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Modesty forbids, but my proudest scientific achievement has been the invention, development and eventual approval of one of those drugs.
Did you also have a hand in the naming of ofatumumab? Were you all pissed at the time?
It’s worse than that. People can’t afford to be off work. They are not isolating. They are avoiding track and trace, and avoiding getting tested, to avoid isolating. So the figures only show some of the problem. The solution is government support aimed at individuals, and worker protection legislation aimed at employers… as other countries put in place 10 months ago.
agree
Im was sitting at home feeling sorry for my self but work have been great & I get sick pay
however just learnt 2 bin men have died & Serco only let them take 2 periods of paid isolation
wtf??
I suspect Wave 4 will be an import of an even more transmissible / vaccine resistant variant.
Can't help but feel that by the time we get to May and the vaccine has been rolled out to all the 9 priority groups, a resistant mutation will have emerged. They are already saying that it's likely the vaccine will be less effective against the Brazilian and South African varients which ain't so good
At some point in near future I reckon we are just going to have to close the border like new Zealand etc. It's clearly not going to work to ban flights from certain countries, folks will always find a way round that. We need mandatory quarentine sites as well, as folks clearly can't be trusted isolating for the full 10 day period at home, and even if they do, that's afyer they've got themselves home via public transport, thus completely defeating the purpose
We need mandatory quarentine sites as well, as folks clearly can’t be trusted isolating for the full 10 day period at home, and even if they do, that’s afyer they’ve got themselves home via public transport, thus completely defeating the purpose
If only there were unused hotels next to ports and airports that could be used for quarantine, and manned by the army. Seems to be (mostly) pretty effective in Australia and elsewhere
At some point in near future I reckon we are just going to have to close the border like new Zealand etc.
It’s also possible, given that we seem to be happy to live with loads of people being infected at once in the UK, and started vaccinating early… that a vaccine resistant strain is identified first here… and everyone else shuts their borders to us.
That MK story is so sad. Serco suck, but they will not be the only employers acting this way.
that a vaccine resistant strain is identified first here… and everyone else shuts their borders to us.
Indeed..in which case they should absolutely do that. But at the moment the most worrying variants identified are from abroad, and I can guarantee the flight bans from those countries will not stop more cases in next few weeks
We need mandatory quarentine sites as well, as folks clearly can’t be trusted isolating for the full 10 day period at home, and even if they do, that’s afyer they’ve got themselves home via public transport, thus completely defeating the purpose
wait... what... a "mandatory quarentine site" for someone who has done nothing wrong. Sounds like jail to me. I know its not right to say people are mental... but if it looks like a duck.
wait… what… a “mandatory quarentine site” for someone who has done nothing wrong. Sounds like jail to me.
Being in quarantine isn't a punishment for doing something wrong.
Not sure how but they are vaccinating 70 somethings locally already
Lots of book face people saying ' got my first injection today `
I thought round 1 was over 85yo plus nhs
maybe that has been acheived within the catchment and the vaccine is still arriving so they are cracking on
wait… what… a “mandatory quarentine site” for someone who has done nothing wrong. Sounds like jail to me. I know its not right to say people are mental… but if it looks like a duck.
Doesn't seem to be a problem in Australia and New Zealand and plenty of other places. Though I believe there's a precedent for people arriving in Australia and being locked up
Not sure how but they are vaccinating 70 somethings locally alread
Father in law got his first jab today in Liverpool, he’s 76 I think. He’s BAME so I don’t know if that prioritised him
ofatumumab
No it came with the deal - we just had fun trying to name the covid antibody though.
There is a bit of a code:
Ofa- is a stem - anything you like really
-tum- means tumour (it was for cancer originally)
-u- means it’s human (not chimeric -xi-)
-mab means it’s a monoclonal antibody
so ri-tu-xi-mab is a chimeric (a half mouse actually) antibody also for cancer.
Ocrelizumab is
Ocre- stem
-li- for inflammation (not cancer now)
-zu- means humaniZed (swapped from chimera by mutating some amino acids)
-mab means it’s still an antibody.
