Coronavirus (2021) thread

[BlueAnorak]

I’ve been in that one too and for every person that has a mask on, one doesn’t. It’s truly bizarre and if you scowl at them which I often do, they look at you as if you’re in the wrong!!

One of the biggest reasons why supermarkets are nesr the top of the pile as Covid plague distribution centres.

 

[bluethrunthru]

children who are more likely to die crossing the road than from this virus.

Thats old data based on the Kent variant - look at the effect the Delta variant is having on the young - particularly in schools. Its running riot. The vaccines are a development of existing knowledge and the dangers it may pose are vanishingly small. Remember the furore over blood clots from the anti-vaxxers? Thats all died down and gone the way of 5-G giving you Covid. Many parents will be happy to see their 14 year old pop a couple of paracetamol without reading what are alarming warnings on the sheet inside the box yet see bogeymen when a potentially life saving vaccine is on offer.

Like I say they can do what they want but just keep their potentially super spreader offspring away from me

 

[chaddblue]

One of the biggest reasons why supermarkets are nesr the top of the pile as Covid plague distribution centres.

My mum caught it last year. Thankfully only mild and she recovered quite quickly

However the woman she spoke to on the NHS phone line asked her where she'd been. She replied ASDA and without hesitation she said that's where she would have caught it !!

 

[Marvin]

I just think it’s understandable that people are cautious over a vaccine that has been rushed out being given to children who are more likely to die crossing the road than from this virus. I think it’s perfectly within reason for anyone to be sceptical after so many cock ups and lies from the powers that be over the last 18 months.

Obviously if you’re so confident in your 2 jabs then you’ll have nothing to worry about anyway so let people make their own decisions. That’s how a democracy used to work I think.

If you have had a chance to look at the cases on gov.uk in Bolton or Blackburn you'll see the epidemic is spreading through children. That maybe skewed by surge testing in schools? I don't know to what extent that is true.

If children are being more significantly affected now then we have the reservoir argument. To protect the population, we need herd immunity in every social group. The most important group are the group who spreads it the most.

23% of the population are children. The UK government, or their briefing document says that in order to stop community transmission we need to vaccinate 80% of the population.

The choices are:

Wait until enough people especially children are infected,
vaccinate children,
get more efficient vaccines that cut the chain of transmission and would reduce the herd immunity threshold.

It's not an easy argument especially as our knowledge is limited and the virus keeps changing.

 

[Healdplace]

They are not going to vaccinate primary school children any time soon. Teenagers yes. Younger kids. No. Virtually no children under 12 have died of Covid. If even a handful reacted to the vaccine that has not been trialled on them it would make that a mistake.

As my frequent posts on here pretty much every day with data from around the UK show it IS very much a different wave now than in January. THEN around 25/30% catching it were over 60 and nearly all still unvaccinated.

Because they were so vulnerable 30,000 daily cases became 1000 deaths.

Right now thw % catching it over 60 is around 4 or 5% everywhere. Because the vaccines are working amazingly even with this new variant.

And around 80% of those now cathing it (3 or 4 times the numbers here in January) are under 40. Many of them under 25.

The risk/reward benefit here of vaccines is less dramatic and has only really been tested down to later teens. Younger children would need much more study to be certain there are no unexpected side issues.

More importantly, they have had to redfine the Covid symptoms into more or less a bad cold because so many people were catching it young and not realising it was Covid because their symptoms were not that terrible.

Again that factors into the risk/reward vaccinations. Indeed in some ways the more younger people catch this variant the better as it becomes dominant with minimal risk of serious illness or death to those catching it and we know the vaccine still has great defence against it for those who are at real risk.

We suppress this too far and there may be another variant waiting to take over that actually does get around the vaccines in a way that will risk real problems in the autumn/winter.

This is a very very different wave of Covid from all the ones before it and why the only data that really matters is the NHS not getting overwhelmed by sheer numbers of people catching it at a time when it is trying to catch up on all the other serious problems it had to put on hold because of past waves when it was overrun by Covid.

