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Coronavirus (COVID-19)


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7 minutes ago, virginton said:

 

I, like any rational human being though, will be taking my chances with the three vaccinations already on the go within twelve months: which is quite literally one of the greatest achievements in the history of medicine. 

As a first go, no less. In decades to come it will be remembered as a game changer.

Regardless of the current vaccine efficacy, it will only continue to improve from here. It's easily forgettable that whilst the current first generation of vaccines are ramping up, there are constant R&D programmes improving these existing vaccines all the time.

Russia alone this week has reported 100% efficacy on small sample field tests of it's second generation Sputnik vaccine.

Edit - apologies, it's not a second generation Sputnik. It's another vaccine called EpiVacCorona, developed by the Vector institute who developed Sputnik.

Edited by djchapsticks
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17 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:
51 minutes ago, Ron Aldo said:
Completely agree. We're in a shitty situation right now but one which, in my view, is immeasurably better than last March.

I remember last summer when cases were in single figures and we (Scotland that is) didn't record a death in weeks. I remember thinking (probably a bit foolishly, looking back) that this was almost done and dusted with a slow return to normality on the horizon and that there would be a vaccine at some point just to keep the virus under control.

Obviously that didn't turn out to be the case. Like you say, cases are already falling so deaths and hospital admissions should follow. I'd expect numbers to massively decrease again as summer kicks in with the key difference this year being that we do have a vaccine to hopefully keep it that way. Even if cases do creep up by next winter, that shouldn't matter a jot if the vaccine does its key job and prevents most people becoming seriously ill.

We'll probably have another 2-3 months of utter shite and days where we wonder what the point is but after that I hope things will start to massively improve.

I'd expect daily new infections to be a thing of the past well before next winter. Once the population is vaccinated they quickly become irrelevant unless something has gone massively wrong.

I don't really care too much about daily infections, they'll stop counting them when hospitals start getting filled up with the normal bed blockers instead. 

Edited by welshbairn
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45 minutes ago, Aladdin said:

Let's be honest, neither the Scottish or Westminster governments have a fucking clue how to roadmap out of the lockdown apart from the vaccines.

Leaving aside the prevalence of the virus, our track and trace systems don't work. The tiered approach of local restrictions, as they were applied last year, dont work. Blaming the public hasn't worked.

If they are going to pin everything on the vaccine then I would expect to see projections on which restrictions can be lifted once X number of people have been vaccinated. That nothing has been produced to date is pretty fucking poor to say the least and does nothing to increase compliance with the restrictions.

Agree completely. 

No doubt SG will mimic Northern Ireland in due course and extend lockdown into March.

You're spot on that neither Holyrood or Westminster have a clue how to get out of this. It's just easier to keep dishing out restrictions.

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The change in tone of Bozo is stark. It's as if he has been rewired over the Christmas break. From Christmas celebrations to lockdown until Easter (he even didn't rule out summer) is some turnaround. Perhaps he has finally realised his actions have serious consequences and that Christmas was a regal f**k up.

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1 hour ago, No_Problemo said:

So you can’t visit a care home after having two vaccinations despite care homes being prioritised and residents given two doses before those visiting them. Makes sense. 

Yes, I was thinking that myself as surely the care home residents have already been vaccinated prior to the punters who are actually visiting them ??

As for the Vallance article, there's nothing new there and he's just reiterating worst case stuff that we already knew. I also think we need to understand that these people that are dominating the media headlines at the moment are all medical Doctors, public health professionals and virologists so nothing they are saying is surprising, however Government policy is dictated by more than them.

I'm pretty sure that the Economic and Business advisors will have a rather different take on matters, including the potential timelines.

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2 hours ago, latapythelegend said:

Need to remember though there are thousands who never thought they would be so desperate for something as simple as a deep of breath of air.

- Around 9 million people die every year of hunger and hunger-related diseases. This is more than from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

- A child dies from hunger every 10 seconds

- Poor nutrition and hunger is responsible for the death of 3.1 million children a year. That’s nearly half of all deaths in children under the age of 5. The children die because their bodies lack basic nutrients.

But of course, you didn't really care about any of the above before, did you? Now that people are dying on the news from the 'rona, however, it seems it's time for a moral crusade.

1 hour ago, madwullie said:

Yeah I'm not saying he's not been hysterical. He has. But this snobbery towards people genuinely well qualified on their fields has really got my goat during this whole pandemic. 

