Corona Virus main thread

[Rock The Boat 1,323]

7 hours ago, Van wink said:

Sounds like Angela and Emanuel were on the blower to Vlad last night, incoming Sputnik!

Yes, total humiliation for the EU project. The Slovakian PM had to resign over doing the same thing. However the chances of Macron and Merkel resigning are absolutely zero. 

[A Load of Squit 5,111]

1 hour ago, paul moy said:

I'm not aware of the US stopping legitimate orders, such as the EU stopped to Australia.   We have not banned any vaccine exports but we applied our due diligence last year which put us at the head of the queue by investing more than the EU, and ordering, in many biotechs at the right time, while the EU dithered and put its money behind the failed Senofi vaccine rather than the British AZ  due to political reasons.  They simply failed and are paying the price of that failure due to making bad political decisions.

Have you ever visited an owl sanctuary?

 

[Rock The Boat 1,323]

2 hours ago, ricardo said:

Here in Norwich there is only one party that will get in.

I do my best by drawing a massive **** and balls on the ballot paper but no matter how big it gets there is no prospect of change😀

In Norwich, a big cockerel on the ballot paper would be taken as a vote for the blessed Clive 🤣

[Rock The Boat 1,323]

5 minutes ago, A Load of Squit said:

Have you ever visited an owl sanctuary?

 

I went to an owl sanctuary once. They had no owls. I asked the owner where are the owls?

He said they didn't have any right now but his wife has got some great t I t s

[ricardo 7,332]

1 hour ago, Van wink said:

Germans are baffled at why some of them can take holidays in the Balearic island of Mallorca over Easter while those stuck at home aren’t allowed to visit local camping sites or holiday cottages in their own backyard. Paradoxes and zigzags such as these are fuelling widespread indignation. One doctor, Carola Holzner, from the western city of Essen, even invented a word to describe the public mood — mütend, a cross between müde (tired) and wütend (furious). “No to masks, then yes,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “No to rapid tests, then it can’t happen fast enough. Schools opened, then closed, then opened again. First there’s not enough PPE, then not enough vaccines. No one can stand all this political vacillation any more.”

No, this can't  be true. Its only Boris and the U.K. that has these problems. Everywhere else follows the science and people live in a golden glow of sweetness and light. That must be true because I heard it on this thread.👍

[ricardo 7,332]

4 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

I went to an owl sanctuary once. They had no owls. I asked the owner where are the owls?

He said they didn't have any right now but his wife has got some great t I t s

They had a SuperB owl in the US last month.

 

[kick it off 1,948]

[Herman 9,698]

I did some quick maths for the lads:

Poor EU vaccine rollout + A bit of corruption in Germany = Brexit is still sh!te.

Hope that helps.😉

[Herman 9,698]

Look over the channel not at our own government.

 

[ricardo 7,332]

National

4052 - 43

Local

All quiet on the City Centre Western Front

Half a million jabs and Jab 2 daily total now exceeds Jab 1 for the first time.

 

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

41 minutes ago, kick it off said:

Yes we've only got to look back 12 weeks to early January when first dose numbers were properly ramped up for the first time, so clearly we'll have to give plenty of 2nd doses every day from here onwards & for now we'll have fewer first doses than previously, going into April.  Hopefully total numbers will be ramped up before too long and we'll get back to a serious number of first doses again.

[Van wink 2,994]

Things looking very grim in France

"French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that the country will be placed into lockdown for a month, starting from Saturday.

After a surge in cases, with the country approaching 100,0000 deaths, non essential shops will be shut and a curfew will be imposed between 7pm and 6am across the mainland.

Schoolchildren will go back to remote learning for a week and then have a two week spring holiday. Travel will be limited and people will be required to work from home.

It was a humiliating U-turn for the French president, who had ignored the pleas of his scientific advisors to close up the country in January. 

Mr Macron blamed the UK variant for the acceleration in cases, calling it an "epidemic within an epidemic"."

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

4 hours ago, ricardo said:

No, this can't  be true. Its only Boris and the U.K. that has these problems. Everywhere else follows the science and people live in a golden glow of sweetness and light. That must be true because I heard it on this thread.👍

Are you sure you heard it? Shielding has a lot to answer for😁

[sonyc 5,482]

10 hours ago, Well b back said:

The older voters probably won’t want to go out so will use postal voting which depending on who wins may or may not be hit with fraud allegations lol

On a more serious note, you and Sonyc could persuade to vote Green as my son is.

I wouldn't want to persuade anyone WBB! Whilst I do feel there have been particular mistakes in the pandemic (supporting Cummings, delaying decisions and general blustering ....and I would add in the question of large contracts too - cronyism?) I am also able to see that this epidemic has held the trump card on many occasions and other world leaders have tried to respond and  have also been 'behind the curve'

I have been more impressed with the scientist community (the experts the likes of Gove used to denigrate).

