Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[MP_MFC]

Post 19 July ?

17th and 24th

[Honest Saints Fan]

I'm suffering with one of the worst colds I've had in years. 3 negative LFTs so I can see why people are getting tested at the moment as this bug is rife at my wee ones nursery. 

[Rob1885]

Oh you bloody think so????

UK won't return to normal until next year after tough winter, Chris Whitty warns

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-return-normal-spring-see-24475860
https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/07/uk-wont-return-to-normality-until-next-spring-chris-whitty-warns-14886582/?ito=newsnow-feed
Britain won't return to "status quo" until next spring and restrictions could be reimposed this winter, Chris Whitty has warned.
Ministers are pushing for Freedom Day on July 19 despite Covid cases continuing to surge, but England's chief medical officer has hinted some curbs may return in the coming months to protect the NHS.
He added it is "going to take quite a long time to get back to normality", with virus-related hospital admissions expected to soar after lockdown is scrapped.
Officials are also preparing for a significant increase in non-Covid respiratory illnesses, including the flu, which have been stemmed during the pandemic.
It is hoped the vaccination programme will have reached enough people by the start of 2022 for deaths to finally begin to level out.
Speaking to the Local Government Association's (LGA) annual conference yesterday, Professor Whitty said: "There will almost certainly be a Covid surge [in winter] and that will be on top of a return to a more normal respiratory surge.
"It's going to take quite a long time, I think, to get back to normality and I certainly would be surprised if we got back to what most of us would see as a kind of status quo — before the pandemic — by the next spring.
"Because I think we’ve got this current wave, hopefully there will be a period of quieter Covid after that, and then it will still be quite a difficult winter, especially for the NHS – then by next spring I’m hoping slightly more into a more predictable pattern."
This guff is cont in the Mirror -
[/url] I don't know if this has already been posted but it is staggering and a real boot in the baws.
Are we going to have another lockdown during next winter, despite vaccines and probably herd immunity???
They want to continue these COVID emergency powers and then in 2022 they will try to continue them even more?
I doubt the people of the UK will stand for it beyond the 19th Faux Freedom Day.
And then there's the scientific experts calling the 19th a dangerous experiment https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/07/england-covid-reopening-plan-dangerous-experiment-ministers-told
Can someone have a sensible take on all this, because this will be the last straw for many if true.
 
 

Did he not say all this last week?

[philpy]

That's the sister in law and her family having to isolate, 3 out of the 4 of them  in the house have it. Not been in contact with them thankfully. 

[Abdul_Latif]

25 minutes ago, Snafu said:

Not out of place on this thread then.

Another thing that's wrong -

The report published by Public Health Scotland for the week ending 4 July revealed that Scotland has fallen short of the World Heath Organisation (WHO) target of contacting 80 per cent of people who test positive for Covid and identifying close contacts within 72 hours. The latest figures show that 26.8 per cent of cases were not contacted in the time frame stipulated by the WHO.

It comes as Scottish NHS boards warned that hospitals are being overwhelmed and pushed “to breaking point” by growing numbers of people who need treatment for the virus.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/covid-scotland-scotland-fails-who-target-as-1628-positive-cases-not-contact-traced-last-week-3300034

Opposition politicians have called on the heath secretary to intervene as NHS Lanarkshire held a ‘Gold Command’ meeting in which the scaling back of elective care services was being considered. Meanwhile, NHS Highland placed Raigmore hospital on ‘code black status’ as it reached capacity amid rising Covid-19 cases.

The WHO criteria states that 80 per cent of new cases having close contacts traced and in quarantine within 72 hours of case confirmation. Meanwhile, updated figures for last week – to 27 June – also showed that the target was not hit during that period, with 34.9 per cent of cases not contacted within 72 hours.

Over the past week, contact tracers interviewed just 28 per cent of people within 24 hours of their positive case being logged, while 37 per cent of people waited over 48 hours.

The Test and Protect contact tracing system has been under strain since covid cases rocketed in Scotland over the past month. However, at a briefing on Friday, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon insisted that the system was “coping well”.

