, but if you delay the second dose, then you can basically borrow from the stock from the second dose to give out more first doses. 

Personally, that's a dumb and risky plan that could potentially undo all their good work in getting the vaccines out this quickly, but again, given what we've seen from their management so far, I'm still satisfied that incompetence is a valid explanation of their actions. 

Decision was taken by independent jcvi, data seems to show that there is reasonable protection at 3weeks for both approved vaccines, however there is no data to validate the scientific understanding that the vaccine should remain working well up to 12 weeks in the case of the Pfizer vaccine. It’s also unknown if the delay has an impact on the effectiveness of the second dose.

Perhaps the jcvi is willing to advise gambling on the medium term effectiveness of the single shot vaccine, particularly in reducing the number of severe cases, in order to improve the coverage.

My fear is that they’ve seen the number of vaccines available and potential supply issues and they’ve decided that this approach is least worst option in terms of covering the numbers of vulnerable. Van Tam earlier in the week was stressing that they will be constrained by supply rather than infrastructure to deliver.

Considering that they’ve been supposedly manufacturing the vaccines since July it seems underwhelming that they only have 4M doses available for roll out on Monday.

Perhaps I’m a doommonger but I’ve not been impressed with the governments lack of commitment to releasing figures of availability or clear targets for vaccination. 

[ariotofmyown]

3 minutes ago, Archied said:

 

You will when you really struggle to not think there is something very wrong behind actions that are just totaly bewildering and beyond ludicrous,, no one is that stupid and or incompetent to pull this latest one

You have more faith than me in the abilities of Johnson, Hancock, Williamson etc if you think they are involved in some dark conspiracy.

Johnson is just a hapless narcissist, and has fooled people into thinking spouting some Latin phrases means intelligence. He is totally average and completely out of his depth. If he joined a medium sized company in a management position, he would under perform.

[BIllyD]

48 minutes ago, Archied said:

More to be cynical about?  Vaccination gap between first jab and second changed from 3 weeks to twelve against the science of the people who researched and manufactured them ???? Ermmmmm ,

with the word being that vaccine probably does not prevent spread but does stop serious symptoms of catching it eg death ,hospitalisation, wtf would you not use the vaccine properly to the recommendation s of the people who developed and tested it? 
cant for the life of me understand where so called conspiracy theories spring from ,

could it be that we may see lots of people who have had the correct / recommended administered vaccine still catch COVID and die/ become very ill leading to many many people deciding to not bother having the vaccine? Better to get more people on the ladder with first jab and excuse for vaccine effectiveness if results are poor?

im sure I will now be labelled conspiracy theorist by the usual suspects but I’m getting the feeling and predicting we are about to see another clusterduck that’s hard to put down to just stupidity and or incompetence,

why shout from the rafters the fantastic work and genius of the people developing a vaccine in unheard of timescale then totally ignore they’re instructions on how it works best?

Valid questions but the no conspiracy theory, we are just taking a calculated approach rather than a proven one. Everyone, including yourself wants the country to come out of lockdown ASAP, our medical experts have identified this as a way of doing it sooner that taking the manufacturer's recommended approach.

Doing it this way doubles the number of vaccines that can be administered in the next 12 weeks, I don't think looking over and above that is required, it really is as simple as that.

Your concerns about the vaccine not working and this being a cover up would mean that every country would have to take the same approach, in addition the Oxford one has already been proven to work better with a bigger time lapse in between. 

Should we be going against the manufactures advice is the bigger question, the data is out their to review, they aren't going to endorse the approach as they haven't done any trials on it and would lead themselves open to all counts of law suits etc....

Its a brave move for me, time will tell if it's the right one.