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So it is about to open for the 40-45's then? The site is normally accessible a day or so. before it says so officially.
Not sure, but just got my nhs number so thought I’d give it a go.
Ive just been watching a pretty harrowing report on India and their dire situation. Hopefully it might be a wake-up call to those who don't want a vaccine. This is what a swamped NHS would have looked like.
Guardian reporting on reduction in transmission for Pfizer/AZ
The researchers analysed Covid test results from more than 350,000 people in the UK between December and April. They found that 21 days after a first jab – the time it takes the immune system to mount a decent response – new Covid infections dropped by 65%.
The results, released in a preprint on Friday, are particularly important because they demonstrate the protective effect of the vaccines in the real world against the highly infectious and more lethal Kent variant, which was not around during the original clinical trials.
The results build on other positive findings from the vaccine rollout, which began in December. In February Public Health Scotland revealed that a month after receiving a shot of Pfizer or Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, the risk of hospitalisation from Covid-19 fell by up to 85% and 94% respectively.
That’s very encouraging. How do they know the reduction in cases is due to the vaccine rather than just the general decline in cases?
It's in that article...
The vaccines were more effective against symptomatic than asymptomatic infections, reducing rates by 72% and 57% respectively, compared with those seen in the unvaccinated population.
If you want to dig deeper...
I'd have to read the report to be sure but speculation based on what is in the article:
They tested 350,000 people (or collated test results from 350K)
Of those 350K, a certain number will have tested positive
Of those people, some will have had AZ, some Pfizer and some none
By segmenting the number infected into each of the three buckets you can see whether having the vaccine has reduced the likelihood of infection (and potentially if further data collected how serious that infection turns out)
Simple non-real example
100 people take a test. 50 had vaccine, 50 didn't.
10 of those tested are positive. If vaccine does nothing, you'd expect 5 from each half (in real world numbers +++ to effect a real distribution)
If vaccine 100.000% effective, all 10 would come from the unvaccinated half. Have to - vaccine works.
Probably - sth like 9 / 10 are the unvaccinated, 1/10 is from the vaccine cohort and then you say is 90% effective (or 88.8% if I understand how the maths works)
What's also interesting is whether behaviours change in a mass trial - eg vaccinated people are more risk-taking after the vaccine therefore their exposure is greater and so the actual result could be understated.
Woohoo, just been offered my second jab for next week. Can't wait to start licking door handles again.
I’m at 10 weeks also and was assumong I’d be contacted for my 2nd jab. After reading your post, I e-mailed the surgery and got an appointment next week. Don’t know if I’d fallen off the list but it was good to check, and I’m happy to have the appointment.
To update: Surgery called me back and said "I was in the next batch" but they didn't have a date for me yet. So I assume it's supply problems ^^ discussed above. They did assure me I'd get it in 12 weeks but it was likely to be quite short notice.
Most clinics are quite flexible with timings too. The 3 I work at don't care what time you turn up as long as its the right day. One is a lot more flexible than that!!!
Not 45 until June, but just managed to book on the website.
I just heard on the news that Tokyo has declared a state of emergency due to coronavirus - surely the olympic games must be in doubt now, unless the state of emergency is keep the spread in check in preparation for the games?
An Indian lady interview this morning, words to the effect of “I’m glad we managed to get a flight, we would have been locked down in Dehli but over here we are free to move around”
FFS
Tokyo news sounds bad.. they've done well so far. Any links?
EDIT: remembered google exists...
Japan has so far avoided an explosive spread of the pandemic that has crippled many countries. There have been a total of about 550,000 cases and 9,761 deaths, which is significantly lower than the numbers seen in other large economies.
"I hope the coronavirus situation improves with the countermeasures the government, Tokyo, and other regional governments have put into place," she told a news conference on Friday.
Tokyo reported 759 new infections on Friday, down from 861 a day earlier when the tally was the highest since Jan. 29, during the previous state of emergency.
Reading that just brings it home how lapse we have been in comparison.
Thanks Theotherjonv.
I think I was having an early morning senior moment. I read it as reducing transmission to other people. I don't get how you would work that out.
