Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Ron Aldo]

That was the figures last week. The estimated effect on transmission in the admittedly limited testing so far was a reduction of 1. Apparently that was better than they had hoped for as effect on limiting transmission was never the primary intended result, there not those sorts of vaccines. Someone posted this stuff over the weekend.

For the avoidance of doubt no way am I saying we should keep restrictions as come spring we will be in a good enough place to start lifting. What I am saying is that I don't find it too hard to envisage a situation come winter where sheer volume of new infections COULD still be high enough to permeate through to a level of hospital strain and deaths that COULD be higher than what authorities might deem acceptable whatever that figure is.

I don't mean to come across as ignorant and/or thick but if the population is fully vaccinated then what difference does the R number make? If the virus is still spreading but the majority of people aren't getting seriously ill then what difference does it make?

I'm just struggling to understand how in a fully vaccinated population the virus could still run rampant and overwhelm the health service. If that's likely to be the case then what's the point in vaccinating?

[Elixir]

Nice confidence interval there...

[Bairnardo]

What's Rupert Beale talking about then? If he thinks the vaccine won't be enough to stop the NHS being overwhelmed, when will restrictions ever end?
Plenty of folk are talking like restrictions are now just part of life. If that doesn't worry you then fair enough, but I can't listen to that sort of chat for another month, I'm stressed up to my eye balls and I need something to aim for, preferably a date that I can go round and hug my fucking mum. 
 

They have till the end of this month before I start letting folk visit my home and visiting the homes of like minded friends and family. It's a pretty arbitrary selection of date, but that's my cut off. IDGAF if folk find that unacceptable. That's what it's going to be for me personally. Wont be any parties or anything, but I will invite folk in for a cup of tea or round for their dinner from that point onwards.

I realise that actually, none of this matters to anyone except me, just a statement of how I see things tbh.

[Left Back]

2 hours ago, Day of the Lords said:

The comments section on the online version of that must be fucking nuclear 

A 30 second scan of the comments proves you correct 

[Dons_1988]

At what point do the public get a say in all this?

If we get to a point where the virus might reach uncontrollable levels because there might be a variant out there in future that is resistant to the vaccine and deaths might reach an unacceptable level then it strikes me that the decision to whether or not we are not allowed to live our lives should spread beyond a small number of scientists and politicians.

[Left Back]

1 minute ago, Dons_1988 said:

At what point do the public get a say in all this?

If we get to a point where the virus might reach uncontrollable levels because there might be a variant out there in future that is resistant to the vaccine and deaths might reach an unacceptable level then it strikes me that the decision to whether or not we are not allowed to live our lives should spread beyond a small number of scientists and politicians.

They're called elections.  If you don't like government policy you don't vote for that party.

[budmiester1]

5 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

They have till the end of this month before I start letting folk visit my home and visiting the homes of like minded friends and family. It's a pretty arbitrary selection of date, but that's my cut off. IDGAF if folk find that unacceptable. That's what it's going to be for me personally. Wont be any parties or anything, but I will invite folk in for a cup of tea or round for their dinner from that point onwards.

I realise that actually, none of this matters to anyone except me, just a statement of how I see things tbh.

I totally understand your feelings here, it's the lack of clarity from both governments as to when the "roadmap" appears and the constant negativity from the press which is driving the "F**K"it approach from most rational thinking members of the public. Just give us a small light at the end of the tunnel, that's all we ask.

[10menwent2mow]

You might like to start the morning with a bit of fear and hyperbole, but I like to start my morning with a cup of coffee and then some mini weetabix chocolate chip, then I think about leaving the house.

PARKLIFE

[Dons_1988]

5 minutes ago, Left Back said:

They're called elections.  If you don't like government policy you don't vote for that party.

So in May we're going to be voting on lockdown restrictions. Good to know.

[madwullie]

14 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Are they not?

What's Rupert Beale talking about then? If he thinks the vaccine won't be enough to stop the NHS being overwhelmed, when will restrictions ever end?

Plenty of folk are talking like restrictions are now just part of life. If that doesn't worry you then fair enough, but I can't listen to that sort of chat for another month, I'm stressed up to my eye balls and I need something to aim for, preferably a date that I can go round and hug my fucking mum. 

 

He doesn't say that restrictions should be forever though. Of course it worries me. But the answer isn't to rubbish everyone suggests vaccines might not be the silver bullet at this point the were portrayed as. That's the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalalala. It's distilling it down to its most simple form so you can rubbish it - the absolute opposite of an adult conversation. 

Why are other countries saying one jag is too risky? 

Why are other countries pulling the AZ vaccine when eveeything WE'VE been told is that it's fine and stop serious illness. 

Why are many govts not arguing for restrictions to be lifted ASAP the way we are here?

Are these not important questions we should be asking? 

In March we were all asking why everyone else was locking down and Johnson was talking about economic opportunities and shaking covid hands and we're bawdeep in 100k dead. 

[Bairnardo]

3 minutes ago, budmiester1 said:

I totally understand your feelings here, it's the lack of clarity from both governments as to when the "roadmap" appears and the constant negativity from the press which is driving the "F**K"it approach from most rational thinking members of the public. Just give us a small light at the end of the tunnel, that's all we ask.

