Covid-19 Virus

Discussion in 'Taylor's Tittle-Tattle - General Banter' started by Hornet4ever, Jan 30, 2020.

  1. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

  2. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    "Britain leading the western world once more, something we can all be proud of."
     
  3. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    Unfortunately it seems like the transmission reduction fades fairly quickly.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y

    That's no reason not to get it, of course.
     
    UEA_Hornet likes this.
  4. Otter

    Otter Gambling industry insider

    I'm pretty sure there are two reasons for that, firstly we are testing more than any other country and secondly we came out of lockdown in the summer a lot earlier than other countries. The main point is that the vaccines appear to be doing their job and despite what looks like high numbers of infections, the hospitalisation and death numbers remain on the low side.
     
  5. AndrewH63

    AndrewH63 Reservist

    We don’t test more than Germany. But a more important indicator is hospitalisations. Germany it’s currently 2,000 compared to the UK 7,000, and of course the German nation is more populous than the UK.

    Most European countries have a strategy of vaccination campaign, plus maintaining social distancing restrictions. The UK seems to have decided that vaccination is enough. If Hospitalisations hit 10,000 in the winter, I expect we will get some form of restrictions proposed as voluntary ones.

    My employer has insisted we come back to work, but guess what this afternoon our Chief exec has sent a message out warning us to all take lateral flow tests before coming to work due to the large number of workforce cases this week.

    So its a test in the morning before spluttering into work.
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2021
    WillisWasTheWorst likes this.
  6. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    The important message from that graph is the trend.

    It doesn't matter how many tests have being taken, or the methodology each country is using to define a Covid death, as long as they have been consistent.

    The UK is trending up. Every other country is trending down or is level.

    The question is why?

    From what I've seen in Spain and read about other countries, they are out of lockdown but are still using masks, sanitiser and social distancing.

    Of course the amount of deaths and hospitalisation numbers are the most important thing, but the infection rate is bound to have a major effect on education and productivity as more and more people are off sick.

    Why can't we learn from other countries and have our freedoms while limiting the amount of illness and death as best we can?
     
  7. HappyHornet24

    HappyHornet24 Crapster Staff Member

    I do wonder, though, if this is actually a deliberate policy to try to build as much immunity as possible ahead of winter. Covid is absolutely rife in secondary schools where I live and I bet the vast majority of cases on that graph are within this age group. Although they are feeling ill with it, I don’t know anecdotally of any teens in this wave who have ended up in hospital and the vast majority of vaccinated parents seem to be escaping it (I have so far - touch wood - even though I sat watching tv on the same sofa as my 15 yr old and hugged her when, with hindsight, I realise she was definitely contagious). As it stands, you are going to have a large chunk of the population who now have the double whammy of natural immunity plus a single jab going into winter.
     
    sydney_horn likes this.
  8. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    Yes, I think that is a possible outcome.

    However, if it were a deliberate policy then why isn't it being explained as such?

    Why aren't they telling us to hug our infected 15 year olds because getting it before the winter would be a good thing?

    I suspect that it is just that the UK populace has "had enough" of Covid. That's fine. I get that. What I don't get is why we can't just keep the basic precautions that will reduce the number of infections at very little personal cost.

    I mean is it really that hard to wear a mask in enclosed spaces, use sanitiser regularly and socially distance?

    My local Tesco was even giving away bottles of sanitiser for free and nobody seemed to want it!
     
  9. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    I’ve always thought the number of people in hospital is the best indicator of where at country is at with COVID. What would be interesting when comparing the UK with another country would be the levels of vaccination take-up. I assume a high majority of people in hospital are not double vaccinated.
    By the way, your employer is a disgrace insisting you come back to work if it is not necessary for you to do so. (Assuming you can work from home.)
     
