Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[NilSatisOptimum]

Well Dave you are just at the other end of the spectrum. Automatically hating anything even slightly related to Britain. You go on about trusting the science and scientists but only as long as it isn't British scientists who are incorrect and serve up gnat's piss. Refusing to acknowledge any benefit of the AZ vaccine saying you won't take it until it has been okayed by EU and US regulators because you believe our regulators are just puppets of the government. You genuinely come across as desperate for the AZ vaccine to fail.

I personally couldn't give a toss where the vaccine comes from as long as it is going to help us finally get out of this horrendous situation we have all had to live through for coming up to a year. None of the vaccines are perfect but hopefully by utilising all of them we will be able to return to some form of normality in the not too distant future.

No doubt what comes out SAGE at those briefings have been politically sanitised embarrassingly so at times. And all our regulators, are accused has being toothless dancing the tune of Government ideology in more normal times. We are one of the most politically regulated managed countries in the world.
And AZ as big Pharma go, is one of the most dubious with connections and associations. And it's of no surprise that it has not really looked into over 65s.

 

[grandjoeblue]

Its nearly February. Hopefully only 2-3 months remaining of the UK lockdown.

Looking forward to the day you can finally leave the house without feeling like you're potentially killing people.

 

[maccavennie]

That novavak one is coming online , that 60 million orderd for the UK and made on Teesside,
Bit of good news .
Rumours of a few other drugs coming on line in the coming weeks to help with the treatment of covid cases as well, so a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

The medication they use is just as important as the vaccine itself. They were telling me compared to the first wave they've learned a lot more and have different options to treat it. But this doesn't always work unfortunately so to have as many options as possible will be a real game breaker. People are still going to get it whilst waiting for the vaccine or declining the vaccine, some will still get it after having the vaccine but not as bad. Its important for those who do get it and end up in hospital that we get to the point where we can treat some efficiently and ideally keep them out of hospital.

 

[BlueToff]

© Jacob Rees Mogg.

Yeah, I saw that.

I'd argue that those people who complained clearly don't have much in their lives to worry about.

Try losing a job, or a loved one, or several loved ones, before getting arsey about a 'sexist' advert.

This isn't a dig at you, but honestly, surely there's more things to worry about it?

 

[BlueToff]

Its nearly February. Hopefully only 2-3 months remaining of the UK lockdown.

Looking forward to the day you can finally leave the house without feeling like you're potentially killing people.

That's all about an attitude though mate. Unfortunately, a lot of people are now convinced of this and will be regardless of a vaccine.

When you go out, you're not doing anything wrong and you're not putting people in danger. You just have to be sensible and follow the guidance.

As long as you're not going to or hosting house parties, or back, sack and crack waxing orgies, then you're not doing anything you should feel guilty about.

This current lockdown's probably going to last until mid-March (I've stood by this all along) and we'll hopefully see measures relaxed slightly after that.

Think everyone is finding it hard atm, given it's the middle of winter. I know I'm missing getting out on the bike and stuff.

And yeah, would be nice to be able to go for a pint in May, or a meal in June, or a gig in July, or the match in September.

 

[Deleted member 48881]

Why France’s vaccination roll-out has been so slow​

The country that pioneered vaccines has struggled to get covid-19 jabs into arms

The logo outside the vaccination centre shows a red-caped Super Granny zapping the spiked coronavirus with one fist, while clutching a medical syringe in the other. Named “Chez Mauricette”, a nod to the first French patient vaccinated against covid-19, the place sounds more like a friendly local café than a health clinic. In the industrial town of Poissy, north-west of Paris, this is a deft antidote to grim times, and an effort to confront the peculiar scepticism of the French. “People are exhausted and anxious,” says Karl Olive, the town’s centre-right mayor, and a former football referee: “They need a bit of fun.”

On a recent weekday afternoon, patients wait calmly to be seen by a doctor before moving into a vaccination cubicle. After opening on January 7th, this centre is now jabbing over 600 arms a week. Alain and Anne-Marie Guillaume celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary there by getting an injection each. Poissy was the first centre to open outside a hospital or care home. Rather than waiting for regional health authorities to draw up a map, Mr Olive put in phone calls to the right people and told them his centre was ready to go. It was approved. “You can’t expect everything from the central state,” says Mr Olive. “Mayors in France can solve problems too.”

Poissy’s can-do defiance says much about the weaknesses of the French state, which contributed to a glacial early vaccination roll-out. This surprised many admirers of France’s well-financed and normally efficient health system. Indeed the number of daily covid-19 deaths in France is now the lowest per head among big European countries. France’s campaign has now picked up pace, overtaking Germany’s in daily doses administered per head. Yet the running total, of 1.2m doses injected by January 26th, is still lower in France than in Germany, Italy and Spain—and way behind Britain. This cannot be blamed only on delays in securing approval and delivering vaccines, which have affected all the EU. Three specific, linked problems explain French dawdling.

