Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[ToffeeTim]

They absolutely are.

I agree T&T is vital for future viruses - and for understanding community transmission and mutations of the current one - but sorry, what you've said there in bold is nonsense. The vaccines are clearly our best defence against COVID-19.

Vaccines are going to become an annual, or at least regular thing for a lot of the population so surely the vaccine boosters will adapt over time to counter changes to the virus.

We need to wait a bit longer, but once we have a lot more people vaccinated then we need to open up most of the economy. If everything goes to plan then there's no reason for big restrictions come the summer, and the general public won't understand it either.

 

[Tubey]

Nowhere in the world is 'back to normal', either. 'Normal' is not snap 5-day lockdowns for areas thousands of miles wide for 10 cases in one specific place, as we're seeing in Victoria right now.

I'm not at all saying I don't agree with what the Australian system is, because it's clearly worked in suppressing the virus, but that ain't 'normality'.

They're acting out of necessity because we didn't have a vaccine. Some countries were better placed than others for the purposes of suppression - that's the lesson to be learned for future pandemics, but all measures exist to suppress until you can vaccinate.

Which is why saying "vaccines aren't our best defence" is a nonsense. Near 100% prevention of serious illness, approx. 66% reduction in transmission, above 50% efficacy in 99% of the worlds existing strains of it. Of course it's our best defence - it's a complete game changer.

 

[tsubaki]

What countries are 'back to normal'?

Entire regions in Aus have been in and out of snap lockdowns because of a few cases. It's worked, but it's not 'normal', and there's still no concerts etc there, only matches/events with limited numbers of spectators (30,000 in the MCG I believe it was for the Boxing Day test?).

We'll see their lockdown rates go up again now because it's their autumn, cases will spike, however small that spike is.

New Zealand still aren't allowing any travellers in bar from Australia I think.

Nowhere is 'back to normal'.

SK, Taiwan, NZ, Australia, Vietnam - places that, via various means, effectively contained the virus and the result was vastly fewer restrictions on their citizens, far fewer deaths and far less economic damage.

How anyone can come out if this past year and not think containment is the answer here baffles me.

 

[davek]

Vaccines are going to become an annual, or at least regular thing for a lot of the population so surely the vaccine boosters will adapt over time to counter changes to the virus.

We need to wait a bit longer, but once we have a lot more people vaccinated then we need to open up most of the economy. If everything goes to plan then there's no reason for big restrictions come the summer, and the general public won't understand it either.

I think you're putting too much store in these vaccines.

 

[ToffeeTim]

I think you're putting too much store in these vaccines.

No I'm not, they will stop the majority of serious illnesses and that will massively help our hospitals, GPs etc.

At that point we can have relative normality again. And then we can actually track the cases better and isolate those effected.

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

Health first, economy second.

You'd think to hear some people talking that before the virus hit education was top notch, mental health was stable and living standards were brilliant. They weren't. This crisis has merely sharpened up inequalities in those areas.

Stay safe; ride out the crisis and pick up from there. No use opening up society and the economy and seeing another 100,000 lives snuffed out just because some people want 'normality'...which was 'kin pony anyway for the vast majority other than the very young and the rich...or because this murderous Tory regime wants you to make more cash for their mates in business.

If we were near the 20,000 dead as predicted by the government and it's experts last march, would every sympathy on the urgency of moving out of full lock down. However, we are nowhere near it as have far exceeded the most hopeful of grim predictions, And it's the same right wingers who procrastinate over first lock down herd immunity, over face masks over social distancing, over schools being covid safe, my pub is COVID secure, the list goes on procrastinating old nonsensical rubbish. At every stage they have morally and academically bankrupted themselves.

 

[davek]

SK, Taiwan, NZ, Australia, Vietnam - places that, via various means, effectively contained the virus and the result was vastly fewer restrictions on their citizens, far fewer deaths and far less economic damage.

How anyone can come out if this past year and not think containment is the answer here baffles me.

Much more so than vaccines, tbf.

There's impatience at the thought of a lockdown. The frustration on that front should be aimed on the government for ballsing up track and trace by bunging hundreds of millions of pounds to their friends in the private sector who are clueless about the system of track and trace. Only a passing on to financially beefed up local health authorities to carry out the track and trace can get this under control...it certainly wont be via Tory corruption and use of the incompetent private sector.

There's a very good reason we have the phrase 'capitalism kills'.

 

[COYBL25]

What countries are 'back to normal'?

Entire regions in Aus have been in and out of snap lockdowns because of a few cases. It's worked, but it's not 'normal', and there's still no concerts etc there, only matches/events with limited numbers of spectators (30,000 in the MCG I believe it was for the Boxing Day test?).

We'll see their lockdown rates go up again now because it's their autumn, cases will spike, however small that spike is.

New Zealand still aren't allowing any travellers in bar from Australia I think.

Nowhere is 'back to normal'.

The Isle of Man is completely back to normal.

