Coronavirus (2021) thread

[kaz7]

Anyone know of any means to request an antibody test?

I’ve started on lateral flow testing with work now but I’m intrigued having never actually been out of school since this whole show started.

You can buy them privately , google it but why waste your money

 

[cleavers]

So once the top 9 priority groups are vaccinated that prevents 99% of deaths

what % of ICU and Hospital admissions does it prevent

Nobody actually knows, all we can do is test it once that's the case.

 

[inchy14]

Just received my vaccine and as of yet Bill Gates hasn't made me do anything slightly disappointed

Windows will need rebooting mate... just switch on and off again.

 

[Del_Bosque]

Nobody actually knows, all we can do is test it once that's the case.

Sorry

might of worded that badly

what I meant was the top 9 priority groups, what % of hospitalisations do they make up

 

[johnnytapia]

I live in an EU country (Czech Republic) and we are up to 150,000 total vaccinations, which is about 1.5% of the population. Just not enough vaccines to do more. It may improve a bit if the EU approves some of the other vaccines.

Number of cases is higher (pro rata) than the UK at present and the geniuses here are talking about opening schools again in the next week or two.

Ours are already open

 

[kaz7]

Just received my vaccine and as of yet Bill Gates hasn't made me do anything slightly disappointed

He makes you do all sorts when you are asleep

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

well that was the original plan wasn’t it vaccinate our way to freedom. Get the most vulnerable protected and then back to normal ish

however based on recent press conferences and statements my fear is they have no intention of releasing any of the restrictions any time soon.

Just reading an article where it had Best/Medium/worse case scenario. The best case scenario paints a picture of a full loosening of restrictions in March leading to 30,000 hospital admissions in April/May and June so not likely. This is coming from someone who sits on the government modelling advisory group. He is talking about it being more likely to be May before we see the relaxation of rules that would perhaps lead to a better situation. However a loosening of outdoor activities should be possible, just not indoor. Talk of countries only allowing people in who have either tested negative or have had the vaccine.

I personally think that if the vaccination continues to go well and there are no setbacks with effectiveness or new variants then schools will be open after Easter (maybe primary first) but not before. We will go back into new Tier systems where they perhaps allow more outdoor contact and it will be June onwards before we see people at sporting events/outdoor festivals etc. There will be no overseas holidays before June and no pubs etc before then either. I hope I am wrong as it seems a long time away.

Time will tell.

 

[117 M34]

what about the property developers?

Blessed are the cheesemakers

 

[Bluemoon dan]

Just received my vaccine and as of yet Bill Gates hasn't made me do anything slightly disappointed

Yeh but how good is the 5g signal on your phone now?

 

[Goaters]

Colchicine reduces the risk of COVID-19-related complications

Positive results from COLCORONA trial show that colchicine is the only effective oral medication for treating non-hospitalized patients...

www.globenewswire.com

Some really encouraging medical breakthroughs are happening recently.

To quickly summarise the above article,
In a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-center study, colchicine (well known NSAID) reduced:

a) hospitalizations by 25%
b) mechanical ventilation by 50%
c) deaths by 44%.

I truly believe with the vaccines, all the new medical treatment that are on offer and people in general being more careful by the summer we will be back to a semi normal state.

I’ve heard the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is due to be approved within the next few weeks, this is a one dose vaccine so we will be cooking on gas before long and within the month we will be getting lots of good news!

 

[Mr Coopz]

Vaccination done, very well organised at Leeds united centenary pavilion. Loads and loads of people coming and going. Luckily my gran has had hers done this morning as well. Looking forward to my second on the 10th of April.

 

[i8rags]

I think he was more being simplistic with his post, that regardless of what we do the end position of majority of countries will be similar. And of course, in that comment I mean countries of similar populations and positions in the world etc.

Yeah sorry, I’m on about the current situation, the new strain, new strains around the globe, the higher mortality rate of new strain, a vaccine programme that appears to be outstanding.
The uk thing drives me crazy, it’s four countries as we know 3 governed by themselves but the stats for uk are lobbed in together like it’s all English politics to be blamed. Obviously the longer picture of covid has been littered with errors.

 

[i8rags]

Have a great day everyone!! Chilling this morning, bike ride this pm and a curry and the mighty blues later!!

A RONA FREE DAY!!!

