Corona Virus main thread

[Van wink 2,994]

9 minutes ago, benchwarmer said:

On the BBC website today, it is reported that Dr Steve James, an ICU consultant at Kings College Hospital in London has declined vaccination because he has had the virus.  Under new legislation, from April he will have to be jabbed in order to continue working.

If anyone knows about covid, in both theory and practice, he does. Interesting eh?

 

 

It must be a relief to you when one outlier comes out, quite legitimately, with this view.

( spot the hidden message )

 

[Icecream Snow 762]

1 hour ago, KernowCanary said:

One of the bar staff at my local pub in Falmouth told me that her friend works for a PR company up in Wales, and because all staff working from home has saved them a packet these past near two years, they sold the office block and made a packet out of it, causing all the employees to be based at home full time.

Her friend is really hating it and feeling isolated and is considering moving on.

I think it depends a lot of peoples circumstances, prior to Mar 2020 I was doing 2-3 hours travelling a day to get to work and back, so that frees up a lot of time for me and gives me the opportunity to do things socially that normally I wouldn't have had the time to do. I get on with my work colleagues, but I wouldn't say we were friends.

[Herman 9,836]

15 minutes ago, Aggy said:

 

But now the scientists are in cahoots with the government and fiddling the data to suit Boris? When the exact opposite was being said last year (that it was some scientific conspiracy to lock us down), you and others quite rightly called out those spouting the rubbish.

I tell you what it is that I am struggling with and getting mightily confused by. I see the massive death and infection rates and then I read that the government are going to stop free testing and a scientist saying to stop mass vaccination. None of it makes sense to me. It may to you so maybe explain it better.

[benchwarmer 625]

1 hour ago, Van wink said:

 I had my third vaccine over three months ago so thought I would take an antibody test to see how things look, result just came back, pumped with the stuff, pumped I say 😀

How do you know that you haven't been exposed to Omicron since then?  Many have, without being aware of it.

[KernowCanary 214]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

"The" science is a highly problematic term. There is not one view on scientific matters and finding scientific consensus is an ongoing process. Scientific consensus will change as data changes and at times, in a developing situations such as the one we are in conclusions are often tentative.

Totally agree, and if we keep following “The Science”, we will be living in fear forever from all of this.

Edited January 9, 2022 by KernowCanary

[benchwarmer 625]

14 minutes ago, Van wink said:

It must be a relief to you when one outlier comes out, quite legitimately, with this view.

( spot the hidden message )

 

I'm old enough to remember when people who said smoking caused cancer were called 'outliers', and worse.  I'll wear that badge with pride.

Edited January 9, 2022 by benchwarmer

[Van wink 2,994]

6 minutes ago, benchwarmer said:

How do you know that you haven't been exposed to Omicron since then?  Many have, without being aware of it.

 I live like a Hermit as I am caring for a very vulnerable person, thats why I want you to act responsibly

Edited January 9, 2022 by Van wink

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

6 minutes ago, Herman said:

I tell you what it is that I am struggling with and getting mightily confused by. I see the massive death and infection rates and then I read that the government are going to stop free testing and a scientist saying to stop mass vaccination. None of it makes sense to me. It may to you so maybe explain it better.

I don't think the scientists are actually in much disagreement. Truth is as ever the media take the odd comment out of context without the caveats. I don't think anybody is seriously talking about changing any policy until the current wave has a passed and we see where we are.

Sorry its not binary.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Yellow Fever

[KernowCanary 214]

8 minutes ago, Icecream Snow said:

I think it depends a lot of peoples circumstances, prior to Mar 2020 I was doing 2-3 hours travelling a day to get to work and back, so that frees up a lot of time for me and gives me the opportunity to do things socially that normally I wouldn't have had the time to do. I get on with my work colleagues, but I wouldn't say we were friends.

Good point, one of my colleagues really isn’t bothered, as she lives in Lizard on the peninsula of Cornwall and loves it. She has friends nearby and works from home and hasn’t been in the office not once since March 2020. She also had some distance to travel prior to working from home.

Sometimes I wish I was in her circumstances, especially since the travel to work isn’t nice at all and everyone either drives slow or rams your bumper.

[benchwarmer 625]

4 minutes ago, Van wink said:

live like a Hermit as I am caring fore a very vulnerable person, thats why I want you to act responsibly

I have natural immunity, as I said before.  If it's good enough for Dr Steve James who works with very vulnerable people 24/7, it's good enough for me.

Edited January 9, 2022 by benchwarmer

[Van wink 2,994]

1 minute ago, benchwarmer said:

I have natural immunity, as I said before.  And if it's good enough for Dr Steve James who works with very vulnerable people 24/7, it's good enough for me.

what level of immunity do you have?

[ricardo 7,402]

Quite clear now that the pre Xmas doomcaster models got it wrong. London ICU numbers are the lowest in five years.

