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Well, I'm very grateful for getting it that's for sure. I was expecting it on March or April.
Im assuming the idea is you get it to prevent you falling ill and not being able to look after your dependent, rather than to prevent transmission to them.
Which makes sense, but at same time surely the same arguement could be made for any single parent?
Care “home “ staff group 1. Home informal cares group 6 - get it in your arm 👍
Tp - there is already a study with Oxford showing reduced transmission. MRNA expected to be even more so, just no proof yet.
Tp – there is already a study with Oxford showing reduced transmission. MRNA expected to be even more so, just no proof yet.
That's great news if so.
Here's a question for those in the know. My 75 mum has just had the pfizor jab and she seem to think that once she's had her 2 doses she'll be less at risk than me (currently unvaccinated). She basically thinks the worst shed get would be 'a bit of a cold
I was under the impresdion it would probably stop an old person from going to hospital, but they'd quite possibly suffer a fairly nasty illness and are still more at risk than a young healthy person
I'm not sure I want to break this news to her though if true, she's been waiting for a jab for 12 months!!
Unpaid carers are a current target for vaccination… I half heard it on the radio today.
Booked it at the same place as my mum had hers in the hope they are doing the Pfizer there still due to having the refrigeration facilities they have.
Makes little difference at our hub, they inject what they get sent. Some days Pfizer, some days AZ.
I expect you're right mate, I'll be more than happy to get either.
The 2 centre are about the same distance away so it was just a handy way of deciding which to go to. In truth I could have just flipped a coin im sure.
My day is complete....
There's a bell end vaccine sceptic keeps posting his bile on the local council's Covid related FB posts. Tonight he's linked to the ONS report showing that reported adverse effects (bit fluey, under the weather) from the vaccine are about 3-4 in every 1000, and is not happy that I feel that this undermines his argument somewhat 🤣
Nope.. you have said along you look after your old dear, doesn’t need to be in a care home setting. That defo counts as a carer for group 6 criteria.
Remember you have been exemplary in your actions to isolate yourself.
Most informal carers probably unable or unwilling to do the same.
Protecting them (even if they are vaccinated there is still a chance) gets us as a country some benefit.
Plus if you got ill, who provides your mother care temporarily? Across the whole population that’s a lot of emergency carers to spawn.
Well, got my jab next booked for Monday. All done via a link in a text message
Me too. I'm 'only' 47. Thought I'd be one of the last. 🤔
Exclusive: Covid lockdown to continue until cases drop below 1,000 a day
A senior Whitehall source said: "For any significant relaxation of lockdown, household mixing and reopening pubs, case numbers have to be in the hundreds, not thousands.
"The numbers are coming down quite fast, but the plan is likely to be high level and set out the tests that have to be met for restrictions to be released. There is real reluctance about committing to specific dates without knowing what the case numbers are doing."
- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/16/covidlockdown-continue-cases-drop-1000-day/
Apart from being the Torygraph it's behind a pay wall
Apart from being the Torygraph it’s behind a pay wall
That's why I quoted the important bit. It being the Torygraph, they might have better sources than others within the current administration.
turns out my 75yr old next door neighbor and his wife refused their vaccines and are deep into the covid conspiracy theories.
Saw him over the hedge as i was putting the bins out last night and made the mistake of asking if he'd had his jab yet...I should have guessed as the last 'conversation' i had with him was an anti mask wearing and lockdown rant a couple of months back.
Another essential More Or Less. Always worth a listen.
BTW does anyone know why the daily vaccination rate starts lowest on Monday and ramps up to max out at the weekend?
Most of the staff manning the COVID site near me are staff from local GP practices, we have to balance still running our practices, some who are short staffed because of outbreaks of COVID or shielding staff, with releasing staff to the COVID site in enough numbers so that we can safely open batch of vaccine (that has to be used in 3 days) and use it completely. Throw into that, that we don't generally know which vaccine we're getting more than a few days out. Most of our deliveries seem to happen on Thursday/Friday and we then have to get the patients lined up, over book to account for DNAs and get the staff motivated to do a couple of extra days work.
turns out my 75yr old next door neighbor and his wife refused their vaccines and are deep into the covid conspiracy theories.
My only issue with that is that they will no doubt both expect hospital treatment when they get horribly ill.
I understand young folks not wanting it, but a 75 year-old refusing the vaccine is just plain dumb..
Shielding extended until end of March.
NickC - do you know why the NHS seem to have recruited & trained thousands of vaccinators, then completely ignored us all?
No doubt it comes down to budgets, contracts and money in the end. I know hundreds who have gone through the whole tortuous NHS professionals recruitment/training/background process to never hear anything again once they are “forwarded to a lead trust for on-boarding”
U.K. coronavirus challenge trial
The first approved trial challenging fit young volunteers against live virus.
There were also 3 care workers near me chatting. They didn’t want the jab but were scared of their boss bullying them into getting it, but many of their colleagues wouldn’t.
This has a simple (ish) solution. No jab, no job as they pose a risk to the clients.
