Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[harry94]

3 minutes ago, Elixir said:

bUt ThE vAcCiNeS wOn'T wOrK aGaInSt tHe NeW vArIaNts

There is a distinct possibility that there will be variants that are considerably less effective or not effective at all.

Until vaccination and better sequencing picks up in the developing world, there are going to be restrictions on international travel.

[Jambomo]

44 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

If you are happy with there being no actual normality in this country over the entire year when the borders are closed and the country is vaccinated, then there really is no point explaining why that is disgraceful. 

 

Of course the idea doesn’t make me happy but whether we are happy about it or not is irrelevant tbh. 

They are going on the scientific advice and my liking it or not doesn’t change that. Listening to Van Tam on the briefing last night, he pretty much explained what they have to wait for, it’s not a short or quick process and not just a case of vaccinate everyone and off we go.

There’s still a way to go to make sure it’s safe and just because we look at it and think it should be fine now does not mean that’s how it works scientifically - unless we work in this area, we don’t know what it fully takes to get out of this properly.

I agree what what TheJTS98 has been saying, there is no point in giving false hope in saying we’ll be back to normal when there is a chance we might not be. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Jambomo

[Elixir]

12 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Only 0.019% of people getting it again after 2 doses.

That's still too many, I'm afraid. We need #ZeroCovid

Also, not that it makes it any less remarkable, but they haven't tested every single person who had their second dose for Covid, but the fact remains that only a tiny number (of those aged 60+/healthcare workers) had any symptoms at all and they were found largely through contact tracing, means the vaccine is reducing the 'rona to less of a threat than the common cold. At least, according to this preliminary data.

[Dons_1988]

5 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

At the point where we are remaining locked down for the purposes of comfort blanket data gathering, we have gone too far. If we cant make assumptions based on the data Pfizer and AZ have already gathered, that once the vulnerable are vaccinated, hospital admissions won't shoot back up, then we may aswell just give the vaccines to someone that will sue them for their intended purpose. That level of risk aversion and the cost it would bring is totally unacceptable. Folk losing their shirt because tens of thousands of folk are dying in hospital = unsavoury but a necceassry evil. Folk losing thei shirt because the government want to sit on the empty hospitals and the lockdown restrictions to "wait and see if its ok to open up" = fucking ludicrous and negligent of their duties

I think this is the point. Fair enough not giving false hope and timelines but they are shooting themselves in the foot by muddying the waters as to what the actual target is here. They are just about ok now when they can guilt people with ambulances queuing outside hospitals, 100k deaths etc but when that is gone and the vulnerable are vaccinated they are in for one hell of a backlash.

The perception I get from them right now is that they don't even know what the targets are for opening up society again. And if they do, they're purposefully avoiding publishing it to hide away from a real debate about it.

[Guest TheJTS98]

1 minute ago, The Stig said:

Look if you are happy to be stuck in this lockdown for an indefinite period of time then so be it but at this moment i am at my worst  stage mentally of this whole thing as there is no end in sight and i am just looking for a sliver of positivity  that this are going to get better from our leaders, but everyday it is one negative thing after another and frankly it is starting to seriously affect me.

Nobody is happy about it. And people on this thread should stop throwing that phrase about.

I'm on my third lockdown. For the first two we weren't even allowed to go outside to exercise. Visitors haven't been allowed for more or less the last year. I cannot leave the city I live in, and have been unable to for most of that time.

Stop throwing about 'happy' just because someone disagrees with you on government messaging. It's stupid.

I'm sorry you're struggling with it. I really am. However, I completely disagree that the government should sugar-coat their messaging when doing so would carry a high possibility of having to disappoint everybody a few weeks or months down the line.

I wouldn't be happy if my boss told me to expect a big bonus then told me a few weeks later that I wasn't getting it after I'd already mentally spent the money. Some people on this thread seem to want the government to behave like that. It would be utterly irresponsible.

[Burnieman]

That's a side issue. My main objection is that it would be pretty damaging to the public to hear the government hint at good things in X number of months and then pin hopes on that only to have it swiped away by circumstances.
If Sturgeon or BJ hinted at a crowd at this season's cup finals, for example, many people would take that as a 'PROMISE' and others would just get their hopes up about it. Then if it didn't happen, trust in the government would be further eroded, and people would have had a bubble burst, leading to more misery.
The government here started lockdown back in March by announcing two week blocks at a time. This gave the hope that every block might be the last one. Eventually they binned that and just announced a really long extension. I can't remember how long exactly. The effect of this was removing the two-weekly process of getting everyone's hopes up, and it also brought the benefit of the government suddenly making everyone happy by lifting the restrictions early when they judged it possible.
I just don't see why people want them to make some kind of baseless optimistic claim about the future. It may well make things worse.

