Coronavirus (2021) thread

[feedthegoat27]

If only the team at Oxford could develop a vaccine for common sense, it would solve this pandemic quicker than anything else.

Common sense has got me pretty far in life, whether that is crossing the street at night because you can see in the distance a bunch of dickheads, or knowing when to keep my mouth shut because it could come back to bite me on the arse in the future.

I have really had my eyes opened to the paucity of intelligence and common sense during Covid, certainly in the UK and US.

Perhaps it is because they are two countries with a sense of entitlement, owing to the standards of living?

Why anyone feels it is an immediate priority to establish whether they can go on holiday at this time, when so much work is still to be done, is insulting to me in the extreme.

It is the height of ignorance to even assume that others countries, no matter how much their own economies or industries will crave it, should be waiting with open arms because some infuriated twat in the Home Counties is telling the Daily Mail 'it just isn't cricket' they can't afford to now go away because the cost of quarantine is too much on top of their already booked holidays to the Seychelles.

Apparently the UK deserves a holiday?

Guess what, the whole fucking world does and, until which time we can vaccinate enough of the globe to protect it, then making do with a weekend in Skeggy might be as good as can be hoped for.

And even that might be too much.

Whilst I agree with large parts of that, why is it insulting to you in the extreme?

It's perfectly fine to talk about the future of travel and speculate when it may return, just like it's perfectly fine to discuss when we might be allowed back into Eastlands, or allowed back at our local pub/restaurant etc etc

If people were throwing their toys out the pram demanding to be allowed out the country ASAP then fair enough but I'm not seeing that on here, or seeing it in general on other social media platforms.

There are hundreds of thousands of jobs potentially riding on the return of international travel and mixed messages from various government figures doesn't help the industry whatsoever. That's where my frustration lies, not with being unable to currently jump on a plane.

As much as I'm looking forward to the return of international travel, I'll only be doing so when it's permitted and as safe as it can be relatively speaking; the hope is for some return this summer but it is very much wait and see (as with everything)

In the meantime if people want to prepare for a year of domestic holidays only then that's their call and they should cut their cloth accordingly and crack on.

Just a quick edit to say that one of the best recent threads was the 'most beautiful places' thread; full of ideas and inspiration for future trips, and a great reminder of how much beauty there is around the world.

 

[Ban-jani]

I am probably looking at this simplicity but once all the vulnerable people have been vaccinated why can’t we go back to a normal routine?

It takes weeks to build up immunity and it’s hard to determine who actually is vulnerable, in fact we all could be without knowing.

Once those determined as vulnerable all have immunity we will see the hospitalisations and deaths drop to July 2020 levels, ie a tiny amount per day, at that point we will open up.

Essentially the data will confirm when the vulnerable are immune and what you wish to happen will happen.

 

[M18CTID]

That all sounds great but then why is that bloody Grant Sharp saying no holidays this year when we are in February and hopefully all these positive things happen? Has he got a crystal ball, or does he know no matter what happens they are keeping restrictions going? This is what is depressing people, it comes across as they are drunk on the power of it all.

I've seen the quotes from Grant Shapps and while I think this government have been about as much use as a chocolate fireguard during most of this pandemic, he's being wildly mis-quoted on this. As far as I can see, he never said there will be no holidays this year - be it at home or abroad - and what he actually did say is don't go booking holidays at this moment in time. And why would anyone book a holiday right now when we're still in lockdown, aren't permitted to go on holiday as things stand, and don't know when restrictions will start to be lifted? Things will become clearer on that over the next few weeks or so and people just need to hold off until then before booking anything.

 

[Healdplace]

We are about 3 weeks behind the curve of the Israeli data that is showing pretty clearly vaccines work.

The first signs of it are already apparent here in the over 80s deaths in England hospitals percentage inching down.

Too early to call it is directly the result of the vaccine but the last week or so of data has been suggestive.

And really this is from at least early January when they likely caught Covid when the vaccination programme was only really starting to roll out.

IF this becomes more obvious over the next week or two we can say for sure the vaccine is working here too.

As there is no real reason to think that it would not.

Though today's data is in and not really helping show that yet - though it is certainly showing deaths going down a lot.

 

[Healdplace]

England hospital deaths:

494 - down from 630 last week.

More evidence of the steady week to week drop.

And the NW percentage back down to its normal 12% too. Which is good news.

3 wks v 2 wks v last wk v today:-

789 / 99 NW / 12.5%

907 / 121 NW / 13%

630 / 123 NW / 20%

494 / 60 NW / 12% TODAY

Almost half where we were when deaths peaked in England hospitals two or three weeks ago in January.

 

[Healdplace]

England 494 hospital deaths:

By age range

20 - 39 (2) 0.4%

40 - 59 (47) 9.5%

60 - 79 (192) 38.9%

80 PLUS (253) 51.2%

Slightly over 50% after several days below for the over 80s but as numbers fall the odd one or two makes a big difference.

51% is low by comparison with the 60% or so it used to be.

And at 9,9% for the under 60s was nearly another in the over 10% totals we have started getting here. As these used to be down in the 5 or 6% daily

Nothing probative here but nothing to suggest the opposite.

It will be a week or two before the trend is clear. But it is looking to be in the right direction.

 

[i8rags]

Right, I'm fed up with some of the clowns asking stupid questions at the daily briefings so I've submitted one of my own. Says the cabinet office will contact me within 3 days if it's chosen. Probably unlikely but you can only try.

My question was along the lines of "Why don't the government set out a plan of lifting restrictions based on case numbers rather than dates? e.g. lift restriction x when case numbers are below 5000 for 7 consecutive dates."

My daughter says that putting "x" in the question will confuse most people!

What’s the x for.

 

[Healdplace]

494 England hospital deaths by region:

120 Midlands, 86 South East, 81 London, 74 NE & Yorkshire. 60 North West, 40 East, 33 South West

Half the Midlands deaths were in Birmingham and Leicester.

Nowhere was in double figures in the 60 from the NW.

 

[ayrshire_blue]

Once those determined as vulnerable all have immunity we will see the hospitalisations and deaths drop to July 2020 levels, ie a tiny amount per day, at that point we will open up.

Essentially the data will confirm when the vulnerable are immune and what you wish to happen will happen.

A gazillion "variants of concern" might not allow that...

 

[Healdplace]

Some twerps on the net saying these figures prove the vaccine is not working.

Do they want this to go on forever as if its some video game?

It does no such thing. Day to day there are bound to be fluctuations and the trend counts.

It is too early to see a big impact from the vaccines given the time periods involved but we are seeing the right hints. As we would expect.

And if Scotland have now added a new measure for people on ventilators for more than 28 days there must be people staying on them a long time and a few of those will sadly die in the days or weeks to come because unhappily the vaccine was just too late for them.

If we are still seeing these kind of figures in early March it might be a different matter but I suspect we will not be.