Coronavirus (2021) thread

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The Blue said:
My wedding is booked in for October this year. We have about 80 there during the day and originally about 120 at night. I still have a bit of hope that it might go ahead with something like 70 there day and night. Might be overly optimistic though.
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I really hope it does for you, some days I'm optimistic about the future and others I'm terribly pessimistic. We have contemplated trying for later in the year but really can't be bothered having to try for a fourth time so might just play it safe and try for summer 2022.
 
Much as well like to slag off the BBC, it is helpful to follow their live Coronavirus news feed on the website to keep up with things ....... except that some days it just isn't there. It bugs me how they can't wait to use the giant "breaking news" banner at the most inappropriate times, but they can't get the basics right.

Looking at The Guardian news feed now, it seems that the PM is saying some interesting things about next week's roadmap. He says that they will be giving target dates where they can, but these will be "earliest possible dates" that may have to be put back depending on figures at the time - which is fair enough.

EDIT - And now a story on the BBC claims that the PM said that "The government's plan to move out of lockdown will be "cautious but irreversible", which is quite clearly NOT what was said (see the original item in The Guardian if you are interested). Do they employ clowns at the BBC News these days or do they just twist what was said deliberately?
 
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The Blue said:
My wedding is booked in for October this year. We have about 80 there during the day and originally about 120 at night. I still have a bit of hope that it might go ahead with something like 70 there day and night. Might be overly optimistic though.

Johnson said back in Dec that with lateral flow testing and the vaccine we should see things back to normal come summer

www.hitched.co.uk

Weddings to Return to Normal by Summer, Boris Johnson Says

Coronavirus vaccinations and rapid testing - both of which are expected to be in place by Easter 2021 - could save weddings next summer.
www.hitched.co.uk www.hitched.co.uk
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Hadn't seen that, cheers. My rearranged one is in August this year. No idea if it'll go ahead, but that's reassuring. If last year is anything to go off, August looks a good month for relative safety too presuming a similar pattern could follow. Especially if you add vaccines/broader general immunity/better treatments etc. Got my fingers crossed!

Screenshot 2021-02-15 at 11.43.46.png
 
roubaixtuesday said:
It's looking increasingly unlikely that herd immunity is a realistic aim.

Ro is the R number with normal behaviour and no immunity. The formula for the fraction needed to be immune to reach herd immunity is (Ro-1)/Ro

The original variant had an Ro of ~3 but the new variants are said to be ~50% more transmissible.

If R ~5 then the fraction needed to be immune is ~80%

The vaccine is unlikely to give "sterilising immunity" ie complete protection against transmission, is not 100% effective against disease either, and reduced effectiveness against variants has been reported for some variants. Given that we're also not going to be immunising children, then reaching a complete suppression of the virus through herd immunity doesn't seem likely.

However, it's still vital as many people as possible are vaccinated, not just to protect themselves, but also because even if we haven't reached formal herd immunity, outbreaks will be much easier to contain the closer we are to that limit. There seems to be a body of opinion that current immunity levels reached through prior infection and vaccinating have helped speed the reduction in cases in the current lockdown, and that level was probably something like 20% at the start rising to maybe 30% now and over 50% in the next couple of months.

It may be that we end up similar to the flu; there's an annual booster jab but still outbreaks through the winter, dying down in the summer but never completely going away.
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I agree. That seems the most likely reason why things are happening as they are and where we will go in the future.

The bad news Covid will not go away just become increasingly less a factor in day to day life possibly needing annual jabs for the over 60s as with flu.

The good news we may really be in the last cycle of global shutdowns and relative normality will gradually return.

But there are still spanners that can be thrown in the works by this hard to predict virus.

The end game usually though is mutual accommodation not eradication. We have got too far for that ever to be likely now. But the virus will mutate into a form that works for it and we can live with and cope with too.
 
Ban-jani said:
I’ve been taking vitamin D3 every day. Not because of some great cure for Covid, just because I only get sunlight once a day.
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I have been taking it as I was a full time carer for 14 years and got out once a week when paid carers gave me a couple of hours off. But there is no way I was suddenly going to take about 10 times the recommended dose of any drug for unproven reasons. Instead being more house bound than usual I just doubled my dose.

As with you for the reason I was taking Vit D in the first place. Not Covid related.
 
Outbreak in work, had a track n trace alert to self isolate but only for 5 days ??
Feel like shit today but how can i go for a test if i have to self isolate ?
 
