Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Neiler]

That attachment isn't working on my end.

Yikes on AZ and the SA varient. Keep that out of the Uk at all costs.

Good news on the Uk variant.

 

[BlueToff]

Anyone who thinks that the majority of the U.K. population are going to wear masks and adhere to social distancing beyond the point where they don’t have to, is living in cloud cuckoo land.

You can bang on all you like about it being the norm in the Far East, but it’s not the norm here.

Add to that, in certain parts of the U.K., the people ( Liverpool being one ) don’t like being told what to do and are naturally anti authoritarian.

You can call them MURDERERS and SERFS all you want, but that won’t change their psyche.

Like I've said mate I'll happily wear a mask to go about everyday life in terms of popping to the shop or getting on a train or whatever, if that's the trade off for being able to do things like go to gigs, go to the match etc without having to wear a mask...

 

[BlueToff]

The vaccines are there. Forget them in that sense. They are useful and will help. They wont get us to safety though. Only suppression and behavioural changes will do that. Look to the east.

*squints at Hull*

In seriousness, the east also require the vaccines...

 

[BlueToff]

You're not wrong, but you're also not painting the full picture here:

View attachment 119829

As you can see the AZ jab is pretty much worthless against the B.1.351 variant, in spite of it being having a reported 90% efficacy against the ancestor of the variant. If we're not careful and allow further mutations to take place through transmission, we will likely see similar results.

Yes, that's a worry.

I'm sure they're running more tests.

But actually I'm not fully missing the point because I did stress that I know the efficacy is what's been impacted. What isn't being impacted is the effectiveness of the vaccines against serious illness.

However, I do understand that the issue with a variant of the virus still being able to spread is that it could then develop into another strain which is immune to the vaccines completely. However, it appears that would be very unlikely?

Again, efficacy is different from serious illness/death here - and the priority is ensuring those latter two are reduced significantly...

 

[davek]

Replacing every PPE fraud in parliament with someone with a science degree and government is transformed overnight. Going further and getting experienced scientists and technologists in parliament at a high level I am not sure is a good thing though - that mindset is not an easy marriage with politics IMHO, few political problems have scientific solutions.

(That's PPE as in the Oxford degree of philosophy, politics, and economics. Not personal protective equipment).

Well, we can have economic experts shoehorned into governments to advise on implimenting austerity as per the Italian case; we should be seeing in a crisis like this Cabinets which have virologists.

TBH, I think I'd rather have a military junta in charge than the Tory Death Cult.

 

[davek]

*squints at Hull*

In seriousness, the east also require the vaccines...

Imagine how secure they'll be when they get vaccines. Japan - 126 million population with 8,000 deaths; they'll all but eliminate Covid19 when they roll their vaccine out.

 

[JLW]

Imagine how secure they'll be when they get vaccines. Japan - 126 million population with 8,000 deaths; they'll all but eliminate Covid19 when they roll their vaccine out.

Why would Japans vaccine eliminate Covid but ours won’t? You keep saying the vaccine isn’t the way out of this For us but you’re basically saying it is for Japan.

 

[davek]

Why would Japans vaccine eliminate Covid but ours won’t? You keep saying the vaccine isn’t the way out of this For us but you’re basically saying it is for Japan.

Because they will do the suppression of the virus and also maintain their social distancing and hygiene behaviour toward the virus. This country wont do that and therefore the heavy lifting is all on the vaccines when it is meant to be part of a fightback against the virus.

 

[BlueToff]

Imagine how secure they'll be when they get vaccines. Japan - 126 million population with 8,000 deaths; they'll all but eliminate Covid19 when they roll their vaccine out.

Yes, that's all well and good. It's brilliant that they'll be able to do that. But they still need the vaccine - and I'm sure they'll be starting their roll out very soon (if they already haven't).

But it's not really relevant now because the end goal is herd immunity to fully suppress the virus. It'd have been great had we followed their lead or the NZ model to attempt to reduce the deaths more in the past year, of course. We'd have hopefully been in a similar position and be able to rely much less on the vaccines. But, ultimately, the horse has bolted (and yes, that is on the government and I agree with you there).

 

[Number_25]

Replacing every PPE fraud in parliament with someone with a science degree and government is transformed overnight. Going further and getting experienced scientists and technologists in parliament at a high level I am not sure is a good thing though - that mindset is not an easy marriage with politics IMHO, few political problems have scientific solutions.

(That's PPE as in the Oxford degree of philosophy, politics, and economics. Not personal protective equipment).

When Labour Party members attempted to select their candidates through democratic processes, we were attacked viciously by the media and the types of PPE graduates that fill the mainstream discourse.

 

[davek]

Yes, that's all well and good. It's brilliant that they'll be able to do that. But they still need the vaccine - and I'm sure they'll be starting their roll out very soon (if they already haven't).

But it's not really relevant now because the end goal is herd immunity to fully suppress the virus. It'd have been great had we followed their lead or the NZ model to attempt to reduce the deaths more in the past year, of course. We'd have hopefully been in a similar position and be able to rely much less on the vaccines. But, ultimately, the horse has bolted (and yes, that is on the government and I agree with you there).

I dont think you're getting it (wilfully or otherwise).

The vaccines will always be a step behind and there will be variants...more so in a population where there's little or no serious attempt to deny the virus the conditions it requires through suppressing it and socially distancing / wearing face coverings.

Japan will best use the vaccines because they do the heavy lifting around track and trace and doing the right things hygeine and social distancing wise.

The vaccines aren't a panacea. I think you know that but feel you need to stick two fingers up to the message that there's hard yards that need to be done alongside them. Which is your prerogative, I suppose.

 

[BlueToff]

I dont think you're getting it (wilfully or otherwise).

The vaccines will always be a step behind and there will be variants...more so in a population where there's little or no serious attempt to deny the virus the conditions it requires through suppressing it and socially distancing / wearing face coverings.

Japan will best use the vaccines because they do the heavy lifting around track and trace and doing the right things hygeine and social distancing wise.

The vaccines aren't a panacea. I think you know that but feel you need to stick two fingers up to the message that there's hard yards that need to be done alongside them. Which is your prerogative, I suppose.

no, you're putting words into my mouth.

I know they're not all the answer, it's not about putting two fingers up to anything, other than you and your view that nothing should return.

 

[SussexToffee]

224,996 first dose vaccinations in the U.K. today, taking the number up to 20,703,615.

Is has been reported that supply will ramp up next week to unprecedented levels.

By middle of next week double where we are now, numbers should shoot up rapidly for a few weeks.

The issue has been the Pfizer delivery delays but 10 million AZ from India are due.

As for new cases and deaths, the .gov dashboard seems to have died today, but PHE are saying 6,385 cases and 315 all settings deaths, which is for the whole of the U.K.

This time last week those figures were 9,938 and 442, so a 36% and 29% decrease respectively.

It was nearly six months ago on September 23 when a Wednesday was last this low.

 

[davek]

I've been watching Dr John Campbell's daily updates for a while now.

I'd recommend him because he's not a show off and just allows - as much as possible - the data to speak for itself, as it were.

 

[SussexToffee]

Hospital accommodations with Covid in England have dropped 527 in a day to 9,594; the first time in ages they have dropped below 10,000. To think when the Kentish/Canterbury variant ripped through the country like salt, we had like over 30,000 admissions by the end of January.

In the U.K. it’s 11,622.