Coronavirus (2021) thread

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Posted a link the other day to events on the ground in Israel; do think it’s prudent to see what is actually happening in countries that are farther down the line.

Governments can fritter away another fortune designing digital passports and agonise over public utility versus individual liberty, but on the ground it’s people who will decide. Come May‘s end when as many adults have had their second dose and as many younger adults have had their first dose, a domestic passport will be rendered obsolete. People won’t ask for it and people won’t use it. That’s what’s already happened in Israel.

International travel, however, will likely require it, though, which is why the U.K. should be calling all countries to follow the WHO and have one internationally recognised system.

Presumably you’ll still need at least 2 Covid tests, at £125 a pop, to go on holiday rendering the vaccine passport pretty pointless?

 

[Gabriel]

Presumably you’ll still need at least 2 Covid tests, at £125 a pop, to go on holiday rendering the vaccine passport pretty pointless?

Perhaps initially, for those not vaccinated, but for those who can demonstrate that they have received both doses, then again I would imagine that requirement would become redundant.

 

[splinter]

Parents just had their second jab brought forward a week &half..Happy days

 

[Healdplace]

Parents just had their second jab brought forward a week &half..Happy days

Is that earlier than the 12 weeks?

Was it the AZ or the Pfizer one?

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Perhaps initially, for those not vaccinated, but for those who can demonstrate that they have received both doses, then again I would imagine that requirement would become redundant.

I suppose the issue is, that everyone seems to acknowledge that the vaccine will not stop you catching it, but will mean the vast majority won’t get symptoms, so proving you’re vaccinated, won’t really matter.
Unless, of course, the ‘facts’ on asymptomatic transmission aren’t facts at all. In that case, and almost all the evidence points to that being the case, it might make sense. Of course, that makes the last 54 weeks policy of locking away people who weren’t sick all look a bit pointless, but the two things (asymptomatic transmission and vaccine passports having any benefit whatsoever) cannot both be true.

 

[splinter]

Is that earlier than the 12 weeks?

Was it the AZ or the Pfizer one?

Pifzer I'd say 11 weeks

 

[Tim of the Oak]

So, if vaccination doesn’t stop you catching it, or passing it on, what’s the point of ‘vaccination passports’, other than yet another way to take away more of our civil liberties?
We are sleepwalking into a completely unrecognisable future so the already powerful can ‘keep us safe’, by becoming more powerful (and a lot wealthier).
The only possible useful thing about vaccination passports is they might just wake some people up to the dangers of living in a ‘show us your health papers’ society.

The total collapse of ‘proper’ work and a move towards a materialistic, social media driven, selfish society has left us open to being divided on everything and not to seek out an alternative view, but to attack anyone we perceive as having a different point of view. To snoop on our neighbours, to report people for seeing their mum and now, willing to accept any small crumb offered in the hope of some sort of ‘new normal‘.
This is no doubt fuelled by the biggest fear induced propaganda drive since Goebbels was alive and well, but it is not healthy and will, along with lost years of life due to lockdowns, be one of the longest lasting legacies of Covid.

I agree with some of what you say. Herd immunity (as a strategy rather than an end point) could have been straight out of the Goebbels play book.

We’ve just had another weekend of packed crowds at the rugby in New Zealand. The Country where the idolised stars of the All Blacks sweep the dressing room after a rugby game. Similar happens (including by fans) in some of the South East Asian Countries that have managed the pandemic relatively well, like Japan. However, any mention of New Zealand on this thread brings a storm of criticism from otherwise intelligent posters,

I am not a fan of the a Covid passports including for U.K. hospitality. That said, I can see people needing them for international travel because travellers are reliant on the cooperation of another Country (and vaccine passports for international travel have been around for yonks).

 

[Healdplace]

I do not think everyone says the vaccine will not stop you catching it. It very well may be doing as transmission is clearly falling where vaccinations are most prevalent.

The point is that the vaccine is not a guarantee of stopping you catching it and its primary aim is to mitigate consequences if you do - both for the person catching it and the health authorities who may not need to expend great resources on them but also to those around you if it reduces transmission as evidence suggests it does.

But in some circumstances it likely does reduce your risk of catching it too.

 

[Healdplace]

Pifzer I'd say 11 weeks

That makes sense - I know people in Wales who had their jab only 4 or 5 weeks after the first and it was Pfizer.

It only seems to be AZ they are sticking pretty firmly to the 12 weeks. As the evidence suggests that creates the best efficacy.

 

[splinter]

That makes sense - I know people in Wales who had their jab only 4 or 5 weeks after the first and it was Pfizer.

It only seems to be AZ they are sticking pretty firmly to the 12 weeks. As the evidence suggests that creates the best efficacy.

Lady told my mam..it won't be long till under 50s get started ?

 

[Healdplace]

Lady told my mam..it won't be long till under 50s get started ?

Some already have - there are people reading this thread who did so weeks ago.

It is partly dependent on demographics in your local surgery some just have more younger patients and fewer older so get there faster.

But as a wider rule, yes, that will likely come soon. Things are a bit slow as numbers of available vaccine are down this month and the focus is necessarily on second doses now due in much bigger numbers as we reach 12 weeks on from mid January when numbers of first jabs really ramped up.

However, first jabs are still happening in numbers as the daily data shows so younger ages are going to be reached in more and more places and covered this month too.