    AndrewH63 likes this.
  10. HappyHornet24

    HappyHornet24 Crapster Staff Member

    True - and, slightly contradicting my own point, certainly the schools themselves are trying to contain the waves; my daughter’s school has abandoned full school assemblies, closed the 5th year common room (the 5th year/year 11 has the worst of it by far), cancelled sports fixtures and brought back in school testing, alongside home testing.
     
  11. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    I think some of the confusion about the government’s approach is because for 18 months now, the public definition of ‘ill’ for Covid has been very broad but tends to be associated with the more extreme outcomes. At some point we need to rethink what being ill with Covid should require someone to do. Especially when the hospital admissions are overwhelmingly made up of the unvaccinated. Should children miss out on 10 days of schooling or businesses have to shut for lack of workers because they’re self-isolating, when even with Delta the vast majority have cold-like symptoms at worst and in any other circumstances wouldn’t miss school/work for more than a day or two? Schools in particular still seem keen to fight it like it’s winter 2020, not autumn 2021.

    I don’t suppose going into winter is the time to make any changes though.
     
    sydney_horn likes this.
  12. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    Yes, they are reporting that some schools locally to me are doing the same because they have reached a self defined "threshold" of infections.

    Meanwhile at my son's college the students have no restrictions and, although they are supposed to self test regularly, my son reckons no one he knows is.

    It all seems a bit piecemeal and random to me.
     
  13. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    Yes, that is a good point.

    At the moment the self isolation period is a huge burden on individuals and business.

    I think there will be a time when we will have to "live with it" and not necessarily see it something that we have to isolate with.

    But then I go back to my original point about still adopting basic precautions to prevent transmission. This will become even more important imho if we let those we know are infected mingle with the general populace.
     
  14. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Personally, I see that as tied up in a much broader debate about how society wants to approach infection control in general. Behaviours will definitely change as a result of this pandemic - they can’t not really - but it’ll be interesting to see if the approach changes to things like common colds, coughs etc. Has the era of ‘I might sound/look like crap but I’m well enough to work’ ended?

    Before that though we need to be able to quantify what measures actually work (and how well).
     
  15. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    Yes, totally agree.

    I think working from home can and should be more acceptable going forward. Certainly if someone is infectious but capable of working from home then it should be a no brainer.
     
    UEA_Hornet likes this.
  16. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    You are right that it is an odd position we have ended up in. We have gone back to social arrangements with no restrictions, super spreaders everyday and yet have strict measures for those catching it.

    I don’t have any sense of what impact those measures now have in controlling the spread, though I suppose it prevents ‘mucus trooping’ and must slow things at least a little.
     
  17. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    If you have a few minutes, this is a very good Twitter thread from John Burn-Murdoch at the FT:

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1449801652207239176?s=21
     
    Moose likes this.
  18. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    This thread from the FT is very interesting:

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1449801652207239176?t=uQ-LeeSV6GwOqB3B2CIgXQ&s=19

    The biggest factors, based on their analysis, is the increased mass gathering events and the "waning" of the vaccine's effectiveness.

    Being jabbed earlier means that the UK is further down the path when it comes to the vaccine being less effective.

    As an example from the thread, if the vaccine was 96% but now, 5 months later, it's 92% it doesn't sound so bad. But what it actually means is that instead of only a 4% chance of infection it's now 8%. In effect your chance of infection has doubled.

    The vaccine boost jab could prove crucial for the winter.
     
    Moose likes this.
  19. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    Oops, I guess you got in there first @UEA_Hornet !
     
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  20. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    You boys get a like each.

    Mass gatherings eh? There was certainly one mass gathering I went to at the weekend when I really shouldn’t have bothered.
     
  21. HappyHornet24

    HappyHornet24 Crapster Staff Member

    Some company policies seem a bit extreme still, considering we have all had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated by now. This morning I have discovered that a boiler has packed up in our house. Now, I appreciate this is a first world problem as it is not our main boiler, but is in an extension. The point is, though, that because I have someone in the household who is isolating, the company won’t send an engineer to fix it until my daughter’s isolation period is up. This is despite the fact that they don’t need to come into the main house to fix it - they can access the area from outside. But, no, apparently, I may have touched my daughter, then touched the boiler, blah, blah. This seems way over the top to me - their engineers can go to a football match or nightclub, but can’t come and do their job in an area of a property that my daughter has been nowhere near?
     
