Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Sy-]

There's the nub of it. You see what I'm advocating about a change in the way we live (and what will have to happen long term) as "infringements". I see them as necessary adaptations for the common good.

And no matter what coverage the current vaccination programmes give, this virus will mutate for years to come, demanding that the old normal you seek to go back to wont ever become a reality again...which is why it's a breathtaking claim on your part that you are the future and I represent the past in some way - because I'm accepting what's to come while you are looking to get in the time machine and travel back to the summer of 2019.

I am more optimistic about this, bear in mind that a new vaccine from scratch can typically take 5-10 years. Obviously things aren't going to be normal by the summer, but 'not ever' seems unlikely.

The new normal in a few years is probably just going to be that we get a covid jab when we get the annual flu one.

 

[davek]

I am more optimistic about this, bear in mind that a new vaccine from scratch can typically take 5-10 years. Obviously things aren't going to be normal by the summer, but 'not ever' seems unlikely.

The new normal in a few years is probably just going to be that we get a covid jab when we get the annual flu one.

That's optimistic. I hope you're right and I'm wrong.

 

[tsubaki]

I get that point and as I've said I don't think AZ aren't culpable either. But the EU Commission's decision-making seems to have left a lot to be desired.

Doing what they've done at the Northern Ireland border isn't a good move either. Come on, there's no real defending it. Lives are at stake everywhere. Let's just accept that their insistence on complete control backfired, while also rightly saying that AZ shouldn't have promised a 'best effort' to something they couldn't commit (though at the time - August - I doubt it was clear they wouldn't be able to commit that as the UK plants hadn't been up and running so they didn't know the yield issues).

However, you'd have thought AZ could easily have notified the EU to say 'hey, we've had these problems in the UK, we're thinking that there's a chance this could happen at the EU plants'? Maybe that's me being naive, but surely that wouldn't be out of the realms of possibility to have happened.

Ive not defended the Ireland border thing; as I said yesterday it was a stunt and I’m glad it has been rescinded (especially as it brought a lot of hypocrisy out of the Tory Brexit crowd).

I do think though that what they proposed (export checks, not bans) is instructive - they seem to think that AZ are still exporting vaccine from the EU. If that’s happening, the EU are right to find out and do something about it.

 

[BlueToff]

I would see a late spring / early summer type of movement and activity to become the mode of our lives for the next couple of years if we are serious about using the vaccine to give us a chance of stopping mass death each year. So, no mass gathering for events, a continuation of face mask rules and overall hygene required, social distancing to continue and a trace and track testing policy that really is world class to keep putting fires out where they happen. That requires a different type of government than the one we have, which is as "liberal" as there is. That form of politics has to be binned now.

We can see in the East how societies can manage a pandemic much better than we can. We have a lot to learn from them and I suggest we do so quickly.

Sounds like a right laugh.

Honestly, the world isn't safe. I have more chance of dying in a car crash than I do of COVID.

I don't want to just 'exist'. Same goes for the majority of people.

Life's not worth living if you can't make the most of it.

Over in the East, they don't restrict festivals and gatherings and crowds to the summer. They just have a completely different way of living. That's called culture. It's great that there's cultural differences around the world. It shows we're not all robots.

In your world, we'd never have had The Beatles coming through. Wouldn't have been able to play live for 6 months of the year would they.

Might as well forget sport existing, too. No crowds for 6 months of the year means no funding, which means no resources for young sportspeople coming through and training and honing their talent.

Cinema? What's the point. Nobody can gather to watch it.

 

[BlueToff]

Ive not defended the Ireland border thing; as I said yesterday it was a stunt and I’m glad it has been rescinded (especially as it brought a lot of hypocrisy out of the Tory Brexit crowd).

I do think though that what they proposed (export checks, not bans) is instructive - they seem to think that AZ are still exporting vaccine from the EU. If that’s happening, the EU are right to find out and do something about it.

They are, perhaps, if they can prove that's what's happening, but keep in mind the WHO are also being critical of it.

Edit: Also, is the alleged issue that AZ, while waiting for the drug to be passed in the EU, shipped those vaccines to the UK? While that would of course give the EU more leeway to be very annoyed, it is a pandemic and people are dying and the priority is the vaccine. So if they are waiting and waiting on a process, where is the morality in that vaccine sitting 'on a shelf' for 3 weeks when it could have been used to give people some protection in that time? Morally, then you can see both sides of the coin there too.

Coronavirus: WHO criticises EU over vaccine export controls

"Vaccine nationalism" risks causing a "protracted recovery", the head of the world health body warns.

www.bbc.co.uk

They've really, really not done themselves any favours here.

 

[Brennan]

Sounds like a right laugh.

Honestly, the world isn't safe. I have more chance of dying in a car crash than I do of COVID.

I don't want to just 'exist'. Same goes for the majority of people.

Life's not worth living if you can't make the most of it.

Over in the East, they don't restrict festivals and gatherings and crowds to the summer. They just have a completely different way of living. That's called culture. It's great that there's cultural differences around the world. It shows we're not all robots.

In your world, we'd never have had The Beatles coming through. Wouldn't have been able to play live for 6 months of the year would they.

Might as well forget sport existing, too. No crowds for 6 months of the year means no funding, which means no resources for young sportspeople coming through and training and honing their talent.