 

[M18CTID]

So, if vaccination doesn’t stop you catching it, or passing it on, what’s the point of ‘vaccination passports’, other than yet another way to take away more of our civil liberties?
We are sleepwalking into a completely unrecognisable future so the already powerful can ‘keep us safe’, by becoming more powerful (and a lot wealthier).
The only possible useful thing about vaccination passports is they might just wake some people up to the dangers of living in a ‘show us your health papers’ society.

The total collapse of ‘proper’ work and a move towards a materialistic, social media driven, selfish society has left us open to being divided on everything and not to seek out an alternative view, but to attack anyone we perceive as having a different point of view. To snoop on our neighbours, to report people for seeing their mum and now, willing to accept any small crumb offered in the hope of some sort of ‘new normal‘.
This is no doubt fuelled by the biggest fear induced propaganda drive since Goebbels was alive and well, but it is not healthy and will, along with lost years of life due to lockdowns, be one of the longest lasting legacies of Covid.

I thought the point of vaccine passports - for international travel at least - is that while the vaccine doesn’t stop you catching it or passing it on, it pretty much prevents serious illness and death and as such you’re not clogging up hospitals in another country if you happen to catch it.

 

[Healdplace]

Just been looking at the Zoe App data for symptomatic cases day by day. The numbers are staggering.

In the autumn they peaked on 5 November with 578, 822 on that data reporting they had symptomatic cases to the app.

On 4 November the UK Cases peaked in real life (not the Zoe app) - closely matching the Zoe peak date with 25, 177 daily cases recorded.

This was when the big North West outbreak peaked.

It fell steadily for the next few weeks and bottomed out on Zoe on 298 356 on 14 December. In the actual recorded numbers cases bottomed out at 12, 282 cases on 8 December.

Then the Kent variant took off in the south very fast.

By mid January this peaked on Zoe at 806, 438 symptomatic cases in effect on 12 January - 4 days after the highest ever daily UK cases were recorded in the UK - 68, 053 on 8 January.

This was just a week before the peak number were in UK hospitals with Covid (over 39,000 at that point) and maximum deaths (about 1300 a day for a week or so) were occurring.

Then numbers started to plummet slowly at first then accelerating - via a combination of increased vaccinations after the big ramp up in over 70s and the by now several week established winter lockdown.

The fall since then has been continuous in every measure.

Cases as of yesterday were under 3000. UK hospital patients just over 3000 (down over 35,000 since mid January) and ventilated patients around 500 instead of over 4000 as they were in January.

And the Zoe app symptomatic cases fell and fell from that 806. 438 peak which had closely mirrored the real life case and hospital data.

On 1 Feb it was 436, 159 symptomatic cases - nearly halved in 3 weeks.

On 15 Feb it had halved again to 213, 443

On 1 March the curve had slowed but it was still down to 142, 097

It went below 100, 000 on 13 March.

As of yesterday it was at 57, 138.

 

[ballinio]

Can't agree with much of that, mentioning Goebbels was the final straw.

Modern governments learnt everything we see today from him .

 

[Healdplace]

Todays new Zoe App data has just appeared:

2350 cases - much like yesterday's startling but real cases number.

A big fall on yesterday's Zoe number and lowest in a a very long time. If not ever on Zoe.

And the number of symptomatic cases is now 53,387 - the biggest day to day drop I have seen from 57, 138.

Although the numbers for the North West I should add have gone up a little and from being the best last week it is now only behind Scotland, London and Yorkshire.

Though that is because ALL the other regions have fallen a lot and the NW is already at its lowest point in months.

The Easter impact on people using the App needs to be recalled, of course - much as with the actual case data.

 

[Bozo]

So, if vaccination doesn’t stop you catching it, or passing it on, what’s the point of ‘vaccination passports’, other than yet another way to take away more of our civil liberties?
We are sleepwalking into a completely unrecognisable future so the already powerful can ‘keep us safe’, by becoming more powerful (and a lot wealthier).
The only possible useful thing about vaccination passports is they might just wake some people up to the dangers of living in a ‘show us your health papers’ society.

The total collapse of ‘proper’ work and a move towards a materialistic, social media driven, selfish society has left us open to being divided on everything and not to seek out an alternative view, but to attack anyone we perceive as having a different point of view. To snoop on our neighbours, to report people for seeing their mum and now, willing to accept any small crumb offered in the hope of some sort of ‘new normal‘.
This is no doubt fuelled by the biggest fear induced propaganda drive since Goebbels was alive and well, but it is not healthy and will, along with lost years of life due to lockdowns, be one of the longest lasting legacies of Covid.

lol did anyone else stop reading at 'civil liberties'? Put down the Orwell mate.

 

[hammocity]

Modern governments learnt everything we see today from him .

Lol, I've heard it all now. Governments and policy evolve, there was no precedent for this Government to learn from in the modern day. They've made mistakes but hopefully they will not repeat them in the future, their handling of the vaccination roll out is nothing short of outstanding.

I think ISIS probably "learnt" from Goebbels, you know, ethnic cleansing, intransigent views on race and religion, etc, they got what they deserved, their organisations wiped out (hopefully) and death to their leaders.

 

[hammocity]

Goebbels as propagandist, not as Nazi. Other than that, I’m genuinely curious why you support showing your papers to take part in society?

I've nothing to hide, I'll show my arse if it gets me into the pub for a drink with my mates.

 

[Healdplace]

Anyone willing to comment knowledgeably on Ferguson's claim that the AZ vaccine is vulnerable to the South African variant and puts the UK recovery at risk?

 

[Healdplace]

England hospital deaths - 15 - with 2 from the NW.

Last week it was 18 with 2.

This is always the lowest number of the week as you will recall being Sunday data. And Easter Sunday at that.