 

[M18CTID]

I know mate. They need a bit of self-reflection.

It’s funny how upset they are about a capacity crowd at the Hungary game.

True, and no comment on only 14,000 fans being allowed in at the Germany v France game in Munich last night. A bigger percentage than that are allowed in to Wembley for matches and this is simply a case of different governments setting different rules on how many fans they're allowing in for matches during the Euros. Not to mention that the Portuguese government allowed 12,000 English football fans into a Portuguese stadium less than 3 weeks ago but allowed much lesser numbers into stadia for Portuguese domestic fixtures so it's not a case of the UK government being stricter on numbers than all their European counterparts.

 

[ell]

Sadly already heard 3 under 30s say they won’t bother getting vaccinated now after Monday’s delay because “what’s the point?” Fingers crossed it’s just a knee jerk reaction

 

[Healdplace]

Wales update

0 deaths - was 0 last week

141 cases - was 223 last week (* that number was unduly high due to catch up issues)

2.1% positivity - was 0.9% last week

41 patients - was 37 yesterday and 29 last week

1 ventilated - was 2 yesterday & last week

Cases rising a bit here now as positivity shows and patients up a little as a result. But as yet just 1 on ventilator in the whole country is great news.

That is 1 between all of N Ireland and Wales - 5 million people. At that ratio the UK would have 13 - not over 205 as we do.70 of them in the NW alone. Or 1223 patients as now compared with 39, 249 in the January wave.

Very different as I said.

 

[Manc in London]

Any sort of crisis and I guess this is the biggest crisis the world and many of us have faced in our lifetimes evokes strong reactions. That's when the zeolots pop out of the woodwork and they are the ones who need curbing on both sides. I've had both jabs and reluctantly wear a mask, even though I'm not convinced of their effectiveness and they make me feel like shit wearing one. I've seen some horrible videos posted of people being bullied, even by the police, for not wearing one and it's worrying how quickly normal people become very Gestapo like to anyone who won't comply with orders. Some poor sod anticipating such a backlash had even gone to the trouble of printing off the medically exempt form on the gov UK website. He was then told by the thick policewoman called to deal with him in a supermarket, "I'm not accepting that, you've just printed that from the internet!" Erm yes, nervous people were advised to do so by the government, even though it said legally they didn't have to. Like every crisis it fetches out the best and worst in people and some get drunk on any extra power bestowed on them.

Drunk on power? I imagine most don't want to ask people to wear masks as they will know it could lead to confrontation when that kind of thing is something they want to avoid and is not part of their job. I have watched a number of videos online of maskless people recording confrontations with shop staff, police etc.. Then when you look at their profiles, they are often, let's say, questionable characters. May be for some it appears a link between unable to wear a mask and being an arsehole?

We should not forget that the bigger issue here are selfish people, some of them lying, who could be spreading a virus rather than a shop worker asking someone to wear a mask.

 

[Phil1]

Drunk on power? I imagine most don't want to ask people to wear masks as they will know it could lead to confrontation when that kind of thing is something they want to avoid and is not part of their job. I have watched a number of videos online of maskless people recording confrontations with shop staff, police etc.. Then when you look at their profiles, they are often, let's say, questionable characters. May be for some it appears a link between unable to wear a mask and being an arsehole?

We should not forget that the bigger issue here are selfish people, some of them lying, who could be spreading a virus rather than a shop worker asking someone to wear a mask.

The majority of people over here at the moment who ar walking around without a mask on are Brits.
I've made all staff in various businesses aware that if after politely asking to put one on they are met with a refusal or some bullshit excuse that they are exempt without showing proof to fuck them off and made clear they are not welcome.
Nearly 2 years of Covid and businesses and livelihoods going to the wall and as we get to the point where there's light at the end of the tunnel I've no intention of putting things at risk because a few dickheads think they are above a bit of common decency.
Fortunately the Spanish authorities aren't as soft as the British and the big fines they will receive might just knock some sense into them.