And basically what people do is rely on some expert's opinion of some other expert 🤷‍♂️ I'm sure I could find an article or two slagging off the guy above, but for whatever reason you've chosen to accept what he says as gospel. Fair enough, but it's a bit far for you to call someone qualified in epidemiology who studied at, and was employed by Harvard and at 37 sits on some pretty prestigious boards, a fraud imo. Presumably you agree with him that people are too scared of covid. 

I believe anyone who is a pragmatist and realist, like Balloux is - and I consider myself to be - would find it hard to take Ding's hysterical, alarmist communications seriously.

He is also a 'visiting scientist in Harvard's nutrition department'. Balloux is an epidemiologist and director of UCL's Genetics Institute.

55 minutes ago, s_dog said:

I get that you'd like that 'end result' to happen, I think most of us would settle for that right now. But is this the right way to go about it, as wasn't it exactly what happened in Spring/Summer last year, and look at us now? By doing that aren't you just repeating the same actions, but with the hope that vaccinations alone will lead to a radically different outcome.  Not even the scientists and other so-called experts know with any great certainty what is going to happen in the months ahead while we wait for the vaccination programme to be completed. The vaccinations will stop so many people becoming seriously ill, but will it work long-term, have any affect on transmission, will the virus mutate further to become resistant to vaccines, etc, etc. It's just all so unknown, how can anyone be certain of anything right now? 

No matter what the Devi's of the world say, SARS-CoV-2 is destined to eventually fade into the background as just another of some 200 respiratory viruses that are in endemic circulation in the human population.

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Agree completely. 
No doubt SG will mimic Northern Ireland in due course and extend lockdown into March.
You're spot on that neither Holyrood or Westminster have a clue how to get out of this. It's just easier to keep dishing out restrictions.
Not having a go but what other options are available other than restrictions? Hospitals and ICU's are at breaking point and are predicted to be so for the next few weeks at least. Until hospital numbers become manageable and vaccinations get ramped up to significantly higher numbers than they are at the moment I don't see what other choice the government's have

We fucked up our chance of getting on top of this in the summer when the infection rate was manageable. Instead of caution we had the ridiculous eat out to help out scheme which undoubtedly contributed to an increase in infections. That coupled with a broken test and trace system and ludicrous tier system that done nothing to prevent the spread has led us to where we are now.

I would much prefer a cautious approach getting out of this lockdown. The public are rightly fucked off, the government's have to get it right this time as a third sustained lockdown will be unforceable. If having to remain in this lockdown for a few more months means never having to do it again then I can live with that
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Not having a go but what other options are available other than restrictions? Hospitals and ICU's are at breaking point and are predicted to be so for the next few weeks at least. Until hospital numbers become manageable and vaccinations get ramped up to significantly higher numbers than they are at the moment I don't see what other choice the government's have

The option is to keep doin what they’re doing by reviewing every few weeks
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Not having a go but what other options are available other than restrictions? Hospitals and ICU's are at breaking point and are predicted to be so for the next few weeks at least. Until hospital numbers become manageable and vaccinations get ramped up to significantly higher numbers than they are at the moment I don't see what other choice the government's have
It's pretty obvious even now that hospital / ICU admissions and deaths are not going to reduce enough before the next review to even contemplate any relaxations so that will result in an extension into Spring. I don't honestly think that even on here you will find too many that think those measures will have reduced enough before the next extension review.
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7 minutes ago, MuckleMoo said:
28 minutes ago, Steven W said:
Agree completely. 
No doubt SG will mimic Northern Ireland in due course and extend lockdown into March.
You're spot on that neither Holyrood or Westminster have a clue how to get out of this. It's just easier to keep dishing out restrictions.

Not having a go but what other options are available other than restrictions? Hospitals and ICU's are at breaking point and are predicted to be so for the next few weeks at least. Until hospital numbers become manageable and vaccinations get ramped up to significantly higher numbers than they are at the moment I don't see what other choice the government's have

At this point not very much.

Where I'm coming from is, in the coming months (hopefully) though, the desire to relax restrictions may gather some momentum. Dishing out lockdowns and restrictions is the easy part. 

A roadmap out, a plan, or even just giving it a cursory mention would demonstrate that desire. But it never happens. 

