The coronabrexit thread. I mean, coronavirus thread

[Mostyn6]

59 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

If the vaccine makes you sterile, will the future gene pool be entirely made of anti vaxxers? 

God help us. 

Only the vaccines funded by Gates foundation will affect. 

[maxjam]

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, said: "We want to be on the front foot for Covid-19 booster vaccination to keep the probability of loss of vaccine protection, due to waning immunity or variants, as low as possible - especially over the coming autumn and winter."

He said other respiratory viruses, particularly flu, "will make a comeback" and be an additional problem this winter.

"We will need to ensure protection against flu, as well as maintaining protection against Covid-19," Prof Van-Tam said.

 

Okay for arguments sake, what if covid claims another 10k-20k lives over winter and the flu (that will apparently 'make a comeback') claims another 10k-60k deaths, we could easily be looking at 50k+ deaths over the winter.   Will that be reason enough to lockdown again?!?

 

 

Edited June 30, 2021 by maxjam

[Archied]

3 minutes ago, maxjam said:

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, said: "We want to be on the front foot for Covid-19 booster vaccination to keep the probability of loss of vaccine protection, due to waning immunity or variants, as low as possible - especially over the coming autumn and winter."

He said other respiratory viruses, particularly flu, "will make a comeback" and be an additional problem this winter.

"We will need to ensure protection against flu, as well as maintaining protection against Covid-19," Prof Van-Tam said.

 

Okay for arguments sake, what if covid claims another 10k-20k lives over winter and the flu that will apparently 'make a comeback' claims another 10k-60k deaths, we could easily be looking at 50k+ deaths over the winter.   Reason enough to lockdown again?!?

 

 

Chatting to some friends at the weekend and they without flinching said they expected we would have to lock down this winter to save the nhs as flu returned , they were serious and happy to accept that , even promote it ??‍♂️

[Archied]

Here’s a novel thought,, how about we go back to normal and start pumping these billions into the health service ,like training staff, employing staff, doing away with paid car parks where a nurse can spend half her wages just to be able to park up and go to work , improve wages to attract staff , improve and provide more beds and facilities, perhaps a service that’s not at breaking point EVERY winter

forget the above it’s just daft , there’s nothing in that for the haves and want mores??‍♂️

[G STAR RAM]

So on top of my 11 year old daughter being sent home to isolate for 10 days, for the second time, my 8 year old lad has now had football cancelled for at least the next 2 weeks.

Rceeived an e-mail saying that due to the huge rise in Covid cases the club were implementing a 2 week circuit breaker (yes they actually used this term).

On the back of this I thought I would take a look at the situation in our area of Littleover and Heatheron. Turns out there have been 25 positive cases in the last 7 days...huge!

Spreading the net a bit further, Derby has had 442 positive cases in the last 7 days, with 0 hospitalizations and 0 deaths.

Im hoping this isnt a sign if things to come that has empowered people to make completely illogical decisions with absolutely no basis.

[Bald Eagle's Barmy Army]

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

So on top of my 11 year old daughter being sent home to isolate for 10 days, for the second time, my 8 year old lad has now had football cancelled for at least the next 2 weeks.

Rceeived an e-mail saying that due to the huge rise in Covid cases the club were implementing a 2 week circuit breaker (yes they actually used this term).

On the back of this I thought I would take a look at the situation in our area of Littleover and Heatheron. Turns out there have been 25 positive cases in the last 7 days...huge!

Spreading the net a bit further, Derby has had 442 positive cases in the last 7 days, with 0 hospitalizations and 0 deaths.

Im hoping this isnt a sign if things to come that has empowered people to make completely illogical decisions with absolutely no basis.

A little bit of power and people will love it 

[Eddie]

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

So on top of my 11 year old daughter being sent home to isolate for 10 days, for the second time, my 8 year old lad has now had football cancelled for at least the next 2 weeks.

Rceeived an e-mail saying that due to the huge rise in Covid cases the club were implementing a 2 week circuit breaker (yes they actually used this term).