But reducing infections that much is great news, especially given that it's basically gone away here now anyway. With some sensible precautions, it shouldn't come back at all. Makes me wonder how this third wave is going to happen.
If you don't get infected, you can't pass it on. So that reduces transmission.
that it’s basically gone away here now anyway
If you call 2500 new tested cases and 25 dead a day "basically gone away".
With the variants the levels of vaccination needed to make it go away are higher than we are likely to achieve so it's going to simmer along rather than go away unless we do more than just vaccinate.
Around here we've got and have had rates as low as the UK for a while and people are going back to their old ways as soon as the law allows. That means that depsite an ever increasing proportion of vaccinated we're got stuck at about 90 people in hospital in departement 64 for months. It hasn't gone away, it's lingering around and risks coming back to bite us again.
especially given that it’s basically gone away here now anyway. With some sensible precautions, it shouldn’t come back at all.
OK then...
With some sensible precautions, it shouldn’t come back at all.
It is never going to go away. As the experts on here have been saying pretty much since page 1. All we've been doing is trying to stop it overwhelming the NHS (see the horrendous scenes from India to see what that would have looked like) while we get vaccines and treatments in place to help us deal with it as our 5th(?) endemic virus.
My area 'Cardiff and Vale' has been offering anyone 18-30 a vaccine on a 'reserve list' basis, just because they're have the pfizer and there's only so much scope for those. It's about a 2 week wait based on my sisters experience Anyone over 30 can have theirs straight away now.
My Wife's vaccine centre is doing 3000 jabs a day 5 days a week, it seems like someone said above, most people want to ride out any side effects during working hours, because they're only booking 60-800 at the weekends and last weekend they sent half the staff home early due to low bookings and high DNA numbers, people deciding it was too nice a day to waste it getting their jab which is shit really, but people are dicks.
Anyway, the effect (and of course the effect of the lockdown) is outstanding, like most of the UK we're one of the few places on Earth able to loosen restrictions AND still have falling figures. The infection rate per 100k in Cardiff is now 22, with around 2% of tests coming back positive, we're the most densely populated part of Wales (4 or 5 times as densely populated as the other cities in Wales and massively more than other areas). Hospital admissions are falling, numbers in hospital falling and most days there are no Covid deaths in Wales.
We're bringing forward the lifting of restrictions here (we've got an election in a few weeks) and, at the moment at least, it's being floated that we might just avoid another surge when restrictions are completely lifted in June / July.
The whole process will probably start again in Sept/Oct.
Exactly, PJay. In rural Wales nobody at all has it. With a fairly effective vaccine, and sensible precautions, it should be possible to keep on top of it.
If you don’t get infected, you can’t pass it on. So that reduces transmission.
Good point, duh!
Surely with an R persistently below 1 you just keep getting fewer and fewer cases until it’s gone?
Surely with an R persistently below 1 you just keep getting fewer and fewer cases until it’s gone?
Just like the flu every year, chrispo, and it comes back every year.
Herd immunity happens when enough of a population has protection against an infection, thus stopping it from spreading.
World Health Organization (WHO) experts have estimated that at least 65%-70% of a population need vaccination coverage before herd immunity is reached.
Mr Leshem said herd immunity was the "only explanation" for Israel's continued fall in cases as more restrictions were lifted.
"There is a continuous decline despite returning to near normalcy," he said.
"This tells us that even if a person is infected, most people they meet walking around won't be infected by them."
From BBC. So why is herd immunity rejected as a possibility on here?
Exactly, PJay. In rural Wales nobody at all has it. With a fairly effective vaccine, and sensible precautions, it should be possible to keep on top of it.
This isn’t what you said to be fair. Or at least it’s not how it reads.
it shouldn’t come back at all
One suggests present but managed and the other eradicated. Even with very low case numbers and prevention of serious illness it’ll still be around, imported, exported whatever.
Herd Immunity, “I think” is mostly only dismissed via infection only, and even with a vaccine it’s management not eradication. At least that’s how I’ve read the views on this thread. There’s a lot of chat here though tbf.
So why is herd immunity rejected as a possibility on here?