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1 hour ago, Ron Aldo said:
1 hour ago, s_dog said:
So if the vaccination program isn't as successful as hoped (assuming that's what you're getting at), what's your solution?

Keeping everyone under restrictions forever is not a viable solution whichever way this pans out.

 

1 hour ago, djchapsticks said:

So forgive me for saying that yes, the vaccines must lead to a radically different outcome. Because if it they themselves reckon it doesn't, then what were they doing fucking about with their thumbs up their collective arses all of 2020 when people were questioning what their plan B would be if a vaccine didn't happen or didn't work?


I don't really have a clue what plan b should be, nor do I think everyone should be kept under restrictions forever. I think that these scientists, advisors etc are pretty much like most of us, they're pinning their hopes on the vaccines working as planned, and beyond that, they'll keep doing what they've being doing up until now, reacting and scrambling about because the whole point is no one knows of a quick & easy answer of how to fix it. The fact they basically sat all summer and warned of a possible second wave in winter and did nothing but wait for vaccines is a perfect example of that.

We may well end up with vaccinations every year while the pandemic runs its course and  have no choice but to live with a certain amount of illness & death from it until it does. Hopefully not, and the vaccines will work and like you say, we'll  be left with something that is at least no more deadly than the flu. But the point is, how can you or anyone else on here, some random people on a football forum, be so absolutely certain about what is going to happen?

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Remember, situations like we’re in at the moment (where we just really need to sit tight) are totally incompatible with 24/7 rolling news, Twitter and our general need for instant gratification.

Today is a prime example - one study came out this morning (which was plastered all over the place) suggesting numbers were ticking up in January. By lunchtime, they’d rolled back on it and added the context and heavily caveated it. By then it was too late, the more anxious amongst us would’ve freaked out and now the rest of the day is spent trying to contextualise it - the same thing happened this week with the Pfizer/Israel story where half complete data was plastered everywhere with a negative headline, and it took hours for proper analysis to be done and for things to be contextualised.
 
Unless the government are sitting on something we don’t know about, nothing has really changed, the vaccines  are still a hit hot at preventing severe disease and likely preventing transmission to some extent. Even if the targets are missed it’ll probably be by a week or two the way things are going. I’m not seeing anything obvious or logical which makes spring seem like an unrealistic target for things to really look a lot better.
 
Media seem to be having a major downer on everything today based on not much, the emotional rollercoaster they seem intent on taking folk on is nonsense.

 

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The Conservative Covid recovery group have said that if the vaccination targets are met then lockdown should be lifted three weeks later. Current target is for February 15th which going by this groups targets would see measures loosened on March 8th.

This group is a group of backbench Tory MPs rather than any official government or political body.

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2 minutes ago, anotherchance said:

 

 

Remember, situations like we’re in at the moment (where we just really need to sit tight) are totally incompatible with 24/7 rolling news, Twitter and our general need for instant gratification.

Today is a prime example - one study came out this morning (which was plastered all over the place) suggesting numbers were ticking up in January. By lunchtime, they’d rolled back on it and added the context and heavily caveated it. By then it was too late, the more anxious amongst us would’ve freaked out and now the rest of the day is spent trying to contextualise it - the same thing happened this week with the Pfizer/Israel story where half complete data was plastered everywhere with a negative headline, and it took hours for proper analysis to be done and for things to be contextualised.
 
Unless the government are sitting on something we don’t know about, nothing has really changed, the vaccines  are still a hit hot at preventing severe disease and likely preventing transmission to some extent. Even if the targets are missed it’ll probably be by a week or two the way things are going. I’m not seeing anything obvious or logical which makes spring seem like an unrealistic target for things to really look a lot better.
 
Media seem to be having a major downer on everything today based on not much, the emotional rollercoaster they seem intent on taking folk on is nonsense.

 

The BBC 6 o'clock news had an overhead shot of a grave being dug in some London cemetery. 

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4 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

The Conservative Covid recovery group have said that if the vaccination targets are met then lockdown should be lifted two weeks later. Current target is for February 15th.

Restrictions completely lifted or back into the Tiers? 

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If having to remain in this lockdown for a few more months means never having to do it again then I can live with that


Aye, a few more months of folk locked up in their homes and a huge swathe of the economy totally buggered won't do any harm at all. This acceptance that we will need to be in full lockdown until April/May is absolutely ludicrous.
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