Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[PedroMoutinho]

The zero coviders now going full on anti vax and turning on each other I see

 

[Loonytoons]

That's not what I said either.
Unfortunately I can't think of how to make that original post I made any clearer so I'll leave it there and people can make up their own minds.
I may be wrong but I'm not convinced that you want to do anything other than wilfully misrepresent what I said.

Not wilfully misrepresenting what you said at all. I was looking for clarification which you aren't giving.
As you say, we'll leave it there though.

[Loonytoons]

Or maybe I did give it and you've not understood the point I'm making.
You should at least allow for that distinct possibility. [emoji12]

That is correct and why I'm looking for clarification.

[Loonytoons]

Then I'll repeat the salient point.
I was responding to claims that these countries had locked down to buy time for vaccines.
They didn't. They locked down because they actually thought they could eradicate it purely through lockdowns and other restrictions.
They were wrong and vaccines produced by others including the UK bailed them out.
They are therefore not the model to follow for the next pandemic.
You are getting mixed up IMO because you are confusing decision making with outcome of decision making.

Ah ok.

They clearly didn't lockdown to buy time for the vaccines, initially no one knew if we could make them quick enough or whether they would work.

They were like every other nation trying to prevent its spread, they were just better at doing it than most and saved a lot of suffering in their people as a result of their decision making. They had a better outcome from the same decision making as other nations because the did it better.

Vaccines bailed us all out, especially the speed at which they were rolled out.
Delta would have devastated this country had there been none. This was an outcome irrespective of decision making.

[scottsdad]

There is a bit of revisionism going on from Devi Sridhar and the likes that lockdowns etc. were there to buy us time to study the virus and get a vaccine ready. I'm not sure I believe this to be honest; that certainly wasn't the reasons given at the time. 

The vaccines came along far, far faster than anyone outside of the vaccine professional community envisaged and really these are what took the wind out of the sails of this virus; combined with it mutating to Omicron which can out compete the previous iterations, and is less severe. 

[ICTChris]

2 hours ago, scottsdad said:

There is a bit of revisionism going on from Devi Sridhar and the likes that lockdowns etc. were there to buy us time to study the virus and get a vaccine ready. I'm not sure I believe this to be honest; that certainly wasn't the reasons given at the time. 

The vaccines came along far, far faster than anyone outside of the vaccine professional community envisaged and really these are what took the wind out of the sails of this virus; combined with it mutating to Omicron which can out compete the previous iterations, and is less severe. 

I can’t remember which one it is but one of the vaccines, either Pfizer or Moderna, was designed a couple of days or so after the virus genome was published online. Obviously it needed refinement and testing and no-one knew at that point how effective it would be but there were always voices saying that ima vaccine was possible in a relatively short time span.

[Dons_1988]

2 hours ago, scottsdad said:

There is a bit of revisionism going on from Devi Sridhar and the likes that lockdowns etc. were there to buy us time to study the virus and get a vaccine ready. I'm not sure I believe this to be honest; that certainly wasn't the reasons given at the time. 

The vaccines came along far, far faster than anyone outside of the vaccine professional community envisaged and really these are what took the wind out of the sails of this virus; combined with it mutating to Omicron which can out compete the previous iterations, and is less severe. 

Lockdowns were basically just a panic button about a virus that we didn’t know anything about, couldn’t treat , couldn’t immunise and didn’t know exactly how it spread. 

Im not arguing against them but it was basically just an extreme method of avoiding a (worse) catastrophe in terms of deaths in the absence of any medical tools to fight it. 

[Miguel Sanchez]

2 hours ago, scottsdad said:

There is a bit of revisionism going on from Devi Sridhar and the likes that lockdowns etc. were there to buy us time to study the virus and get a vaccine ready. I'm not sure I believe this to be honest; that certainly wasn't the reasons given at the time. 

The vaccines came along far, far faster than anyone outside of the vaccine professional community envisaged and really these are what took the wind out of the sails of this virus; combined with it mutating to Omicron which can out compete the previous iterations, and is less severe. 

