Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[Kinky Gerbil]

Yep.......there definitely seems to have been a subtle shift in the messaging in the last 24 hours (Boris was also publicly positive about prospects for summer holidays).

The combination of success of the vacc rollout (plus presumably confidence in further supplies being available to complete the programme quickly), getting all adults vaccinated, quite rapidly falling infection numbers, hospitalisation numbers and now even death rates showing declining signs will mean gradually removing restrictions will be starting as soon as practicable.

Starting to soften the message a few weeks out makes sense - it’s really tricky balance for the Gov in terms of anything too positive leading to mass non-compliance with lockdown, but equally ‘lockdown fatigue’ and stream of negative commentary potentially having a similar effect.

The key part for me was when he said the South African mutation doesn’t look like it’s a worry (or words to that effect) in previous pressers he would have used that to ramp up saying it’s more deadly etc.

I think that conference when they announced the Kent mutation was more deadly may have been a turning point, it was roundly ridiculed by every group.

 

[dazzer6666]

The key part for me was when he said the South African mutation doesn’t look like it’s a worry (or words to that effect) in previous pressers he would have used that to ramp up saying it’s more deadly etc.

I think that conference when they announced the Kent mutation was more deadly may have been a turning point, it was roundly ridiculed by every group.

Yes.....doesn’t seem to be any more dangerous in terms of causing serious illness but as with all this still learning all the time.

Seems Boris is going to put out the roadmap to exit from lockdown in Feb 22nd. That’s the carrot lobbed at us for now to keep us in line, on the 22nd I reckon we’ll get further carrots chucked our way ‘providing the data allows and you all continue to comply for now’.......likely to be a further 2-3 weeks and then the cautious retreat back through the tiers will begin........

 

[Sussexscots]

That's because flu does mutate we know that

The virus is as dangerous as ever, with new mutations now in community transmission more dangerous than ever, now is not the time to take the foot off the gas unless we want to see that 150,000 double again in the next 6-12 months.

Surely this is the point of vaccinations? To attenuate the effects of the virus even if one does get sick. And we are finding different drugs to control and ease its symptoms.

Lockdown causes massive collateral harms. Economically, these will soon become apparent. Health wise, they will play out over many years. In lost education and life opportunity for our children, who knows?

Vaccines, we were told, were the way out of this. Once the vulnerable are vaccinated, we must see lockdown ease. And as more groups receive the vaccine, restrictions must be eased further until they are removed and the Coronavirus act repealed.

If not, they'd better keep the Nightingales open and recruit more Nurse Ratcheds as the impact on the mental health of all ages is increasing.

 

[dazzer6666]

Surely this is the point of vaccinations? To attenuate the effects of the virus even if one does get sick. And we are finding different drugs to control and ease its symptoms.

Lockdown causes massive collateral harms. Economically, these will soon become apparent. Health wise, they will play out over many years. In lost education and life opportunity for our children, who knows?

Vaccines, we were told, were the way out of this. Once the vulnerable are vaccinated, we must see lockdown ease. And as more groups receive the vaccine, restrictions must be eased further until they are removed and the Coronavirus act repealed.

If not, they'd better keep the Nightingales open and recruit more Nurse Ratcheds as the impact on the mental health of all ages is increasing.

Absolutely this. We’re not going to stop transmission.....but we are going to stop people ending up dead or in hospital through vaccination. Even the BBC news is now giving at least as much airtime to the positive stuff tonight........the data is starting to reach the point where it can’t be glossed over now.

 

[dsr-burnley]

That's because flu does mutate we know that and particularly nasty strains might kill 20,000 in a year with our old ways of living(still too many and hopefully with a new normal we will come to live with we'll never get that many again). Covid 19 will have killed the best part of 150,000 by the time March rolls around and that's with 3 lockdowns and strict social distancing measures over the rest of the year. Had we not locked down or done the restrictions we have then I think it's fair to say that number would have been 4 or 5 times higher and the NHS would have been overwhelmed, and unless you just let people die at home it would have had an even more profound impact in our health services with practically no other support able to take place.

The virus is as dangerous as ever, with new mutations now in community transmission more dangerous than ever, now is not the time to take the foot off the gas unless we want to see that 150,000 double again in the next 6-12 months.

This is absurd. What you are saying is that we can save 20,000 lives per year if we all stop indoors, don't speak to anyone, and abolish sport and social events. That's the "new normal".

And for what? As it stands under the old normal, an average person over 80 had a 90% chance of living for at least one more year. What you propose will make it a 90.5% chance if it is a bad flu year, and a 90.2% chance in a good flu year. You are asking them to give up the best year of the rest of their life, for a 1 in 200 or 1 in 500 chance that they will gain a rather less good extra year. As I said, that is absurd.

 

[crodonilson]

This is absurd. What you are saying is that we can save 20,000 lives per year if we all stop indoors, don't speak to anyone, and abolish sport and social events. That's the "new normal".

