Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Elixir]

A step in the right direction, but the testing nonsense has to go before too long.

 

[strichener]

10 hours ago, Abdul_Latif said:

Not to dismiss reports of low numbers showing up in certain areas, but this is the case in all the university towns because so many envelopes are going to addresses people have long since moved on from.

Abertay isn't a real Uni and Dundee isn't a town.

9 hours ago, Detournement said:

"By up to half" makes me think of the DFS sale. 

If vaccinated people are still transmitting the virus it completely destroys the case for vaccine passports. 

That was never your theory behind the need for vaccine passports though.

Edited July 6, 2021 by strichener

[alta-pete]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/15513109/double-jabbed-brits-can-fly-to-amber-list-countries/amp/
 

(apologies for quoting the Sun), but….

 

 

[Michael W]

Was rather grumpy when BA decided to reduce the LHR-CDG flights to twice daily during August and left mines intact, meaning I was probably looking at a voucher for a voluntary cancellation. However this got my hopes up until I saw this:

Quote

But travellers must take a test before they come back to Britain and another gold standard PCR test on the second day of return.

Get in the fucking bin. I can tolerate the test to get into France, but the extra £300 or whatever this will cost isn't worth it. And of course not to mention the faff involved. 

I'll wait to see the rules when fully published, but I'm not hopeful. 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Michael W

[Todd_is_God]

46 minutes ago, Elixir said:

 

 

Yeah, unfortunately I can't see masks going from aircraft and airports until things are 'over', i.e. across Europe, or perhaps even until the WHO officially declare the pandemic over. Will just have to keep ordering scran and bev the whole flight, because obviously the Rona knows not to spread when you're eating or drinking.

That said, I think the US are considering chucking them in the coming months. As ever, they will likely lead and the rest will follow.

You don't do this anyway?

[Guest TheJTS98]

This article sums up what is quite a common view of what is happening in England (rest of the world reads Britain) at the moment.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/07/new-zealand-not-willing-to-risk-uk-style-live-with-covid-policy-says-jacinda-ardern

It's quite interesting purely as an observation how differently the balance between lives and the economy or the concept of 'normality' is being treated in different countries. The idea we see expressed that 'people will die, shrug' is (thankfully) pretty uncommon.

I completely understand the arguments for protecting the economy and of course we all understand a desire for normality. But the bare fact here is the UK government has decided to just let covid fire through the community at a time when it openly concedes it hasn't even modeled what the result will be. It's hard to view that as anything other than a strange combination of callous and incompetent.

The key part of that article for me is this bit:

“We always have to be a bit sceptical about learning lessons from countries that have failed very badly.”

The decisions made in Europe throughout this whole affair have been wrong and they have unnecessarily killed a lot of people. Malaysia today has about 60,000 people who are alive who would be dead had we performed as Britain has. Suicides are up, which is tragic, but they're up by about 1.5 a month. The level of death and suffering is not comparable. 60,000 people with a future.

And guess what; the economy hasn't collapsed.

Malaysia's health director made it clear that we will absolutely not be following the British example. New Zealand won't be. ScoMo's Tories in Australia may well. Other successful countries like Korea and Singapore definitely won't.

This thread jumped the shark long ago and has become an echo-chamber for the same small number of voices who just fire about red-dotting (a quick check of the usernames doing so shows this can be safely ignored) and piling in on anyone who steps out of their Daily Mail party line. But the willingness to rejoice in an ideologically-driven decision from a government that has failed to keep its people alive and openly admits it doesn't know how many more it will kill and is basically cool with that is staggering.

I'm just glad that this thread is such an outlier. If our society reflected this thread over recent months, we'd be fucked.

Edited July 7, 2021 by TheJTS98

[hk blues]

1 hour ago, TheJTS98 said:

This article sums up what is quite a common view of what is happening in England (rest of the world reads Britain) at the moment.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/07/new-zealand-not-willing-to-risk-uk-style-live-with-covid-policy-says-jacinda-ardern

It's quite interesting purely as an observation how differently the balance between lives and the economy or the concept of 'normality' is being treated in different countries. The idea we see expressed that 'people will die, shrug' is (thankfully) pretty uncommon.

I completely understand the arguments for protecting the economy and of course we all understand a desire for normality. But the bare fact here is the UK government has decided to just let covid fire through the community at a time when it openly concedes it hasn't even modeled what the result will be. It's hard to view that as anything other than a strange combination of callous and incompetent.

The key part of that article for me is this bit:

“We always have to be a bit sceptical about learning lessons from countries that have failed very badly.”

The decisions made in Europe throughout this whole affair have been wrong and they have unnecessarily killed a lot of people. Malaysia today has about 60,000 people who are alive who would be dead had we performed as Britain has. Suicides are up, which is tragic, but they're up by about 1.5 a month. The level of death and suffering is not comparable. 60,000 people with a future.