It is not rejected as a “possibility”, it is seen as unlikely, or at least not something we should rely on at this point. Past infection and/or vaccination of enough people will reduce future transmission and more importantly illness. It is unlikely to bring either to an end though, the virus is too easily transmitted for that. And then we don’t know how long the protection from either past infection or vaccination will last, or if changes to the virus will seriously reduce that protection and/or allow the virus to become even more transmissible or change who is at risk from serious illness from it. Barriers/distancing, and track/trace/isolate, and quarantine after travel are tools we will still need to use, at least for this year and this winter. Vaccines are not the only tool in town, although they are the most powerful, and welcomed with open arms by most of us.
From BBC. So why is herd immunity rejected as a possibility on here?
We arguably have herd immunity for flu from past infections and vaccination, but it comes back every year.
From BBC. So why is herd immunity rejected as a possibility on here?
One of the concerns is that there are defined pockets of low vaccine uptake often in deprived ares and those with substantial ethnic minority communities. So while in theory a small outbreak in an area with a high level of vaccination shouldn't spread widely, in an area with a much lower level of vaccination, you could still get rapid spread within that population and small pockets of high infection levels.
As far as 'rejected as a possibility on here' goes. I suspect there's an element of the term itself having been damaged by its association with a failed, disastrous government policy early in the pandemic, so it's become a sort of shorthand for that. There's also the proviso that the development of variants is a ticking time bomb and/or a race between further vaccine development and the spread of variants against which vaccines are less effective.
So why is herd immunity rejected as a possibility on here?
Just dipping in to this thread for the first time in ages, so apologies if I've got the wrong end of the stick. I don't think herd immunity as a way out of this is rejected per se, just how that herd immunity is reached. Herd immunuty achieved through a robust vaccination program and appropriate lockdowns is how it should work. The fact that here in Israel all the shops are open, I can mingle with the crowds whilst wearing no mask, go to a football match or sit in a restaurant supports this. Herd immunity through allowing everyone to get infected and recover (or otherwise) - something along the lines of the Great Barrington Declaration I guess - would technically still work eventually, but it would likely involve hundreds of thousands of deaths and a crippled health service. I'm guessing this is the method of reaching herd immunity that people reject.
I think masks should be voluntary by the start of summer.
On Europe 1 this morning the level of vaccination needed for herd immunity with the more infectious Kent, Brazilian and South African variants was stated as over 90% and a vaccine for children is needed to have any hope of attaining it. Even then 90% is unlikely given observed uptake.
Can I also slightly burst everyone's happy bubble, there are parts of the UK with high deprivation, people with chaotic lives large immigrant populations, where English isn't well understood, high density, multi generation homes where the infection rate is still fairly high, where vaccine take up is low, and because overall health outcomes are poor, folk are still hugely vulnerable to this disease. The GP practices in these areas,( like mine for instance) are still getting the same per dose funding as well off neighbourhoods, with motivated well educated mobile and more willing patients.
Like other diseases, this will remain a threat in low income and deprived areas for sometime yet, so when folk say things like
I think masks should be voluntary by the start of summer.
I kind of loose the will to go on, just a bit...
@airvent - reckon you will be lucky, with the push on "its not for you, its to protect people from you" its going to be difficult. the only way it would happen is either a "if you are concerned/vulnerable you can protect yourself" or a complete "all clear" signal.
I know a few normally rational people who would like to see mask wearing in public long term, I would be happy with a slight culture shift that symptomatic people take precautions, ideally stay at home.
(anyone about to start the but but but asymptomatic transmission piece - dont waste your breath on me)
Personally i would throw the masks in the bin right now as pretty ineffective visual placebo. But at the same time, if a shop, venue, aircraft 'wants' me to wear a mask, im not against it
Can I also slightly burst everyone’s happy bubble, there are parts of the UK with high deprivation, people with chaotic lives large immigrant populations, where English isn’t well understood, high density, multi generation homes where the infection rate is still fairly high, where vaccine take up is low, and because overall health outcomes are poor, folk are still hugely vulnerable to this disease. The GP practices in these areas,( like mine for instance) are still getting the same per dose funding as well off neighbourhoods, with motivated well educated mobile and more willing patients.
And how does me wearing a mask fix that?
I think masks should be voluntary by the start of summer.
