Coronavirus (2021) thread

[ayrshire_blue]

My daughter is 43 and lives in Glasgow and still hasn't been called for her first Jab, she lives in Glasgow which was kept in level 3 because of the Indian variant it doesn't make sense

Yep, got family who's 47 and heard absolutely nothing about first dose. It's really slowed after a great start.

 

[Toney’s bookie]

Cases and deaths down week to week. For all the flapping, the Indian variant seems to be growing but only as a proportion of a fairly flat level of cases. Not saying that won't change but for now that seems to be the case despite all the noise. The question is would all those that have been infected by the Indian variant possibly have been infected with coronavirus anyhow and the Indian version is simply replacing the local variant which will slowly become obsolete.

IF in a few week cases are still 2500 and deaths in single figures, will the press still be screaming INDIAN VARIANT CASE SURGE TO 100% OF REPORTED CASES!!!!! Will they be demanding more restrictions??!? Will it matter? All to be seen and so yes, steady as she goes for now is a view I can subscribe to.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

I'm impressed you feel you know what my views are!

For what it's worth, I'm probably the most pro-vaccine person on here and think they're a miracle of science. I've spent lots of hours trawling for pop up jab clinics to post on the covid vaccine threads on here to give people a heads up so believe me I am well aware that vaccines are the only way out of this mess.

However, it is possible to realise we have an issue without pining for some totalitarian society. Covid is not the be all and end all and there is a bigger picture that needs remembering. We will be living with the fall out from this crisis for a long time, be that politically or other public / health issues (depression, reduced life expectancy etc). I don't and never will believe that the state can declare what it injects into an individual's body and I don't care if someone off the internet doesn't agree. It doesn't make me a lefty namby pamby (I'm not) nor should it be viewed as a controversial view. I'm sure you recall the German state decided they'd inject all sorts of things into children as health experiments back in the early 1900s....was that ok by you as it was declared 'for the greater good'?

As far as the rules go....I'm afraid you're living on cloud cuckoo land if you don't realise that most people stopped paying attention to them ages ago. House parties have been in full swing for months and social distancing is getting more distant. Just take a walk along market street if you don't believe me. However, this is all entirely predictable because it is one of the ways a pandemic ends - via a societal ending where the population decides it has had enough of living in fear and just starts getting on with life. We are lucky that science is so great that there are vaccines which has reduced this fear for many of those that were genuinely scared down to such a low level that they feel they can now get on with their lives. For the huge swathes of society that were never scared in the first place but did their bit by respecting lockdown etc and taking their jabs when offered, they too are now deciding to get on with life. You can woman and moan all you like but it will just raise your blood pressure for no gain.

The government must follow a strategy of accepting that life must go on and facilitate that rather than allow those that would focus SOLEY on the epidimeological factors and keep everything locked down until the risk has gone. NEWSFLASH - the risk will never go and there will ALWAYS be variants that *could* be more transmissible and *may* avoid vaccines forevermore. Living with restrictions forever, banning travel forever and destroying the economy wouldn't leave a particularly good quality of life left for the majority would it?

Thanks for your response. However I just want to correct a few of your incorrect statements.

Firstly I never said I knew what your views are or were.

Secondly I never said people should be forced to take the vaccine, so posting stuff about Nazi Germany is completely irrelevant.

I never understand why people feel the need to twist what others say to try and get their point over or win an argument.

I am fully aware that many people haven't followed the rules. I also believe that the majority have. It also doesn't make it right that those that flout the rules should escape scot free like you seem to imply should happen?

As regards namby pamby people. The last time we as a people fought a threat to our country like this was probably 1939 to 1945. Do you think our society was so relaxed then as it is now about people following rules and if not why not?

You can call it bitching and moaning all you want, My mate died last week from terminal cancer, I saw him a handful of times this past year because both he and I followed the rules, he went out only a handful of time perhaps he should have just shrugged and thought who cares, no one else is? Perhaps I should have done the same because people in market street cant be bothered as you say? The point is people have made huge sacrifices and its not right that some don't care. It never has been right and it definitely isn't now. The selfish actions of a few affect us all.

I want life to return to normal and once people are vaccinated there will be very little if any point in further lockdowns. But we are not there yet and the idiots ignoring the rules an not taking the vaccine need highlighting and targeting as they are delaying that date.

 

[artfuldodger]

ok good. i hope very much she is talking bollocks.