Almost exactly what I’ll be doing but swap bike ride for red wine

 

[Healdplace]

These new variants are not a bad thing because the more they happen the faster we progress on the path to equilibrium between virus and humanity living together.

Once you have a global pandemic like this eradication is not happening. Living with it forever in a manageable way we do with many other viruses is the consequence.

We fight back with vaccines. And keep changing them. The virus mutates and the ones that have an edge proliferate. Just as with a dinosaur like a brontosaurus and a giraffe have zero genetic link and are millions of years apart but both developed long necks because it helped them reach tree tops and that 'edge' became dominant and all the other versions were made useless once that happened. A giraffe with a short neck would not survive.

The optimum for this virus is infecting lots and not killing the hosts off. So a super infective low mortality balance is likely the ultimate goal for both the evolution of the virus and us.

Because we can live with that permanently - as we are going to have to do now. And vaccinate and protect the vulnerable annually with updated jabs like we do for flu.

There will still be Covid deaths as there are flu deaths. And some years it will be worse than others as we are behind the curve (we base our flu vaccines on what happens in Australia in their Winter and if there is mutation after that we miss it). But we will regard Covid as we do flu.

The end game here is not going back to how we were on New Years Day 2020. The world never will. It is accepting Covid as a controllable disease that we can mitigate and stop spreading by perfecting local lockdowns better than any we have had so far. We may all be having regular Covid tests for years I suspect. Especially if travelling.

But hopefully the virus will stabilise with a variant that infects but kills rarely as that is its ultimate best parity with us. And we can moderate its impact via vaccines and medicines. And vaccinating the nation annually likely won't happen, Just the vulnerable. Because its too late to stop this now and we may need people still catching it so the virus is not forced to come up with new entry paths such as infecting our livestock.

The world has changed for ever. But the new normal will within the year not be that different from the old one hopefully. And these new variants may get us there faster.

However the big consequence is that this has transformed medicine and international cooperation and new science emerging from it may save more lives than the virus has claimed by being able to mitigate other killer diseases.

And more important than all this is that the world MUST have an international congress and agree protocols for rapid action when the next pandemic happens.

Because it will. And we have been pretty lucky to have got to now after such a long gap since the last one. If we do not take major steps it will not be 100 years before this happens again. It may not even be ten.

 

[PragueBlue]

Ours are already open

Schools are operating as normally? That surprises me as I read in another post that they were hoping to get kids back to school after Easter. If they are still open as normal, then it's madness.

 

[Gabriel]

I think the U.K. will be back to ‘summer 2020’ normal by this summer, but it may be 2022 or even 2023 before it’s back to 2019 normal. Countries are not moving in lockstep, so it will take much longer before normality is reached, and there will be many differences, too.

 

[Healdplace]

Wales update:

27 deaths - it was 55 last Saturday.

1079 cases - it was 1129 last Saturday.

At a 6.8% positivity rate

There were problems in South Wales with testing so yesterdays numbers were low. Thought that when I saw the Swansea data I posted here last night.

Even so the Weekly Pop for Wales has fallen again to 261 - from 271 yesterday. Been falling steadily from 500 a couple of weeks ago so Wales is very clearly getting control now

 

[Claytop]

One of the better however more aggressive responses is to establish green and red zones as they did in Australia. The movement of people around the country is a prime reason why spread is so effective.

We live on an island so it should be very easy. Close the borders, establish internal borders (aka zones with enforced tiers) and then track and trace within the red zones, surveillance via random testing in the green zones.

We have tiering already but it's completely pointless when the tiers are not separated by physical borders. In November I could travel from Tier 2 to Tier 4 with no rules whatsoever to prevent this and that defeats the object.

Australia reported 5 cases yesterday.

Whilst no doubt they have done things well over there it’s the population density which is a big issue for us coupled with the mistakes we’ve made with the tiers and letting people move between them.

 

[Healdplace]

Wales Vaccination Update:

Yesterday

First doses - 28, 230 - Total 240, 547

Second doses - 54 - Total 469.

Wales getting through more each day happily,

 

[squirtyflower]

Schools are operating as normally? That surprises me as I read in another post that they were hoping to get kids back to school after Easter. If they are still open as normal, then it's madness.

No they’re not open as normal, but they are open to vulnerable children and those from key workers.