  22. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    Totally agree with this. We have a car that has an urgent recall on it, but the AA are coming here to do the job instead of taking it to a garage. We have to put the car "off road" with the car unattended for at least an hour before the AA arrive. Why?
     
    HappyHornet24 likes this.
  23. lm_wfc

    lm_wfc First Team

    Cases are high mainly because of the rate amongst unvaccinated school children.

    [​IMG]

    https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58763845

    The summer spike was amongst the 15-34 group who hasn't been fully vaccinated yet but that has now come down - I suspect if that was changed to 18+ it would be even lower.

    My take on that is for all the vaccinated groups, infections are being v prevented enough to keep the r rate below 1.
     
  24. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    Are people still talking about this?
     
  25. AndrewH63

    AndrewH63 Reservist

    Yes - it’s going to define the next fifty years. The economy, what people expect of government, what government will spend your taxpayer money on, the mortality of the community from not covid but its impact on other health care, etc, etc
     
    wfc4ever likes this.
  26. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    And how all the kids of today were affected mentally.
     
  27. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    I’d love to understand the genesis of articles like this:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58965650

    It’s a high profile BBC news article and currently number 2 on its ‘most read’ list. So it’s circulating widely. It talks of a new variant of Delta that’s been doing the rounds since July. It also says, “Experts say it is unlikely to take off in a big way or escape current vaccines. It is not yet considered a variant of concern, or a variant under investigation - the categories assigned to variants and the level of risk associated with them.”

    There must be hundreds if not thousands of such mutations. This one seems pretty low risk all to,s. So how does this one come to prominence and a BBC front page billing? Is it something someone in government tips the media off about, in an effort to spin a cautionary tale, or is from another source? And why?
     
  28. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Tin foil hat time? They’re up to something.

    AY.4.2 has been the subject of some Twitter speculation of late. This isn’t a scaremongering piece, just information. Make of it what you will. It represents a growing proportion of cases and is a bit more transmissible. Not a big deal because Delta is already very transmissible

    The sublineage of variants is clearly of great interest to the public, morning reading for all before Bargain Hunt.
     
  29. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Yes, since posting I carried on looking and can see the Independent SAGE types are on full blown manoeuvres on Twitter today and so that probably explains why it’s come about. They’ve been wishcasting for a new variant for some time, so actually it’s very promising if this AY 4.2 is the best they can find.

    The government needs to get a move on with the booster jabs though. Not sure what the issue is but that campaign has been disappointingly slow to roll out.
     
  30. watto1

    watto1 Academy Graduate

    Yep, Mrs and I are currently laid up with it so it hasn't suddenly disappeared
     
  31. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    Hope you're both feeling better soon
     
    watto1 likes this.
  32. wfcwarehouse

    wfcwarehouse First Team Captain

    Yes, I thought this. The vaccine rollout has been a huge success, but the booster programme is stuttering somewhat.

    Can anyone shed any light on why?
     
  33. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    I thought they might be co-ordinating it with flu jabs, but my invitation to the flu one on Saturday says I will be called again later for the COVID booster.
     
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  34. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Dad was due today but cancelled for "vaccine availability issues".
    Fairly relaxed and happy to wait tbh. He has Parkinson's and doesn't go out, so although high risk, unlikely to contract. My mum has had her booster and my brother and I are ultra cautious, both double jabbed.
     
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  35. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    My booster has to be booked through my GP (emergency appts released at 08h00 and 13h00 only) or via one of my consultants. Interestingly booked 14 YO ASD son's 2nd appt yesterday online - very straightforward.
     

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