Well, you’ll probably be in luck, because this government will be looking to offer something to the “freedom!” lobby and voters this summer, to try and make up for a winter of having to enforce stricter measures on everyone due to acting too late (ironically partly because they had one eye on those same people). Wearing masks in indoor public places is a tiny inconvenience to help avoid stricter measures again next winter. The trade off between the freedom to shop or gig mask free in 2021, and avoiding another wave winter 21/22 seems a no brainier to me… but there will be a noisy minority of people who think the opposite, and Johnson wants to be popular with those people. Voluntary mask wearing will come this summer, sadly, and the divisions and tensions that stirs up will be used politically.
To be clear, I was against the public being mandated to wear masks early in this pandemic, but we now know so much more about both this virus and how the UK public can wear masks during a pandemic that I have completely changed my mind.
So. Post AZ injection 8 days ago my wife has a persistent headache since yesterday morning. Woke up with it again today. Paracetamol & ibuprofen not touched it. No out of Hours GP round here.
Ive told her to go to A&E. Am I wrong?
She does suffer from headaches. Classes this one as Moderate.
Ive told her to go to A&E. Am I wrong?
I'm no expert but I'd do the same, so I'd say definitely not wrong. Bit of inconvenience, very small risk of catching something there, but I'd say this definitely falls under the category of 'better safe than sorry'. I wouldn't panic, because it's very much more likely to be nothing than something, but definitely worth getting checked considering the potential consequences if it is something bad.
@dantsw13 I had a moderate headache that wouldn't clear with paracetamol and ibuprofen doses from last Sat midday until late morning Weds, which started to subside while waiting for my GP practice to call me back having called 111 mid morning.
I was advised to go to A&E if it returned, thankfully it didn't.
And how does me wearing a mask fix that?
Edit. It's because there are still large population areas that haven't been vaccinated yet, and continue, for various reasons, not to be.
Ive told her to go to A&E. Am I wrong?
Nope.
I had a moderate headache that wouldn’t clear
I had the same.
Reassure her AND help her to get checked out.
Not panicking, just weighing up the risks/benefits.
Ive been giving out this advice in the Vaccination centre, but its so hard to measure actual headaches in people.
I guess the flooding of A&E with headaches was an inevitable side effect of continuing use of AZ.
Currently waiting for a nurse from 111 to call back. I can't see how they can say anything other than A&E.
I wonder if they've noted the change in MHRA guidance from 4 days duration of headache to any persistent headache starting 4 days after the jab.
Are we not at or near a stage where everyone in these deprived urban pockets has had exposure to the virus even if they haven’t been vaccinated?
And with most people elsewhere vaccinated, why should it ever take hold and become a third wave?
Barring some ninja mutant, I can’t get my head around why it won’t just gradually fizzle out now as the population becomes more immune.
And I know we don’t know how long immunity will last, but surely it doesn’t have to be that long the way cases are falling.
Well the common cold which is often caused by one of a number of corona viruses is still around after a few hundred years and has yet to fizzle out.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3416289/
SaRs CoV 1 did fizzle out but that wasn't as infectious.
I for one was against mask wearing at the beginning. However with the knowledge we now have regarding aerosols being breathed into the air I am now (as Kelvin says) all for them. So much so that I'll be wearing one for ages to come.
As mentioned it is a tiny inconvenience and may just stop one other person from catching C19.
A quick question: Why is the test different here to Switzerland? Here in the UK we have to swab the back of the throat down towards the tonsils, then a good poking around the nose cavity.
In Switzerland they just poke the test stick into the nostril. How can that kind of test give a proper result?
As mentioned it is a tiny inconvenience and may just stop one other person from catching C19.
In your opinion maybe. Not in mine though.
I see we have the scientists in the room t'day
Which bit? The inconvenience, or the potential for reducing or stopping transmission?
I see we have the scientists in the room t’day
I was referring to the tiny inconvenience part not the transmission part. No idea if they work or not.
So why is it a significant inconvenience, compared to the potential benefits?
Yeh I couldn't understand the post either
So why is it a significant inconvenience, compared to the potential benefits?
I feel uncomfortable wearing it and I prefer to see people's faces when I interact with them, it's much more personable that way.
