Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[doulikefish]

1 minute ago, ayrmad said:

Unfortunately we chose to drum our fingers last January. 

Boris told us to wash our hands singing happy birthday just over a year ago cant believe it never worked 

[Elixir]

2 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

Unfortunately we chose to drum our fingers last January. 

Last January I distinctly seem to recall the media and wider public discussing that what was happening in Wuhan was a complete affront to society.

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, Elixir said:

They're doing the right thing for them. Let's just stop pretending about 'look how normal life is in Australia and New Zealand, we should have done that!' and we can all move on.

Why do we keep comparing to Australia and New Zealand ?

We have the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands right on our doorstep and they've fully reopened everything without restrictions.

[ayrmad]

6 minutes ago, Elixir said:

Last January I distinctly seem to recall the media and wider public discussing that what was happening in Wuhan was a complete affront to society.

It doesn't matter what the media or wider public were discussing back then, politicians and their advisors are party to all the information required to make decisions. 

Do no planning whatsoever while we see what happens really shouldn't have been their only choice. 

Edited February 14, 2021 by ayrmad

[Elixir]

4 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

Why do we keep comparing to Australia and New Zealand ?

We have the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands right on our doorstep and they've fully reopened everything without restrictions.

Fairly sure some of the Channel Islands have restrictions again.

I think Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles should go for #ZeroCovid!

[Elixir]

1 minute ago, ayrmad said:

It doesn't matter what the media or wider public were discussing back then, politicians and their advisors are party to all the information required to make decisions. 

Torching society last January was never going to be on the table at any point in time.

[Guest]

58 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

If the papers are to be believed that's the model we are moving towards once restrictions slowly start to ease. Very localised short sharp lockdowns in response to local spikes seems to be the plan.

Oh and restrictions are set to become "lifestyle changes" according to Raab this morning after "restrictions" actually start to lift. Masks and SD will cease to become a restriction and will then be compulsory lifestyle changes and the specific example given in the BBC interview was sporting crowds ! There is zero reason to think we are going to see anything different this coming summer to last, the terminology seems identical. It's beer gardens, meet your family outdoors for a picnic, masks, SD, travel corridors etc, etc. The more things change the more they stay the same essentially.

Yes, I've read on various places about "another 7 or 8 months of this", however why would it only be 7 or 8 months ? in fact, I'd reckon that we'll be in much worse trouble from covid come the Autumn than we're likely to be in the Spring or Summer.

The only take I can come up with is that if the vaccines don't get us rid of restrictions from May onward, then there's no plausible reason why they would be likely to any later in the year, unless there was a fundamental change in the virus but that would of course be outwith our control.

As others had said, there just appears to be no end game at all and that's the most frustrating / depressing thing and no amount of Government soundbites is going to change THAT.

[vikingTON]

4 hours ago, Snafu said:

You don't get the sniffles from covid-19, that's not one of the symptoms.

https://inews.co.uk/news/health/1m-told-take-covid-19-tests-runny-nose-officials-classify-new-variants-859123

[Guest TheJTS98]

47 minutes ago, Elixir said:

Autumn will be upon the southern hemisphere in a couple of months. They won't have their vaccination programs complete until nearer the end of the year.

There's nothing to suggest this will be a problem.

Last year, New South Wales, for example, started easing their restrictions in the autumn and eased further in the winter. There's no reason to suggest they'll have a bad autumn and winter full of lockdowns. It's possible, but so are loads of things.

I've got family in NSW and their autumn and winter were much better than most places. Not sure why you think it's going to be a problem this time around.

[vikingTON]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/14/two-thirds-of-britons-do-not-want-rich-countries-to-have-vaccine-priority

Yet another case of the Great British public answering a question that makes them feel good about themselves, when in practice if the vaccination rollout here was paused by a single day to give developing countries a hauner we would in fact be furious about it. 

[Billy Jean King]

Looks like it's being left to the likes of the Racing Post rather than the more mainstream media to uncover the corruption within the PPE scandal

https://www.racingpost.com/news/latest/firm-with-links-to-newmarket-and-hancock-fails-to-deliver-on-14m-ppe-contract/472970

[renton]

1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

Sky reporting the first UK research into vaccine efficacy in the field is estimating average protection 3 weeks first jag at 67% and vaccine refusal at 10% so average 90% uptake. That results in almost bang on 60% "protection" in the vaccinated population or as the media are spinning it 40% of all those vaccinated could still be vulnerable to C19 serious enough to lead to hospitalization and death !!!
Don't remember the flu vaccine efficacy (and that's at full level unlike Covid at 1 of 2 jags) being described in that manner . Just seems every positive is being given a worst case scenario spin at the moment.

Does it separate out the effectiveness of AZ from Pfizer?