[Van wink 2,994]

18 minutes ago, benchwarmer said:

I'm old enough to remember when people who said smoking caused cancer were called 'outliers', and worse.  I'll wear that badge with pride.

Great that you shared the beliefs of public health professions at that time benchwarmer….. what went wrong?

[The Real Buh 3,482]

1 minute ago, ricardo said:

Quite clear now that the pre Xmas doomcaster models got it wrong. London ICU numbers are the lowest in five years.

6000 dead a day remember

[MooreMarriot 313]

8 minutes ago, benchwarmer said:

I have natural immunity, as I said before.  If it's good enough for Dr Steve James who works with very vulnerable people 24/7, it's good enough for me.

In the hospital where he works other staff have confirmed that most of the seriously ill covid patients are unvaccinated but living in London have almost certainly come into contact with the virus and have a level of natural  immunity. Should you be vaccinated if you have natural immunity.....YES ....according to the world renowned John Hopkins University.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/covid-natural-immunity-what-you-need-to-know

[Aggy 766]

6 minutes ago, Herman said:

I tell you what it is that I am struggling with and getting mightily confused by. I see the massive death and infection rates and then I read that the government are going to stop free testing and a scientist saying to stop mass vaccination. None of it makes sense to me. It may to you so maybe explain it better.

The government haven’t announced an end to free testing? As far as I’m aware, one paper has said they might do so “in a few weeks”. The actual government ministers rolled out today have said there are no current plans to do so.

The rest is really quite simple. If we can catch covid and it doesn’t cause hospitals to be overwhelmed, why would we spend public money on free testing and mass vaccination? We don’t do the same for normal flu or the common cold. It doesn’t seem to me that anyone is saying we are at that point yet, but that we might be in the not so distant future. 

As to the “massive” death and infections, hospitals might yet be overwhelmed this winter, but so far they dont appear to be any more overwhelmed than they have been in bad flu years in the past - see my posts last week on 2018 (or 2017 when international bodies called the hospital situation in the uk a humanitarian crisis).

What definition of “overwhelmed” or “massive” you want to use is political not scientific. How many people we accept will die from a specific infectious disease is political, not scientific. I fear you may be forgetting the many millions of people who have died from completely avoidable infectious diseases throughout your lifetime, and the many times over the past couple of decades the nhs has been at the brink.

Is your political view on what is acceptable different to other people’s? Appears so. But what most certainly isn’t happening is multiple bodies of reputable scientists across the Uk and internationally all lying so that Boris doesn’t have to lock us down. Anyone suggesting that is the reality, gets filed alongside the more fruity anti vax theories.

[Tetteys Jig 830]

2 hours ago, KernowCanary said:

One of the bar staff at my local pub in Falmouth told me that her friend works for a PR company up in Wales, and because all staff working from home has saved them a packet these past near two years, they sold the office block and made a packet out of it, causing all the employees to be based at home full time.

Her friend is really hating it and feeling isolated and is considering moving on.

works for some, not for others. I can sympathise both sides of the argument with this. Personally, I quite like WFH and will continue to do so after the pandemic. In my previous role, it would have been a huge pain in the **** as my role involved regular face to face interaction with the scientists on the lab floor. Would have been a nightmare doing that over Web chat.

We are seemingly being given the option what we want to do but will have to get our contracts altered slightly depending what we choose. I don't think there are any financial implications either way.

My colleague doing the same role but more senior wishes to go back to the office I think but I think with her being a bit older and more established there she's more comfortable with her setup there whereas I'd only been in the role about a week when lockdown 1 started.

I also have a strong addiction to football manager which can be attended to via a 4th screen 😆

Saying that, I do honestly still believe I'm more productive at home. I regularly slip in a bit of overtime if required without any bother and FM is more of a background thing while I wait for reports to load etc. anyway.

[Tetteys Jig 830]

27 minutes ago, Aggy said:

The government haven’t announced an end to free testing? As far as I’m aware, one paper has said they might do so “in a few weeks”. The actual government ministers rolled out today have said there are no current plans to do so.

The rest is really quite simple. If we can catch covid and it doesn’t cause hospitals to be overwhelmed, why would we spend public money on free testing and mass vaccination? We don’t do the same for normal flu or the common cold. It doesn’t seem to me that anyone is saying we are at that point yet, but that we might be in the not so distant future.

I'm kind of in agreement with you with the whole "learning to live with it" as you see from my recent posts but surely if there's some high quality multivariant vaccines that come out in the next couple of years thanks to the extra attention public health has been given then maybe spending public money on mass vaccination (not compulsory but for everyone that wants it) would be a good thing?

Imagine flu rates and covid rates continuously low thanks to a mass vaccination campaign and 1 less thing for hospitals to be "overwhelmed" with without too much effort? Surely that would  be great and enable us to spend money in other areas either within the health service or wider area?