I still wear them, but I believe by summer we should have got the virus under control enough to make wearing them voluntary. I don't think that's an unreasonable target to aim for given we already have certain social/non essential setting where they don't need to be worn such as eating and drinking outside (and soon to be inside).
I don't disagree it's an inconvenience. It is. My glasses steam up, I need to remember to carry one, we have to wash and dry them frequently or shell out for disposable ones. You can't see people smile, or lip read them if you need to.
I'm just interested why avoiding that inconvenience trumps potentially passing on a significantly debilitating disease - maybe not to the person you transmit to, but to someone they then contact? There must be a good reason?
And I get the risk is small and increasingly smaller (decreasingly smaller? YKWIM), but continuing with these IMHO minor inconveniences to avoid a major inconvenient future as best we can?
[sorry, posts crossed. I think you're wrong, sure it is nicer without but I think we should continue to do it for as long as necessary, and then some more to make sure it's properly crushed. Appreciate YMMV, and respect your right to think differently]
I’m just interested why avoiding that inconvenience trumps potentially passing on a significantly debilitating disease – maybe not to the person you transmit to, but to someone they then contact? There must be a good reason?
And I get the risk is small and increasingly smaller (decreasingly smaller? YKWIM), but continuing with these IMHO minor inconveniences to avoid a major inconvenient future as best we can?
[sorry, posts crossed. I think you’re wrong, sure it is nicer without but I think we should continue to do it for as long as necessary, and then some more to make sure it’s properly crushed. Appreciate YMMV, and respect your right to think differently]
The thing is the virus isn't going away ever probably, that's been said by all the top scientists now. So at what point do we deem it safe to stop wearing masks, there has to be a point where we decide that and we should aim for that to be as soon as is safely possible. I haven't said that time is now, but by summer all vulnerable people will have had second doses and at the current rate of decline there will be rock bottom prevalence of the disease. It's unlikely to ever get more safe than that - the flu is over 100 years old now and that still kills tens of thousands of people here alone.
it is a tiny inconvenience
It's a massive ****ing ball ache for me wearing one at school all day, my throat also suffers from having to talk so much louder. I also spend half my day telling kids to wear it properly.
my opinion.....
I think we won't have it nailed down before the end of the summer, we may in the UK possibly but if we are to reopen our economy properly, including tourism (both going overseas and also overseas visitors) then we need other measures to compensate. I think then a winter resurgence plus the potential for mutations needs controlling now in preparation rather than future harsher measures.
So things like SD, face coverings, track and trace (if only!) maybe limiting numbers in indoor settings still so things like SD and pre-event screening tests can still be managed.
By not letting it get away from us again (as i said, do as much as we think we need and then some more) I think then we can see what mutation vs vaccine efficiency looks like in a controlled way, develop future endemic vax strategies, better treatments, even potentially observe that as mutations occur there is a tendency (poss anecdotal but have heard a few times) towards reduced severity - virus needs to infect new hosts to survive, not kill them - and so on.
I'm prepared for another year of something like what I imagine later on this summer will look like. If I'm wrong and it's better than that, I'll be glad I was wrong and happy to admit it.
Thanks for sharing your viewpoint also.
my throat also suffers from having to talk so much louder.
If its any help I get this from the sheer amount of - pretty much all day - Teams meetings. Anyway, second Jab just received...
I still wear them, but I believe by summer we should have got the virus under control enough to make wearing them voluntary
When the virus is under control, yes they should be voluntary.
The way this shit has gone in the last 15 months, I'm not bothering to wish for a timescale on it though. I'll leave that to the experts. And I'll listen to the expert advice, not go by government advice, seeing how well that panned out September, October, then Christmas.
If its any help I get this from the sheer amount of – pretty much all day – Teams meetings. Anyway, second Jab just received…
Not really, you don't have to make yourself heard over 30 kids, whilst they cough, sneeze and shout!!
I understand the school thing, and other workplaces. I mentioned gigs and shopping… public indoor spaces with lots of people. Keeping mask wearing mandatory there while the pandemic is ongoing worldwide seems wise to me. If optional, well that is going to cause real headaches for venues and staff that want to be open yet keep things as safe as possible later this year.