[Bairnardo]

I wonder if Sky were shy in reporting the risks of deviating from Pfizer/AZ recommended dosage strategy at the time it came out?

Just for some context on their shrieking about efficacy after receiving a mere 50% of the actual dosage program....

Honestly man the media in this country. What a minter.

[Michael W]

40 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

It doesn't matter what the media or wider public were discussing back then, politicians and their advisors are party to all the information required to make decisions. 

Do no planning whatsoever while we see what happens really shouldn't have been their only choice. 

And in mid-March you had the Scottish Government's clinical advisor saying Rangers v Bayern Leverkusen go ahead with a capacity crowd as it was low risk. Atletico Madrid travelled to Liverpool despite Madrid being in the midst of a pretty significant outbreak. I can only therefore assume that Vallance and Whitty were OK with this also. 

Numerous other examples as well to be fair - Cheltenham, various gigs etc. 

I don't think it's fair to say there was no planning. Just that the decisions taken and the advice given to inform them were bad. 

 

[ayrmad]

1 minute ago, Michael W said:

And in mid-March you had the Scottish Government's clinical advisor saying Rangers v Bayern Leverkusen go ahead with a capacity crowd as it was low risk. Atletico Madrid travelled to Liverpool despite Madrid being in the midst of a pretty significant outbreak. I can only therefore assume that Vallance and Whitty were OK with this also. 

Numerous other examples as well to be fair - Cheltenham, various gigs etc. 

I don't think it's fair to say there was no planning. Just that the decisions taken and the advice given to inform them were bad. 

 

By no planning I was actually meaning tangible things like actually preparing for our PPE requirements etc, saying your going to do something in the event of A, B or C happening is not planning IMO. 

[Gaz]

3 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

saying your going to do something in the event of A, B or C happening is not planning IMO. 

Wait what?

[super_carson]

I don't think people are highlighting the lockdowns in Auckland and Perth as a sign that New Zealand and Australia got it wrong - clearly they have had a far more "normal" time of things than we have and have managed to do so with a fraction of the the deaths that pretty much everywhere else has seen.  It will be some time before we know just which countries got it right or wrong as the economic and social impact won't really be fully known for some time, although I'd suggest that NZ and Aus have done the "best" in the circumstances. Longer term, they may find their borders reopening at the mercy of vaccine efficacy, uptake and natural immunity and that will have consequences.  Whether those consequences are anything like those seen over here is unlikely, but they still do have some challenges ahead.

I think the city lockdowns in Auckland and Perth (other areas too, I'm sure) lend themselves to why zero-covid does not work in practical terms for Scotland and most Western countries.  Ultimately, those advocating zero-covid are looking at Australia and New Zealand, their relative lack of restrictions and low death rate and asking why we can't do the same thing.  But the reality is those observations are coming from a position of hindsight.  Aus and NZ had the prescience to close their borders harder than any other country in the West did. There's lots of factors that helped that of course, including being thousands of miles way from anyone else and the fact they aren't as connect to their neighbours as the countries in Europe are.  Their decision/ability/willingness (call it what you will) to close their borders early on resulted in relatively low entry of covid into their countries which make it far easier to implement these short and sharp lockdowns in lieu of vaccines and treatments.

We can argue about what Scotland and the UK should have done with 11 months of hindsight, but the reality is we didn't shut the borders and covid became rife in our communities.  Getting to a point like Australia or New Zealand would take a long period of very harsh restrictions.   Given our connections to our neighbouring countries (not just movement of people, but imported goods), coupled with the fact the UK has a physical land border with a foreign country and it becomes a lot less clear whether or not it would be successful.   We also now have a vaccine programme which seems to be going quite well, and that will surely start to have effect on hospitalisations and deaths. 

Obviously we would love to going to the pub and stadiums like they are in Aus and NZ and not hearing about 1000s of deaths.  But I think given the drastically different action taken at the start of the pandemic, it's a bit redundant applying hindsight and saying that zero-covid is what we should follow.  The risk v. reward has to be considered and at this point, in my opinion, it's just too late to go for it in the West - especially we now have vaccines and treatments.  

Edited February 14, 2021 by super_carson

[renton]

5 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

By no planning I was actually meaning tangible things like actually preparing for our PPE requirements etc, saying your going to do something in the event of A, B or C happening is not planning IMO. 

That is probably as close to the literal definition of planning as your likely to see.

[Billy Jean King]

Does it separate out the effectiveness of AZ from Pfizer?

Think they said average no mention of separation

[ayrmad]

10 minutes ago, Gaz said:

Wait what?

In the context of what happened here a year or so ago, obviously it's planning if you're implementing procedures when A, B or C happens, didn't see it myself.