At no point during any of this would I like to be responsible for giving someone a disease that could kill them when theres no cure and no preventative medicine. Thats where we were previously

Thats absolutely not where we are now. So for me, it's over. Extra special powers being used to restrict my movement and interactions can quite simply GTF

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

Clownshoes apparently on radio scotland this morning telling us no crowds at football ‘for some time’. 
I can increasingly see the May election being in essence referendum, but not on the subject the SNP hope it will be. 

[Left Back]

1 minute ago, Dons_1988 said:

So in May we're going to be voting on lockdown restrictions. Good to know.

Any election is about any aspects of government policy that affect your life.  Restrictions may not be a specific manifesto pledge for any party but it would be naive to think it won't be a major topic during the campaign if we're still under restrictions.

[Dons_1988]

1 minute ago, Left Back said:

Any election is about any aspects of government policy that affect your life.  Restrictions may not be a specific manifesto pledge for any party but it would be naive to think it won't be a major topic during the campaign if we're still under restrictions.

So are England waiting 4 years then?

[madwullie]

1 minute ago, Left Back said:

Any election is about any aspects of government policy that affect your life.  Restrictions may not be a specific manifesto pledge for any party but it would be naive to think it won't be a major topic during the campaign if we're still under restrictions.

Guaranteed the Scottish tories will be campaigning on looser restrictions meanwhile Johnson and Co down south will be planning in secret (leaking differently of course) to keep them if the data shows we should. 

[Left Back]

1 minute ago, Dons_1988 said:

So are England waiting 4 years then?

For a general election yes but there are other elections the government use to gauge the feeling of the country.  They have local elections in May.  If the Tories get obliterated and the narrative is it's due to restrictions they'd be idiotic not to take notice.

[vikingTON]

18 minutes ago, Left Back said:

They're called elections.  If you don't like government policy you don't vote for that party.

There needs to be a meaningful choice at elections for that to work. The majority of mainstream parties are fully signed up to lockdown restrictions - including the opposition party at UK level whose take is 'we'd have more effective restrictions than the government!'

 

[The Moonster]

2 minutes ago, madwullie said:

He doesn't say that restrictions should be forever though. Of course it worries me. But the answer isn't to rubbish everyone suggests vaccines might not be the silver bullet at this point the were portrayed as. That's the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalalala. It's distilling it down to its most simple form so you can rubbish it - the absolute opposite of an adult conversation. 

Why are other countries saying one jag is too risky? 

Why are other countries pulling the AZ vaccine when eveeything WE'VE been told is that it's fine and stop serious illness. 

Why are many govts not arguing for restrictions to be lifted ASAP the way we are here?

Are these not important questions we should be asking? 

In March we were all asking why everyone else was locking down and Johnson was talking about economic opportunities and shaking covid hands and we're bawdeep in 100k dead. 

He's alluding to that though, and he seemingly works in the industry. If the NHS will continue to be "compromised" then what's the alternative to restrictions?

I'm not sure what you mean about one jag, are people not receiving two jags?

There could be any number of reasons that other countries don't want to use the AZ vaccine, political or otherwise. I have faith in our scientific methods though, so unless AZ have fraudulently claimed their results then I'm not too worried about efficiency there - having the AZ vaccine is still better than having no vaccine at all. And we have other vaccines and treatments to use alongside this.

We're the third most vaccinated country in the world so far (or were the last time I looked), we should absolutely be one of the first out of these restrictions, so looking at other countries who are less vaccinated than us and saying "see they don't want restrictions lifted yet either" doesn't wash for me. You'll note that Israel, the most vaccinated country in the world, started easing restrictions yesterday.

Of course we should keep asking important questions but this point blank refusal from the SG or WM to give people an idea of what sort of levels they find acceptable to return to normal life is squeezing every last bit of patience out of the population. When you wake up every day and hear "Oh we don't know we're worried about VARIANTS" it pushes me to the fucking edge. 

[Bairnardo]

Iv gone full TFH, purely to provide a vent path for my head, and emailed my MSP asking him about the adult conversation. 

[djchapsticks]

1 minute ago, The Moonster said:

He's alluding to that though, and he seemingly works in the industry. If the NHS will continue to be "compromised" then what's the alternative to restrictions?

I'm not sure what you mean about one jag, are people not receiving two jags?

There could be any number of reasons that other countries don't want to use the AZ vaccine, political or otherwise. I have faith in our scientific methods though, so unless AZ have fraudulently claimed their results then I'm not too worried about efficiency there - having the AZ vaccine is still better than having no vaccine at all. And we have other vaccines and treatments to use alongside this.

We're the third most vaccinated country in the world so far (or were the last time I looked), we should absolutely be one of the first out of these restrictions, so looking at other countries who are less vaccinated than us and saying "see they don't want restrictions lifted yet either" doesn't wash for me. You'll note that Israel, the most vaccinated country in the world, started easing restrictions yesterday.

Of course we should keep asking important questions but this point blank refusal from the SG or WM to give people an idea of what sort of levels they find acceptable to return to normal life is squeezing every last bit of patience out of the population. When you wake up every day and hear "Oh we don't know we're worried about VARIANTS" it pushes me to the fucking edge. 

And the galling thing is, you're made to feel by some that you're being wholly unreasonable to for holding these concerns.