On the back of this I thought I would take a look at the situation in our area of Littleover and Heatheron. Turns out there have been 25 positive cases in the last 7 days...huge!

Spreading the net a bit further, Derby has had 442 positive cases in the last 7 days, with 0 hospitalizations and 0 deaths.

Im hoping this isnt a sign if things to come that has empowered people to make completely illogical decisions with absolutely no basis.

Applying a little logic to the figures, infections detected this week would (under a 'nobody is vaccinated' scenario) be responsible in hospitalisations one to two weeks down the line, and a percentage of those would die in the following days or weeks. Given a high incidence of vaccine take-up at present, it is to be hoped that will not be the case.

[G STAR RAM]

54 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Applying a little logic to the figures, infections detected this week would (under a 'nobody is vaccinated' scenario) be responsible in hospitalisations one to two weeks down the line, and a percentage of those would die in the following days or weeks. Given a high incidence of vaccine take-up at present, it is to be hoped that will not be the case.

What percentage of infections end in hospitalization?

The Delta variant has been here since April. 

We are waiting for something that isnt going to happen.

Data not dates, my arse.

[Eddie]

17 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

What percentage of infections end in hospitalization?

The Delta variant has been here since April. 

We are waiting for something that isnt going to happen.

Data not dates, my arse.

In the pre-vaccination days, approximately 8% of cases ended up in hospital, and of those, a quarter came out feet first.

Although the Delta variant has been here for a couple of months, overall cases were in decline, and continued to do so until mid-May, at which point pubs re-opened for indoor service. I'm not suggesting that was the prime factor (if it was, I'm as guilty as anyone else because I have been going to pubs since that date), but from that date onwards, cases have started to rise again exponentially. The increase in cases is such that, since some restrictions were relaxed, the incidence of new daily cases, which was increasing by 40% every 7 or 8 days, is now doubling over the same time period.

• 14 May - 2193
• 22 May - 2523
• 30 May - 3111
• 6 June - 5223
• 14 June - 7606
• 22 June - 11481
• 30 June - 25606

It's a fair bet that, by the end of next week, we will be up to 40-50K new cases per day again. I sincerely hope that I am wrong.

I agree totally that we may not see a substantial increase in hospitalisations and, ultimately, deaths this time around - after all, that was the reason for the hyper-aggressive vaccination rollout. We may well just 'have to live with it' - because wishing it away ain't going to happen, despite the protestations of some.

[Albert]

7 hours ago, maxjam said:

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, said: "We want to be on the front foot for Covid-19 booster vaccination to keep the probability of loss of vaccine protection, due to waning immunity or variants, as low as possible - especially over the coming autumn and winter."

He said other respiratory viruses, particularly flu, "will make a comeback" and be an additional problem this winter.

"We will need to ensure protection against flu, as well as maintaining protection against Covid-19," Prof Van-Tam said.

 

Okay for arguments sake, what if covid claims another 10k-20k lives over winter and the flu (that will apparently 'make a comeback') claims another 10k-60k deaths, we could easily be looking at 50k+ deaths over the winter.   Will that be reason enough to lockdown again?!?

 

 

Why are you using a chart from last August? 

I'd have thought by now you'd have learnt the basics of this discussion. 

Lockdowns are a means of control of infection rates, they're not a response to deaths, they're a means of preventing them. Countries that have used them effectively use them in short sharp bursts. For example, the state where I am, we've been in lockdown less than a week in the last year, and have had no Covid deaths in that time at all. The lockdowns come when there is any community transmission as a means of getting on top of the outbreak. 

The issue the UK has had is that due to political pressure against actually dealing with the situation properly, lockdowns have largely been used as a reactionary measure, not a proactive one, and using them for this purpose leads to long rolling lockdowns, which while effecting, are no where near as effective as the short proactive ones. 

It's also interesting that this 'flu has claimed x deaths' line has come back from you. For one, the flu and pneumonia combined, which is quite constellation of diseases, has not claimed more than 35k lives in the UK in over 20 years. Covid-19, without making it through the entire population, has claimed over 120k, likely over 150k, in 18 months. That there is the point of controls, boosters, etc. The disease is on another scale to other viruses that cause things like pneumonia.

