Coronavirus (2021) thread

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Tim of the Oak said:
We like the EU should have enough on plates without trying to score points. By the middle of this year there should be enough vaccines for everyone across Europe.
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By the middle of the year the UK will have finished its vaccination program. At least the initial campaign to get 1st doses into adults will be done. Boosters, children, redesigning the vaccine will become the focus.
 
Tim of the Oak said:
The Covidiot behaviour from Macron is a bit embarrassing. I am just glad that (so far) the Oxford / AZ vaccine has been proving the doubters wrong. The proof of the pudding will be in the protection it gives to our Country / people and hopefully the Pfizer jabs will be very effective “in the real world” too. The signs are positive.
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One thing in play is French pride. They had two progs to develop a vaccine and both failed and have been abandoned. Much talk in France about national failure.
 
Marvin said:
By the middle of the year the UK will have finished its vaccination program. At least the initial campaign to get 1st doses into adults will be done. Boosters, children, redesigning the vaccine will become the focus.
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I’d expect redesign to have started already, though it may need more than one. Either way I think both doses will be complete by the end August, some of those in phase 2 may get already adjusted ones.
If redesigned boosters are needed for those being vaccinated now, I’d guess they will be single shots from November ish. Good thing is we should be capable of running through 30mill shots in a couple of months.
 
KS55 said:
One thing in play is French pride. They had two progs to develop a vaccine and both failed and have been abandoned. Much talk in France about national failure.
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They need to get over that. Just like we can’t afford to dwell on our response to the pandemic (prior to the vaccine roll out) made us a laughing stock across much of the world.
 
blueparrot said:
I’d expect redesign to have started already, though it may need more than one. Either way I think both doses will be complete by the end August, some of those in phase 2 may get already adjusted ones.
If redesigned boosters are needed for those being vaccinated now, I’d guess they will be single shots from November ish. Good thing is we should be capable of running through 30mill shots in a couple of months.
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In the recent Kate Bingham (vaccine procurement head honcho) interview she said work has started to see if vaccines can be produced in pill or spray forms as the two shot regime is very inefficient.
 
Please tell me im talking out of my arse here, but is there anyway to know that the Russian submitted data on the vaccine is actually correct? I mean it's Russia... if Putin told me it was sunny outside i'd presume it was snowing.
 
twosips said:
Please tell me im talking out of my arse here, but is there anyway to know that the Russian submitted data on the vaccine is actually correct? I mean it's Russia... if Putin told me it was sunny outside i'd presume it was snowing.
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I’d assume that western countries would run their own analysis.
 
twosips said:
How is that even really possible though? Wouldn't they have had to been in touch with every single patient to verify their tests etc?
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No idea mate, the fact that AZ are working with it to see if can mix the 2 vaccines surely speaks volumes. Maybe they are able to confirm?
 
cleavers said:
All this is based on trial data, which is carefully controlled, and very small numbers. We still don't have any real data based on the actual vaccine in the real world, so caution needs to be displayed until we have that, and it will still be several weeks before it's conclusive.

Nobody is enjoying this, but reacting too early could set the whole thing back weeks or even months.

The best bit of news today was that of 643k tests, less than 4% were positive.
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To be fair, I don't think he or @worsleyweb were advocating opening everything up tomorrow, and were probably thinking 2 or 3 months ahead. By then, we will have a lot of that important real world data to hand and barring any seriously negative news on that front and how effective the vaccines are against mutant strains, if you look at the way case numbers have dropped so much over the past few weeks, and couple this with the amount of vaccinations already carried out (rising by hundreds of thousands every single day), along with the number of people that have now had Covid so have built up some immunity, I don't think it's unreasonable or unwise to think that we can start opening the country up around April/May time.
 
Rammy Blue said:
No idea mate, the fact that AZ are working with it to see if can mix the 2 vaccines surely speaks volumes. Maybe they are able to confirm?
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Ha, well yeah! I'd trust anything going forward if AZ were involved, but I think quite understandably I have zero trust in Putin's propaganda machine when on their own work with Sputnik.
 
Psychedelic Casual said:
We have to be careful about opening up society. It shouldn’t be done for a good while yet.

It’s not about people under 50 not being particularly negatively affected by Covid, it’s that a greater spread of the virus will increase the mutation rates. So the more we open things up, the more it’s spread around, the more it will mutate, and one of these mutations could be one that by passes the vaccine and we’re back to square one.

For me, we should be immunising the entire population of the country, having no community spread, only then open society up, at the same time as keeping the borders closed long after we’re all vaccinated so that no new variants are coming into the country, and keep producing the vaccine for the rest of the world.
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you have good points but i feel it's too idealistic - but then i dont know what you mean by low community spread or waiting to 'open society up'. do you mean stay as now until the end of 2021 when the over 18s are double-jab vaccinated?

if so, then i am not sure the huge hospital treatment waiting list can wait that long, and if cases are down to a few hundred per day in the summer, hospitalisation very very low, then i dont think that hospital waiting list is going to go ignored (and so it shouldnt). Hospital transmission will far outstrip community transmission from summer (in my opinion) and that is where potential mutations occurs - but how do you prevent this? simply tell the millions waiting treatment that, despite relatively empty wards, they cant come in? i dont think that can work.

furthermore, i dont think the country can keep the service and hospitality sector supported for too much longer (or if they can, it's to all our detriment for many years). I don't really advocate the full 100% back to normal in april or anything, but i think phased return through the tiers from early to mid March is an inevitability. Schools will be going back soon.

Borders i wont comment. This cannot be a decision system based purely on covid numbers, i dont think. The needs of other facets of society must be factored in now. On a personal level i wont last any sort of lockdown beyond May or June. Thankfully the sun will be returning but i need family and friends.
 
M18CTID said:
To be fair, I don't think he or @worsleyweb were advocating opening everything up tomorrow, and were probably thinking 2 or 3 months ahead. By then, we will have a lot of that important real world data to hand and barring any seriously negative news on that front and how effective the vaccines are against mutant strains, if you look at the way case numbers have dropped so much over the past few weeks, and couple this with the amount of vaccinations already carried out (rising by hundreds of thousands every single day), along with the number of people that have now had Covid so have built up some immunity, I don't think it's unreasonable or unwise to think that we can start opening the country up around April/May time.
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Nobody wants this to go on any longer than it needs to, but equally nobody wants to keep doing this every 2-4 months either, as that will do far more damage in the longer term.

Until we have firm data about what is or isn't working we should wait, the current fall in cases could just be the current lockdown. Whilst the numbers now seem small compared to where they were, we are still at a higher level than at the start of December, more than double the number in Germany, and yesterday still 5th highest in the world.

So whilst the news is better, it's a long way from perfect, similar numbers caused the November lockdown 2 in fact, the one most can't even remember. Hopefully by April/May we will know a lot more, and have a lot more vaccinated, but even then we should take it carefully.
 
Rammy Blue said:
Shouldn’t laugh, but I made a joke the other day about how the Israelis would send the Palestinians the Sputnik vaccine, well fuck me that’s what they are doing, lol.
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After the Yom Kippur war of 1973 which brought us to the brink of ultimate war Henry Kissinger used his shuttle diplomacy to broker peace deals. In the mid seventies there were lots of tensions and my gaffer said at the time, "it's peace on tick" meaning there will peace, discord, peace, discord, repeat, it's been ever thus. I wonder if the seemingly impossible could happen, the Israelis have a chance here to try and mend relations with the Palestinians. It's a lot to ask and probably won't happen but the two must accept the need to work together for the common good, who knows where it could lead to.
 
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