Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Ron Aldo]

So thats the Ozzies calling for the halting the of the roll out of the Oxford (dont forget to mention its from Oxford, gstq, watp) Vaccine because its apparently not any use.... f**k knows whats gonna happen if thats the case. 
Anyway, increased controls tomorrow should be implemented along with Jeane Freeman’s resignation on her failure to get the vaccination efforts up and running and overseeing advice that said ‘aye just huv xmas with yer granny’. Stop blaming the public for the mess you told them they could get themselves into. 

Think they're suggesting that the efficacy of the Oxford vaccine isn't high enough to achieve herd immunity. I thought that 2 doses of the Oxford jag were 90%+ effective which I thought would have been good enough?

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

2 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Where are you seeing that?

If it was a choice between listening to Crass and getting radiation poisoning is take the radiation.

https://t.co/zc0yDcS4Ku

[s_dog]

2 hours ago, virginton said:

You do that because you'll be the only one sticking to a target that the SG has already downgraded twice. 

Early December - Freeman giving it big licks that they will vaccinate 1 million: not going to happen.

Late December - Oh aye but we'll have 900,000 doses though so that's no big difference.

Now mid-January - we only got 12k done in a day but that's alright and let's just call it 500k this month and see how they do next month instead.

I'm not happy because the clowncar incompetence of the government is well on track to require 18 fucking months of restrictions to resolve a public health crisis, and will also leave an enormous, smouldering crater where the economy used to be. Which will be just great for all the non-boomers who will be paying through utterly shite public services in perpetuity. 

Yep, more laughable bluster 'cos you can't possibly admit you're wrong about targets for something that wasn't even available.  Laughable the key word, as you clearly are happy judging by all your ranting on here.  

 

53 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

So thats the Ozzies calling for the halting the of the roll out of the Oxford (dont forget to mention its from Oxford, gstq, watp) Vaccine because its apparently not any use.... f**k knows whats gonna happen if thats the case. 

So they are saying it won't protect enough to give herd immunity (Vaccine not good enough to stop coronavirus). I've never really understood the lack of anyone questioning the use of the Oxford/AZ vaccine here in the UK, other than the UK Gov thinking it's great because it's from Oxford University? Despite it's cost & storage benefits, its clearly not as good as the Pfizer vaccine in its prime aim, to give protection from Covid-19. It's 62-90% efficacy, compared to 95%. We better hope it ends up being 90% and the Ozzies are wrong!  

Edited to add: knew I'd read something about this recently. We have a FAQ for the vaccines at work and it says:

The short term efficacy from the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is around 90% and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is around 70% (3 weeks after first dose). They have data on the detectable antibodies you have after one dose of the Oxford/AZ vaccine, measured in a Geometric Mean Titre (GMT) level, and that GMT goes up the longer you leave it between the two doses (they don't have any data on the Pfizer vaccine but have no reason to believe it will be any different). I don't know enough about it to say how good that is, but it sounds promising to a clueless idiot like me.  

Edited January 12, 2021 by s_dog
More info

[Sergeant Wilson]

1 minute ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

https://t.co/zc0yDcS4Ku

Not good news, but not as bad as I thought it might have been when I seen your post.

[Theroadlesstravelled]

A 25 year old dies of covid

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55622371

[welshbairn]

27 minutes ago, Snafu said:

The 80's were more stable than many in the west took for granted at the time as the old Soviet guard started to die off and be replaced with leaders with a more progressive outlook. The 80's then were nothing compared to the 60's and the paranoia around the time of the Cuban missile crisis

The late 80's certainly, but the early eighties were pure shitting yourself times and dreams of nuclear devastation. The Soviet Union had just properly invaded Afghanistan and Reagan was scaring the shit out of everyone with his star wars programme, meaning if the Soviets wanted to win an nuclear war it would have to be first strike and no hanging about, and thus the same for the Americans. 

[Rob1885]

https://t.co/zc0yDcS4Ku

I think they're in a position in which they can afford to be 'picky' about which virus they're rolling out. Australia aren't even starting their vaccination program until next month.

[Michael W]

16 minutes ago, s_dog said:

Yep, more laughable bluster 'cos you can't possibly admit you're wrong about targets for something that wasn't even available.  Laughable the key word, as you clearly are happy judging by all your ranting on here.  