I'm looking forward to this thread being cited at the government inquiry as a comprehensive timeline of the past two years.

[Loonytoons]

I can’t remember which one it is but one of the vaccines, either Pfizer or Moderna, was designed a couple of days or so after the virus genome was published online. Obviously it needed refinement and testing and no-one knew at that point how effective it would be but there were always voices saying that ima vaccine was possible in a relatively short time span.

It was the Oxford one I'm sure.

[Left Back]

19 minutes ago, Loonytoons said:

35 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

I can’t remember which one it is but one of the vaccines, either Pfizer or Moderna, was designed a couple of days or so after the virus genome was published online. Obviously it needed refinement and testing and no-one knew at that point how effective it would be but there were always voices saying that ima vaccine was possible in a relatively short time span.

It was the Oxford one I'm sure.

Yep.  Designed over a weekend right at the start of the pandemic.

[Monkey Tennis]

7 hours ago, David W said:

SQA released their exam help today. They'd have been better releasing nothing. For physics it includes classics like don't spend too long on a question and spell some words right.

It's more useful in some other subjects.

[anotherchance]

1 hour ago, Dons_1988 said:

Lockdowns were basically just a panic button about a virus that we didn’t know anything about, couldn’t treat , couldn’t immunise and didn’t know exactly how it spread. 

Im not arguing against them but it was basically just an extreme method of avoiding a (worse) catastrophe in terms of deaths in the absence of any medical tools to fight it. 

The reason Sridhar and others argued in favour of continual lockdowns post vaccines is because they personally were fine and could manage the impact of lockdowns without much bother, and didn’t care about the impact on anybody who couldn’t.

[welshbairn]

6 hours ago, Loonytoons said:

They were like every other nation trying to prevent its spread, they were just better at doing it than most and saved a lot of suffering in their people as a result of their decision making. They had a better outcome from the same decision making as other nations because the did it better.

They had a huge advantage being isolated thousands of miles away from anywhere, and on the transit route to hardly anywhere. They played their cards right, allowed most of their population to be totally unaffected by the virus, apart from international travel, until the mutation to far less harmful Omicron. The vaccine was a huge bonus but their strategy would have paid off without it. One mistake they made was being slow at ordering the vaccine, but maybe they thought others needed it more.

P.S. New Zealand had 12 Covid deaths per million, Sweden had 1723.

Edited March 8, 2022 by welshbairn

[DeeTillEhDeh]

SQA released their exam help today. They'd have been better releasing nothing. For physics it includes classics like don't spend too long on a question and spell some words right.

We were luckier in Business subjects - at least we have fairly detailed topic lists.

Speaking to other colleagues the exam support in certain subjects is just a joke.

[Loonytoons]

Pfizer was first.
 

Pfizer was the first but Oxford was the one that was developed over a weekend.

ETA I might be mixing that up with being developed after the gene sequencing though.

[Loonytoons]

Actually a quick google has Moderna two days after gene sequencing.

[superbigal]

I notice they either like their testing or it's because they missed previous waves a la New Zealand.
Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles have been riddled and top of case numbers in the UK for weeks now. In the past a fraction of these numbers would have had health board screaming crisis.

[TheScarf]

22 minutes ago, superbigal said:

I notice they either like their testing or it's because they missed previous waves a la New Zealand.
Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles have been riddled and top of case numbers in the UK for weeks now. In the past a fraction of these numbers would have had health board screaming crisis.
 

There's worse things to think about now that someone getting a cold and staying off work for a week.

[jimbaxters]

Just discovered a wee boy in my class tested positive which means me and the weans in the class now have to wear FFP2 masks. Token gesture which makes no sense. Murder when you have lugs like mine.

Edited March 9, 2022 by jimbaxters

[scottsdad]

1 hour ago, jimbaxters said:

Just discovered a wee boy in my class tested positive which means me and the weans in the class now have to wear FFP2 masks. Token gesture which makes no sense. Murder when you have lugs like mine.

I had no idea you were a schoolboy.