Coronavirus (2021) thread

[ob]

One of best mates about to have operation for bowel cancer this afternoon. Been cancelled twice already. Him, his wife and daughter all had covid. She told my this morning she still not feeling right 12 weeks after testing positive. Come on my oul mate Bootin you can beat this thing as in your nickname your tough as oul boots

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Phased re-opening of schools will start in Wales and Scotland from 22 Feb onwards.

Not under their jurisdiction in England.

 

[NeilYoungIsBack]

Not under their jurisdiction in England.

No kidding. Shows the direction of travel though

 

[xgorton]

God bless the Jews!

And lot's of love for the Palestinians

 

[Healdplace]

pleased for you, as I know that this has in some ways consumed you with all the reporting, analysis and investigative work you have put in on providing a personal twist on the data for all on here- hope it brings you some comfort knowing you're half way there

Thank you, I am 69 so was not really expecting it before now. I had assumed by mid February so they are a little ahead of target.

As long as I have not filled a gap at the last minute as people are refusing the AZ jab in numbers now because of the current 'bad' news. Someone more vulnerable who really should have had it but was scared off. They said no when I asked when booking but it seems hard to imagine they are expecting people to travel in my case several miles and be there in 120 minutes . I suspect they are just going down a list and getting through as fast as possible.

I went to a doctors surgery in an area I was utterly unfamiliar with and the way it was organised was amazing - though you were at more risk of being clobbered by the cars driving in and out every few moments as you snaked the socially distanced queue round the car park.

Very efficient though.

 

[Healdplace]

England hospital deaths 509 - way down from 767 last Tuesday. Always a big catch up from weekend.

That is the good news.

The bad 109 of them from the North West.

Highest split yet and over 20%.

Always a catch up as NW records least over weekends but the deaths here are certainly higher than they should be.

As I noted in the hospital data for yesterday last night the only region where ventilator numbers rose on a day of big falls elsewhere.

 

[Healdplace]

The highest number of those NW deaths were in Liverpool and Knowsley (30 between them) and East Lancashire (17) by the way. Stockport at 9 was most in Greater Manchester.

 

[Mon Autre]

and if they'd been above board in their practices to start with we wouldn't have a pandemic. It doesn't clear them just because they did some things right mostly out of self-preservation at that point.

If they were honest and had integrity about the whole thing they'd have given full transparency and access, released every bit of available data instead of deleting it and already started compensating other countries for what they're culpable of.

The irony here is that we pursued the kind of herd immunity strategy that has put the whole world at risk by allowing the virus countless more opportunities to mutate into a vaccine resistant strain. I'm no fan of the Chinese government either but they can at least say that they dealt with it and got their infection rates down while our PM was talking about "taking it on the chin".

 

[Marvin]

Hancock is linking the lifting of the restrictions to the performance of the vaccines against the new variant. Will vaccination be sufficient to hold it back, or do we need restrictions in place until we get Vaccine Round 2?

A potential way out would be for the UK to explore other vaccine solutions. Novovax is staring us in the face and yet no one seems to discuss this. They claim 60% effectiveness against the SA variant. Have all these politicians forgotten this? The UK has ordered 60m doses. If that works, use it.

 

[Healdplace]

509 England hospital deaths by age:

20 -39 (7) 1.4%

40 - 59 (52) 10.2%

60 - 79 (204) 40.1%

80 PLUS (246) 48.3%

This looks like the most significant numbers yet.

Pretty sure that is the lowest over 80 split ever and the closest the two upper age groups have been together and the highest split I recall of under 60s at 11.6%

All of which is consistent not with rises in the under 60 deaths but rises in the percentage of them - which is different - because the older age groups are starting to fall dramatically in numbers.

First real sign of vaccine impact I think.

 

[Rammy Blue]

Hancock is linking the lifting of the restrictions to the performance of the vaccines against the new variant. Will vaccination be sufficient to hold it back, or do we need restrictions in place until we get Vaccine Round 2?