The first is an inbuilt caution due to the criminal liability of elected officials in France. In 1999 Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister, was charged with manslaughter (and later acquitted) in a contaminated-blood case. Over 100 legal complaints have been filed against ministers, including Jean Castex, the prime minister, and Olivier Véran, the health minister. So health policymakers struggle to weigh risks and benefits dispassionately.

A second is the surprisingly strong anti-vaxxer sentiment in France, land of Louis Pasteur. In December just 42% told a poll they would get a jab. Part of this hesitancy stems from French health scandals, including the ongoing prosecution of a drug company over deaths of diabetics, and a massive over-ordering of vaccines against H1N1 (swine flu) in 2009. Conspiracy theories about big pharma blend with the anti-elite sentiment behind the gilets jaunes (yellow jackets) or Didier Raoult, a Marseille doctor who pushed hydroxychloroquine to treat covid-19. The French, concluded the government, needed ultra-careful handling. “It was a choice,” says a government source; “If we’d said ‘let’s just go for it’, people would have said they don’t trust us.”

Far from colliding with the administration’s instincts, deliberate prudence matched them. This is a third factor: a centralised French system that tends to prefer elegantly polished design over pragmatic local initiative. “It’s an énarque tendency,” says one, referring to the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, which trains the elite. In some bureaucracies, such as finance, clear command chains have nonetheless enabled political decisions to be put in place rapidly. But the health system is a many-tentacled beast, linking the ministry, national agencies, 18 regional authorities and departmental préfectures. “We have a central state that wants to decide and control everything, but lacks clear hierarchical lines,” says Nicolas Bauquet of the Institut Montaigne, a think-tank: “On the ground everybody is expected to wait for the plan.”

The upshot was a complex plan that wasted precious time. Before jabbing care-home residents, for instance, the health ministry produced a 45-page vaccination guide, including six pages on how to obtain residents’ consent. As the delays this caused became clear, rules limiting vaccines to care-home residents were shelved, and health workers over 50 included.

Back in Poissy, the mayor thinks President Emmanuel Macron needs to give the “ants’ nest” of the “techno-structure” a “big kick”. Paradoxically, for all the self-administered caution and rules, vaccine supply is now more likely to hold things up. For the slow roll-out has inadvertently turned the distrustful French into impatient enthusiasts: 56% now say they want a jab. ■

Why France’s vaccination roll-out has been so slow

The country that pioneered vaccines has struggled to get covid-19 jabs into arms

www.economist.com

 

[grandjoeblue]

That's all about an attitude though mate. Unfortunately, a lot of people are now convinced of this and will be regardless of a vaccine.

When you go out, you're not doing anything wrong and you're not putting people in danger. You just have to be sensible and follow the guidance.

As long as you're not going to or hosting house parties, or back, sack and crack waxing orgies, then you're not doing anything you should feel guilty about.

This current lockdown's probably going to last until mid-March (I've stood by this all along) and we'll hopefully see measures relaxed slightly after that.

Think everyone is finding it hard atm, given it's the middle of winter. I know I'm missing getting out on the bike and stuff.

And yeah, would be nice to be able to go for a pint in May, or a meal in June, or a gig in July, or the match in September.

Not a chance the lockdown ends in Mid March mate. The schools might not even be open by then. I think schools will open around Easter. Non essential retail in mid to late April and pubs/restaurants either May or June.

 

[BlueToff]

Not a chance the lockdown ends in Mid March mate. The schools might not even be open by then. I think schools will open around Easter. Non essential retail in mid to late April and pubs/restaurants either May or June.

The current form of lockdown. We'll see. It all depends on the vaccine really and if infection rates continue to drop.

You keep saying 'no chance' but remember I've lived in Tier 3 or lockdown since the end of October and like the system or not, rates in west Yorkshire have stayed manageable throughout - that's even with schools open, even with people allowed to go and play golf or go to the gym.

I think you're about right with that timeframe, but they've said that they're going to go back into a tier system based on infection rates. We'll see. Still at least six weeks of this current lockdown guise, I agree there.

 

[COYBL25]

Why France’s vaccination roll-out has been so slow​

The country that pioneered vaccines has struggled to get covid-19 jabs into arms

The logo outside the vaccination centre shows a red-caped Super Granny zapping the spiked coronavirus with one fist, while clutching a medical syringe in the other. Named “Chez Mauricette”, a nod to the first French patient vaccinated against covid-19, the place sounds more like a friendly local café than a health clinic. In the industrial town of Poissy, north-west of Paris, this is a deft antidote to grim times, and an effort to confront the peculiar scepticism of the French. “People are exhausted and anxious,” says Karl Olive, the town’s centre-right mayor, and a former football referee: “They need a bit of fun.”

