Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[s_dog]

12 minutes ago, Left Back said:

Based on there being zero examples of the government being in any rush to unlock restrictions.

Ok. If case numbers level off and don't go above 100 per 100k and there is no rise in hospital numbers, I expect even our cautious Government to at least put Glasgow and Moray into level 2 along with the rest of the country. I hope that even if case numbers go up higher, there will still be no real rise in hospital numbers and they'll continue to ease restrictions. 

[s_dog]

The point is, they don't have anything else to base concerns about the Indian variant on anywhere other than India. And the concern is that more younger people need hospital treatment (did they not say this about another variant too?), not that it leads to serious illness/death. So far, its the possibility of increased transmission that's the only certain thing, and even that they don't know how much more easily its transmitted.

The problem we have is whether you agree with them or not, our government will always have people saying the same thing when cases start to rise, and its another variant that might spread more easily. Like this guy today on the BBC.

"Currently, he said the Indian variant was spreading in younger, unvaccinated people but if cases increased in the elderly so would hospital admissions, putting pressure on the NHS."

[No_Problemo]

8 minutes ago, s_dog said:

The point is, they don't have anything else to base concerns about the Indian variant on anywhere other than India. And the concern is that more younger people need hospital treatment (did they not say this about another variant too?), not that it leads to serious illness/death. So far, its the possibility of increased transmission that's the only certain thing, and even that they don't know how much more easily its transmitted.

The problem we have is whether you agree with them or not, our government will always have people saying the same thing when cases start to rise, and its another variant that might spread more easily. Like this guy today on the BBC.

"Currently, he said the Indian variant was spreading in younger, unvaccinated people but if cases increased in the elderly so would hospital admissions, putting pressure on the NHS."

I think we already know any variant can spread in unvaccinated populations - nothing like stating the obvious from this guy! Pretty sure the odd person, who the vaccine doesn’t completely protect, going into hospital isn’t putting any pressure on the NHS either. 

[Thereisalight..]

2 hours ago, Bob Mahelp said:

Because of snivelling political cowardice, Johnson stood back and allowed tens of thousands to pour in from India, when it was obvious the country was in the middle of a growing crisis. 

It's truly horrific decision making. 

 

Both governments continue to make a fcking arse of things. Youd think allowing any man and their dog to fly in from anywhere untested in March/Apr/May 2020 would have taught them how NOT to do things, but no.

[Left Back]

3 minutes ago, Tynierose said:

There has been transmission of Indian variants in other countries including Israel and no increased hospital admission or death.

India is a bloody basket case, a country of extreme poverty and deprivation.

I've worked in a charity clinic in India, I know how dreadful the healthcare is for so many people in that country and the deprivation they suffer.

It's not an accurate comparison of what an Indian variant will do to healthy European kids.

Strikes me as fear mongering by a WHO employee to highlight the catastrophic situation in India.  In no way should it be in the thinking of policy makers here.  A responsible media wouldn’t be giving it air time.

We should be basing our decisions on what is happening here, not what might be happening in India.

[Louis Litt]

I can't tell if I'm more seething about the precedent this sets for how we'll handle these (inevitable) episodes or at the responses on twitter from folk saying it's absolutely fair game  because we just have to be super safe and cautious. 

How can people be okay with living like this? What chance have we got getting back to proper normality at the first available opportunity (or anytime in the foreseeable future) when a sizeable percentage of the public support what's (for the infection levels we're at) draconian measures with practically no logic backing them up whatsoever?

I just don't get it, I had a conversation with my mum a few weeks back and despite having both vaccines and being a rational person you can tell she's still in that but what if mindset. I don't know how we tackle that but farcical decisions like this certainly aren't going to help. 

[Thereisalight..]

I honestly dont know what the end game is in all this. Vaccines are doing what they're supposed to do and making sure the elderly and vulnerable dont get seriously ill or dead. Are we just going to have a never ending cycle of "varients" and shitting the bed every time 2 folk in a town get a cough? Truly scunnered by this. We were on the right track and businesses in Glasgow were going to be allowed to open on a proper basis for the first time in months and now they're being shafted yet again. When does this end? If vaccines arent the end game then what the hell is?

[anotherchance]

Fergus Walsh being absolutely clear on the news just there that cases matter less and a significant rise in hospitalisations is what counts.