The expectation would be that if a variant of Covid-19 got out of control again, there would be lockdowns. A set of seasonal diseases, running through the whole population killing 25-35k would not lead to lockdowns, because it's doing so in a way that burns itself out, while Covid-19 is not, as well and truly demonstrated by this point. 

[Albert]

2 hours ago, Eddie said:

In the pre-vaccination days, approximately 8% of cases ended up in hospital, and of those, a quarter came out feet first.

Although the Delta variant has been here for a couple of months, overall cases were in decline, and continued to do so until mid-May, at which point pubs re-opened for indoor service. I'm not suggesting that was the prime factor (if it was, I'm as guilty as anyone else because I have been going to pubs since that date), but from that date onwards, cases have started to rise again exponentially. The increase in cases is such that, since some restrictions were relaxed, the incidence of new daily cases, which was increasing by 40% every 7 or 8 days, is now doubling over the same time period.

• 14 May - 2193
• 22 May - 2523
• 30 May - 3111
• 6 June - 5223
• 14 June - 7606
• 22 June - 11481
• 30 June - 25606

It's a fair bet that, by the end of next week, we will be up to 40-50K new cases per day again. I sincerely hope that I am wrong.

I agree totally that we may not see a substantial increase in hospitalisations and, ultimately, deaths this time around - after all, that was the reason for the hyper-aggressive vaccination rollout. We may well just 'have to live with it' - because wishing it away ain't going to happen, despite the protestations of some.

The worry is that this is exactly the pattern of the last wave. Cases rise first, followed by hospitalisations, then deaths. The cases are rising, and we're seeing the beginning of rising hospitalisations as well. The hope is that enough people are vaccinated to alleviate that, but the delta variant is concerning, and if the vaccines have been effective, then we shouldn't be seeing the rising hospitalisations. A worrying few weeks are ahead. 

[Norman]

Around 80 percent of adults have antibodies. 

67 percent have been fully vaccinated

85 percent have had one dose

The Pfizer vaccine is 96 percent effective against hospitalisation from the Delta variant and Astrazeneca 92 percent. 

Those figures are from the ONS and range between the 10th and 20th of June.  

We are at the point where you can't really do much more to stop it. 

 

[Stagtime]

16 hours ago, GboroRam said:

Items 1 and 2 point to a failure by the health service in Aus to organise their programme.

Items 3 and 5 point to a failure of public health to convince the public that the vaccination programme is the best method to achieve the outcomes they all want.

Point 4 is a down side to having such a good test, trace and isolate programme. But still, the public health campaign should be pushing people to get the vaccine if they want to avoid lockdowns in future.

We've failed spectacularly in some areas in this country, but I think on the whole the response by the NHS has been exemplary. Australia seems to have been a beacon of success until it comes to the vaccine rollout, which for whatever reason has been utter tripe compared to the UK. I'd say, without knowing much of the detail, it appears that the Australian politicians did a better job than ours, and their health service did a worse job than ours.

Mate, day 2 of a 3 day lockdown here in BrisVegas which isn’t really stopping you doing much as long as you are masked up  (the weather is crap anyway)  About the only thing that is shut are restaurants, pubs, gyms etc. The shutdown is just about giving the contact tracers time to account for people that have been in contact with the infected parties.  (Last count 5 positive cases in a population of 3 million).

As for our pollies being better, that did make me laugh. We got lucky at the start of COVID only because our fwit of a PM decided to take a holiday to Hawaii in the middle of the catastrophic bushfires telling everybody that it was the state’s problem not his and copped a flogging from the whole country about his attitude to problems.

When COVID hit, he flick passed it on to the country’s top health officials to save his own arse so we had the situation of the states  health experts calling the shots thank god not politicians. Unfortunately when it comes to the vaccines that is controlled by the federal government who in their wisdom decided we weren’t in a race to vaccinate everybody as well as putting out confusing guidelines about who can get AZ shots and who can get Pfizer shots. On top of that they didn’t order Pfizer until recently so the bigger shipments aren’t due till September.