Sadly this usan code is falling out of favour now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenclature_of_monoclonal_antibodies
Back to COVID... The new Lilly mab is banlanivimab. Your homework is to decode it. Hint it came out of a human so is not chimeric or humaniZed.
Doesn’t seem to be a problem in Australia and New Zealand and plenty of other places.
But… “freedom”… or something. The histrionics that some people come out with when someone suggests having a few restrictions in a medical emergency… it’s very odd. Two weeks in a hotel to stop the virus… how hard can that be? Or don’t travel abroad for a while.
BBC reporting ~1250 deaths today
But… “freedom”… or something. The histrionics that some people come out with when someone suggests having a few restrictions in a medical emergency… it’s very odd. Two weeks in a hotel to stop the virus… how hard can that be? Or don’t travel abroad for a while.
I agree, as someone pointed out on here much of the lockdown is literally about telling people to do nothing.... and some can't handle even that.lol
My dad is 75 and down to get his vaccine on Sunday. He has lots of issues but wasn't told to shield first time round and I read through the list of reasons to bump him up and none seemed specific to him. He's in Bradford.
Is it significant that virtually 10% of hospitalised people are on ventilation? I thought it had crept up over the last week but it’s now quite clear even without a calculator.
It’s a response to staying longer in hospital. Survival is higher than it was so duration of stay and hence likelihood of mechanical ventilation increases.
Two weeks in a hotel to stop the virus… how hard can that be? Or don’t travel abroad for a while.
Not only is there public support in Australia for 14 day mandatory quarantine on arrival, public opinion is that it needs to be much stricter.
Both the outbreak in Melbourne (which resulted in one of the worlds strictest lockdown for 3+ months), and the smaller "clusters" in Sydney and Brisbane, were the result of leaks in lockdown. Namely: Security guards (now run by the army), hotel cleaners, people driving the quarantine buses, and Aircrew (who have to self-isolate rather than quarantine I think.
In my mind - the small numbers of leaks that there have been, and the resulting infection clusters and subsequent restrictions, demonstrate just how effective Australia's quarantine continues to be.
We have had one case of the UK variant "in the wild" - a quarantine hotel cleaner in Brisbane, who then gave it to her husband. This prompted an immediate lockdown of Brisbane, and interstate travel ban, to give time for the contact tracing teams to do their job. The Queensland premier has announced today that they don't expect any more spread beyond those two people for the UK strain.
This prompted an immediate lockdown of Brisbane, and interstate travel ban, to give time for the contact tracing teams to do their job.
You see, that's where my plan for quarantine in the UK comes unstuck...🤦♂️
Article in today’s Telegraph:
After almost a year of watching the seemingly unstoppable onslaught of Covid-19, the speed of progress now is hard to take in. Just a few months ago, Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, was telling colleagues he didn’t believe a vaccine would come in time. Now we have several of them, highly effective, already delivered to millions worldwide. The logistics, the safety: it’s all going as well as can be expected – in Britain, especially. The big question is what happens next.
Israel will be the first to give the world an answer. Benjamin Netanyahu, up for re-election in March, is now campaigning as the vaccine king, after cutting a deal with Pfizer to make his country the “model state” of the Covid inoculation. He’s offering up vast amounts of anonymised health data, to help Pfizer learn more, and supplies have come rolling in.
Israel, a country the size of Wales, will soon be vaccinating as many people a day as Italy, France and Germany put together. Already three-quarters of its over-60s (those most likely to die from the virus) have been protected. The rest will be covered within days, not weeks.
Israel won’t see a collapsing R-number or plummeting infections: not for a while, at least. The main vaccine effect should be a break in the link between infections, hospitalisations and deaths. Protecting a small number of people should mean big results, given that the oldest 20 per cent account for 90 per cent of virus fatalities. If all goes as planned, then Israel will have downgraded Covid from a fatal virus to a bug which is nasty, but no longer the killer we have come to know.
The vaccine dividend should be discernible in Israeli hospitals very soon. Scientists at the Weizmann Institute reckon that the proportion of over-60s in critical care will have roughly halved within two weeks. By Easter, it thinks, most Covid deaths will be eliminated in Israel. It will be the first major country in the world to achieve this.