Setting out the objectives to meet which will lead to relaxation of restrictions is treating people like adults and being honest with them.

We are told that lockdown is in place to prevent infections and deaths, and take the pressure off the NHS. All reasonable.

So, once all over 50's are vaccinated which we were told would stop 99% of deaths, once the new daily infection rate is back below eg. 100 (which will come by end of March) once the hospitals are no longer overwhelmed (the pressure is beginning to ease) then that should be the time to relax lockdown according to their own measures last year.

Why cant/won't they reconfirm this? Has it changed?

The message from Sturgeons press conference was disgraceful frankly. Abandon all hope for 2021.

[vikingTON]

58 minutes ago, hk blues said:

You are still not differentiating between travel and going on a foreign holiday. 

Erm there's no credible border quarantine policy that differentiates between the two either. If you want to close the border to prevent big, bad, new variants getting in then you can't pick and choose which forms of travel are acceptable. 

43 minutes ago, Jambomo said:

Well maybe there won’t be normality this year. In fact, if we take normal to be “as things were before” I expect there won’t be.

The vaccine is a route out but they have to know that it works, that people once exposed to the virus, don’t get very sick. This all takes a lot of time because it requires gathering and looking at data over a period of (probably) months. I expect us to start reopening things but there will still be a lot of measures in place.

Utter pish. We know that the vaccines work from the trial data, we know that it works from the mass, real-time data that Israel is churning out as part of its early access deal and we know that it works from the already falling rates of cases and hospital admission in over 80s. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the vaccination works and that it prevents people from becoming 'very sick'. The only question is where exactly in the >95% effectiveness bracket it will end up. 

We tolerate a far lower benchmark for flu vaccines every year, while rolling them out and not placing a stack of restrictions on everyday life for months 'just in case'. 

[Elixir]

2 minutes ago, harry94 said:

There is a distinct possibility that there will be variants that are considerably less effective or not effective at all.

Until vaccination and better sequencing picks up in the developing world, there are going to be restrictions on international travel.

Regarding your first point, no there's not. No variant is going to reduce these vaccines to 'useless' in the short to medium term. The South African 'variant' is one of those which had been causing said concern.

Regarding your second point, that is most likely, I agree. But certainly Europe will be opening up this summer. Whether or not the Scottish or UK Governments want to continue to act like cretins remains to be seen, however.

[Guest TheJTS98]

2 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

Setting out the objectives to meet which will lead to relaxation of restrictions is treating people like adults and being honest with them.

We are told that lockdown is in place to prevent infections and deaths, and take the pressure off the NHS. All reasonable.

So, once all over 50's are vaccinated which we were told would stop 99% of deaths, once the new daily infection rate is back below eg. 100 (which will come by end of March) once the hospitals are no longer overwhelmed (the pressure is beginning to ease) then that should be the time to relax lockdown according to their own measures last year.

Why cant/won't they reconfirm this? Has it changed?

The message from Sturgeons press conference was disgraceful frankly. Abandon all hope for 2021.

I think the point is that they don't know about the underlined section. No country really does.

[Dons_1988]

2 minutes ago, TheJTS98 said:

Nobody is happy about it. And people on this thread should stop throwing that phrase about.

I'm on my third lockdown. For the first two we weren't even allowed to go outside to exercise. Visitors haven't been allowed for more or less the last year. I cannot leave the city I live in, and have been unable to for most of that time.

Stop throwing about 'happy' just because someone disagrees with you on government messaging. It's stupid.

I'm sorry you're struggling with it. I really am. However, I completely disagree that the government should sugar-coat their messaging when doing so would carry a high possibility of having to disappoint everybody a few weeks or months down the line.

I wouldn't be happy if my boss told me to expect a big bonus then told me a few weeks later that I wasn't getting it after I'd already mentally spent the money. Some people on this thread seem to want the government to behave like that. It would be utterly irresponsible.

In fairness, you're accusing him of throwing about being happy about it, but you're fairly throwing about that people want the government to come out and give unrealistic promises.

I don't see many people saying that.

[vikingTON]

5 minutes ago, harry94 said:

There is a distinct possibility that there will be variants that are considerably less effective or not effective at all.

