Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Forest_Fifer]

 

How does she average 12k tweets a year for 10 years?
Fucking hell, the intellectual dishonesty behind her "understanding" of mRNA vaccines is quite staggering.

[super_carson]

3 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

To be fair though, zero covid was a poorly named strategy because it never actually was about achieving zero. People take it literally (rightly IMO) and it creates this divide that isn't actually there. The messaging and phrasing from many experts and politicians throughout this has caused about half the problems IMO.

Yeah, it's been very poorly communicated.  Words like suppression, elimination, eradication etc. have all been banded around by various advisers without really clarifying what it means.  In early summer last year, they talked about eradication quite a fair bit and it was heavily implied that meant having no cases at all.  That's since been proven to be near impossible, so they understanding of what zero-covid actually entails has, seemingly, changed.  

[superbigal]

38 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

Barbers with masks/PPE as much of an issue as multi generational households of people from all over the country mixing indoors for a full day?

You've had a few this morning?

Correct this was widespread mixing of people moving all around the UK.

It was reported I believe that 60% of households mixed on Xmas day. 

I assume feck all of those households would have been sitting with Granny in a mask, 2 metres + from everyone, not serving her own Brussel sprouts and with the windows fully open to keep her cool.

That in turn would virtually guarantee a huge increase in cases

[Rugster]

14 hours ago, D.A.F.C said:

Brazil variant from Brazil from people who were in Brazil.

In other news flights into UK unchecked.

*headbutts wall

Could you headbutt it again, but really, really hard?

[Detournement]

46 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

Barbers with masks/PPE as much of an issue as multi generational households of people from all over the country mixing indoors for a full day?

You've had a few this morning?

The barbers I went to were taking details but weren't that bothered about anything else. They knew they were getting closed anyway.

The issue isn't whether household mixing would increase infections it's how much it would increase it relative to a day in the run up. Christmas Day had no shops, restaurants, workplaces, gyms, hair and beauty, minimal NHS so how much is that outweighed by household mixing (large numbers of whom will already be in bubbles anyway).

 

[Detournement]

Also the volume of people I know that have had one person in a house test positive and everyone else test negative suggests to me that household mixing isn't as bad as it's hyped up to be. 

[The Moonster]

2 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Also the volume of people I know that have had one person in a house test positive and everyone else test negative suggests to me that household mixing isn't as bad as it's hyped up to be. 

lol you're an idiot

[Rugster]

3 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Also the volume of people I know that have had one person in a house test positive and everyone else test negative suggests to me that household mixing isn't as bad as it's hyped up to be. 

[Arabdownunder]

Congratulations on making your most stupid post yet - and that takes some doing.

Closing borders is almost impossible because you still need people to move goods in and out of country - the only reason Australia and New Zealand have done is because they don't have access to the vaccine in large numbers.

As for the supervaccine? [emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787]

This is completely back to front. The reason Au & NZ haven't vaccinated many people is that we didn't have to put the vaccine through emergency approval because we had essentially no community transmission, as a result of border restrictions being introduced early.

[Detournement]

I know loads of people who have tested positive but no one where two people in the same house have tested positive consecutively.

The nature of the PCR test means that even if one person in the house introduced it and the second got  symptoms the original person will still test positive if they take the second test.

[The Moonster]

5 minutes ago, Detournement said:

I know loads of people who have tested positive but no one where two people in the same house have tested positive consecutively.

The nature of the PCR test means that even if one person in the house introduced it and the second got  symptoms the original person will still test positive if they take the second test.

I know loads of people who have tested positive and the other members of their household have also tested positive. How does that square with your scientific evidence?

[madwullie]

43 minutes ago, super_carson said:

To be fair to NZ, they are held up as the shinning example of "zero-covid" but Ardern did say the plan is to keep the border closed until they have vaccinated their population.  After that, the intention is to manage it like they do with flu and monitor for any large-scale outbreaks.  

There seems to be some revisionism from those advocating zero-covid recently; "Oh, we say zero-covid but it's not actually zero".  Almost as if there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of support for the policy so they are adapting their stance to save face.  

TBF, if you looked into it a few months back, a lot of the articles weren't actually about absolute zero covid - I think a bit like the word "restrictions" (in this context) and "defund the police" it can be taken to mean a lot of different things, and opponents tend to choose the least 'flattering' definition when criticising. No idea if sridhar was one of these people, I've not read any of her stuff since about June.

Edit: same point as @The Moonster made

Edited March 1, 2021 by madwullie

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

1 hour ago, D.A.F.C said:

This variant thing will be never ending until they either close borders or have a vaccine that works against all future strains.

Closing borders makes sense but yet again the uk is penny wise pound foolish. 

Personally I think holidays are a no go outside the UK this year unless something changes. Seems like a variant can develop anywhere which could change things at short notice.

A lockdown because someone wants to get pissed in the sun. f**k right off

 

That's a very simplistic way of looking at what 'foreign travel' actually consists of in 2021. 

Aside from the fact that tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on foreign travel, travelling abroad is an integral part of many peoples lives these days......for business, education or often to visit extended family. We're not in 1977 where 90% of travel was to Torremolinos for a jolly. 