Vaccinations are your friend and have hugely improved the world we live in for the last few centuries. Whilst they should always be scrutinised, they get an undue amount of hate and mistrust relative to other areas of medicine that seem to get away with some horrendous things (think the opioid crisis etc.).

Perhaps it's because they are preventatives so people feel like they aren't at risk forever because at that moment they're not whereas when you're sat in ICU on a ventilator or you're told you've got some horrible disease that needs treating, those questions just fly out of the window in desperation.

[Tetteys Jig 830]

40 minutes ago, The Real Buh said:

6000 dead a day remember

wait 2 weeks...

[Aggy 766]

31 minutes ago, Tetteys Jig said:

I'm kind of in agreement with you with the whole "learning to live with it" as you see from my recent posts but surely if there's some high quality multivariant vaccines that come out in the next couple of years thanks to the extra attention public health has been given then maybe spending public money on mass vaccination (not compulsory but for everyone that wants it) would be a good thing?

Imagine flu rates and covid rates continuously low thanks to a mass vaccination campaign and 1 less thing for hospitals to be "overwhelmed" with without too much effort? Surely that would  be great and enable us to spend money in other areas either within the health service or wider area?

Vaccinations are your friend and have hugely improved the world we live in for the last few centuries. Whilst they should always be scrutinised, they get an undue amount of hate and mistrust relative to other areas of medicine that seem to get away with some horrendous things (think the opioid crisis etc.).

Perhaps it's because they are preventatives so people feel like they aren't at risk forever because at that moment they're not whereas when you're sat in ICU on a ventilator or you're told you've got some horrible disease that needs treating, those questions just fly out of the window in desperation.

Because the cost of vaccinating millions of people who have virtually no risk of anything more than a bad cough and a day in bed would be far outweighed by spending the same amount elsewhere within the public health and social care sectors. That’s financial cost and also people cost - who is vaccinating 60 million people twice a year?

Remember also that when the nhs gets close to being overwhelmed in most years from flu it’s because the vaccines don’t protect against the correct strand of flu. There’s no guarantee we’d get the right one. 

The only real benefit would be if wide spread vaccination helped reduced the spread. But we’ve currently got huge amounts of the population triple jabbed and still have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of infections a day.

Otherwise it only really makes sense to vaccinate the elderly and vulnerable like we do with flu. The benefit of that does justify the cost.

Edit: obvs that’s only if/when we get to a point that covid is like normal flu - at the moment, the vaccines are what’s stopping hospitals being overwhelmed and so I’ve no problem with them. I haven’t got a problem with multiple vaccines in the future - but realistically that only makes sense if we can’t spend the money better elsewhere.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Aggy

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

15 minutes ago, Tetteys Jig said:

wait 2 weeks...

In a sense TJ you are right. Schools just back, universities back I guess Monday and we know its breaking into the over 75s now (especially those with no common sense). It will certainly get worse before it gets better.

All that happened today is the government and press floating ideas as to the eventual way out.  

They have with others short memories as to similar statements a year ago ... its all over now etc!

Omicron when it does subside does indeed give us all some encouragement but we're not even at the peak yet !

[Tetteys Jig 830]

59 minutes ago, Aggy said:

Because the cost of vaccinating millions of people who have virtually no risk of anything more than a bad cough and a day in bed would be far outweighed by spending the same amount elsewhere within the public health and social care sectors. That’s financial cost and also people cost - who is vaccinating 60 million people twice a year?

Remember also that when the nhs gets close to being overwhelmed in most years from flu it’s because the vaccines don’t protect against the correct strand of flu. There’s no guarantee we’d get the right one. 

The only real benefit would be if wide spread vaccination helped reduced the spread. But we’ve currently got huge amounts of the population triple jabbed and still have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of infections a day.

Otherwise it only really makes sense to vaccinate the elderly and vulnerable like we do with flu. The benefit of that does justify the cost.

Edit: obvs that’s only if/when we get to a point that covid is like normal flu - at the moment, the vaccines are what’s stopping hospitals being overwhelmed and so I’ve no problem with them. I haven’t got a problem with multiple vaccines in the future - but realistically that only makes sense if we can’t spend the money better elsewhere.

who cares about spread and cases if vaccines had high protection? Unless we find a vaccine with sterilising immunity stopping the spread and then elimination is a pipe dream. Maybe one to aim for in a few decades... until then, look how few cases in vaccinated people are now ending up in icu compared to pre vaccine...

I never talked about repeatedly vaccinating 60m people either, more taking a risk based approach and continuing to target those groups most at risk. It would be incredibly cost effective to avoid having standard respitory virus season each year.