Last week, parents revealed that they had not been contacted about positive cases in their children’s class after the school term came to a close.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: "Test and Protect has been engulfed by this latest wave of the virus. It’s not meeting basic international standards.

"People have sacrificed a huge amount to buy the government time. This system should be able to withstand high case rates by now. Instead, some tracing activities have been turned off altogether and people are routinely waiting days for Test and Protect to show up. It's evidence that SNP ministers once again just weren't prepared and have lost control of the virus."

He added: "The absences and self-isolations that caused chaos in some schools towards the end of term are now threatening to overwhelm other essential services from our hospitals to bin collections. We need to see Test and Protect reinforced, the vaccine rollout intensified and an end to the dithering around the current unsustainable self-isolation system which is proving a big challenge for key services and workers."

Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Annie Wells MSP, said: “It is clear that Scotland’s Test and Protect system is completely overwhelmed as a result of the recent surge in Covid cases.

“SNP Ministers need to be upfront about their failings and admit they took their eye off the ball. A robust Test and Protect System remains a critical tool in fighting the virus, but the SNP Government have failed to ensure it has all the resources it needs. It is hugely concerning that we are now falling well below WHO standards to close 80 per cent of cases within three days. That flies in the face of Nicola Sturgeon claiming that the system was coping well only a few days ago.”

She added: “That is all too typical of this SNP Government trying to continue to pretend everything is fine, rather than trying to address the serious problems the Test and Protect system is facing."

Sorry i had to stop there because there were the inevitable rantings from Jackie Baillie, so if you want to read her take on this shambles then its in the link at the top and in which case why would you!!

It's just as well its just cases which have turned out to be a lot less serious due to a successful vaccination program, one of the few things the government have got right. Imagine the current test and trace system overwhelmed and we either had a slow vaccine roll out or none at all. It would have been devastating but here we are despite the huge number of cases, on the verge of removing nearly all restrictions.

 

I honestly could barely read or make sense of that cause it looks like a Pride flag.

[Michael W]

Oh get fucked. That's a dive. 

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Michael W said:

Oh get fucked. That's a dive. 

CHEATING, DIVING, b*****dS.

[Left Back]

32 minutes ago, Michael W said:

Oh get fucked. That's a dive. 

 

13 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

CHEATING, DIVING, b*****dS.

Agree but you’re on the wrong thread lads.

[super_carson]

6 minutes ago, Left Back said:

 

Agree but you’re on the wrong thread lads.

Aye, but it’d be pretty funny if England players had to self isolate at this point. 

[Left Back]

12 minutes ago, super_carson said:

Aye, but it’d be pretty funny if England players had to self isolate at this point. 

Only pretty funny?

[Michael W]

21 minutes ago, Left Back said:

 

Agree but you’re on the wrong thread lads.

Too seething to notice tbh

[Les Cabbage]

If England win the Euros I demand we go back into lockdown and cut off all TV, electric and internet signal.

For the next 10 years.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

2 minutes ago, Les Cabbage said:

If England win the Euros I demand we go back into lockdown and cut off all TV, electric and internet signal.

For the next 10 years.

That won't be nearly long enough tbh

[Les Cabbage]

3 minutes ago, Day of the Lords said:

That won't be nearly long enough tbh

I might be over it by then

[Rob1885]

we just dont know

[Tight minge]

15 hours ago, Elixir said:

Of course there's a valid comparison - what do you think is going to happen unless there is near universal uptake of vaccination in places like Singapore? There will be a much larger pool of people in these places with no crossover prior immunity from natural infection who are susceptible. Transmission is cut by these vaccines, but it is not sterilising. When these places open up, cases will subsequently rise and the virus will find them. Furthermore, as good as the vaccines are, they are not 100% effective against death - meaning there will be more vulnerable people who haven't already succumbed in a population with largely only vaccine induced immunity, compared to those who have sadly already died here.