Based on what evidence exactly? This isn't fucking Pokémon, a 'mutation' doesn't change a virus into an entirely unrecognisable form.

[Bairnardo]

Just now, Dons_1988 said:

In fairness, you're accusing him of throwing about being happy about it, but you're fairly throwing about that people want the government to come out and give unrealistic promises.

I don't see many people saying that.

Correct. Having them come out and acknowledge what the end game is, isn't the same as demanding to know whether there will be fans at the cup final.

[Guest TheJTS98]

2 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

In fairness, you're accusing him of throwing about being happy about it, but you're fairly throwing about that people want the government to come out and give unrealistic promises.

I don't see many people saying that.

I think people are. Look back over the last few pages and you'll see people suggesting the government should be putting out a positive message to make people feel better.

I don't see how anyone can perceive that a different way. They're asking for the government to give us good news they don't have.

[Big Fifer]

The "the government can't promise things" brigade should also realise, I don't think many are asking for "Is it to be May? Is it June pubs are open?! etc", it's more "What % of folk vaccinated/% capacity ICU are we looking at to loosen things and get to normality/accepting Covid exists".

The former is indeed a harder thing for the government's to answer, the latter (if we're talking just domestic restrictions rather than travel) is a very reasonable thing to ask the government to do, considering everyone's lives have been ruined for almost an entire year. 

[Detournement]

2 minutes ago, virginton said:

Based on what evidence exactly? This isn't fucking Pokémon, a 'mutation' doesn't change a virus into an entirely unrecognisable form.

It obviously does which is why the flu virus doesn't work for every mutation.

[vikingTON]

16 minutes ago, Elixir said:

bUt ThE vAcCiNeS wOn'T wOrK aGaInSt tHe NeW vArIaNts

And what's worth bearing in mind is that antibodies are only the short-term response. T-cell immunity is not accounted for in lab studies but gives an extra layer of defence in almost all healthy individuals. 

The human immune system does not just down tools because a virus has slightly changed its structure, or else we wouldn't still be living on the planet.

Edited January 28, 2021 by vikingTON

[Dons_1988]

Just now, TheJTS98 said:

I think people are. Look back over the last few pages and you'll see people suggesting the government should be putting out a positive message to make people feel better.

I don't see how anyone can perceive that a different way. They're asking for the government to give us good news they don't have.

I think the challenge is more the combination of a) no clarity of what we're even aiming for here and b) because of that being ultra negative to 'manage expectations'.

That is different to people wanting a baseless positive message.

[Jambomo]

4 minutes ago, virginton said:

Utter pish. We know that the vaccines work from the trial data, we know that it works from the mass, real-time data that Israel is churning out as part of its early access deal and we know that it works from the already falling rates of cases and hospital admission in over 80s. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the vaccination works and that it prevents people from becoming 'very sick'. The only question is where exactly in the >95% effectiveness bracket it will end up. 

We tolerate a far lower benchmark for flu vaccines every year, while rolling them out and not placing a stack of restrictions on everyday life for months 'just in case'. 

As said before they basically said on the briefing last night that whilst the indications are very good, they don’t know that they will work for certain until people are vaccinated and exposed to the virus. There is still some doubts and so I am probably going to believe what the advisors are saying on this one.

[Guest TheJTS98]

1 minute ago, Dons_1988 said:

I think the challenge is more the combination of a) no clarity of what we're even aiming for here and b) because of that being ultra negative to 'manage expectations'.

That is different to people wanting a baseless positive message.

I think governments don't know what they're aiming for, but I think they're (understandably) shy about saying that in public.

As I said a few posts back, I don't really see what the people complaining here would like the government to say. There's very little that would be perceived as positive that wouldn't come with a reasonable chance of having to be walked back in a few weeks or months, at which point the government's words would be used against them and people would feel like the rug had been pulled from under them.

I just can't see what people want them to say to make people feel better.

[Burnieman]

4 minutes ago, TheJTS98 said:

I think the point is that they don't know about the underlined section. No country really does.

They may not know the dates because of course, nobody does (although I'm sure they have an idea), all I am saying is tell people the triggers/targets that need to be met.

They know  - or damn well should know - what these are to allow easing of restrictions.

I'm  sure most people understand that with a combination of vaccines/treatments and better weather, we could/should be back to where we were last summer, but with much less risk of new waves.  So on that basis, will they still have restrictions, quarantine and travel bans? because there is abolutely no justification for it but Sturgeons mood music yesterday wasn't very promising.

We need clarity. Much more clarity. There is no reason not to provide it.