More damning perhaps for me is how under Johnson the administration moved to prorogue parliament,  a question of whether he has broken the ministerial code, the lack of action to sanction members of his own cabinet (just taking the bullying allegation as one example and there are others), the lack of a government spokesperson on programmes such as Newsnight (must have been over a year now...that is plain pathetic), the hubris over Brexit and ever-rampant and creeping nationalism, the moves to curtail protest and of late, the musings about the BBC (I've always been a fan and may be old-fashioned). Through all of this , somehow all the stories emerging this week about his adultery are not a surprise. 

You have to be an idealist to be a green to some extent. If we were to get a different way to elect our government as @TheGunnShow has so well outlined on other threads then we may have more voices, more checks and a more adult / mature national administration. I think the pluses far outweigh the negatives. 

I get the sense that this current lot will be seen in quite a bad light even in a few years time. I might be wrong. The polls tell me i am anyway. May we live in interesting times eh! Good for your son though. Mine are both green leaning as are their partners. Mrs S too. Though, I very much doubt I will ever see a green government in my lifetime. 

Edited March 31, 2021 by sonyc

[Yellow Fever 3,733]

Randomized Testing.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/31/fewer-quarter-covid-symptoms-request-test-uk-study

Fewer than a quarter with Covid symptoms request test, UK study finds

Saw this this morning and it simply reemphasizes why the confirmed tests numbers are NOT a good indicator (trends perhaps) of the true prevalence of Covid in the community. 

[Van wink 2,994]

44 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Randomized Testing.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/31/fewer-quarter-covid-symptoms-request-test-uk-study

Fewer than a quarter with Covid symptoms request test, UK study finds

Saw this this morning and it simply reemphasizes why the confirmed tests numbers are NOT a good indicator (trends perhaps) of the true prevalence of Covid in the community. 

Yeh a disturbingly low figure, as you say indicative of trends but as we know the randomised ONS figures are the ones to really watch out for.

[Tetteys Jig 830]

the more staggering figure was that around half of those surveyed couldn't identify the 3 key symptoms... its been a year of them drilled into us and still people don't get it! Whatever side of the debate you're on, that's sheer ignorance

[Yellow Fever 3,733]

1 hour ago, Van wink said:

Yeh a disturbingly low figure, as you say indicative of trends but as we know the randomised ONS figures are the ones to really watch out for.

The ONS always used to be factor of 2 or 3 higher if memory serves me but its now growing to a factor of 4. My guess is that with the OAPS largely vaccinated (hence not reporting positive) it's the younger working members of society who we now see that may not be able to afford the time  / costs of isolation following a positive test that hence ''skip' the test for milder symptoms. I suspect it's always been thus from the start.

[Yellow Fever 3,733]

5 minutes ago, Tetteys Jig said:

the more staggering figure was that around half of those surveyed couldn't identify the 3 key symptoms... its been a year of them drilled into us and still people don't get it! Whatever side of the debate you're on, that's sheer ignorance

That's a shocker - but as the saying goes you can never underestimate the ignorance of the general public.

[PurpleCanary 5,553]

Any expert advice on which vaccine to choose would be appreciated. It seems I can get vaccinated now with Moderna but will have to wait for Pfizer.

[Tetteys Jig 830]

3 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Any expert advice on which vaccine to choose would be appreciated. It seems I can get vaccinated now with Moderna but will have to wait for Pfizer.

the first approved one that becomes available

[Tetteys Jig 830]

1 hour ago, Tetteys Jig said:

the first approved one that becomes available

Just to add what someone working on the moderna one has to say comparing Pfizer to Moderna:

"They’re essentially the same so yes. :3 The spike protein payload is identical between Moderna and Pfizer. The lipid packaging is different and Moderna’s dose is higher but that’s it! It would be highly unlikely their results would not be similar."

[sonyc 5,482]

Plain text copy here of a fairly general (and I think 'impressionist' )view on pandemics and how they end (from The Week). Copying for interest.

 

Agnes Arnold-Forster, a history of medicine and healthcare researcher at the University of Bristol, on the messy business of pandemics.

“After the pandemic is over” must be one of the most frequently uttered phrases of 2021. I am certainly guilty of this kind of optimism, longing for the day when I can get on a plane, have dinner with my friends, and cuddle all the new babies I know who have been born under the restrictive eye of COVID-19.

How many people need to be vaccinated to get life back to normal?

In February, the UK government unveiled a four-step plan to ease England’s lockdown restrictions by 21 June. While the prime minister has cautioned that the country’s path out of the pandemic will be driven by “data not dates”, his restraint has had little impact, it seems, on the population’s excitement levels. Memes and social media posts immediately proliferated, with people booking flights, planning parties, and taking time off work in anticipation of future freedom.

Looking ahead to the end of the pandemic is not confined to the UK, and as the vaccine rollout proceeds (albeit unevenly), people across the world are turning their attention to celebration and relief. However, history tells us that the end of pandemics are rarely – if ever – neat, uncomplicated, or even easy to date.

Past pandemics

The misleadingly named Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 was the deadliest in history. It infected around 500 million people worldwide and killed anywhere from 20 million to 50 million. Much like today, citizens were subjected to social restrictions and ordered to wear masks. The pandemic abated, but identifying its precise end is almost impossible.