This morning Zubaida Haque, the former deputy director of the Runnymede Trust, a race equality thinktank, and a member of Independent Sage, the independent expert group that makes Covid policy recommendations, claimed vaccine hesitancy was being used as a “red herring” by the government. She told Good Morning Britain:

The health secretary has suggested that this is about vaccine hesitancy, but at the moment his conclusion seems to be based on hospitalisations in Bolton of 18 people, of which a third have been vaccinated.
Now he’s suggesting that of the 11 or 12 they didn’t have their vaccine when they were offered, but we don’t know why they didn’t take up their vaccine - it may have been medical reasons, it may have been other reasons.
This whole notion that, that at the moment, everyone’s freedom is threatened because of vaccine hesitancy groups, is absolute nonsense.
The main threat at the moment is this variant is highly transmissible - it’s 50% more transmissible than the Kent variant - and it is rapidly spreading across the country.

Haque said people should get vaccinated. But she said that it would take another two months before all adults were vaccinated, that the government had to set the right policy now, and that this week’s easing of lockdown restrictions should have been delayed.

She also said that it was a mistake to blame people for vaccine hesitancy. She said:

With vaccine hesitancy, there are a wide variety of reasons that people are hesitant and nervous about taking up the vaccine.
The research has shown that it is about anxieties and concerns ranging from side effects, to whether the vaccine will work, to whether it will affect fertility, to people having underlying illnesses and wondering whether it will affect them. And then, of course, there are issues with some communities about long-term distrust.
The most important thing with vaccine hesitancy is not to blame, it’s not to stigmatise, is not to point the finger, but to ask those communities: What are their concerns? And help them to take up the vaccine.

 

[Healdplace]

Hospital data from England is OK today given the small rises elsewhere.

As you heard at 59 the admissions were lower than ever (it was 76 the same day last week)

But these have been low now for weeks and NOT going up - in fact still falling.

Here are the daily admissions for past 2 weeks;

98 - 76 - 96 - 88 - 77 - 80 - 76 - 76 - 79 - 93 - 74 - 73 - 70 - 59

That is not a sign of Indian Virus trouncing the vaccines. Possibly the reverse.

England patients today also down a healthy 49 to just 749. Last week the fall was just 23.

The NW fell 10 from 152 to 142 - almost everywhere had similar % falls.

Ventilators stayed at 18 in the NW but fell 117 to 114 in total.

So nothing here but positives to take today from this data.

Also - whilst N Ireland and Scotland had slight increases in hospital numbers (at a very low level) Wales fell today.

It has just 35 Covid patients and 3 on ventilators today Down in a week from 49 and 4.

That is THREE people in a population of over THREE MILLION with Covid on a ventilator.

In January there were 2000 in hospital and 150 on ventilators there.

 

[unicorn]

Cases and deaths down week to week. For all the flapping, the Indian variant seems to be growing but only as a proportion of a fairly flat level of cases. Not saying that won't change but for now that seems to be the case despite all the noise. The question is would all those that have been infected by the Indian variant possibly have been infected with coronavirus anyhow and the Indian version is simply replacing the local variant which will slowly become obsolete.

IF in a few week cases are still 2500 and deaths in single figures, will the press still be screaming INDIAN VARIANT CASE SURGE TO 100% OF REPORTED CASES!!!!! Will they be demanding more restrictions??!? Will it matter? All to be seen and so yes, steady as she goes for now is a view I can subscribe to.

All good. And the 59 admissions today that @Healdplace just reports is the real story today, whatever the BBC leads with.

 

[daveiw01]

I want life to return to normal and once people are vaccinated there will be very little if any point in further lockdowns. But we are not there yet and the idiots ignoring the rules an not taking the vaccine need highlighting and targeting as they are delaying that date.

So, you think that everyone being vaccinated is the answer? Do you believe the flu can be cured the same way? If so, I have news for you, it can't. I'll say again as you don't seem to get it, it will not go away, it will become endemic and we'll have to deal with it, I have had both my jabs and yet I know I'm not bulletproof, but life must go on.

Think of the irreperable damge done to children's lives, their education, their normal socialisation already. You pretend to care about others, but dismiss anyone that disagrees with your frankly jaundiced views as being 'namby pamby' and that we should be forced into further lockdowns and be dealt with via draconian methods.

Give your head a wobble, either learn to face life as it will be, or just stay in and avoid contact with others for the rest of your life, that is YOUR choice, don't force your views on others.

 

[Eds]

My daughter is 43 and lives in Glasgow and still hasn't been called for her first Jab, she lives in Glasgow which was kept in level 3 because of the Indian variant it doesn't make sense

Tell her to speak to her GP

 

[roubaixtuesday]

ok good. i hope very much she is talking bollocks.

Alas, other than "without a doubt", which I suspect is a misquote, her conclusions seem perfectly reasonable.

Happily, it's also reasonable to draw quite different conclusions.

This is one of those occasions where we're not going to get a definitive scientific position, there's just not enough data to know.

Here's the invariably excellent John Burn Murdoch with a different perspective.

 

[frothy]

Tell her to speak to her GP

She said she will if she hasn't heard anything by Friday, doesn't like to make a fuss