Cinema? What's the point. Nobody can gather to watch it.

It’s delusional to think Covid is going to restrict things like mass gatherings 2-3 years from now.

Look at the progress which has been made on the vaccine front in just 12 months, as this is refined and improved we will reach a point as has been suggested where Covid is managed with routine vaccinations annually.

 

[BlueToff]

It’s delusional to think Covid is going to restrict things like mass gatherings 2-3 years from now.

It shouldn't restrict them later this year IMO but being realistic I know it probably will, but it's bloody depressing.

The vaccines stop serious illness. That's what's important. Get enough of them out there and later this year (I'm talking 8-9 months' time) it should be like any other bloody bug.

People get ill. People die. It's crap, but it's life. That's why we have a health service, to be there when they are needed. We just can't get our health services overrun which is the entire point of all these restrictions at the end of the day. Once the population is fully or partially vaccinated and/or largely has some form of natural immunity, then the health services should be able to deal with it just fine.

Rather than continued restrictions, which means continued pumping into the economy for support schemes, surely the best course of action is just to direct that money into the healthcare systems to ensure they are better equipped?

 

[BlueToff]

Oh. This from the BBC article I've just shared -

The EU is also in a supply dispute with Pfizer, which is set to fall short of the contracted vaccine volume for the EU by the end of March. Pfizer says the reason for that is the urgent expansion of its facility in Puurs, Belgium.

 

[PaulPowersTash]

You constantly make assumptions about me. I don’t even drink. But what I am is honest, so yeah, you’re a better man than me. All I’m continually asking you is why after a mass vaccination programme stringent restrictions and infringement on people’s freedom would be required. And you can’t even answer. Just say you want 0 Covid. By any means necessary.

Caution of course will be required, hold off on a free for all to make sure transmission is reduced and hospitalisations are at very low levels, with deaths hopefully the same. Only an idiot would advocate letting everything go back to normal before we know for certain the vaccines are protecting people to a great enough degree.

And again with the back sack and crack parlours. It’s an absolute fetishistic obsession at this point. You’re such a boomer on this subject. Seriously have you not heard of manscaped? The days of waxing your private parts are long gone.

This is why there’s no point debating this with you. You talk about adapting to a new way of life like it’s your great noble mission. It’s like Covid gave you some purpose and some meaning that was absent. You assume I’m a pie eating alcoholic so I’ll make some assumptions about you. I’m going to hazard a guess and say you’re at least, AT LEAST, 20 years older than me. I’m not going to jump to conclusions, but I imagine your life is pretty set and I imagine your comfortable enough financially. I’m not saying your Richard Branson but I’m guessing you’re set up enough to do better than most people in their mid 20’s who are looking to carve their way and actually make something of their life. It’s pretty easy to “adapt” from the comfort of your own home with money in the bank. I guess my generation will just have to cop for it right?

This holier than thou, messiah complex is tiresome now. Believe it or not I follow the rules as stringently as anyone. I just don’t pretend to enjoy it or want it to continue beyond the point it has to. A point which you seem to want to extend for a long, long period of time.

What’s wrong with being a pie eating alcoholic?

 

[davek]

Sounds like a right laugh.

Honestly, the world isn't safe. I have more chance of dying in a car crash than I do of COVID.

I don't want to just 'exist'. Same goes for the majority of people.

Life's not worth living if you can't make the most of it.

Over in the East, they don't restrict festivals and gatherings and crowds to the summer. They just have a completely different way of living. That's called culture. It's great that there's cultural differences around the world. It shows we're not all robots.

In your world, we'd never have had The Beatles coming through. Wouldn't have been able to play live for 6 months of the year would they.

Might as well forget sport existing, too. No crowds for 6 months of the year means no funding, which means no resources for young sportspeople coming through and training and honing their talent.

Cinema? What's the point. Nobody can gather to watch it.

You've got your head in the sand. Wake up.

 

[spectateur]

True,

Probably true.

 

[davek]

It shouldn't restrict them later this year IMO but being realistic I know it probably will, but it's bloody depressing.

The vaccines stop serious illness. That's what's important. Get enough of them out there and later this year (I'm talking 8-9 months' time) it should be like any other bloody bug.

People get ill. People die. It's crap, but it's life. That's why we have a health service, to be there when they are needed. We just can't get our health services overrun which is the entire point of all these restrictions at the end of the day. Once the population is fully or partially vaccinated and/or largely has some form of natural immunity, then the health services should be able to deal with it just fine.

Rather than continued restrictions, which means continued pumping into the economy for support schemes, surely the best course of action is just to direct that money into the healthcare systems to ensure they are better equipped?

This is complete lunacy.

You know that it's not, not even with vaccines.

Yiu are seeing this crisis through the prism of your own generation. Be sure that you're in the minority on that.

 

[grandjoeblue]

If the world ends up like @davek wants. Please somebody order me a coffin sooner rather later.

Just about existing is no life in the long term.

 

[Kurt.]

Just had my first jab..... they’ve converted a leisure centre here into a field hospital and it’s running like clockwork... amazing people

 

[edge]

... and Holland, and Germany, and Belgium, and Keele, and Oxford

Dont they do it in the Speke plant?