In 1920, several newspapers reported the reappearance of influenza. Around 5,000 cases were reported in Chicago in the space of six days, and theatres were ordered to close. Later that year, “drastic measures” were implemented to check the spread of flu in New York City after an emergency meeting of the transportation authorities, theatre and cinema owners, and the representatives of department stores. At around the same time, 60 people died from influenza in Paris.

Subsequent waves of the virus ripped through European and North American cities for years after the pandemic’s supposed end. As late as 1925, and in the space of nine days, 201 people in Chicago died from what the newspapers called a “highly contagious influenza epidemic”. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that there is little evidence in the historical record of parties to commemorate the end of the terrible virus.

Today’s coronavirus pandemic is, of course, different to the march of influenza around the globe in 1918 – not least because we have several highly effective vaccines. The jab is a powerful tool and so many people’s hopes for COVID’s end hang on this marvellous technology. However, while vaccines have played a crucial role in past efforts to control infectious disease, their ability to bring pandemics to a rapid and definitive close is much more limited.

Take polio, for example. A vaccine was developed for the disease in the 1950s. Its inventor Jonas Salk became an almost immediate American hero, but it took almost three decades for polio to be brought under control in Britain and there were no celebratory holidays marking the last naturally acquired infection in 1984.

The end of fear

Historians of medicine know that pandemics and epidemics are social phenomena. As a result, their endings happen in two ways. There is the medical conclusion of a pandemic, when disease incidence goes down and death rates plummet. But there is also the social end, when fear of the infection decreases and social restrictions ease.

Crucially, you can have one without the other. The rates of coronavirus might go down, fewer people will be hospitalised and die, people’s anxieties could ease, and life could return to normal – in that order. Or rates could stay the same, but people just get sick and tired of restrictions and launch themselves into the parties they had planned, regardless. Or rates could go down, but people remain fearful – anxious about returning to “normal life” and unable to let go of some of the precautions we have become accustomed to.

We also have to remember that coronavirus is a global disease and that different places will have varying social and medical conclusions to their respective versions of the pandemic.

Uneven geography

HIV/AIDS swept through Europe and North America in the 1980s and 90s. Infection rates have since dropped dramatically, and many HIV-positive people live long and healthy lives in developing countries. And yet, as of 2019, almost 40 million people are infected with HIV worldwide and we are still experiencing what the World Health Organization calls a “global epidemic”, it is just that the geographical scope of the disease has shifted.

As wealthier nations continue to vaccinate themselves out of restrictions, the ending of their pandemics might come relatively quickly. But what about the rest of the world? When will developing countries see a similar conclusion?

Wherever you look, there is unlikely to be a precise end date for the pandemic. We have only managed to successfully eradicate one disease (smallpox), and for every other epidemic or pandemic in history, their endings have been messy, protracted and uneven. While we all might need a dose of optimism, rather than planning parties or holidays, perhaps our time now would be better spent thinking about what kind of future we want to look forward to and how we put the lessons we have learned this past year into practice.

[Van wink 2,994]

3 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

Any expert advice on which vaccine to choose would be appreciated. It seems I can get vaccinated now with Moderna but will have to wait for Pfizer.

"The Pfizer vaccine produces an "off the scale" immune response that is likely to protect against the Brazilian variant of Covid-19, researchers say.

The biggest study on antibody and cellular immune factors to date suggests people are likely to be protected against the Wuhan, Kent and Brazilian types of coronavirus following two doses of the vaccine.

The research, led by the University of Birmingham and including Public Health England's Porton Down laboratory, found 98 per cent of people aged 80 or over who had two doses of the Pfizer jab had a strong antibody immune response.

Professor Paul Moss, from the University of Birmingham and leader of the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium, told a briefing: "We've certainly seen in this paper that the antibody levels are so good, really after the first two weeks, that we are pretty confident that this should be very helpful against the Brazilian variant."

Pfizer looks like a good bet.....presuming you're over 80 😀

[ricardo 7,332]

National

4479 - 51

Local

Almost 650k today including over 400k second doses.

[ricardo 7,332]

The Tsunami that hit us in January is now sweeping Eastern Europe.

 

[Van wink 2,994]

1 hour ago, ricardo said:

National

4479 - 51

Local

Almost 650k today including over 400k second doses.

Just had notification that my second jab has been brought forward, dont know if this is related to supply issues 

[TheGunnShow 5,909]

18 minutes ago, ricardo said:

The Tsunami that hit us in January is now sweeping Eastern Europe.

 

Problems with a lack of ventilators in Poland as well. Friends in Warsaw have been telling me this and are gravely concerned. Seems - just like the UK - to be a hefty dose of government nepotism involved in some of the measures for combatting it.

[ricardo 7,332]

5 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Just had notification that my second jab has been brought forward, dont know if this is related to supply issues 

Still haven't  had my notification yet. Will be 10 weeks Saturday. 

Mrs R had the AZ and had notification today and appt on April 17th.

[Van wink 2,994]

Nice positive weekly report from Tim Spectre of the Zoe App. A man worth listening to.