And, all going well, Britain should be the second. Our vaccination programme is still steaming ahead. The Prime Minister’s first deadline – 13 million vaccinations by the middle of next month – remains in sight. Just over half of Britain’s Covid-19 deaths are among the over-80s, almost all of whom should have been offered a vaccine within a fortnight. Add another two weeks for the vaccine’s protection to set in, and the number dying from Covid-19 should be half what it would otherwise have been by the end of next month.
This is the projection by the Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group, which has had a strikingly good track record since it was set up to monitor the pandemic. If Nadhim Zahawi’s vaccination programme goes roughly to plan, it says, hospital admissions will be half what they’d otherwise be by mid-March. Intensive care admissions will be down by only a third: a lower number because those admitted tend to be younger. But overall, the Covid-19 burden on the health service will look very different very soon.
While plenty can still go wrong, ministers remain pretty confident – and more than they let on. Some in government think the official target will be easily surpassed – although they’ve been told never to confess as much in public. Kate Bingham, who masterminded the vaccine procurement programme, almost let the cat out of the bag recently by saying the schedule will be “met – and possibly exceeded”.
If she’s right, and if Covid deaths fall by 80 per cent by mid-March, can lockdown restrictions still be justified? Politically, it’s a difficult question and battle lines are already being sketched out. Jonathan Ashworth, the Shadow Health Secretary, has said that we won’t be able to go back to normal “while the virus will still be circulating” – which it’s likely to keep doing throughout the summer. Even with hospital numbers down, he says, Covid-19 can still be a debilitating disease with lasting side effects.
At this point, what would Matt Hancock say? Once everyone likely to die from the virus has been vaccinated, would he be prepared to lift restrictions and be accused of letting the virus rip amongst the young? I asked him recently and he hinted that he was ready for the fight. “There are many illnesses in the world,” he said. “We have to live our lives.”
These words sound odd coming from a minister who usually argues for tighter lockdown. Only last weekend he was privately arguing it was time to stop people exercising (ie, walking) with a friend. But there’s not necessarily a contradiction. In Israel, it’s argued that tighter lockdowns mean earlier relaxation – because the virus, if it gets out control, slows vaccination. The country’s Covid tsar, Nachman Ash, has said he’s ready to unlock even if virus levels are still high. “Our strategy is to inoculate the people who are at the highest risk,” he said, “so we can open the economy even if the number of infected has still not gone down.”
Sceptics grumble that Israel’s example may not be so instructive because it’s unique: a tiny, highly organised country with the world’s best digitised health records. It doesn’t need to slow things down by asking vaccinated people to wait 15 minutes to see if they suffer an anaphylactic shock: they know who’s at risk because their technology tells them. But the basic theory Israel is testing is that Covid’s power to kill can be stopped quite quickly. That, if proven, will be a universal lesson.
Many Tories are getting nervous and want the Prime Minister to commit to relaxing as soon as the top-risk group are vaccinated. But he has an obvious retort: that it’s still a theory. Even Israel is waiting to see what the hospital numbers show, whether the theory pans out. All depends on how the relationship between infection numbers, hospital numbers and deaths really does change. Britain will find out soon, but not for a few weeks.
This week, Netanyahu told his Cabinet that it’s precisely because they’re so close to the finish line that they need to keep discipline now. “This is how we will save lives,” he said. “This is how we will be first in the world to emerge from the coronavirus.” It would be quite a boast for Boris Johnson if Britain were to be the second.
Back to COVID… The new Lilly mab is banlanivimab. Your homework is to decode it.
EAsy
“We have to live our lives.”
Can anyone hear a bus, or is it just me?
Remember how we all looked at the news from Italy last year and wondered how bad it could get? Yesterday's (delayed) statistics now put England as having a higher death rate than Italy.
Can anyone hear a bus, or is it just me?
You never hear the one you are shoved under!
“There are many illnesses in the world,” he said. “We have to live our lives.”
Oooft.
On one hand, they're right. On one hand we don't stop riding bikes because of the risk of an injury. The risk benefit equation says riding bikes or < insert many other situations > is worth it.
On the other hand, I hear that bus...