To sum it up we have the state’s in charge of the health side of things and have been doing a pretty good job but then you have the federal government in charge of actually delivering vaccines royally fcking up everything that they touch.

[Albert]

17 hours ago, maxjam said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-56825920

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-57181038

In short there seems to be several problems;

- supply shortages

- logistical problems

- vaccine hesitancy

- low covid infection rate leading to no rush to get jabbed

- fears over the AstraZenica vaccine

The issue with the vaccine rollout is that it's been done federally, while the good work controlling the virus was on a state level. Broadly speaking, Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia have done very well for themselves. Victoria, after lockdown hesitancy before their second wave, have done exceptionally despite the federal government's best efforts, while New South Wales have lived dangerously, but before now done okay as they've tended to drop the political theatre and lockdown when things spiral out of control. 

Funnily enough, the Federal Government was actually against the strategy adopted at state level, and have helped others campaign against it, such as Clive Palmer v WA. The federal approach, sadly, is essentially to claim credit for the States good work, while sitting on their hands otherwise. This has included, in no particular order:

 - Failing to develop a long term strategy for quarantine, instead relying on 'medihotels', which have been pretty much universally the source of leaks that have lead to more outbreaks. 

 - Failing to secure enough doses of the vaccines. 

 - Turning down a deal with Pfizer which would have secured enough vaccines last year. 

 - Not dealing with the issues around aged care at all, despite all the investigations being pretty clear about what needed to be done. 

They've tried to palm off a lot of the issues around the vaccine rollout to the states, and with that failing, they've cooked up a 'vaccine hesitancy' story with their Murdoch mates. The reality on the ground though is that there just isn't the supply. 

Their latest galaxy brain action at the top is to first recommend the AstraZeneca vaccine to only over 60s, then when these outbreaks started suggest that under 60s can take it, but they should talk to their GP first. They pretty much actively pushed for more vaccine hesitancy to distract from their ballsup in not accepting the offer from Pfizer last year, and now, want to palm blame off to the individual instead. It sells well in the Murdoch press though, so I suspect they'll get away with this.

Honestly, we'd have been better off with Scomo pulling another Hawaii moment and just leaving the vaccine procurement and rollout to the states. Everything his government has touched in this pandemic has been a disaster unfortunately. That all said, the states have kept things under control, and honestly, where I am, things really aren't that different from 2019 this year. 

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

39 minutes ago, Albert said:

The issue with the vaccine rollout is that it's been done federally, while the good work controlling the virus was on a state level. Broadly speaking, Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia have done very well for themselves. Victoria, after lockdown hesitancy before their second wave, have done exceptionally despite the federal government's best efforts, while New South Wales have lived dangerously, but before now done okay as they've tended to drop the political theatre and lockdown when things spiral out of control. 

Funnily enough, the Federal Government was actually against the strategy adopted at state level, and have helped others campaign against it, such as Clive Palmer v WA. The federal approach, sadly, is essentially to claim credit for the States good work, while sitting on their hands otherwise. This has included, in no particular order:

 - Failing to develop a long term strategy for quarantine, instead relying on 'medihotels', which have been pretty much universally the source of leaks that have lead to more outbreaks. 

 - Failing to secure enough doses of the vaccines. 

 - Turning down a deal with Pfizer which would have secured enough vaccines last year. 

 - Not dealing with the issues around aged care at all, despite all the investigations being pretty clear about what needed to be done. 

They've tried to palm off a lot of the issues around the vaccine rollout to the states, and with that failing, they've cooked up a 'vaccine hesitancy' story with their Murdoch mates. The reality on the ground though is that there just isn't the supply. 

Their latest galaxy brain action at the top is to first recommend the AstraZeneca vaccine to only over 60s, then when these outbreaks started suggest that under 60s can take it, but they should talk to their GP first. They pretty much actively pushed for more vaccine hesitancy to distract from their ballsup in not accepting the offer from Pfizer last year, and now, want to palm blame off to the individual instead. It sells well in the Murdoch press though, so I suspect they'll get away with this.