So at what point do we deem it safe to stop wearing masks
In shops, gigs etc? I suspect next spring, if we manage to keep things quiet in the UK this winter, and the rest of the world is by then on top of vaccinations, meaning high risk new variants become far less likely.
You can already sit with your mates in the beer garden without masks. Sociability is becoming far easier already. The right to risk spreading while you buy a few things down the coop for tea is one we can live without for a bit longer. It’s not really that difficult is it? My glasses steaming up is a right pain, but the trade off (opening up more venues without it meaning more people becoming seriously ill) is well worth it. Think of all the hospitality venues shut for months now… let’s get them open, and use the tools we have to do so as safely as possible.
Madame is resigned to wearing a mask while teaching for a long time to come. It's been shown to work with zero transmission in her school since mask wearing was imposed. The vast majority of parents want it, the teachers want it as most aren't vaccinated. Yes it's a pain. The kids don't moan about the masks but keeping all the windows open is a constant battle as they get cold sitting down despite having their jackets on, it's warming up nicely now thankfully.
Shops I agree with Kelvin, it's not difficult.
Where it gets more complicated is pubs, venues, cinemas... but there it's a choice, with the exception of the people working in them nobody is obliged to go there so it's a conscious decision to risk take and if society can cope with that i.e. the stress on the health service is within accptable limits then I'm in favour of opening. Nobody stops me riding a bike or skiing* because I might take up a hospital bed and at some point we have to let ravers rave if they are prepared to provide a vaccination certificate and/or take a quick test on the way in.
* skiing was banned here in March last year because there weren't enough hospital beds in the ski regions due to Covid pressure but this year anyone prepared to ski up can ski down again.
Bike riding and skiing aren’t contagious though, are they? [ well, arguably they are, but there’s still a free choice to have a go at them when a keen friend tries talking you into having a go ]
Agree about getting “ravers raving”, if you mean organised gigs, festival and club nights… a real rave involves no permission and is buy its nature impossible to organise or enforce any measures. But masks will help get these events going again, not prevent them.
As it happens Ed, you put the case very well for mask wearing when opening things up again last year, when I was arguing (wrongly in hindsight I feel) the opposite. You were one of the people that changed my mind (together with us all gaining more knowledge about how this virus spreads).
Venues and events here need the government to provide the rules to help them to reopen, and stay open. Leaving it to the choice of the venue owner, or event organiser, or worse still each attendee, is not helping the sector to get going again. That approach risks condemning the sector to a financially impossible situation of only partial opening, or a series of unplanned stop starts to their schedules this year.
Bike riding and skiing aren’t contagious though, are they?
This is becoming less important with easily available rapid test kits. Everyone who attends those kind of events is now well aware of the risk to themself, and rapid testing can mean that if they do catch it there, they can avoid spreading it to others who choose not to attend by isolating afterwards even if asymptomatic by checking themselves with rapid tests.
I can't remember if I used the analogy before on here, or just in conversation with people but we're embarking on the equivalent of a long bike ride. Some parts are going to be harder than others but if we want to ride down the hills we're going to have to ride up them as well.
On a societal level, to enable us to go to gigs or theatres or pubs or restaurants, where transmission risk will be higher we're going to have to endure some inconveniences elsewhere. Whether that be longer queues for temperature checks or showing you've done your LFT earlier, or wearing face coverings in shops or on public transport, minimising transmission to compensate for the higher transmission elsewhere, I think that's the balance.
But i can't see how to adequately do that, TBH. Especially as the beneficiaries of the more relaxed rules in clubs and gigs will probably not be the ones most affected by the restrictions. But the kids (said in the voice of (P)Rik ) have already missed so much.
I think you put it well. Better than my attempts to any way. There are people whose careers/jobs are on hold, and everyone else is missing out on the joy their work helps us discover, and if we can get these heavily impacted/damaged sectors going again, and mitigate the risk of doing so with mask wearing, let’s do that.
