Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[PaulPowersTash]

Wait till they find out Russia stole the formula from AZ......

And it's not been approved by the EMA.
But hey, that vaccines fine...

 

[ForeverBlue92]

Macron and Merkel in late night call with Putin to secure delivery of Sputnik vaccine in place of AZ.

Couldn’t make this up if you tried!

Macron and Merkel

What a pair of dossers.

 

[COYBL25]

I didn't realise either but my missus works part time for the National Trust doing holiday let changeovers and she recently went back to work getting the properties ready for the 12th. She works with 2 students who told her they are getting tested twice weekly. If they're doing it down here they'll be doing it everywhere surely?

My eldest lad came home with six test kits to do whilst he’s off school for the Easter hols, he has to do and input at least 4 before he returns to school.

Are we socialists or Torys in Daves world for doing this, as I’m confused ?

Lots of good infections > good means we stay under restrictions ?

Low infection bad > muck and swill sellers open and the neo liberal scum line their pockets ?

 

[davids]

Has there ever been a more cringeworthy term for people?

It's usually the free thinking intellectual giants who spent their nights on YouTube who use it.

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

It's interesting how the europhobes are using the situation as propoganda.

Ha - I'm actually pro-Europe. A remoaner as Pete calls me. I've lived and worked both in Germany and Holland and my wife is Dutch.

Check out my posts in the EU in/out thread.

I call it as I see it - I'm astonished and appalled at how badly the EU have handled this matter. Their strategic planning on vaccines has been a shambles from the start - if you can''t see it, then you need to open your eyes.

My wife has elderly relatives in Amsterdam who still have yet to receive a first dose of any vaccine! Her uncle is 75 has one lung and actually survived a severe bout of covid last year - but for some messed up reason, both he and his wife are still waiting for their vaccine shots - just like so many others in similar situations.

So stop being so defensive.

 

[Mrk]

It is very frustrating to consistently hear that it has to be one or the other - it doesn't.

Thought I'd highlight this because this point couldn't be more right. Many of the arguments you see in the media and on here are ludicrous because it's either "Keep everything locked down" or "Open up everything immediately". Utter nonsense.

Every 1% of easing in restrictions will lead to a % increase in transmission, we know this for a fact - but it's perfectly reasonable and sensible to offset that risk against the growing numbers of people who are protected by the vaccine, our much-improved testing capacity and decrease in hospitalizations.

It's a balance between saving lives and saving livelihoods - anybody who can't accept that or thinks we should ignore one or the other isn't worth listening to.

 

[spectateur]

Macron and Merkel

What a pair of dossers.

I can't understand why UK residents are so interested in their activities.
Anti EU mud slinging?

 

[Tubey]

I can't understand why UK residents are so interested in their activities.
Anti EU mud slinging?

No, it's because their uselessness is a direct health threat to us.

It's in everyone's interests to get the pandemic response right and they haven't.

 

[tsubaki]

Ha - I'm actually pro-Europe. A remoaner as Pete calls me. I've lived and worked both in Germany and Holland and my wife is Dutch.

Check out my posts in the EU in/out thread.

I call it as I see it - I'm astonished and appalled at how badly the EU have handled this matter. Their strategic planning on vaccines has been a shambles from the start - if you can''t see it, then you need to open your eyes.

My wife has elderly relatives in Amsterdam who still have yet to receive a first dose of any vaccine! Her uncle is 75 has one lung and actually survived a severe bout of covid last year - but for some messed up reason, both he and his wife are still waiting for their vaccine shots - just like so many others in similar situations.

So stop being so defensive.

TBF this is a good example of how opinion has been shifted for a lot of people by anti-EU types. This isn’t a criticism of the EU, at least not in terms of this being the EUs fault.

Vaccine distribution is a national competency and always has been, so is healthcare generally.

Vaccine procurement isn’t (in this case), but the problems reported aren’t really procurement related - as the anti-EU crowd have pointed out oft, there are stockpiles of vaccines in most EU nations.

Now there are criticisms of the procurement, but that it’s not supplying vaccines in the necessary quantities is not a major one of them.

Why EU countries are failing is because this crisis is one that is best handled by a mass organisation that has access to everyone’s health data, in order to arrange millions of appointments and work out a national rollout. We have that in the NHS; they don’t.

 

[peteblue]

I can't understand why UK residents are so interested in their activities.
Anti EU mud slinging?

Nothing to do with the EU. Merkel and Macron as the dominant politicians within the EU have allowed their ego’s and political ambitions to get in the way of dealing with this virus. Politicians of all nations, including the U.K. and USA, made mistakes early on and people paid for those mistakes with their lives. But to wilfully continue making the same mistakes at this point in time is unforgivable. The political campaign against the AZ vaccine is an absolute disgrace and Macron in particular has done incalculable harm to his own people and perhaps the world. All for his own ego. This is not an anti-EU rant, as at least belatedly the EMA have been forceful in this matter, but both Macron and Merkel are allowing people to die for ego and political survival......

 

[spectateur]

No, it's because their uselessness is a direct health threat to us.

It's in everyone's interests to get the pandemic response right and they haven't.

It most certainly is but then no country has got everything right.
Apart from the vaccine distribution and vaccination program, UK response has been abysmal.
That success is due to the NHS network rather than any input Mr Johnson has made.

 

[Tubey]

It most certainly is but then no country has got everything right.
Apart from the vaccine distribution and vaccination program, UK response has been abysmal.
That success is due to the NHS network rather than any input Mr Johnson has made.

I think the UK got this pandemic wrong worse than any other remotely equivalent country in the world. Truly horrific incompetency.

... except for the vaccine acquisition and rollout, which they absolutely nailed in every single way. Not just the NHS, but unfortunately Hancock et al got the vaccines right from the start.

I say unfortunately because, yes, it acts as a shield to them to hide the incompetence, but it is what it is.

The EU got the pandemic response marginally better than the UK overall, but calamitously worse in regards to vaccines.

 

[spectateur]

I would put the anti AZ vaccine thing at the door of Pfizer rather than with any particular politician.
They hate to see their lucrative market under sold

 

[BlueToff]

I didn't realise either but my missus works part time for the National Trust doing holiday let changeovers and she recently went back to work getting the properties ready for the 12th. She works with 2 students who told her they are getting tested twice weekly. If they're doing it down here they'll be doing it everywhere surely?

Dunno mate - most uni students aren't going in, it's only ones who are in practical courses (healthcare among them) or ones you absolutely have to be in attendance for.

Most of it is from homes/halls etc - I can't imagine they'd be testing 1000s of students who aren't going into anywhere to learn?

This is now out of date, as it was before the lockdown, but it says that tests would be offered to medical students and those doing in-house learning, not learning from home - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/all-students-offered-testing-on-return-to-university

Sixth form and high schools are.

 

[davek]

It's a difficult one to apply in the UK given how poorly implemented T&T is.

There is sense in saying, as you have above, that outside only is the best option and on one hand I'm inclined to agree.

However, the risk has to be balanced against the financial need (there are many reasons why - economic & health).

It is very frustrating to consistently hear that it has to be one or the other - it doesn't.

You can; if you use your lockdown effectively, if you reduce the rate sufficiently and if you have widespread public adherence, open things to the public using track and trace to focus on hot spots - Australia is a great example of this working (yes I know it's not like for like).

But I think we've boxed ourselves into a position where the public belief is that the only options are to rationalise more deaths as unfortunate collateral or lockdown indefinitely.

Indoor dining at restaurants have been proven to be one of the key activities in transmission of the last deadly surge into winter.

We just cant repeat that because restauranteurs want to profit. That is a sociopathic.