And guess what; the economy hasn't collapsed.

Malaysia's health director made it clear that we will absolutely not be following the British example. New Zealand won't be. ScoMo's Tories in Australia may well. Other successful countries like Korea and Singapore definitely won't.

This thread jumped the shark long ago and has become an echo-chamber for the same small number of voices who just fire about red-dotting (a quick check of the usernames doing so shows this can be safely ignored) and piling in on anyone who steps out of their Daily Mail party line. But the willingness to rejoice in an ideologically-driven decision from a government that has failed to keep its people alive and openly admits it doesn't know how many more it will kill and is basically cool with that is staggering.

I'm just glad that this thread is such an outlier. If our society reflected this thread over recent months, we'd be fucked.

I do agree with much of the above post, but the comments coming from the leader of a country of under 5m people  and 5 times more sheep than people (UK is about 13 times bigger with less sheep!); with $1.8 billion inbound tourism revenue (UK is about 20 times more); GDP of about $195 billion (UK is 10 times greater) needs to be put into context.  It's akin to the owner of a fruit and veg stall in the market telling Tesco how they should run its business. 

[Arabdownunder]

3 minutes ago, hk blues said:

I do agree with much of the above post, but the comments coming from the leader of a country of under 5m people  and 5 times more sheep than people (UK is about 13 times bigger with less sheep!); with $1.8 billion inbound tourism revenue (UK is about 20 times more); GDP of about $195 billion (UK is 10 times greater) needs to be put into context.  It's akin to the owner of a fruit and veg stall in the market telling Tesco how they should run its business. 

Can't see anywhere Jacinda telling the UK what to do. Its more like the stall owner saying they're not going to copy the Tesco business model.

[Guest TheJTS98]

8 minutes ago, hk blues said:

I do agree with much of the above post, but the comments coming from the leader of a country of under 5m people  and 5 times more sheep than people (UK is about 13 times bigger with less sheep!); with $1.8 billion inbound tourism revenue (UK is about 20 times more); GDP of about $195 billion (UK is 10 times greater) needs to be put into context.  It's akin to the owner of a fruit and veg stall in the market telling Tesco how they should run its business. 

Obviously these things are to scale. But the basic principle is the same. You find a balance between keeping people alive and keeping life sustainable with jobs etc.

As far as I can see, there is no imminent threat of the UK economy collapsing and society degenerating into chaos. But the UK government has still decided to just accept an unspecified number of deaths (they don't seem bothered at all about finding out how many) based on averting an economic catastrophe that we haven't reached, and that is seems hasn't actually been reached anywhere, despite a lot of the rhetoric.

 

[hk blues]

15 minutes ago, Arabdownunder said:

Can't see anywhere Jacinda telling the UK what to do. Its more like the stall owner saying they're not going to copy the Tesco business model.

Well, it's more than that though, they aren't simply saying they're not going to copy the Tesco model rather that the Tesco model has failed badly.  Again, the model that suits a small country won't necessarily work for a significantly bigger one.

[hk blues]

20 minutes ago, TheJTS98 said:

Obviously these things are to scale. But the basic principle is the same. You find a balance between keeping people alive and keeping life sustainable with jobs etc.

As far as I can see, there is no imminent threat of the UK economy collapsing and society degenerating into chaos. But the UK government has still decided to just accept an unspecified number of deaths (they don't seem bothered at all about finding out how many) based on averting an economic catastrophe that we haven't reached, and that is seems hasn't actually been reached anywhere, despite a lot of the rhetoric.

 

The basic principle is the same, agreed, that the economic risks have to be balanced with the health ones. I think that the UK govt is doing that given the success of the vaccines and the impact on the NHS which coped previously when there were no vaccines.   

If not, will there ever be a time to remove restrictions?  

[Guest TheJTS98]

5 minutes ago, hk blues said:

The basic principle is the same, agreed, that the economic risks have to be balanced with the health ones. I think that the UK govt is doing that given the success of the vaccines and the impact on the NHS which coped previously when there were no vaccines.   

If not, will there ever be a time to remove restrictions?  

I think a time to remove the restrictions would be when you know what the consequence of removing them will be.

It's remarkable seeing the statements coming out of the government at the moment about how ill-prepared they are. They're really just taking a punt at this, with casual indifference to the consequences.

I wouldn't object if this was presented in a rational way. As in, we project X number of cases, which we project will lead to X number of hospitalisations and X number of deaths. Even if I disagreed, I'd accept that the government had a rationale and they'd made their case to the public.

This is just crass populism.

[hk blues]

Just now, TheJTS98 said:

I think a time to remove the restrictions would be when you know what the consequence of removing them will be.