I used skiing and bike riding as examples because they put a quantifyable stress on hospitals in the regions concerned. About 300 people a year kill themselves in the French mountains and 800 doing some kind of sport somewhere. 10s of thousands wind up in hospital. The ski resorts in the Alps were closed mainly to free off the trauma beds for Covid victims that would normally have been occupied by skiers. They were also closed because it didn't take long to figure out that cramming people into gondolas was excellent for the virus and bad for humans.
We know that when people socialise indoors, especially without masks (anywhere people eat or drink) it is going to result in transmission even if the virus is only circulating at low levels. At some point we have to say that the hospitals can cope and if people are prepared to take the risk of catching the virus we have to let them (there will always be a risk because no amount of testing will pick up every Covid carrier - the tests aren't sensitive or reliable enough) - just as I appreciate being allowed to take sporting risks even though allowing people to take sporting risks keeps some hospitals very busy we'll have to open everything sometime and accept the inevitable hospital cases.
The questions every national leader has to take are:
what to open up
when
and under what conditions
Not an enviable task and you'll inevitably be damned if you do and damned if you don't. Macron knows that if France isn't pretty much back to normal by 14/7 his reelection chances are seriously compromised.
An amusing anecdote. The biggest roadie club in France meets 1km from my house (but I ride with a much lower key MTB club). They've been very visibly ignoring the restrictions so the Gendarmes stopped them and fined them, 135e each and 500e for the club.
I’ve spent time in a French hospital after biking in the Pyrenees, you do make a good point.
Your point about tests is also good.
I imagine most national leaders will want everything open, and simple measures like mask wearing continued if that is the trade off. Better than the other way around, economically and in terms of popularity with the voters.
I think that's what all national leaders want. Conspicuous though are the ones who realise they can't have it and take the hard decisions at the right time. Jacinda Ardern for example.
I'm quite indulgent when judging the actions of European leaders. I was frustrated by the laxism at the start of the virus and made that clear at he start of the thread. There was no quarantine, no mask wearing (and no masks), hardly any restriction on returning travellers and we paid the price. But the more I got a grip on the numbers of people moving the more I realised the immensity of the problem and the impracticality of trying to put a gendarme behind everyone entering a country. The flows in New Zealand are tiny compared with European borders. You only have to drive along a motorway crossing a number of borders to get a measure of the problem. There was little to be gained from strict measures on incoming travellers in any one place while the neighbours had open borders.
It's an on-going issue. People need to eat if nothing else. Somthing like
45% of UK food is imported, 26% coming from the EU. Just imposing tests on truck drivers at the border created chaos for a period. Imposing a New zealand style blockade and quarantine would have had shelves empty and fresh food shortages in weeks - panic buying would have had people on low incomes and empty cupboards going hungry. By the time quarantine was even considered the cat was properly out of the bag.
I don't deny that the management in most countries at the start was a shambles, but I don't think I'd have done much better myself. Where I think I could have done better was later on in September; "eat out to help out" was ****ing nuts, people could have been nudged or forced into taking more care of themselves and less risks whilst stil being more economically active, news and information from many sources was dire - Sky news was still putting up the same guidance 9 months after they first showed it (perhaps they still are I haven't viewed recently). There was too much shock horror confronting libertinarianism and not enough pedagogical guidance.
That's still the case, from lockdown to gung ho! Here we go! On this side of the Channel we're off the leash on 3/5 whilst a couple of months behind you in terms of vaccination and playing catch up. I'm optimistic that vaccination, dry Summer air and the good sense of the majority will get us through the Summer - fingers crossed. And from September on we're in the hands of the labs hopeing they can keep look after us.
Some parts are going to be harder than others but if we want to ride down the hills we’re going to have to ride up them as well.
We've got an ebike now though.
just make sure you don't assume that's the fix for everything. Because if the battery goes flat 'cos you nailed it too hard in the areas where you should have pedalled, you'll find yourself with a 50lb bike and a big hill between you and the car park.
Surely the scale of casualties in India's second wave has to make one conclude that any data from Wuhan is absolute bobbins?
Predicted 5k deaths a day and they have knowledge of what they are dealing with, not some unknown pneumonia-like illness which the authorities are desparately trying to cover up.
Who can forget tales of people being barricaded into their own homes for the duration of lockdown etc?
Thanks to the WHO, at least we now know that the virus probably originated outside of PRC and was, most likely, imported in a packet of frozen fish fingers.