Trouble is, so many people once they have had the vaccine and lockdown eases will just do whatever the hell they like.
Ignoring that they might be able to pass on the virus to others.
basically garden centres (particularly with cafes) are going to be horrible plague pits
This thing really does seem like it is so far from over. Quick look at Isreal stats on worldometer show that cases are still rising pretty rapidly and deaths too. Going to be another few weeks before there is any effect if there even is one. I mean, it's just not worth thinking about, but what if this just doesn't really work? What if this Brazilian strain, or SA strain really does render vaccines much less effective? Feeling absolutely doom and gloom today. Maybe it's the sh**ty weather. So grim recently 🙁
Telegraph again via H&L. Doesn't fill me with confidence.
https://www.hl.co.uk/news/2021/1/15/ministers-say-dark-forces-threaten-our-vaccine-supply-but-a-summer-of-bragging-may-be-more-likely
“There are many illnesses in the world,” he said. “We have to live our lives.”
He has got a point though. We can't in a state of lockdown indefintely, at some point we are going to have to live with it to some degree. We're social animals and that can't be stopped forever.
The hope is we live with it post-vaccine where it's impact is tiny, but I suppose there is also a chance we have to live with it by vastly increasing hospital capacity, decreased international trave; and an accepted risk to the elderly.
The majority can accept a lockdown with a rough end in site that we have now, tell people it's like this for another 18 months and you may get a different reaction.
You see, that’s where my plan for quarantine in the UK comes unstuck…🤦♂️
There's a plan? 🙂
stcolin - pretty much through the worst bit of the winter, so at least the light/weather WILL improve.... unless you are on the other side of the planet of course.
pretty much through the worst bit of the winter
Are we? It's only mid January.
I mean, it’s just not worth thinking about, but what if this just doesn’t really work?
Israel has only been vaccinating for 3 weeks which means the majority of those vaccinated still haven't developed any response to the vaccine. Wait a few weeks and their stats should start to show the change - the world will be watching with you.
The hope is we live with it post-vaccine where it’s impact is tiny, but I suppose there is also a chance we have to live with it by vastly increasing hospital capacity, decreased international travel; and an accepted risk to the elderly.
So it could end up giving us a better, more robust NHS, lower international travel emissions and lower the cost of the elderly on the public finances? Up to you to make the call whether the first two are worth the third and the call on whether we could do the first two anyway.
Doesn’t fill me with confidence.
That is really depressing reading. Again, UK politicians talk to the UK population as if the rest of the world can't hear what they are saying. At PMQs just this week the PM was still crowing about the great british "Oxford" vaccine... (amazingly in answer to a question about the Scottish fishing industry).
Standard nationalist bow lacks from Boris and chums.
Torygraph expounding letting it rip (give or take).
Yesterday there Brexit drum banging was "my dad was right about Brexit, it's briliant innit".
Nothing new.
Can anyone hear a bus, or is it just me?
All the notice most of us get is 'mind that bus. What bus? Splat!...”
BBC are quoting ' a leading virologist' who says the Brazil variant has been detected in the UK, and that health services there (Brazil) are collapsing amidst a surge in cases.
I'm trying to stay positive but can't help wondering if the light is not the end of the tunnel, but rather an oncoming train.
Didn't the article suggest it has been here for quite some time? I'm not seeing any light at the moment either, but trying to stay positive.
There will be a constant stream of different versions of the virus, just like we get with the cold and flu. The issue is whether they turn into something more vicious or whether the vaccines become ineffective. When that happens all the current vaccinations will be useless. I hope it doesn't happen but we have to plan ahead taking into account that it can.
Stricter supermarket rules for Wales being posed.
Currently, it is the law for people to wear masks in public indoor spaces, which includes supermarkets and other essential retailers, but a number of other measures are only classed as guidance.
Mr Drakeford previously hinted he wanted to see measures in shops - such as stickers marking 2m (6ft) distances, number limits and one-way systems - return to levels seen back in March during the first lockdown.
He said changes, set to be announced on Friday, could involve putting into law measures surrounding shopping which are currently only guidance.