 

So they are saying it won't protect enough to give herd immunity (Vaccine not good enough to stop coronavirus). I've never really understood the lack of anyone questioning the use of the Oxford/AZ vaccine here in the UK, other than the UK Gov thinking it's great because it's from Oxford University? Despite it's cost & storage benefits, its clearly not as good as the Pfizer vaccine in its prime aim, to give protection from Covid-19. It's 62-90% efficacy, compared to 95%. We better hope it ends up being 90% and the Ozzies are wrong!  

Reminder that Pfizer and Moderna didn't bother testing anyone who was asymptomatic during their clinical trials. AZ/Oxford tested everyone. 

Those efficacy percentages have been gamed. Nevertheless, the vaccines prevented serious illness. 

Edited January 12, 2021 by Michael W

[DiegoDiego]

I think they're in a position in which they can afford to be 'picky' about which virus they're rolling out.

If only China had been so courteous.

[Billy Jean King]

Again, any evidence at all that going for a takeaway coffee increases the number of positive cases ? 

It's interaction so it's giving the virus an opportunity to spread as every single interaction does hence the constant stay at home messaging. Takeaway coffee is by no stretch of the imagination essential. As has been pointed out by several people the queues at such places (any places) cannot be helping break transmission.

[HibsFan]

59 minutes ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

A 25 year old dies of covid

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55622371

Trying to phrase this as kindly and sensitively as possible, but they're not exactly the healthiest-looking 25 year old I've ever seen, with blood pressure issues being tucked away halfway down the article for good measure.

Still a tragic death, of course, and condolences to the family, but what are the BBC's purposes for writing that article?

"SEE? Anyone can die from it! Even you young people, so don't be selfish and go to the park!"

Well, statistically, no that just isn't the case at all. Let's keep things in perspective here.

Edited January 12, 2021 by HibsFan

[Todd_is_God]

1 hour ago, Snafu said:

Some more Swedish graphs for your perusal - https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa

@topcat(The most tip top)

The deaths figures are sometimes 2 or 3 days together.

We'd have a fit on here if we released our figures the way they do. Not at the weekend. Up to 10 days behind etc.

Daily updates on numbers to them are not seen as important, clearly.

Adjusting their figures for population difference, they are strikingly similar to ours.

There is a seemingly deep rooted desire to explain why the result here had we done the same would have been wildly different, but to me this is as much denial that our approach could not possibly have been wrong than any concrete reasoning.

Quite simply we have no idea what the outcome might have been had we taken the same approach, however we do definitively know that our much more conservative approach delivered a similar covid death result, and a much worse total mortality result.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Todd_is_God

[madwullie]

It kind of goes without saying, but the UK response and record is so fucking awful that it's hardly high praise, or justification for their own response, pointing out that Sweden did just about as badly as us. 

We should never be in the position in the first place where Sweden can be compared to us and not look too bad - the "Swedish model" is pretty much a shit show compared to any functioning country without a bunch of self-serving incompetents several miles out of their depth on charge (and that's being kind) 

[HibsFan]

Speaking of sketchy BBC articles:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55635451

Does anybody else get the feeling that 'long COVID' is going to become the big debate over the course of this summer?

I'm not suggesting that it's a hoax, I'm sure that it does impact people in different ways and some people still feel the effects months later.

The awful Emma Kennedy was saying back in September that "the figures" indicated 60k had long COVID (how the f**k you quantify that I don't know ):

 

If we're talking about something and defining it as "the term loosely used to describe an array of symptoms experienced by people", maybe we need to do some more research into it before we declare it to be 'the true virus'?

[Todd_is_God]

8 minutes ago, madwullie said:

It kind of goes without saying, but the UK response and record is so fucking awful that it's hardly high praise, or justification for their own response, pointing out that Sweden did just about as badly as us. 

We should never be in the position in the first place where Sweden can be compared to us and not look too bad - the "Swedish model" is pretty much a shit show compared to any functioning country without a bunch of self-serving incompetents several miles out of their depth on charge (and that's being kind) 

Except they didn't. They did better.