On a recent weekday afternoon, patients wait calmly to be seen by a doctor before moving into a vaccination cubicle. After opening on January 7th, this centre is now jabbing over 600 arms a week. Alain and Anne-Marie Guillaume celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary there by getting an injection each. Poissy was the first centre to open outside a hospital or care home. Rather than waiting for regional health authorities to draw up a map, Mr Olive put in phone calls to the right people and told them his centre was ready to go. It was approved. “You can’t expect everything from the central state,” says Mr Olive. “Mayors in France can solve problems too.”

Poissy’s can-do defiance says much about the weaknesses of the French state, which contributed to a glacial early vaccination roll-out. This surprised many admirers of France’s well-financed and normally efficient health system. Indeed the number of daily covid-19 deaths in France is now the lowest per head among big European countries. France’s campaign has now picked up pace, overtaking Germany’s in daily doses administered per head. Yet the running total, of 1.2m doses injected by January 26th, is still lower in France than in Germany, Italy and Spain—and way behind Britain. This cannot be blamed only on delays in securing approval and delivering vaccines, which have affected all the EU. Three specific, linked problems explain French dawdling.

The first is an inbuilt caution due to the criminal liability of elected officials in France. In 1999 Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister, was charged with manslaughter (and later acquitted) in a contaminated-blood case. Over 100 legal complaints have been filed against ministers, including Jean Castex, the prime minister, and Olivier Véran, the health minister. So health policymakers struggle to weigh risks and benefits dispassionately.

A second is the surprisingly strong anti-vaxxer sentiment in France, land of Louis Pasteur. In December just 42% told a poll they would get a jab. Part of this hesitancy stems from French health scandals, including the ongoing prosecution of a drug company over deaths of diabetics, and a massive over-ordering of vaccines against H1N1 (swine flu) in 2009. Conspiracy theories about big pharma blend with the anti-elite sentiment behind the gilets jaunes (yellow jackets) or Didier Raoult, a Marseille doctor who pushed hydroxychloroquine to treat covid-19. The French, concluded the government, needed ultra-careful handling. “It was a choice,” says a government source; “If we’d said ‘let’s just go for it’, people would have said they don’t trust us.”

Far from colliding with the administration’s instincts, deliberate prudence matched them. This is a third factor: a centralised French system that tends to prefer elegantly polished design over pragmatic local initiative. “It’s an énarque tendency,” says one, referring to the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, which trains the elite. In some bureaucracies, such as finance, clear command chains have nonetheless enabled political decisions to be put in place rapidly. But the health system is a many-tentacled beast, linking the ministry, national agencies, 18 regional authorities and departmental préfectures. “We have a central state that wants to decide and control everything, but lacks clear hierarchical lines,” says Nicolas Bauquet of the Institut Montaigne, a think-tank: “On the ground everybody is expected to wait for the plan.”

The upshot was a complex plan that wasted precious time. Before jabbing care-home residents, for instance, the health ministry produced a 45-page vaccination guide, including six pages on how to obtain residents’ consent. As the delays this caused became clear, rules limiting vaccines to care-home residents were shelved, and health workers over 50 included.

Back in Poissy, the mayor thinks President Emmanuel Macron needs to give the “ants’ nest” of the “techno-structure” a “big kick”. Paradoxically, for all the self-administered caution and rules, vaccine supply is now more likely to hold things up. For the slow roll-out has inadvertently turned the distrustful French into impatient enthusiasts: 56% now say they want a jab. ■

Why France’s vaccination roll-out has been so slow

The country that pioneered vaccines has struggled to get covid-19 jabs into arms

www.economist.com

Garlic Republic.

 

[grandjoeblue]

The current form of lockdown. We'll see. It all depends on the vaccine really and if infection rates continue to drop.

You keep saying 'no chance' but remember I've lived in Tier 3 or lockdown since the end of October and like the system or not, rates in west Yorkshire have stayed manageable throughout - that's even with schools open, even with people allowed to go and play golf or go to the gym.

I think you're about right with that timeframe, but they've said that they're going to go back into a tier system based on infection rates. We'll see. Still at least six weeks of this current lockdown guise, I agree there.

I just think they'll be hesitant to reopen so quickly. Especially considering how much or a failure the November lockdown was and the fact tier 2 for London caused huge numbers of deaths.

 

[davek]

Let’s see mate, I have my suspicions, unless AZ provided a smoking gun in data to the EMA. I think Germany broke ranks today and would be a fudge really if the decision was delegated to specific country’s, I’d be surprised and critical personally. I’ll be looking at what the produce tomorrow closely.

