Coronavirus (2021) thread

[blueinsa]

Because it’s too late to have any effect whatsoever and the cases will be peaking before those restrictions can do anything? Still, it’ll allow ’the never heard of before covid first minister‘ to pretend that his actions achieved something.
Fining people for going to work, rule of six (I’d love to see the peer reviewed paper for that gem), face masks mandatory, indoor events limited to 30 (with outdoor at only 50)? Nightclubs being shut (you’ve not been able to get into one Since early October with a covid pass and a fat lot of good that has done).

They‘re absolutely drunk with power and I hope that isn't forgotten at election time.

There is so much going over far too many peoples heads right now that these people are getting away with and there is frankly no end in sight to them telling us how we will go about our daily lives.

 

[inchy14]

Does anyone know how they asess severity of a new variant? is it only by comparing people who have had no previous infections or jabs, or had 1 strain, Delta and Omicron? jabs and no infections? or just it all possibilities together? seems like there would be so many variables to untangle.

They ask random blokes on a football forum.

 

[inchy14]

We haven't.

Have in Ireland, Wales and Scotland pretty much, too many restrictions imo anyway.

 

[Eds]

Sadly not. It’s the worker who’s fined. £60 for a first offence.

Why would you go to work though if you could reasonably expected to be able to work at home. Surely the point is to limit contact but £60 isn't a big enough fine to deter idiots. Don't see what the problem is personally.

 

[blueparrot]

Have in Ireland, Wales and Scotland pretty much, too many restrictions imo anyway.

I'm in Scotland. I'm not locked down, in fact the new restrictions have had zero impact on me. Argue about restrictions if you like, just don't call them a lockdown they aren't even close to lockdowns.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

I am, by nature, a fairly optimistic person so it is quite possible that I lean towards more positive news. I would guess (from your posts on this thread) that you are of a more pessimistic disposition and that you are likely to perhaps lean the other way a bit.

I'm actually a very optimistic person (pauses for laughter). Seriously.

I've also spent my life working in science and engineering, and have learned the hard way that no amount of optimism trumps data, and models.* Optimism based on hope against evidence is a very short step from denial IMO, and very dangerous against a fast moving virus. It's directly what brought us to the highest death toll in the world in the first wave.

I posted a whole series of very optimistic posts in spring this year as the data emerged of the vaccine effectiveness, and I think I'm the first person on here to highlight the same for booster jabs too.

*models are just our understanding of reality. Everyone on here who claims they know better than models actually has their own model, they just don't articulate it as such. There is no such thing as science without models.

Here endeth the sermon on philosophy of science.

 

[Toney’s bookie]

What should also be borne in mind is that being unvaccinated doesn't automatically mean you're going to be hospitalised or die if you catch covid. If we rewind back to the start of all this there was a school of thought of 'protect the vulnerable and let everyone who is unlikely to get particularly ill crack on'.

There is a lot of talk of this thread of restrictions being to now 'protect the unvaccinated' but I would suspect a large number of those who have chosen not to get vaccinated fall outside of the older / vulnerable categories anyhow.

So the impact of Omicron, which we all hope does turn out to be milder, will probably be concentrated in those who are old / vulnerable / have underlying issues and aren't offsetting these issues by oritecting themselves with jabs. You'd have to imagine these cohorts are much, much smaller than before and so I would expect that is reflected in hospitalisations and deaths, further helped by Omicron's reduced potency.

FYI I've had my booster and am very pro-vaccine

 

[paulchapo]

So I've just read a report that 10% of NHS staff are not vaccinated themselves and they wonder why sickness is high.

What happened to living with the virus? Isn't that what was being said not so long ago? As in if we've had the three bloody jabs we can get on with our lives? If we locked down everything in the past when there was a flu outbreak society and business would have been dead years ago. I remember being at work when people were coughing and spluttering everywhere and inevitably caught it myself. I felt like death but carried on and worked a twelve hour shift. If you had more than two sicknesses a year you were on a disciplinary. "I had awful flu and didn't want to pass it on" didn't wash. In those days if we tested everyone and isolated people who tested positive back then we'd be in the same boat. This has to end sometime, or are we continuing like this forever? If we are then we might as well wave the white flag now because the virus is here forever.

 

[Healdplace]

I have posted today's Zoe graph of onging infections over on the data thread. Not going to post lots of data here.

The right hand side (past week or so) looks eerily like the South African ones with a near vertical line shooting upward in the past week.

They predict there are 144,285 new cases today. Easily the highest ever on Zoe. It was 82,000 11 days ago. And 87,000 last Wednesday.

And ongoing symptomatic cases at 1,477,757 - again easily a new record.

London is twice as high as every other region on Zoe. North West is in fifth place with all the eastern regions - East, South East and East MIdlands ahead of NW. North East though is the lowest of the 12 UK regions.

Zoe numbers seem to be more accurate right now than the Gov UK numbers posted daily. They need looking at imo as they are awry with what government are saying and what Zoe is showing. Suggesting they are deciding things from data we are are not being shown.

 

[ayrshire_blue]

Pfizer approved for 5-11 year olds in UK.