And for what? As it stands under the old normal, an average person over 80 had a 90% chance of living for at least one more year. What you propose will make it a 90.5% chance if it is a bad flu year, and a 90.2% chance in a good flu year. You are asking them to give up the best year of the rest of their life, for a 1 in 200 or 1 in 500 chance that they will gain a rather less good extra year. As I said, that is absurd.

I never said that at all, you take the most extreme example you can think and twist it. I'm not advocating lockdown every winter going forwards but wearing facemasks, some forms of social distancing where possible, continued focus on good hygiene and washing hands and people isolating when they have flu/covid symptoms can have a big impact in helping drive down flu and covid cases in years to come and I don't think any of those measures is going to have a big impact on people's ability to enjoy their lives but it will help save lives and help the burden on the NHS.

 

[crodonilson]

Surely this is the point of vaccinations? To attenuate the effects of the virus even if one does get sick. And we are finding different drugs to control and ease its symptoms.

Lockdown causes massive collateral harms. Economically, these will soon become apparent. Health wise, they will play out over many years. In lost education and life opportunity for our children, who knows?

Vaccines, we were told, were the way out of this. Once the vulnerable are vaccinated, we must see lockdown ease. And as more groups receive the vaccine, restrictions must be eased further until they are removed and the Coronavirus act repealed.

If not, they'd better keep the Nightingales open and recruit more Nurse Ratcheds as the impact on the mental health of all ages is increasing.

I agree with the sentiment but we need to learn the lessons of the last 12 months. We were too slow to enter lockdown in March costing thousands of lives and making it nearly impossible to ever rid ourselves of the virus completely going forwards, we ignored sage advice of a circuit breaker lockdown in September meaning cases increased quickly and we had a high base by the end of Autumn we could never did ourselves of, we had a lockdown in November which was too weak and we should never have exited given there were still tens of thousands of daily cases when we went back to the tier system and we kept Xmas allowances which allowed for a massive surge in cases in early new year which very nearly overwhelmed the NHS and led to over a thousand deaths every day since the beginning of the year. We need to learn our lesson after 150,000+ people will have died by the time we get to the first anniversary of lockdown and that is that it is far better to be cautious and lift lockdown only when the data supports any lifting will not lead to a surge in cases and another wave of deaths, had we been much cautious in our approach since the beginning we would be in a much better position currently.

 

[beorhthelm]

I never said that at all, you take the most extreme example you can think and twist it. I'm not advocating lockdown every winter going forwards but wearing facemasks, some forms of social distancing where possible, continued focus on good hygiene and washing hands and people isolating when they have flu/covid symptoms can have a big impact in helping drive down flu and covid cases in years to come and I don't think any of those measures is going to have a big impact on people's ability to enjoy their lives but it will help save lives and help the burden on the NHS.

ok..., except

I agree with the sentiment but we need to learn the lessons of the last 12 months. We were too slow to enter lockdown in March costing thousands of lives and making it nearly impossible to ever rid ourselves of the virus completely going forwards, we ignored sage advice of a circuit breaker lockdown in September meaning cases increased quickly and we had a high base by the end of Autumn we could never did ourselves of, we had a lockdown in November which was too weak and we should never have exited

you clearly do support full hard lockdown, as pushed by sage. fortunately vaccinations will mean we dont have to lock down again. especially as so far evidence is zero serious cases, hospitalisations or death resulting from infection.

 

[beorhthelm]

...

 

[dazzer6666]

That's because flu does mutate we know that and particularly nasty strains might kill 20,000 in a year with our old ways of living(still too many and hopefully with a new normal we will come to live with we'll never get that many again). Covid 19 will have killed the best part of 150,000 by the time March rolls around and that's with 3 lockdowns and strict social distancing measures over the rest of the year. Had we not locked down or done the restrictions we have then I think it's fair to say that number would have been 4 or 5 times higher and the NHS would have been overwhelmed, and unless you just let people die at home it would have had an even more profound impact in our health services with practically no other support able to take place.

The virus is as dangerous as ever, with new mutations now in community transmission more dangerous than ever, now is not the time to take the foot off the gas unless we want to see that 150,000 double again in the next 6-12 months.

With everyone likely to be vaccinated, do you really think another 150,000 deaths is likely within the next 6-12 months ? What data are you using to come to that conclusion ?

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

Yes.....doesn’t seem to be any more dangerous in terms of causing serious illness but as with all this still learning all the time.

Seems Boris is going to put out the roadmap to exit from lockdown in Feb 22nd. That’s the carrot lobbed at us for now to keep us in line, on the 22nd I reckon we’ll get further carrots chucked our way ‘providing the data allows and you all continue to comply for now’.......likely to be a further 2-3 weeks and then the cautious retreat back through the tiers will begin........

Ending Lockdown 3 as early as Feb 22nd is the surest way to Lockdown 4 before Easter.

We mustn't repeat our previous mistakes of rushing to end the lockdowns too early.