Scotland update:

0 deaths - was 5 last week (Sunday data is always low recall)

569 cases - was 928 last week

Positivity 7.0% - crept up a bit lately

123 Greater Glasgow, 112 Lothian and 97 Lanarkshire

1428 patients - down 15 - was 1650 last week (approx)

102 ventilated - down 2 - was 114 last week
 
Scotland vaccination update:

1, 255, 190 first doses given - 31, 416 yesterday.

Nicola Sturgeon points out that having reached 99% + of the upper age group (80 plus) they are also now at:

99% in the 75- 79, 85% in the 70 - 74 and ahead of things so much that 53% in the 65 - 69 group have been vaccinated too.


But she also reminds as reported last week vaccine supply issues (Pfizer related as they are upgrading the plant in Belgium for next fortnight to increase deliveries subsequently) mean there will be fewer numbers over rest of February.

So quite likely you will be having the AZ jab if called in the coming weeks I would assume from this.
 
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roubaixtuesday said:
It's looking increasingly unlikely that herd immunity is a realistic aim.

Ro is the R number with normal behaviour and no immunity. The formula for the fraction needed to be immune to reach herd immunity is (Ro-1)/Ro

The original variant had an Ro of ~3 but the new variants are said to be ~50% more transmissible.

If R ~5 then the fraction needed to be immune is ~80%

The vaccine is unlikely to give "sterilising immunity" ie complete protection against transmission, is not 100% effective against disease either, and reduced effectiveness against variants has been reported for some variants. Given that we're also not going to be immunising children, then reaching a complete suppression of the virus through herd immunity doesn't seem likely.

However, it's still vital as many people as possible are vaccinated, not just to protect themselves, but also because even if we haven't reached formal herd immunity, outbreaks will be much easier to contain the closer we are to that limit. There seems to be a body of opinion that current immunity levels reached through prior infection and vaccinating have helped speed the reduction in cases in the current lockdown, and that level was probably something like 20% at the start rising to maybe 30% now and over 50% in the next couple of months.

It may be that we end up similar to the flu; there's an annual booster jab but still outbreaks through the winter, dying down in the summer but never completely going away.
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It's difficult to know just how transmissible the SA like variants will be in the vaccinated populations both now and in the future.

Could the growth rate of the variants in a population with a very high vaccine uptake rate be <1? If so, we don't need to worry.

I think it's important that we drive down the infection rate as low as possible and then release restrictions slowly and then monitor for growth of the variants. If the infection rate is low then we can reduce the risk of future mutations.

I the Autumn we should be able to go for herd immunity and end this once and for all assuming that infection rates are much lower by then. I think that is what is intended. It's not really clear to me how much we have to fear from the variants. I expect there's lots of papers out there which document how the variants react to vaccines but I have lost the interest in reading them.
 
Healdplace said:
Scotland vaccination update:

1, 255, 190 first doses given - 31, 416 yesterday.

Nicola Sturgeon points out that having reached 99% + of the upper age group (80 plus) they are also now at:

99% in the 75- 79, 85% in the 70 - 74 and ahead of things so much that 53% in the 65 - 70 group have been vaccinated too.


But she also reminds as reported last week vaccine supply issues (Pfizzer related as they are upgrading the plant in Belgium for next fortnight to increase deliveries subsequently) mean there will be fewer numbers over rest of February.

So quite likely you will be having the AZ jab if called in the coming weeks I would assume from this.
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Yes, would assume any pfizer would be used now on those that had a pfizer 1st dose at the end of December beginning of January until it comes back on line in March.
 
Nicola Sturgeon under fire for saying she is STILL trying to persuade the UK government to have the tighter border rules that Scotland wants but England does not.

She says she is trying as long as she can but will consider seriously border restrictions on England if the four nation approach cannot be agreed.

But would rather not go that route and in essence hopes common sense will prevail.

I will not be counting to ten waiting for that and it is a tough call really locking down the UK borders.
 
Nicola Sturgeon just asked - will not people instead of paying to quarantine just fly internally on from Manchester to Scotland for instance at far less cost? Citing a flight from Turkey today where of the 60 passengers nearly all did something like that and only single figures stayed in their original destination and self isolated in the hotel.

If I followed the reporter who had been at the airport to watch them fly in today correctly. As that makes no sense - surely there is a rule stopping just that in place already as its a very obvious get around we must have anticipated?

Nicola Sturgeon said she understood this and her ultimate obligation is to the people of Scotland not the UK and will take that decision if the UK cannot be persuaded of these problems.

She added the UK government are still talking to her about her concerns.
 
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