About time. The only issue is how will the shop workers be backed up? Certainly there isn't the resources to put a Police Officer at each store to enforce it and just making it law won't really stop the hardcore deniers being abusive towards the shop staff.
Indeed. I seem to recall tired suggested that amending the vaccine for the new UK strain might not take more than a couple of months. If so, and it also applies to Brazil strain, then things aren't quite so bleak.
there is also a chance we have to live with it by vastly increasing hospital capacity
How? Even if the government shook the magic money tree to fund it, we haven't got a magic doctors and nurses tree to actually deliver it.
Indeed. I seem to recall tired suggested that amending the vaccine for the new UK strain might not take more than a couple of months. If so, and it also applies to Brazil strain, then things aren’t quite so bleak.
We just have to be careful around the time it takes for the new strain and it's effects to become known and how quickly we can re-engineer a new vaccine and get it to market. The longer this goes on for and the larger selection of vaccines we have to choose from should make the process faster. We should also have the situation of a new strain only bypassing certain vaccines, not all of them too. this is not a one-fight battle that a lot of people thin it is.
The strains issue for me is why I think we will be wearing masks for a lot longer than people think
Does anyone have any insight as to how supposedly "covid-secure" workplaces are contributing to the spread of the virus?
Today I've seen 2 people in a van doing deliveries and another set to work on services (telephone lines). Businesses will most likely be approaching this from a resilience point of view, e.g. it's the same two people always working together (i.e. in a bubble). However all of these little interactions will still add up to create a viable transmission route for the country as a whole.
I get the feeling that the main spread of Covid will now be through workplaces. The mitigation measures have been delegated (by the Government) to individual companies, who will have their own operational interests as a priority rather than preventing transmission as a whole. They will want to be able to keep operating if people become ill and easily be able to isolate any infection. That doesn't stop the overall spread. It will slow it but it will keep going
My 'Covid secure' place of work has made the news....we've had so many positive cases this week that PHE are involved!
Looking forward to my shift later.
#plaguefactory
Does anyone have any insight as to how supposedly “covid-secure” workplaces are contributing to the spread of the virus?
I'm off with covid atm along with 2 others in our covid secure lab
So yeah, & masks & distancing are well enforced!
How? Even if the government shook the magic money tree to fund it, we haven’t got a magic doctors and nurses tree to actually deliver it.
Absolutely no idea.
All I'm saying is that you can't keep the populous in lockdown indefintely. So if the vaccination doesn't work to drop cases then we have look at that as a possibility for the future.
Does anyone have any insight as to how supposedly “covid-secure” workplaces are contributing to the spread of the virus?
I'm off with covid atm along with 2 others in our covid secure lab
& masks & distancing are well enforced!
So yeah,
Does anyone have any insight as to how supposedly “covid-secure” workplaces are contributing to the spread of the virus?
See.. this is where the government need to step up to the plate... they helped reassure people to return to the workplace last summer/autumn with their "covid-secure" language... but that is not secure as in "carry on during lockdown" it is only secure as in "carry on while other measures in place". They need to be telling employers that if they could have there staff working apart, or furloughed, during the first lockdown, then the same needs to happen now (and offer the support to make that happen). People should be returning to "covid-secure" workplaces only once we come out of lockdown, and back into other measures. Their kids should be returning to school then as well.
Feeling absolutely doom and gloom today. Maybe it’s the sh**ty weather. So grim recently 🙁
Try and get some sunshine. At least a walk outside. Really helps. Bleak midwinter innit (exactly midwinter, in fact for winter = Dec-Feb).
The study by PHE showing that in healthcare workers, infection provides better protection than the Oxford vaccine (at least for five months) is very welcome. 318/14000 naives vs. 44/6600 has a VE of 1 - (44/6600)/(318/14000) = 70.6%.
Carriage of virus is very interesting for vaccine outcome though. Sterile protection for transmission may be more of a challenge for the Oxford vaccine with the same protection.
So A_A and kimbers, welcome to natural immunity. You have better protection (but for how long) than the vaccine you are likely to receive. I hope you are both feeling better.
infection provides better protection than the Oxford vaccine
Wasn't there a theory that the longer interval between doses was responsible for the better performance of the 1/2 dose, full dose arm of the Oxford trial? If so the current 12w dosing gap might bring that vaccine's protection up to the level of the disease. Clutching at straws?