The clocks changing at the end of March, just before Easter, would seem to be a sensible target date for starting to gradually ease out of Lockdown 3.

 

[dazzer6666]

Ending Lockdown 3 as early as Feb 22nd is the surest way to Lockdown 4 before Easter.

We mustn't repeat our previous mistakes of rushing to end the lockdowns too early.

The clocks changing at the end of March, just before Easter, would seem to be a sensible target date for starting to gradually ease out of Lockdown 3.

Agreed...that’s more or what I’m expecting. Possibly a bit of rollback earlier (during March) - most likely schools partially or fully reopening perhaps.

 

[beorhthelm]

lockdown isnt going to end on 22nd Feb. the roadmap to end lockdown will be published and debated in commons the week of 22 Feb (believe law has to be passed to extend). there's already stated continuation of lockdown until 8th March.

 

[atomised]

I never said that at all, you take the most extreme example you can think and twist it. I'm not advocating lockdown every winter going forwards but wearing facemasks, some forms of social distancing where possible, continued focus on good hygiene and washing hands and people isolating when they have flu/covid symptoms can have a big impact in helping drive down flu and covid cases in years to come and I don't think any of those measures is going to have a big impact on people's ability to enjoy their lives but it will help save lives and help the burden on the NHS.

Your posts with the constant references to new normal do come across that way

 

[Worried Man Blues]

When the needle is put into the arm are the doctors/nurses trying to hit a spot or miss a spot? Why couldn't these have been sent out so we inject ourselves?

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

When the needle is put into the arm are the doctors/nurses trying to hit a spot or miss a spot? Why couldn't these have been sent out so we inject ourselves?

They would have no records as to who had actually injected themselves if people were left to do it themselves.

And there would be people stealing another's vaccine to jump the queue.

It would be chaos.

 

[dazzer6666]

When the needle is put into the arm are the doctors/nurses trying to hit a spot or miss a spot? Why couldn't these have been sent out so we inject ourselves?

?? Send out a vial and a hypodermic needle in the post...........possibly a few issues with that.......

-do you know how to get the liquid into the needle (without any air - which can kill you if it ends up in your bloodstream) ?
-can you do an uncontaminated transfer ?
-the vials have more than one dose in them.......how is that going to work ?
-how many needles will end up in the wrong hands ?
-how many will get wasted ?
-how many will get delayed rendering the contents (which need to be kept refrigerated) unusable ?

I'll leave a medic to add to the list, sure there are more............

 

[dsr-burnley]

When the needle is put into the arm are the doctors/nurses trying to hit a spot or miss a spot? Why couldn't these have been sent out so we inject ourselves?

It's not all that difficult - it's injected into a muscle, not a vein - but for a first time, you need instruction. (Injection into a vein is much trickier.)

Plenty of people who need a series of injections are shown how to do it, or someone else in the household is shown how to do it, and then left to get on with it. People with diabetes are specialists - they could have been roped in to do the jabs! But they need showing first time, in person, not by mail order.

PS - all dazzer's objections make sense too.

What they could do, and I dare say in third world countries will do, when they get supplies - this would work with the AstraZeneca vaccine, perhaps not the Pfizer - is speed the job up enormously by doing it on a pseudo-military basis. Everyone form a queue on 2m apart dots and walk past an injector-in-chief who jabs, shouts next, jabs, shouts next, jabs, shouts next, etc etc and does 10 a minute. All the admin can be done by "flying nurses" moving along with the queue. Should be fun!

 

[dazzer6666]

It's not all that difficult - it's injected into a muscle, not a vein - but for a first time, you need instruction. (Injection into a vein is much trickier.)

Plenty of people who need a series of injections are shown how to do it, or someone else in the household is shown how to do it, and then left to get on with it. People with diabetes are specialists - they could have been roped in to do the jabs! But they need showing first time, in person, not by mail order.

PS - all dazzer's objections make sense too.

What they could do, and I dare say in third world countries will do, when they get supplies - this would work with the AstraZeneca vaccine, perhaps not the Pfizer - is speed the job up enormously by doing it on a pseudo-military basis. Everyone form a queue on 2m apart dots and walk past an injector-in-chief who jabs, shouts next, jabs, shouts next, jabs, shouts next, etc etc and does 10 a minute. All the admin can be done by "flying nurses" moving along with the queue. Should be fun!

That's pretty much what they have been doing in the UAE - basically drive-through jabbing. No appointment necessary.

 

[Worried Man Blues]

?? Send out a vial and a hypodermic needle in the post...........possibly a few issues with that.......

-do you know how to get the liquid into the needle (without any air - which can kill you if it ends up in your bloodstream) ?
-can you do an uncontaminated transfer ?
-the vials have more than one dose in them.......how is that going to work ?
-how many needles will end up in the wrong hands ?
-how many will get wasted ?
-how many will get delayed rendering the contents (which need to be kept refrigerated) unusable ?

I'll leave a medic to add to the list, sure there are more............

but apart from that...............just asking for the wife