And yet, whilst BJ (rightfully) gets it tight for this result (and the Welsh leader was getting pelters too), no one is really shouting about NS doing an equally bad job, and the public seem to love her and praise her when polled.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Todd_is_God

[madwullie]

16 minutes ago, HibsFan said:

Speaking of sketchy BBC articles:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55635451

Does anybody else get the feeling that 'long COVID' is going to become the big debate over the course of this summer?

I'm not suggesting that it's a hoax, I'm sure that it does impact people in different ways and some people still feel the effects months later.

The awful Emma Kennedy was saying back in September that "the figures" indicated 60k had long COVID (how the f**k you quantify that I don't know ):

 

If we're talking about something and defining it as "the term loosely used to describe an array of symptoms experienced by people", maybe we need to do some more research into it before we declare it to be 'the true virus'?

Here's a recent study on it

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32656-8/fulltext

[madwullie]

22 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Except they didn't. They did better.

And yet, whilst BJ (rightfully) gets it tight for this result (and the Welsh leader was getting pelters too), no one is really shouting about NS doing an equally bad job, and the public seem to love her and praise her when polled.

I think an equally bad job is being a bit harsh. 

A lot of the early damage done was before we were taking our own decisions, and once we were, measures such as closing the borders etc that NS at least paid lip service to were also in the hands of the UK govt.

This is extremely old ground, but I think the relative goodwill shown towards NS has more to do with apparent empathy, far better messaging, visibility, taking responsibility and nowhere near as much appalling corruption as seen down south, than raw numbers. And the fact that BJ is a detestable c**t, whereas NS seems to be quite likeable to a lot of folk. 

But like someone said earlier, doing better than England is not really enough, just like Sweden doing better than us is not going to have them cheering on the meatballs and gravalax football forums over there. 

[budmiester1]

9 minutes ago, madwullie said:

Here's a recent study on it

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32656-8/fulltext

I tested positive for the virus at the end of December , after a couple of days I felt absolutely horrible, sweats, chills and general aches. These have now gone but I'm left with a total feeling of utter knackeredness, I can barely walk a 100m before my legs turn to jelly and occasionally some tightness in my chest. Thankfully these symptoms are very slow receding but does it mean I've "Long Covid" I honestly don't know, for me it simply could be an age thing and its taking me longer to recover .

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

44 minutes ago, HibsFan said:

Trying to phrase this as kindly and sensitively as possible, but they're not exactly the healthiest-looking 25 year old I've ever seen, with blood pressure issues being tucked away halfway down the article for good measure.

Still a tragic death, of course, and condolences to the family, but what are the BBC's purposes for writing that article?

"SEE? Anyone can die from it! Even you young people, so don't be selfish and go to the park!"

Well, statistically, no that just isn't the case at all. Let's keep things in perspective here.

You get a greeny from me for that. 

25 year olds drop dead all the time from previously unknown heart defects. 25 year olds catch terminal cancer. The occasional 25 year old will tragically die from something as apparently innocent as asthma, or even eating peanuts. 

There won't be as many 25 year olds dropping dead from natural causes as 85 year olds, but it'll happen all the same. 

You can file this story alongside the incessant, breathless reporting of the exact number of deaths, hospitalisations, and positive cases.

Every fucking day for a year, and counting....leaving a whole population traumatised.  I can't be the only person out there who has virtually stopped watching the news, am I ?

 

 

 

[madwullie]

Just now, budmiester1 said:

I tested positive for the virus at the end of December , after a couple of days I felt absolutely horrible, sweats, chills and general aches. These have now gone but I'm left with a total feeling of utter knackeredness, I can barely walk a 100m before my legs turn to jelly and occasionally some tightness in my chest. Thankfully these symptoms are very slow receding but does it mean I've "Long Covid" I honestly don't know, for me it simply could be an age thing and its taking me longer to recover .

Well according to that ~63% of people have some kind of noticeable after effects, and people who had it bad have a fair chance of still having organ damage visible on scans. 

I don't know the figures for post viral fatigue for the flu for example (63% after 6 months seems high?) , but I get the feeling that how you feel about how serious etc covid is in general determines how much you actually believe that long covid is significant or not. I do think there's a real desire to wave it away as over egged hyperbole from lockdown/covid sceptics anyway.