This has a simple (ish) solution. No jab, no job as they pose a risk to the clients
This was done before. Not sure thats actually allowed under employment law
That said, I'm not sure if id want a carer looking after an elderly relative of mine if they hadn't had the jab, especially if evidence is begining to show that it helps prevent transmission.
@tp - it is allowed. You can’t force the jab, but you can make it mandatory for the job. For example I have to have Yellow Fever vaccine.
I just caught up with Monday's xkcd guide to how vaccines work.
I'd pay to see this:
To ensure lasting immunity, doctors recommend destroying a second Death Star some time after the first.
The first approved trial challenging fit young volunteers against live virus.
Influenza has a long history of challenge. Now there is a decent antibody as possible rescue, I'm less concerned, but would not be volunteering myself (too old). Antivirals in particular, have a poor record in challenge studies. But there are some successes. This is an example of an influenza antibody. Needs a big dose
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28807912/
Interesting Guardian article on poverty and Covid
I thought that article would get a response
Maybe because it's been depressingly clear from the start that the poor have been and will continue to be much harder hit by this pandemic. It's partly why I fail to get outraged when I hear about people breaking lockdown rules as we just don't know their background situation and whilst it's not too much hardship for the cosy, middle classes with family homes/gardens to stay home there are millions out there dealing with much worse home lives.
I thought that article would get a response
I was sleeping!
It really highlights the impact of long term socioeconomic inequalities and a complete lack of understanding of how this has impacted those groups, all squarely resting on government policies in the last 10, 20, 30, years. And don't get me started on track and trace.
You'd think constituency MPs and the press would have been banging this drum louder to push the government to take more effective action. When Hunt starts looking like the voice of pragmatic reason something is wrong.
The fact that these communities have been abandoned by government and have no choice but to break the guidelines to get by, then reinforces their alienation with the system and encourages some to deliberately break the guidelines.
Good news on the BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56098313
There has been a "strong decline" in levels of coronavirus infections in England since January, say scientists tracking the epidemic.
Imperial College London's React study found infections have dropped by two-thirds across England since lockdown began, with an 80% fall in London.
Time to use the parachute analogy again, I think.
When they lifted lockdown v1 we were in a similar situation. The London R rate was very low but in the regions it was much higher. I'd like to think we won't make the same mistake again but sadly I'm not convinced.
Predictably The Daily Hate is calling for accelerated re-opening. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it etc.
Rates are still high in a few places, need to be driven right down everywhere, not just in 90% of the country. Still think we need a fortnight of 'mega-lockdown' at the end of this 'fairly relaxed lockdown', with Australia-style enforced restrictions/curfews, to push rates down to the absolute minimum. Obviously not much fun, but we experienced the alternative last year, which was the virus re-seeding itself pretty rapidly after lockdown was eased. With the more transmissible strains (and one which potentially renders vaccines less effective), then the virus has the ability to bounce back more swiftly.
ah, you are hilarious martinhutch.
When they lifted lockdown v1 we were in a similar situation. The London R rate was very low but in the regions it was much higher. I’d like to think we won’t make the same mistake again but sadly I’m not convinced.
rates are pretty much zero here already, maybe we should have a tiered system...
Vaccinations - why is London so far behind the rest of the UK? A simplistic view would be that roll-out would be easier/quicker in an area of more dense population. Or is this because there is a lower number of higher-risk groups?
Obviously not much fun
That's quite the understatement. I have been speaking to various friends, and work colleagues who are really really struggling right now. It's been almost a year, people are hanging on by a thread, myself included.
rates are pretty much zero here already, maybe we should have a tiered system…
Please god, no... some areas have never come out of measures... let's get levels low enough there as well, please.
There needs to be a good look at why though. Leicester for example just won't come down. Hasn't it been in lockdown since just after the summer?
ah, you are hilarious martinhutch.
In what way?
I just want to give us a chance to get track and trace working for us properly. Last year all the massive sacrifices people made in lockdown were squandered because the virus wasn't squashed down in the regions before reopening. Poor Greater Manchester was back in restrictions almost immediately.
The government needs to understand that the economic cost of bungling the reopening process far exceeds the cost of paying people to stay home properly for a short period of very intense restrictions with a view to having a more normal summer. I'm not suggesting lockdown needs to be longer overall.
I live close to Bradford where rates are actually rising right now. Setting policy on national averages is dangerous - we've seen exactly quickly the Kent variant took hold and spread into surrounding regions during the November 'lockdown'.
Admittedly, we should expect vaccination to significantly reduce overall mortality, but the burden of disease in unvaccinated groups is still not trivial. ICUs had plenty of people in their 40s and 50s this time around, and long covid is not to be sniffed at in younger people.
I think Londons age profile is relatively low.
Relaxing restrictions by region should, in theory, help by allowing financial intervention to be better targeted. I'm not convinced any of the Governments are capable of that and I also think it discourages those in the worse areas from behaving responsibly.
Poor Greater Manchester
Yip. We had the dizzy heights of Tier 2 for a week I think it was. Always been in the highest tier. I don't see much being given up at the beginning of March. Maybe some kids back at school. I'd just like to meet a couple of people outside somewhere.