So we have less than 5 months to get everyone vaccinated? Otherwise it all goes a bit Forth Rail bridge...
So A_A and kimbers, welcome to natural immunity. You have better protection (but for how long) than the vaccine you are likely to receive. I hope you are both feeling better.
Feeling much better but still not right, thanks
Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales
We won’t get another delivery of the Pfizer vaccine until the very end of January or maybe the beginning of February, so that 250,000 doses has got to last us six weeks.
That’s why you haven’t seen it all used in week one, because we’ve got to space it out over the weeks that it’s got to cover.
Surely getting people vaccinated as early as possible is better?
between doses was responsible for the better performance of the 1/2 dose, full dose arm of the Oxford trial? If so the current 12w dosing gap might bring that vaccine’s protection up to the level of the disease. Clutching at straws?
That was a dosing error and wasn't very representative (no one over 55)?
Otherwise it all goes a bit Forth Rail bridge…
It will be anyway. New vaccinations every year, just as we do for flu, is to be expected. Perhaps this will kick the government into making both flu and coronavirus vaccines available to all from next winter.
Of course, if all countries had sought to keep prevalence as low as possible, then this virus might be where it was June last year in terms of (un)lucky mutations. The UK, Brazil and USA in particular had the means to hold this virus back, and chose not to. We could be in a much better place going into this initial vaccination period (counter argument is that the earliest vaccines might have taken longer to develop/test without large numbers of infections in those countries).
Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales
We won’t get another delivery of the Pfizer vaccine until the very end of January or maybe the beginning of February, so that 250,000 doses has got to last us six weeks.
That’s why you haven’t seen it all used in week one, because we’ve got to space it out over the weeks that it’s got to cover.
Surely getting people vaccinated as early as possible is better?
That is a slightly bizarre statement on the face of it and at odds with what Jason Leitch said in Scotland, which was to get it into the arms of as many people as fast as possible.
Seems unlikely annual vaccination won’t be a thing
But I read that 5 months thing as still having protection after 5 month, not stops at 5 months
So we have less than 5 months to get everyone vaccinated? Otherwise it all goes a bit Forth Rail bridge…
Not quite, the PHE study duration was only five months long, protection could wane, but I think over a year or two more likely. But it's definitely telling that reinfection is a thing, and past infection does not afford sterile protection (unlike measles for example). This is not at all unusual for coronaviruses. Could be worse, could be varicella (chickenpox/shingles).
I'm still optimistic, if I am honest. Strain escape may be a challenge but not in the form of the antigenic shifts shown by influenza which renders past infection/vaccination of little or no protection. Vaccines will still afford SOME protection (in fact possibly 2x more for the VOC mutation tested against Pfizer serum), certainly from severity of disease. That severity is what's keeping us indoors at home to prevent swamping healthcare. We will also have effective treatments for preventing severe infection in those who can't be vaccinated.
banlani-vi-mab is one such treatment. Remdesivir is not. Vi for antiviral btw. We've all laughed at that video at work 😀
At least a walk outside. Really helps.
Yea, I made it out at lunch time to clear my head. Being on my own at the moment as my partner has had to go to her parents to help care for them, isn't helping. Work is very very slow at the moment, and I don't see much changing for us soon as we rely heavily on manufacturing and projects which just aren't happening.
banlani-vi-mab
You're just trying to make them sound silly now, aren't you.
Reminds me of... Superlambanana
That was a dosing error and wasn’t very representative (no one over 55)?
Found the [url= https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n18 ]BMJ's[/url] write up on it
The trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine did include different spacing between doses, finding that a longer gap (two to three months) led to a greater immune response, but the overall participant numbers were small. In the UK study 59% (1407 of 2377) of the participants who had two standard doses received the second dose between nine and 12 weeks after the first. In the Brazil study only 18.6% (384 of 2063) received a second dose between nine and 12 weeks after the first.3 The combined trial results, published in the Lancet,4 found that vaccine efficacy 14 days after a second dose was higher in the group that had more than six weeks between the two doses (65.4%) than in the group that had less than six weeks between doses (53.4%).
