Coronavirus (2021) thread

[Gray]

In my area South Manchester there is a clinic in Hale Barnes that is now vaccinating people under the age of 70, as they have completed all those over that age. In Timperley they are setting up a vaccination hub at the Larkhill Community Centre, as I am 75 in April I hope I am not too far away from the first jab. But it seems weird that one clinic is so far ahead of the curve?

 

[feedthegoat27]

Question to any Kiwi blues out there; how have you got to that point? Is the whole country vaccinated now? It only takes one infected person in that crowd, and you're back to square one. And yes; I'm aware that NZ's geographical location, vis a vis their relative isolation, gives them an advantage in controlling the virus. But with air travel so commonplace these days, is anywhere truly "isolated" any more?

I'm (sadly) not a Kiwi nor based in NZ, but I don't think NZ have even started the vaccination process, nor are they even in a rush to do so.

Their borders are effectively closed, and any new arrivals have to go into a quarantine hotel on arrival. This of course means they catch people who are positive during this enforced 14 day isolation period (some flights are still entering the country) I think anyone who is positive isn't released until they can produce a negative test.

I believe they currently have something like 80 active cases, all of which are in quarantine rather than in the community, which means they can hold events like this without having to take precautions. Kinda hard for us to get our collective heads around but COVID just isn't a thing over in New Zealand. Kiwi's can't travel anywhere but life is pretty much normal over there by all accounts. We're a million miles away from being able to hold an event with 20,000 people attending.

Seems like they might be tightening their border controls even further, and you can't blame them. They can see all the chaos COVID and it's variants continue to cause across the world, so it makes perfect sense to keep a lid on the situation when they have it effectively completely under control.

New Zealand Further Tightens Border Measures to Combat Virus - Bloomberg

 

[cleavers]

Did he just say you can get a test without symptoms ? I am only half listening

Kind of, but I understood it's only the lateral flow tests, and you have to go queue to get a test in a testing centre, so perhaps meeting up with people who are likely to have covid.

I won't be doing that, you take enough chance going out for essential reasons as it is, going to a covid testing centre if you have no symptoms, is not on my list of "essential".

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

The train was the busiest it’s been in months today. What lockdown?

 

[mackenzie]

I weighed up working from home compared to in the office, and I've decided to stay in the office (lots of different reasons). Been told today the ones of us remaining will now be tested regularly, which is good.
Hope it's not one of those tests that a friend in a care home got. Tested positive and then was told to go to a testing centre (same day) and that one was negative! Which is a good result, obviously, but travelling whilst possibly having it wasn't good :-(

 

[Healdplace]

Greater Manchester summary:

Goodish news.

Cases up just 65 to 1359.

Which as the NW as a region rose by 401 pro rata means the NW shared lower numbers than elsewhere.

At 29.1% it is the lowest in a week and clawed back the losses caused by Manchester and Stockport in past days.

Manchester fell again but stayed over 300 just.

Stockport rose but only by 9.

There were 3 boroughs under 100.

Nobody really had a bad day today. Only modest ups and downs.

Full scoreboard later as usual.

 

[mrbelfry]

The positivity rate is important to smooth out the rise and fall of tests done. It is not a perfect metric because the system can be gamed so with like all these things you're looking for a trend.

I'm not 100% sure why the WHO view the 5% figure as important as that is massively dependent on testing strategy eg last spring we were only testing hospitalised cases so I presume we would have had a high positive percentage. Now anyone can essentially lie and get a test so you're testing people who don't have it which skews the figures.

But where testing strategy remains the same the way the system can be gamed remains the same and so the figure remains "accurate" to plot a trend

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

I'm (sadly) not a Kiwi nor based in NZ, but I don't think NZ have even started the vaccination process, nor are they even in a rush to do so.

Their borders are effectively closed, and any new arrivals have to go into a quarantine hotel on arrival. This of course means they catch people who are positive during this enforced 14 day isolation period (some flights are still entering the country) I think anyone who is positive isn't released until they can produce a negative test.

I believe they currently have something like 80 active cases, all of which are in quarantine rather than in the community, which means they can hold events like this without having to take precautions. Kinda hard for us to get our collective heads around but COVID just isn't a thing over in New Zealand. Kiwi's can't travel anywhere but life is pretty much normal over there by all accounts. We're a million miles away from being able to hold an event with 20,000 people attending.

Seems like they might be tightening their border controls even further, and you can't blame them. They can see all the chaos COVID and it's variants continue to cause across the world, so it makes perfect sense to keep a lid on the situation when they have it effectively completely under control.

New Zealand Further Tightens Border Measures to Combat Virus - Bloomberg

how sensible.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

Kudos to the BBC for once, really hard hitting week of reports from our Clive starting tonight, almost had me going a minute or so ago added to the reporter on location in Wuhan, it's an horrible subject but, might just stop a few dickheads thinking they can do what they want.

 

[Tb1981]

My nan is nearly 80 and very vulnerable.

Just found out there’s a nurse(s) coming to her care home tomorrow to vaccinate her... and presumably others hopefully too.

Very happy.

Certainly seems to be happening To a lot of people
I told my mum she’d be mid feb (70+) last week and she got it 4 days later.
Also have a friend who’s wife is a midwife and he said anyone trained to do injections is being drafted in to help