Honestly, we'd have been better off with Scomo pulling another Hawaii moment and just leaving the vaccine procurement and rollout to the states. Everything his government has touched in this pandemic has been a disaster unfortunately. That all said, the states have kept things under control, and honestly, where I am, things really aren't that different from 2019 this year. 

You are back. Hope all is well with you and your family btw.

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

An interesting letter in the Times. It wasnt so long ago that if parents took kids out of school to go on holiday, even a day, that day would have profound effect on their education. You could be fined and last but not least imagine the effect it would have on teaching if several people did it would be catastrophic. People ended up in court. 

What about now? entire years are being taken out, kids have missed months, i feel for the kids and young generation, they deserve better.

 

 

[maxjam]

4 hours ago, Albert said:

Why are you using a chart from last August? 

I'd have thought by now you'd have learnt the basics of this discussion. 

Welcome back ? 

To be upfront I have no desire to discuss anything with you as it repeatedly gets bogged down with semantics, splitting hairs and your need to score points. 

However, to clarify my posting of a chart from last August, it very clearly shows annual flu and pneumonia deaths in the UK over the past three decades.  As Prof Jonathan Van-Tam said that we can expect flu to make a come back the chart is very relevant as it gives us an idea of the number of flu and pneumonia deaths we can expect. 

The hyperthetical argument I put forwards wondered whether a small resurgence of covid deaths along with any number of flu deaths could easily lead to 50k+ deaths over the winter and maybe give the Govt another reason to lockdown.

Furthermore flu is a common cause of pneumonia hence why the statistics are often linked as per this Govt article;

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/deaths-due-to-covid-19-compared-with-deaths-from-influenza-and-pneumonia

 

[Leeds Ram]

Any discussion of going back into lockdown should be muted quite honestly, the number of cases is not the issue it's the hospitalisations that we need to be looking at. Providing case numbers without the context of hospitalisations and deaths is irresponsible and mutes the entire point of the vaccination programme in the first place. Yes cases are up almost 70% in the past week but hospitalisations are only up 6% in the same time and with over 80% of the country at least receiving their first dose (65% have had their crucial second dose) it seems the vaccination programme is largely doing its job. It wouldn't surprise me if the rise in hospitalisations largely comprised of both slightly younger people, those for whom the vaccine hasn't quite worked and those in the groups that are vulnerable but refused to have their vaccine. 

 Lockdowns are supposed to be a temporary emergency measure to prevent death and protecting crucial health infrastructure and should only be temporary precisely  because they're economically and socially destructive. Increasingly people seem to be seeing lockdowns as a 'go to' policy when cases (but crucially not hospitalisations) are beginning to spike again and even more seem to be positing it as something to do in winter because flu is around the corner. All the data points to the fact that if you're under 55 and you don't have a serious underlying condition covid isn't particularly deadly- this is precisely why the vaccine roll out was first targeted for those in that age category and for those with a severe underlying health condition. 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Leeds Ram

[ariotofmyown]

55 minutes ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

An interesting letter in the Times. It wasnt so long ago that if parents took kids out of school to go on holiday, even a day, that day would have profound effect on their education. You could be fined and last but not least imagine the effect it would have on teaching if several people did it would be catastrophic. People ended up in court. 

What about now? entire years are being taken out, kids have missed months, i feel for the kids and young generation, they deserve better.

 

 

It's a good point, but I would say that our kid's school have done a great job at supporting them through the lockdown, with little help or support from on high.

It's the same story from other parents I know with kids at other schools too.

Mine are at junior school too, so things not as crucial as later years of senior school. Must have been really hard for these kids. Likewise kids at university too who have had to pay for online lectures.

I'm unsurprised with the total lack of leadership with education throughout the pandemic, or plans to help kids recover.

[Wolfie]

Anyone else forgotten how to do social interaction?.

We had some people round to our garden a couple of weeks ago for Mrs Wolfie's birthday and I quickly worked out that I'd totally lost what skill I had in making conversation with people.

Smalltalk has never been a favourite thing of mine but I used to be able to do it if I had to!