 

[Left Back]

5 minutes ago, anotherchance said:

Fergus Walsh being absolutely clear on the news just there that cases matter less and a significant rise in hospitalisations is what counts.

 

It’s probably a bit late for the media to be jumping up and down.  They’ve been complicit in the government(s) actions every step of the way and their hysterical reporting has been fuelling the fear.

one of the reasons the population are still supportive of these actions.

Edited May 14, 2021 by Left Back

[TheScarf]

28 minutes ago, Louis Litt said:

I can't tell if I'm more seething about the precedent this sets for how we'll handle these (inevitable) episodes or at the responses on twitter from folk saying it's absolutely fair game  because we just have to be super safe and cautious. 

How can people be okay with living like this? What chance have we got getting back to proper normality at the first available opportunity (or anytime in the foreseeable future) when a sizeable percentage of the public support what's (for the infection levels we're at) draconian measures with practically no logic backing them up whatsoever?

I just don't get it, I had a conversation with my mum a few weeks back and despite having both vaccines and being a rational person you can tell she's still in that but what if mindset. I don't know how we tackle that but farcical decisions like this certainly aren't going to help. 

My mum is exactly the same. Had both doses and it a proper curtain twitcher about the whole thing. 

[Todd_is_God]

I wonder why NS has taken a completely different to BJ on interpreting what an increase in "cases" actually means at this stage of the vaccine roll out.

Did she (wrongly) anticipate he'd do something similar in the likes of Bolton that she could point to as a weak justification?

Surely, amongst the waves of positive vaccine data, we are long past the "look how much more I care" stage.

It's also a completely unsustainable approach, not least because people have long since patched adhering to the restrictions. The only people this really affects are the businesses still being suffocated as they enter the 8th month of a "two week circuitbreaker" that would, apparantly, buy us 28 days against a backdrop of 0% vaccinations.

A truly appalling misuse of emergency powers.

Edited May 14, 2021 by Todd_is_God

[Left Back]

I see we’ve just started trials of the Valneva vaccine.

Is there any point in trialling it in the UK when prevalence and transmission are so low?

[Louis Litt]

6 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

My mum is exactly the same. Had both doses and it a proper curtain twitcher about the whole thing. 

I know of a few folk (including her) who clearly haven't fully accepted that they're not going to become seriously ill if they get covid because they've had both doses their doses. Sensible enough people who've got themselves into this unhealthy mindset which would undoubtedly hold you back from living your life to some sort of degree. 

It's as infuriating as it is sad to see and like I said I don't know what the answer to tackling it is. 

[Arch Stanton]

Cue .loads of Weegies piling into Paisley next week.

[Elixir]

14 minutes ago, Left Back said:

I see we’ve just started trials of the Valneva vaccine.

Is there any point in trialling it in the UK when prevalence and transmission are so low?

Is there any point having vaccines when they appear to not matter to these authoritarian health psychos?

[anotherchance]

Not sure what context this fear porn is missing, but I’ve no doubt it’ll be missing something.

[tamthebam]

Edinburgh was put in Level 3 last November when we had Level 2 figures because supposedly as a big City people were coming in from plague ridden West Lothian and other places and there was a danger of spread.

Half of me feels Glasgow and Moray's pain. The other half wants to post a picture of me enjoying a pint to get it up ye.

[djchapsticks]

I mean - the vaccines clearly aren't good enough.

 

 

It hardly takes Hetty fucking Wainthropp to correlate between the fully vaccinated sections of society and the case numbers/case rate increases.

I, for one, am absolutely amazed that the less vaccinated portions of society are the areas where cases are increasing slightly and the vaccinated age groups are staying low or even continuing to fall. 

[tamthebam]

Indian variant:

Is it deadlier than any other variant?

Will it cause the hospitals to be overwhelmed?

Do the vaccines kick the arse out of it like every other fucking variant?

I suspect the answer to questions 1 and 2 is No and the answer to question 3 is yes. In which case why are we pissing around with restrictions? I suspect the answer to that one is because the Zero Covid lunatics are still in charge of the asylum 

I'm actually half tempted to phone Off the Ball and give "The Professor" a hard time of it but I bet they screen the calls.

[Elixir]

I am absolutely fucking scunnered tonight.