With regards to India, this is sadly what a swamped healthcare system looks like. India is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer and they have a good roll out. But the population is enormous and there are still vast numbers of susceptibles. The strain circulating is being monitored here and there had been 77 cases reported. Whether it is the new strain that has escaped or simply a relaxation of caution remains unclear.
My suspicion would be that there is nothing extraordinary about the variant and one would hope that vaccination status here affords cross protection. There is little data, however.
@dantsw13 head for A&E. I am sure they’ll take you very seriously. We’re it not for perceptions of waiting times and overburden, this is exactly why you would go. I went a few years ago fearing a DVT based on swelling and neuropathy in an arm (my wife had one) and they couldn’t have been more helpful. A platelet test will be straightforward one imagines.
The Indian varient is much more contaigeous than the original in Wuhan and much harder to contain, and let's face it India isn't trying very hard, nowhere near as hard as China.
Data from most countries is bobbins, excess deaths gives a better picture. I dont think the Chinese have "hidden" any more deaths than the UK. They've both used questionable criteria and no doubt not classed enough Covid victims as Covid victims, but the numbers are close enough to reality to be useable.
I don't think trying to blame the Chinese or rubbish the WHO is helpful. Joining the conspiracy theorists even less so. Better just to admit we don't and will probably never know.
I dont think the Chinese have “hidden” any more deaths than the UK.
Okay...
I don’t think trying to blame the Chinese or rubbish the WHO is helpful.
Oh I do. Surely they have a lot to answer for? In the UK sure our main issue was scrapping of the pandemic preparations years ago, but on a global scale the WHO has failed miserably in one of its primary reasons for existence, and failed to get a grip on the issue with China early on enough. There are suggestions that they were slightly in bed with China which may or may not be true but either way the outcome is the same, they completely failed to contain this global health emergency when they should have nipped it in the bud very early on. I think it caught them sleeping and they should be held accountable for their part in this.
You can blame individual countries for not listening to the WHO or failing to action their recommendations etc etc but if that's the case then you could argue why do they even exist in the first place?
There are suggestions that they were slightly in bed with China which may or may not be true
Conspiracy theory stuff.
they completely failed to contain this global health emergency when they should have nipped it in the bud very early on.
You can say that of every other country on the planet excep New Zealand and a few other remote islands. The virus was out of China and spreading before the Chinese had fully realised what they were dealing with themselves. Retro testing of blood samples has pushed back the existance of the virus in France to November 2019:
Given the level of world-wide exchange with people in Wuhan "nipping it in the bud" before it got out was totally unrealistic. Fact is that people were ill and dying from pneumonia (covid) in the rest of the world before even the Chinese had realised they were dealing with a new virus, and that's proven by retro-testing of blood samples. Li Wenliang revealed the virus to the world in December 2019, a month after it had already infected people in Paris.
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-wuhan-whistleblower-recalled-a-year-after-death/a-56480094
You can blame individual countries for not listening to the WHO or failing to action their recommendations etc etc but if that’s the case then you could argue why do they even exist in the first place?
I imagine they exist because it’s better to try to get countries to do the right thing, than not to try at all.
You might be interested in the current situation in Laos, the authoritarian landlocked regime between China, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. An ex of mine has lived there since 1999, and I did a lot of cycling in that area 20 years ago, hence my interest.
Like Vietnam and Thailand, Laos had had a 'good' Covid - total shutdown of borders just before Easter 2020, almost no cases or fatalities. Internal restrictions pretty light, some economic hardship due to the country's reliance on tourism and foreign aid. My ex hasn't been able to leave, or even receive post. She has been vaccinated though (AZ), applying online for doses supplied by the Covax programme (there have also been large donations of the Sinopharm vaccine from China).
Unfortunately, illegal traffic across the Mekong has recently triggered an outbreak from Thailand (probably ultimately from India, via Myanmar migrant workers). The capital was locked down instantly last week, the rest of the country following within a few days.
As a poor country with rudimentary health care, Laos simply doesn't have that pool of frail elderly, chronically ill and/or obese potential victims that we and even India have. They haven't survived long enough to get Covid. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out.