I suspect the thresholds are just a bit lower for who to vaccinate for future covid 19 boosters but we do 13m odd flu vaccines a year so we already have annual mass vaccination. Hopefully the shots will be combined for future campaigns and soon be administered via inhalation or via a patch which would be easier.

Either way, I suspect we are going to see a wave of impressive breakthroughs in medical science in the next few years. There's already the malaria vaccine recently approved with loads more in the pipeline. I do also think the western world in particular needs a word with itself about overconsumption and obesity etc. but that has to come down to the individual lifestyles at the end of the day.

[Icecream Snow 762]

4 hours ago, Herman said:

Are they following the science or is the science following their politics. I think the latter but you are free to think whichever way you want.But you have to ask yourself,do you trust them to have your best interests at heart??

But Johnson's never followed the science, he's ignored it until he's backed into a corner, at which point he finds some excuse. It's always about the politics, and he never does anything until he's forced to, and when it arguably could have been handled more effectively earlier.

In October 2020, Starmer wrote to Johnson supporting Sage's call for a two week circuit break over half term, which he completely ignored. Then we ended up with a seven month lockdown starting near Christmas with Johnson using the South African variant (beta?) as the excuse.

Since he got away with 1200+ deaths a day in January/February 2020, I'm assuming he thinks the worst is now over. Which is probably true after the vaccination program, but the NHS is still struggling to cope.

[The Real Buh 3,482]

8 hours ago, Tetteys Jig said:

wait 2 weeks...

🤣🤣 in two weeks it’ll be two more weeks

the jig is up!

[Aggy 766]

8 hours ago, Tetteys Jig said:

who cares about spread and cases if vaccines had high protection? Unless we find a vaccine with sterilising immunity stopping the spread and then elimination is a pipe dream. Maybe one to aim for in a few decades... until then, look how few cases in vaccinated people are now ending up in icu compared to pre vaccine...

I never talked about repeatedly vaccinating 60m people either, more taking a risk based approach and continuing to target those groups most at risk. It would be incredibly cost effective to avoid having standard respitory virus season each year.

I suspect the thresholds are just a bit lower for who to vaccinate for future covid 19 boosters but we do 13m odd flu vaccines a year so we already have annual mass vaccination. Hopefully the shots will be combined for future campaigns and soon be administered via inhalation or via a patch which would be easier.

Either way, I suspect we are going to see a wave of impressive breakthroughs in medical science in the next few years. There's already the malaria vaccine recently approved with loads more in the pipeline. I do also think the western world in particular needs a word with itself about overconsumption and obesity etc. but that has to come down to the individual lifestyles at the end of the day.

I appreciate you didn’t mention vaccinating 60m people, but my original post that you quoted was in response to someone who was dismayed that one newspaper was suggesting free testing for everyone might end at some point in the future. The point being surely everyone can see that if covid becomes like flu, free testing for everyone would be a ridiculous waste of public money. Vaccinating elderly and vulnerable people wouldn’t be a waste of money.

As for spread, I’m not suggesting we should care. I’m saying that the only justification for vaccinating everyone and offering free tests to everyone is if there is a good reason to go to that expense. The protection flu jabs offer to the young isn’t worth the expense of vaccinating them. If, however, you could guarantee that by vaccinating the young as well the spread would completely stop (and therefore it wouldn’t spread to the elderly at all and you’d save 15-20k lives a year and a very significant burden on the nhs every winter), then vaccinating the young could make sense. But, as we are seeing now, vaccinating 60m people doesn’t completely stop the spread. So if it doesn’t stop the spread and doesn’t really offer young people much more protection, then the cost isn’t worth it. Again, that’s only when we get to a point where covid is essentially the same as flu.

[Well b back 3,281]

Don’t know where this vaccinating everyone is coming from, it will be over 50s healthcare and vulnerable.

It is also likely that mRNA vaccines will be redesigned to deliver everything into your arm in one go ie flu and COVID together. They don’t have to deliver a dead virus.

[Badger 2,412]

13 hours ago, benchwarmer said:

If anyone knows about covid, in both theory and practice, he does. Interesting eh?

 

So that's one who has declined it - how many thousands of consultants are there?

[Badger 2,412]

13 hours ago, The Real Buh said:

6000 dead a day remember

Source?

[Orly 277]

6 minutes ago, Badger said:

Source?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/18/uk-scientists-curbs-covid-infections-omicron-deaths-restrictions-sage

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

13 minutes ago, Orly said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/18/uk-scientists-curbs-covid-infections-omicron-deaths-restrictions-sage

The government’s SPI-M-O group of scientists, which reports to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), also warned that, based on their modelling, hospitalisations could peak between 3,000 and 10,000 a day and deaths at between 600 and 6,000 a day.

Since we aren't at the peak, it's only just breaking into the more vulnerable groups and all the caveats on any of the models seem to have been missed by the simple I might suggest we just wait a bit.