Now, I'm not saying that we should throw the dorrs open at this moment and allow everyone to travel where they want, but there's a huge danger in saying that we should lock the whole country up until some unknown point in the future where Covid is no longer any kind of threat.....when will that be ? One year, two years, ten years ?

The virus will keep on mutating into various forms, because that's what it does. It's the job of governments to find some kind of compromise that will keep the country as safe as is practical, yet still allow the freedom of travel. 

IMHO.

 

 

 

[madwullie]

17 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Also the volume of people I know that have had one person in a house test positive and everyone else test negative suggests to me that household mixing isn't as bad as it's hyped up to be. 

TBF, my MiL had it bad: icu, ventilator, the works (fine now). She lives in a small ex-council 2 bed with a pretty cramped living room and kitchen, shares a bed with my FiL etc and he had zero symptoms. They have barely left the house apart from walks/going for a shop and are in each other's company all day (apart from shit breaks I presume/hope).

I suppose he could have been asymptomatic, but we did find it weird at the time. 

Anecdotal obv. 

[Forest_Fifer]

I know loads of people who have tested positive but no one where two people in the same house have tested positive consecutively.
The nature of the PCR test means that even if one person in the house introduced it and the second got  symptoms the original person will still test positive if they take the second test.

My daughter lives in a house with 2 other people. They all got it, one after the other.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

3 minutes ago, Forest_Fifer said:

21 minutes ago, Detournement said:

I know loads of people who have tested positive but no one where two people in the same house have tested positive consecutively.
The nature of the PCR test means that even if one person in the house introduced it and the second got  symptoms the original person will still test positive if they take the second test.

My daughter lives in a house with 2 other people. They all got it, one after the other.

Im going to argue that the one who had it first likely brought it into the house. HTH.

[D.A.F.C]

8 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

That's a very simplistic way of looking at what 'foreign travel' actually consists of in 2021. 

Aside from the fact that tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on foreign travel, travelling abroad is an integral part of many peoples lives these days......for business, education or often to visit extended family. We're not in 1977 where 90% of travel was to Torremolinos for a jolly. 

Now, I'm not saying that we should throw the dorrs open at this moment and allow everyone to travel where they want, but there's a huge danger in saying that we should lock the whole country up until some unknown point in the future where Covid is no longer any kind of threat.....when will that be ? One year, two years, ten years ?

The virus will keep on mutating into various forms, because that's what it does. It's the job of governments to find some kind of compromise that will keep the country as safe as is practical, yet still allow the freedom of travel. 

IMHO.

 

 

 

60-70% of travel is for a holiday and the most favourite location is Spain by quite a distance.

This year is no go imo. Apart from uk.

Fry ups and beers at home I'm afraid.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

2 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

60-70% of travel is for a holiday and the most favourite location is Spain by quite a distance.

This year is no go imo. Apart from uk.

Fry ups and beers at home I'm afraid.

Just to put your perspective on its head, why should I be denied the one thing im missing most about lockdown just so you can have a week at butlins and a fry up, potentially allowing you to spread the craig tara mutation all around? Last year I went to Turkey on a near empty plane, had zero close contact with anyone besides the family I went with and observed every SD requirement made of me. Arguably you having a bevvy in butlins with hundreds of other people gathered round for the grab a granny contest are at much higher risk of spreading than foreign travel. 
Perhaps the answer is to be slightly less hysterical about ‘foreigners’ and put faith in the vaccines which are vastly reducing the harm this virus can cause. 

[Todd_is_God]

5 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

60-70% of travel is for a holiday and the most favourite location is Spain by quite a distance.

This year is no go imo. Apart from uk.

Fry ups and beers at home I'm afraid.

Whether you agree with it or not, you appear to have spectacularly missed his point.

[Elixir]

1 hour ago, D.A.F.C said:

They didn't shut the borders though.

That was one variant, yes it can happen but then we had Brazil and South African. Yes let's let everyone in and out until it mutates beyond control of our vaccine meaning that all the hard work is out the window.

As long as I can sink a few pints beside a swimming pool f**k everyone else.

Lalala what do the scientists know

Except in reality there's no such thing as 'shut borders' and they won't stop the spread of variants in any case: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/world/europe/travel-bans-coronavirus-variants.html

No variant is going to escape the current vaccines in terms of preventing hospitalisations and deaths - the only thing that matters beyond the short term. The vaccines will eventually get updated and only continue to get better at dealing with variants which have arisen since the beginning of the pandemic from this point forward, and will continue to do so for 'future variants' once the pandemic phase runs its course.

It's almost like we have a history of surveillance in dealing with influenza, which has an even higher mutation rate and which we manage each year through a mix of acquired immunity, with people being infected, but also predicting which strains to vaccinate against. Who knew we managed to do that for decades without shutting the world's borders.

1 hour ago, madwullie said:

 

And your point is..?

Balloux is one of the few level-headed, non limelight loving academics who just happens to have called most things highly accurately throughout. His remit is epidemiology, pandemic modelling, genetics and genome sequencing, so highly relevant to this discussion, and more so than many others. Variants are a concern, but they are more of a concern when plastered in the media to a receptive public who don't necessarily know that they will be managed and we won't be trapped in some never-ending pandemic.