A potential way out would be for the UK to explore other vaccine solutions. Novovax is staring us in the face and yet no one seems to discuss this. They claim 60% effectiveness against the SA variant. Have all these politicians forgotten this? The UK has ordered 60m doses. If that works, use it.

Ha, come on Marv, I’m pretty sure they won’t have forgotten the Novovax and will be working on the best solution. I’d like to think the scientists will be all over this at the moment.

 

[Marvin]

Vaccination is even more important now that there is a suggestion that they wont stop transmission of the SA variant. If they don't stop transmission then you can't be protected by the herd, you can only be protected by taking it.

 

[Ban-jani]

And lot's of love for the Palestinians

Absolutely

 

[Healdplace]

Vaccination is even more important now that there is a suggestion that they wont stop transmission of the SA variant. If they don't stop transmission then you can't be protected by the herd, you can only be protected by taking it.

I think they are ramping things up in the way they are because of these resistant strains. The decision today to lock people up for years for illegally going to South Africa says that too

They want to minimise the numbers who have Covid just in case that strain or another like it gains a real foothold here. It will be far easier to contain if that happens when we are at a very low level thanks to mass vaccination at speed.

Fortunately, for all our criticism elsewhere, we now possibly have both the best vaccination programme and the best tracking and testing set up of the major nations.

At exactly the time we really need both.

 

[Healdplace]

The world may have laughed at Britain's failure and terrible figures and, whilst there were reasons why that was to some degree inevitable, this was fair comment.

But from here on in Britain may well be at the forefront of the fightback. Potentially the vaccine that is cheap enough to save the corners of the planet that cannot afford the very costly ones that might be slightly more efficacious and will of course make the most of that to try to make billions.

Showing how to plan and order vaccine properly up front as Boris did is a guide to all for when a future threat emerges.

And having the best labs that can identify new variants quickly and track them. That might mean they call the strain British variant 2, 3 or 4 for doing that but the bottom line is having the ability to track and trace and hopefully stem these strains is the key to stopping them taking off around the planet. As they would in the end and have the least chance of doing so if quickly identified and stamped down on locally.

 

[Healdplace]

Scottish data:

58 deaths - was 69 last week

822 cases - was 758 last week

7.2% positive - was 7.4% last week - so more cases but lower positivity trumps that.

1618 patients - was 1939 last week

112 in icu ventilators - was 143 last week

 

[ayrshire_blue]

Scottish data:

58 deaths - was 69 last week

822 cases - was 758 last week

7.2% positive - was 7.4% last week - so more cases but lower positivity trumps that.

1618 patients - was 1939 last week

112 in icu ventilators - was 143 last week

To the best of your knowledge, has the catch up on cases which you noted yesterday continued on to today per chance? Positivity going the right way at least, and that pressure at hospitals must thankfully be easing a good bit such is the drops we've had!

 

[Healdplace]

Scotland vaccination update:

928, 122 first doses given - 61, 299 yesterday - up from 27, 557 day before and new daily record

12, 257 second doses given - 1567 yesterday - up from 108 day before

 

[Del_Bosque]

Sorry late with news today. Got call at 10 am to go get a jab. Out of the blue. And at noon!

Think they are trying to get the AZ ones used up before the nation decides to wait for the
'better' one or they are already getting cancellations for that reason.

No way was I turning the offer down and as I have said in some ways I suspect this might be the better one anyway.

Very efficient like a conveyor belt and from home back to home via taxi in under 40 minutes, Over half of that in the taxi getting there and back.

Great news

 

[Healdplace]

More on Scotland vaccinations:

29, 908 - 99.7% of older care home residents and 93% of all care home residents

40, 553 - 90% of older care home staff and 78% of all care home staff

239, 095 - 96% of people over the age of 80 living in the community but not in care homes

142, 474 - 75% of people 75 to 79 living in the community but not in care homes

103, 319 - 37% of people 70 to 74 living in the community but not in care homes