A reminder that in places like the UK where ~90% of the population now has antibodies to Covid (ONS), sky high 'case numbers' do not mean sky high severe illness and death any more - instead people will largely have little to no symptoms or be sick in front of the TV for a few days.

I think you answered the question in your first sentence regarding Singapore. Easing of restrictions and ultimately lifting restrictions will not happen until a universal uptake of vaccines is in place. 

The vaccination process is clearly defined, managed and executed ensuring everyone has the ability to be vaccinated as per outlined procedures.

Applying Asian logic to a western problem or vice versa doesn't really work. 

There is little resistance to mask wearing, social distancing and other measures as is apparent in the west.

Just completely culturally different. 

Not to say there will be an exit impact, but due to local logic and strict process I doubt it to be significant.

For the rest of SEA, you are more likely to see variants develop as it is rife and under managed now than some exit explosion. 

14 hours ago, Elixir said:

Yup. The fact the UK is facing an exit wave, despite how much immunity there is in the population, shows that all these places in East Asia and Oceania are inevitably going to take a big hit eventually.

Oceania maybe, but doubt you will see and measurable data from East Asia either. You will never get the truth from China or North Korea. Japan will most likey be one of the last, if not the last country to open up. South Korea and Taiwan maybe, but who knows and there isn’t much else to factor for that region.

[SlipperyP]

News from Thailand.

• Our dear leader is in 7 day isolation, as someone tested positive on his Phuket jolly. 
• Record high of deaths and positive cases yesterday 75 & 7058 respectively. 
• Phuket on its first week has received 2113 tourists. 
• 1 tourist returned a positive result on arrival, and was taken to hospital. 
• The other 14 passengers were all put in hotel quarantine for 14 days.  Even though they are double dunted and tested negative. 
• The town of Mae Sot has called a curfew between   8pm-4am.  This curfew is only for foreigners  
• 4.5% of the population has had 2 doses.

[Tight minge]

7 minutes ago, SlipperyP said:

News from Thailand.

• Our dear leader is in 7 day isolation, as someone tested positive on his Phuket jolly. 
• Record high of deaths and positive cases yesterday 75 & 7058 respectively. 
• Phuket on its first week has received 2113 tourists. 
• 1 tourist returned a positive result on arrival, and was taken to hospital. 
• The other 14 passengers were all put in hotel quarantine for 14 days.  Even though they are double dunted and tested negative. 
• The town of Mae Sot has called a curfew between   8pm-4am.  This curfew is only for foreigners  
• 4.5% of the population has had 2 doses.

Some quite astounding numbers from the Land of Smiles. 

Where are your tourists mostly coming from China?

------

Had an advert pop into my inbox from the Japanese Tourist board that seem to have been taken lessons from Bullseye, along the lines of:

You cannot enter Japan and this is what your missing (cue tourist pictures).

 

[SlipperyP]

19 minutes ago, Tight John McVeigh is a tit said:

Some quite astounding numbers from the Land of Smiles. 

Where are your tourists mostly coming from China?

------

Had an advert pop into my inbox from the Japanese Tourist board that seem to have been taken lessons from Bullseye, along the lines of:

You cannot enter Japan and this is what your missing (cue tourist pictures).

 

Tourists from all over really, flights from US, UK & Europe, Middle East & China.  I think most of them are folk coming back to Thailand and doing the quarantine on the island rather than in a hotel in Bangkok. You just need to be double dosed to get in. 

You have to stay in your hotel for 24 hrs on arrival/until you receive your test result back. 3 'tourists' went missing.  A search party was sent to find them. 1 was a 81 yo Norwegian man with dementia.  1 was a guy that just went and stayed at his own house/wife. 1 was a US 'businessman' which return to his home country that same day (really).

Bangkok and it's surrounding provinces are expected to go into lockdown soon, that means the rest of the country will follow suit. Which really means everything the same, but province border control a little bit tighter and maybe an alcohol ban, however that was quashed  last time by the drinks business, giving some tea money to the government.

Edited July 8, 2021 by SlipperyP

[ICTChris]