So >6w between doses is slightly better than a shorter interval but still not as effective as getting sick. But given the option I'd go for vaccine over infection.
So we have less than 5 months to get everyone vaccinated? Otherwise it all goes a bit Forth Rail bridge…
Im fully in the camp of the Tories will mess this up so bad that people will get one jab, then need a further two due to the gaps between jabs. And as a wfh 30 something I dont expect to get a jab any time this year.
I’m off with covid atm along with 2 others in our covid secure lab
So yeah, & masks & distancing are well enforced!
I really hope that you and your colleagues are OK
Are you saying that you've been getting infected despite recommended mask wearing and distancing being enforced, or are you saying your employer/colleagues can't or have not been complying with the requirements?
The answer puts a different spin on "Covid secure" workplaces - if they don't work despite following the guidelines, the guidelines are wrong and need reviewing. If employers or staff are simply not complying, then that's a H&S issue
Currently sat running early doing deliveries.....small park opposite has over 40 people in it. They're all parents with kids under 10 so I get that it's hardly crime of the century......doesn't really feel like a lockdown though does it?! Roads are rammed again too.
Oh well....I got a walk in this morning with the dog which cleared my head. Covid + brexit + the Tories really isn't great for mental health is it?!
Poor little bawbag shaped head Toby Young is frantically deleting his twitter rants regarding his stance on the virus over the previous year and now his torygraph enablers are ordered to print a retraction - odious little creep.
Odious creep gets a slap in the face
My misses is a primary school teacher in Swindon. Like most they were open for a day then switched to most teachers working from home and some teachers in plus some TAs to look after the 'key' children. She luckily has been working from home which has been going well with good feedback from parents. 11 of the staff left in school have now tested positive for Covid and they've just had a meeting saying all remaining teachers will be working from School when it reopens on Tuesday (they had to shut due to the outbreak). I don't know what management are smoking (or how Covid is infecting their brains, both the head and dep head are currently positive), but if there was ever a sign the workplace is not safe, an outbreak of 11 cases is pretty clear enough!
It's like a slow motion car crash, will be interesting to see how it plays out. I can imagine lots of legal cases and work to follow, lots of stress related time off. People don't seem to realise or care how dangerous sending their child to a still busy school is, they still have way too many children in each day (around 90 out of the usual 300).
It’s like a slow motion car crash
All staff (and large proportion of pupils) on site in Primary schools here. Don't blame "the management", it's government policy... yes, even where there is evidence of the virus circulating. I don't know how big your other half's school is, so what proportion 11 makes up... but more than 50% of my other half's fellow staff tested positive over the last four weeks.
they still have way too many children in each day (around 90 out of the usual 300)
That's much lower than some, sadly. It's bonkers.
Unless I caught it from walking the dog I must have got it supervising kids in school. Other than an acknowledgement of my email telling them I had covid and that I wouldnt be in work no one has been in touch to see how I am, says it all really.
I think there are around 50 members of staff and 20ish were in last week. It seems nuts to me, no wonder it is spreading so quickly! This misses is not impressed, particularly because her 60 year old uncle died on Wednesday due to covid.
Sorry to hear that. And yes, it seems nuts to me as well.
So finally travel corridors are closed.
So finally travel corridors are closed.
I wonder if this means a new even scarier variant or a vaccine resistant one?
As an explainer as to why Covid deniers get short shrift from many of us when they pop up on here… spreading lies has consequences…
https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1349825262045835266?s=21
They need to prosecute the shit out of anyone abusing healthcare staff.
Absolute morons, what do they think their relatives are suffering from if not covid?
I wonder if this means a new even scarier variant or a vaccine resistant one?
Or cases are still not going down that much so they need to stop people coming in or out.
They need to prosecute the shit out of anyone abusing healthcare staff.
Absolute morons, what do they think their relatives are suffering from if not covid?
I mean this should happen covid or not... but never seems to, my sister in law (shes a dr) once got verbally abused my a patient whos life she saved.
Agreed, that's why I deleted the bit about at this time as it should happen all the time