All of the Covid incubators and spreaders are open without any restrictions.

 

[BlueStevie35]

Health first, economy second.

You'd think to hear some people talking that before the virus hit education was top notch, mental health was stable and living standards were brilliant. They weren't. This crisis has merely sharpened up inequalities in those areas.

Stay safe; ride out the crisis and pick up from there. No use opening up society and the economy and seeing another 100,000 lives snuffed out just because some people want 'normality'...which was 'kin pony anyway for the vast majority other than the very young and the rich...or because this murderous Tory regime wants you to make more cash for their mates in business.

Let me put it to you this way, we are 43 days into 2021, I have worked precisely two days out of that time, the day lockdown was announced (and I was on my way home that day when the news came through) and the day after (to ‘close down’ the shop). Last year I had roughly 15/16 weeks not working due to the two lockdowns and holiday time, the most I’ve not worked since the first half of 2014 before I started my job

Because of distance and COVID, I have missed near enough my youngest nephew’s first year and my youngest niece’s second year, by your ideology I wouldn’t be able to see them in person until they were nearly 2 and 3 respectively , meaning I’d be pretty much a stranger to them, because there’s been little bonding time. That is not normal by any stretch

This isn’t a rant born out of not caring, I’ve had family go through COVID, albeit mild forms, I’ve got an uncle, a step aunt and a cousin all at high risk because of past or current cancer treatments, I myself am at risk because of my asthma. What I’m saying is it’s ok to want people to stay alive and well AND want things to return to normal, or at least as normal as possible

 

[tsubaki]

Vaccines are going to become an annual, or at least regular thing for a lot of the population so surely the vaccine boosters will adapt over time to counter changes to the virus.

We need to wait a bit longer, but once we have a lot more people vaccinated then we need to open up most of the economy. If everything goes to plan then there's no reason for big restrictions come the summer, and the general public won't understand it either.

Vaccines are absolutely a help here, and we will need them.

The point is though that to work effectively we will need to know loads of things about the virus, what the dominant strain is likely to be that season, what vaccines are most likely to be effective against it, what previously vaccinated groups are going to be potentially at risk (because their protection might not be effective).

We can only ever get that information in time to make use of it from effective surveillance of what the virus is doing in the UK; we can only get that from proper test track and trace.

If we have that, it allows us to contain new outbreaks without lockdowns, without mass vaccination campaigns and without trashing the economy.

 

[davek]

If we were near the 20,000 dead as predicted by the government and it's experts last march, would every sympathy on the urgency of moving out of full lock down. However, we are nowhere near it as have far exceeded the most hopeful of grim predictions, And it's the same right wingers who procrastinate over first lock down herd immunity, over face masks over social distancing, over schools being covid safe, my pub is COVID secure, the list goes on procrastinating old nonsensical rubbish. At every stage they have morally and academically bankrupted themselves.

That Covid Recovery Group in the Tory Party are all about eugenics. They are the pollitical wing of corporate fascism.

And I cant understand how some people on here are still quoting hired puppets like Whitty and Vallance - two monsters who have connived to get economic considerations placed above health concerns throughout this pandemic. They are part and parcel of the problem.

 

[Tubey]

The Isle of Man is completely back to normal.

All of the Covid incubators and spreaders are open without any restrictions.

I honestly don't class 'normal' as being a hermit island of a few thousand people with 10 day quarantines on arrivals.

 

[Walken]

The Isle of Man is completely back to normal.

All of the Covid incubators and spreaders are open without any restrictions.

It would take a global pandemic for the that gang of webbed toed kipper fisherman to be described as normal

 

[davek]

Let me put it to you this way, we are 43 days into 2021, I have worked precisely two days out of that time, the day lockdown was announced (and I was on my way home that day when the news came through) and the day after (to ‘close down’ the shop). Last year I had roughly 15/16 weeks not working due to the two lockdowns and holiday time, the most I’ve not worked since the first half of 2014 before I started my job

Because of distance and COVID, I have missed near enough my youngest nephew’s first year and my youngest niece’s second year, by your ideology I wouldn’t be able to see them in person until they were nearly 2 and 3 respectively , meaning I’d be pretty much a stranger to them, because there’s been little bonding time. That is not normal by any stretch

This isn’t a rant born out of not caring, I’ve had family go through COVID, albeit mild forms, I’ve got an uncle, a step aunt and a cousin all at high risk because of past or current cancer treatments, I myself am at risk because of my asthma. What I’m saying is it’s ok to want people to stay alive and well AND want things to return to normal, or at least as normal as possible

You need to focus on the government that bungled track and trace, not me for wanting to minimize deaths because of that bungling.

 

[davek]

No I'm not, they will stop the majority of serious illnesses and that will massively help our hospitals, GPs etc.

At that point we can have relative normality again. And then we can actually track the cases better and isolate those effected.

They'll help. They wont stop this crisis. Only intensive testing and quarantining will do that, and behavioural change. Until we have that, we should remain with major restrictions.