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.
Went to Wales yesterday. A trip I've been looking forward to for 13 months (originally planned for that fateful March 2020 weekend).
I could not be more happy 🙂
And I ache. Us softie southerners dont have sustained climbingor descending for that long.
I dont think the Chinese have “hidden” any more deaths than the UK.
This has to be one of the most ridiculous statements on this thread and there's some stiff competition.
But the population is enormous
This. I took a look into the size and population of India and in fact the current peak is not a serious as our last one on a population basis, but as TiRed says the headlines and very sad death rate over there due to overwhelmed health services is what is making the headlines.
Its pleasing to hear that other countries including ours are sending ventilators and oxygen to help.
Its saddening to hear that AZ/Netherlands are throwing away 11 million doses that could maybe have gone to India because the Netherlands have decided they aon't want them anymore. I find this appalling, that government should be ashamed of themselves.
The Indian varient is much more contaigeous than the original in Wuhan and much harder to contain
Wheres the data to prove that? Its still being reviewed as a variant, so that guess might be right or it could be wrong but right now you don't know.
The social interactions increased after the government stated the country was past the pandemic and religious festivals went ahead with huge mass gatherings and life went back to normal, they got sloppy. So could be a result of that as opposed to this variant being way worse than anything else.
I dont think the Chinese have “hidden” any more deaths than the UK.
Best comment on the post by far. Same as the Xinjiang internment camps are merely to help teach the Uyghurs Muslims worthwhile stuff and are not a prison of any sort eh?
We're talking Covid numbers not internment of Muslins. I suggest starting a thread in support of Uyghurs Muslims if you wish to discuss the topic, I'll lend my voice of support.
Compare Chinese excess deaths figures in what I hope you would consider a reliable source:
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n415
with the UK:
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n799
The excess death numbers show that Wuhan was the only province seriously affected, there were no excess deaths in the rest of China. That corresponds with Chinese reporting of Covid deaths. There's clearly under reporting in both countries but the excess deaths data says that the level of "hiding" is comparable.
Larry, it would be a guess to say that the Indian variant is more contagious than any of the other main variants spreading across continents right now (including the Kent one), but it is not a guess to say it is more contagious than the one that hit Wuhan, and travelled from China around the world back in winter 19/20. Things have moved on.
As for China “hiding more deaths”… no, they just used draconian measures to contain things. They didn’t mess about, they locked neighbourhoods down in a way that we here just never would, and India also wouldn’t (and arguably could not). Their medical response was also ramped up almost shockingly fast, and secure in terms of transmission in a way we haven’t even managed a year later.
And now we have the EU & Ireland suing AZ. Talk about kicking a gift horse in the mouth, what an evil bunch of arseholes.
And now we have the EU & Ireland suing AZ. Talk about kicking a gift horse in the mouth, what an evil bunch of arseholes.
Sorry that's ambiguous, who in your opinion are the "evil bunch of arseholes"? I wouldn't resereve that jusdgement for any of the parties mentioned in your post myself, I'll reserve that for whoever was putting pressure on AZ.
Edit: judges have powers to access information that even governments don't. I see it as a way to extract information the EU and Ireland don't have access to without getting legal.
who in your opinion are the “evil bunch of arseholes?
The EU, for distracting and potentially suing one of major providers of vaccine at a point in time when their undivided attention for what they do is needed most.
Just my opinion likely tainted by the frankly awful day I've had at work.
but it is not a guess to say it is more contagious than the one that hit Wuhan, and travelled from China around the world back in winter 19/20. Things have moved on.
Yes and just because it's a variant doesn't mean it's more contaigeous than another, it could well be but Edukator made a bold statement without any proof at this current time.
If you believe China recorded all their deaths correctly as the western world has done then I have some magic beans for sale you can buy off me.
And now we have the EU & Ireland suing
Where is that Ireland is a separate party to the EU action? only reports I can find just say it’s an EU action, including RTE the Irish state broadcaster.
If you believe China recorded all their deaths correctly as the western world has done then I have some magic beans for sale you can buy off me
Can you offer any credible evidence that their death numbers are grossly inaccurate ? There was certainly an initial cover up, local leaders not wanting to pass bad news up the line etc etc. But as kelvin said, once the response started they didn't mess around.... an authoritarian/communist government does have some advantages.
The Chinese Govt have such a stranglehold they can say anything they like. The Govt message is the only version of the truth.
Satelite images of hospital car parks support the idea Covid was present in Wuhan from about August 2019. French athletes who visited Whuhan in October fell sick with a respiratory illness and blood samples of sick French people prove the virus was present in Paris in November 2019.
Thing is the French authorities didn't suspect a new virus and there would have been no reason for the Chinese authorities to initially. At some point it got serious enough for them to do the research that led them to discovering Covid. From the point they made that discovery to the point it was revealed to the world you can talk about a "cover up". We don't know how long that was, Li Wenliang blew the whistle and the Chinese propaganda machine took over. But the important thing was that Li Wenliang's revelations made the propaganda machine irrelevant, the news was out and it was up to the rest of the world to react, which it didn't, for months. The rest of the world stood and stared like rabbits into headlights, went skiing, flew the world, went to church, refused to wear masks, wrung its hands... .
Those same satelite images give us an idea of the scale of the problem too. It was visible but not catastrophic, by the time they had to build an emergency hospital events were being reported worlwide. The "cover up didn't last long enough for huge numbers to die, we know how the virus numbers rise exponentially having observed the same around the world. We know that when the virus hits a country it tends to be localised initally (New York in the US, Tuscany in Italy, Mulhouse in france... Wuhan in China), and the scale of deaths associated with that first wave.
As Kelvin and Paul recognise, once the Chinese realised they had a problem their reaction was impressive. They've had experience with SaRs CoV 1 and other sanitary events and shut down harder and faster than we did in the west thus limiting deaths.
I really think that the Chinese death numbers are in the right ball park. Recording cause of death varies from country to country. In Germany they were talking about retro-testing dead to find if they'd died of Covid to be sure they included everybody, whilst in the UK you have to die within less that 28 days of a positive test to be recorded as a Covid death which is rather short. That's why excess deaths is the most reliable indicator and for those you have my links further up the page. You'll have to believe the BMJ though.
And a question for you anti-Chinese people, would your country have done better if the virus had started there? If the outbreak had started in France with those few unexplained case of pneumonia in November 2019 and slowly built expontially from there without cases arriving from China we would have perhaps found a new virus a few months later and had to lock down five or six months later - just like the Chinese. I don't think we'd have done better.
An anecdote: my mate was working in NE China 20yrs ago on an internationally funded large water infrastructure project. They were very concerned when there was an issue with the flow meters recording unexpected and unexplained differences in flow along some long sections of huge trunk mains. They replaced the meters a couple of times and just couldn't work out the problem. It was obviously due to leakage along the pipeline but they couldn't find it easily due to land access and terrain. So they went out with a 4x4 and found there were some substantial leaks causing loss of valuable water. When they asked the local Govt client for extra resources to fix it they were told that according to the official Govt guidance they don't have any water leakage in China. He showed him the page in his official red book. The project was eventually a disaster due to lots of red tape, policy and lies.
It's an old story but they've got more paranoid about image, dissenters etc since then. I wouldn't trust their official Govt stance on anything. So in many ways they're exactly the same as Boris and his bunch of cronies.
The regime there did enable them to completely shut down Wuhan once the cat was out of the bag. The same insidious regime controlled all messaging to the outside world, then lied, misled and bullied the WHO