It's remarkable seeing the statements coming out of the government at the moment about how ill-prepared they are. They're really just taking a punt at this, with casual indifference to the consequences.

I wouldn't object if this was presented in a rational way. As in, we project X number of cases, which we project will lead to X number of hospitalisations and X number of deaths. Even if I disagreed, I'd accept that the government had a rationale and they'd made their case to the public.

This is just crass populism.

I don't see it as a random punt though, rather a calculated risk.  The decision has been taken against the backdrop of impact of x number of cases rather than simply x number of cases.  We can argue all day about the rights and wrongs of choosing a path that will result in x number of people dying visa vie a path that will likely lead to less people dying in the short term but with a greater impact in other areas etc etc.  This is something all governments do every day when resources are finite but demands are infinite.  

[Arabdownunder]

Its not just about size though; Taiwan, Vietnam and South Korea are all populous countries with low levels of infections and deaths. Geography, culture and particularly the willingness to close borders seem to be the factors driving success. Sustaining that success while relaxing restrictions and opening up will be the challenge. Consensus among the public health folk here is that about 80% vaccination coverage will be required.  Removing all restrictions with only 50-60% vaccination is a bold move. 

[Guest TheJTS98]

4 minutes ago, Arabdownunder said:

Its not just about size though; Taiwan, Vietnam and South Korea are all populous countries with low levels of infections and deaths. Geography, culture and particularly the willingness to close borders seem to be the factors driving success. Sustaining that success while relaxing restrictions and opening up will be the challenge. Consensus among the public health folk here is that about 80% vaccination coverage will be required.  Removing all restrictions with only 50-60% vaccination is a bold move. 

We're getting the 80% stuff in Malaysia too.

There is a roadmap here based on case numbers, R0, vaccination levels. All goes into a big calculator and at certain stages we'll move forward. Some parts of the country are substantially more 'open' at the moment than others.

I think the main factor is simply quality of decision making. You look at how the Asia Pacific countries have dealt with the issue of cross-border travel, for example. And it's easier for the population to follow instructions when messaging is clear.

Obviously, the UK has failed on that front. And at this point the government is just washing its hands of it and saying 'It's up to you'.

Decades from now people will look back at this and marvel.

[hk blues]

7 minutes ago, Arabdownunder said:

 Removing all restrictions with only 50-60% vaccination is a bold move. 

70% and counting

[Arabdownunder]

3 minutes ago, hk blues said:

70% and counting

[hk blues]

3 minutes ago, Arabdownunder said:

The data I looked at showed 69.7% vaccinated - your number is of total population, mine of target population.

Anyhow, the magical 80% was based on what previous experience exactly, wasn't it on a particular group of animals hence the term herd immunity?  I wouldn't hang my hat on such a number being a magic bullet t.b.h. , better look at the impact of cases and how they are affecting the population's health and the NHS's ability to manage it.  I mean, If I catch Covid and have a cough for a couple of days and then I'm good again, is it such a major issue?  Nope, but I'm one of the number.  

The argument in favour of lockdowns was based on the premise of ensuring the NHS could cope, was it not?  Is there any suggestion it won't be able to given the success of vaccines?  

 

 

 

[Arabdownunder]

1 minute ago, hk blues said:

The data I looked at showed 69.7% vaccinated - your number is of total population, mine of target population.

Anyhow, the magical 80% was based on what previous experience exactly, wasn't it on a particular group of animals hence the term herd immunity?  I wouldn't hang my hat on such a number being a magic bullet t.b.h. , better look at the impact of cases and how they are affecting the population's health and the NHS's ability to manage it.  I mean, If I catch Covid and have a cough for a couple of days and then I'm good again, is it such a major issue?  Nope, but I'm one of the number.  

The argument in favour of lockdowns was based on the premise of ensuring the NHS could cope, was it not?  Is there any suggestion it won't be able to given the success of vaccines?  

The level needed to reach herd immunity is a % of total population not target population.

The 80% target is a result of modelling which incorporates the transmissibility of the virus, the effectiveness of the vaccine and other public health interventions. No animals involved. 

If you catch Covid and have a cough for a couple of days and then are good again, its a major issue for any at risk, unvaccinated people you came into contact with while infectious. 

 

[hk blues]

Just now, Arabdownunder said:

The level needed to reach herd immunity is a % of total population not target population.

The 80% target is a result of modelling which incorporates the transmissibility of the virus, the effectiveness of the vaccine and other public health interventions. No animals involved. 

If you catch Covid and have a cough for a couple of days and then are good again, its a major issue for any at risk, unvaccinated people you came into contact with while infectious. 

 

The study was done on mice in 1923. so did involve animals.  Let's hope the rather vague inputs hold true then!