The nationalism aspect is a bit silly, I don’t even think it’s a feature in production to be honest, heard tonight that the vaccine produced in the two factories in the UK are shipped to Germany for “filling” then shipped back to the UK. It’s all just silly. There will be over saturation of vaccines very shortly for us fat cat country’s while the developing world waits, it’s like a kids birthday party with the kids closest to the cakes trying to nobble them all first stuffing themselves, before the kids at the other end of the table can get them.

Anyhow I think it will all get a bit more heated before it relaxes if the EU shaping up, follows through, they don’t look like they are messing about.

On AZ: there are bound to emerge "niche vaccines" over time. Different groups will fit different types of vaccine based on what they do to the virus (destroy/neutralise; mimic it/offer more from a T-cell angle etc). But what we do know now is that the data just isn't there to support rolling out the AZ vaccine to older people. It may well be ok for them, but (and as the Germans have decided) until such data exists it would be far wiser to vaccinate older groups with Pfizer or Moderna where the data is there in abundance that older groups react as well to the vaccine as younger groups.

Vaccine nationalism: it's a dangerous thing. No only is it purblind in terms of failing to understand the international dimension to ALL vaccine, it is dangerous to become cheerleaders for vaccine that has a lot of work to do to prove their worth, handing nation states the freedom to use their (easily manipulated) regulators to ok its roll out, and can also lead to what we're seeing right now on vaccine: hoarding of stocks...which can pretty soon turn into hoarding of information on how to deal with new challenges a virus can bring.

But some people will parrot the propganda because that's how theylve been programmed all their lives: to see the world through a prism of patriotism.

Daft gets.

 

[Brennan]

On AZ: there are bound to emerge "niche vaccines" over time. Different groups will fit different types of vaccine based on what they do to the virus (destroy/neutralise; mimic it/offer more from a T-cell angle etc). But what we do know now is that the data just isn't there to support rolling out the AZ vaccine to older people. It may well be ok for them, but (and as the Germans have decided) until such data exists it would be far wiser to vaccinate older groups with Pfizer or Moderna where the data is there in abundance that older groups react as well to the vaccine as younger groups.

Vaccine nationalism: it's a dangerous thing. No only is it purblind in terms of failing to understand the international dimension to ALL vaccine, it is dangerous to become cheerleaders for vaccine that has a lot of work to do to prove their worth, handing nation states the freedom to use their (easily manipulated) regulators to ok its roll out, and can also lead to what we're seeing right now on vaccine: hoarding of stocks...which can pretty soon turn into hoarding of information on how to deal with new challenges a virus can bring.

But some people will parrot the propganda because that's how theylve been programmed all their lives: to see the world through a prism of patriotism.

Daft gets.

lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol

 

[BlueToff]

I just think they'll be hesitant to reopen so quickly. Especially considering how much or a failure the November lockdown was and the fact tier 2 for London caused huge numbers of deaths.

Yeah I agree. I don't think anywhere will be placed into Tier 2 immediately though. But in Tier 3, people were allowed to - for example - go and play golf or go and play footy on a weekend.

I don't see why from mid-to-late March that won't be allowed again if the vaccine roll out continues to be successful. The rates per-day are good, so far. Just needs to continue. If we have another vaccine - made in the UK (Teeside I believe) set to come around March/April time too, then that could speed things up even further.

There has to be caution, but people have to be allowed to get back to normality or life's just not worth living. It's genuinely just existence at the moment. It's depressing. However, I know why it has to be like this and I know it's better than me or my loved ones having the virus.

 

[ForeverBlue92]

The plot thickens

AstraZeneca may have to renegotiate vaccine contracts, say experts

Company may be in danger of breaching contracts to supply EU and UK due to production problem

www.theguardian.com

Disgusting that is taking vaccines out of the arms of the UK in a tit for tat political battle.

Screw the EU I've had enof of em tbh - take your grievances up with AZ you supposedly thinks crap anyway instead of making it political.

 

[davek]

Well Dave you are just at the other end of the spectrum. Automatically hating anything even slightly related to Britain. You go on about trusting the science and scientists but only as long as it isn't British scientists who are incorrect and serve up gnat's piss. Refusing to acknowledge any benefit of the AZ vaccine saying you won't take it until it has been okayed by EU and US regulators because you believe our regulators are just puppets of the government. You genuinely come across as desperate for the AZ vaccine to fail.

I personally couldn't give a toss where the vaccine comes from as long as it is going to help us finally get out of this horrendous situation we have all had to live through for coming up to a year. None of the vaccines are perfect but hopefully by utilising all of them we will be able to return to some form of normality in the not too distant future.

Hardly. On Monday I have a VERY elderly relative getting it.