When will this shit end?

[Andre91]

School update Day 2: 

All staff in once again today. The school day ends in 45 minutes and we have had zero word from SMT on anything. We are as in the dark as we were yesterday. 

People are pissed. 

[steviewevie]

13 minutes ago, Andre91 said:

People are pissed. 

they're drunk?!

[JoeyT]

Just now, steviewevie said:

they're drunk?!

Doesn't sound like there's a lot else to do...

[Guest]

This is from my areas NHS Trust, interesting rebuttal:

 

[5co77ie]

21 minutes ago, Andre91 said:

School update Day 2: 

All staff in once again today. The school day ends in 45 minutes and we have had zero word from SMT on anything. We are as in the dark as we were yesterday. 

People are pissed. 

show as many of your colleagues this article - plus your headteacher:

 

https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-teacher-covid-rates-333-above-average?fbclid=IwAR2tXs5ooYiGKg0ZJIVE-M6vKYLC4wpHU84kTJuk_Lq4p7_j0B-Tn_4A7m8

 

[Losing my hair]

7 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Not just people: the govt want restrictions done with asap and dont really care about the deaths passed a certain level

It's a basic risk assessment.

Hazard = SARS-CoV-2

Risk = Likelihood of contracting Covid-19 after becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 x Severity of contracting Covid-19

At the moment both Likelihood and Severity are high for a large part of the population and so appropriate control measures are needed to control the Likelihood thus reducing the risk.

Once the most vulnerable become vaccinated then the Severity will reduce as those people contracting Covid-19 will not suffer such severe symptoms which will reduce the risk.

At the moment we don't know whether vaccinating people will reduce the Likelihood half of the equation but as long as one half of the equation is reduced then the current control measures can be reduced.

Simplified it's like this:

No control measures L = 6 x S = 6 Risk = 36

Current control measures L = 2 x S = 6 Risk = 12

Current control measures + vaccination L = 2 x S = 2 Risk = 4

Relaxed control measures + vaccination L = 4 x S =2 Risk = 8

The discussion to be had is about the acceptable level of risk not just about the numbers dying. 

[zahidf]

Study on South African and Cockney Covid

I await @Toilet Duck considered opinion but this seems to say the Kent Covid should be fine with vaccines, SA may not be but will just reduced effectiveness rather than totally escape and will take a few years 

 

[zahidf]

 

 

 

[zahidf]

 

 

 

Edited January 5, 2021 by zahidf

[Gilgamesh69]

So what have I missed? I can never keep up with this thread.

How long is this new lockdown? I've heard both  til mid feb and march

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Gilgamesh69 said:

So what have I missed? I can never keep up with this thread.

How long is this new lockdown? I've heard both  til mid feb and march

Johnson has said at least till mid February but Gove has said it’ll likely be till March. 

[Toilet Duck]

26 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Study on South African and Cockney Covid

I await @Toilet Duck considered opinion but this seems to say the Kent Covid should be fine with vaccines, SA may not be but will just reduced effectiveness rather than totally escape and will take a few years 

 

Will have a look and report back! In a meeting at the mo...

[tigger123]

2 minutes ago, Gilgamesh69 said:

So what have I missed? I can never keep up with this thread.

How long is this new lockdown? I've heard both  til mid feb and march

Lockdown technically until mid Feb for now, but will most likely last longer into March according to Gove 

[zahidf]

Just now, Ozanne said:

Johnson has said at least till mid February but Gove has said it’ll likely be till March. 

Gove could be trying to bounce an extension. He's done it before.

[zahidf]

[Crazyfool01]

what are peoples perceptions on how this lockdown is compared with other restrictions we have had previously ....? it sees like it is quieter than tier 4 ..... but nothing like as quiet as the National lockdown in March .... hopefully Boris has some very strong words in tonights press conference  and people take notice .... a few police pull overs of essential journeys would definately help too ..... from a perception point of view ... its amazing how word of mouth and social media talk get a message out ......

[steviewevie]

7 minutes ago, Gilgamesh69 said:

So what have I missed? I can never keep up with this thread.

How long is this new lockdown? I've heard both  til mid feb and march

I guess will last as long as needed...but probably end of Feb to early March sometime.

[zahidf]

One rule for us...

 

[Avalon_Fields]

46 minutes ago, Losing my hair said:

 

The discussion to be had is about the acceptable level of risk not just about the numbers dying. 

That's the interesting point for me. It's really a political judgment.

There's unlikely to be a definite point when it's clearly best to end restrictions so I suspect they'll just gradually reduce rules, keeping hands:face:space for the remainder of 2021 perhaps.

[Avalon_Fields]

Amazingly, there's been 500,000 infections just in US prisons!

 

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/04/world/covid-19-coronavirus?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH 20210105 House Ads SM+CID_354431ae8c1697c121ab3998ace913d1#virus-cases-in-us-jails-and-prisons-surpass-500000

[xxialac]

9 minutes ago, zahidf said:

One rule for us...

 

Was at a mass in Glastonbury of all places...

[Crazyfool01]

1 minute ago, xxialac said:

Was at a mass in Glastonbury of all places...

Glastonbury is a religion though ... so I can kind of understand 🙂 

[Toilet Duck]

1 hour ago, zahidf said:

Study on South African and Cockney Covid

I await @Toilet Duck considered opinion but this seems to say the Kent Covid should be fine with vaccines, SA may not be but will just reduced effectiveness rather than totally escape and will take a few years 

 

So, this is a complicated one and it's complicated because our immune response to SARS-CoV-2 (and other things of course) is complicated and very variable! Sometimes the E484K mutation reduced neutralising activity by about 10 fold, other times it didn't do much at all (and it also varied in the same patient when serum from different time points was used). How well lab measured decreases or increases in neutralising activity translate into different outcomes for patients is entirely unknown, but they do observe various things that could start to help us understand how the immune response to this virus evolves after infection (some patients start to develop a broader antibody response, in others it narrows....what this means in terms of reinfection etc, we don't know...will vaccination lead to the same diversity in immune responses? again, we don't know). What it suggests to me is that we should keep an eye on variants that have the E484K mutation, but in some of the patients they looked at, the mutation had no impact at all on neutralising activity (presumably because other antibodies were able to neutralise the virus). Its also important to note that while neutralising antibodies are important, binding antibodies that direct other parts of our immune system to the virus also play a role in our immune response to it, so there's still a lot more to unravel (and this is complex to study in the lab). Booster shots that massively increase the neutralising antibody titers well above those observed in convalescing COVID patients may also mean that even an order of magnitude decrease in neutralising activity has little clinical impact (and indeed, waiting a bit longer after the initial shot in the case of the Oxford vaccine led to a 3 fold increase in neutralising antibody titers even before the boost was given). So...raises as many questions as it answers, but a good idea to keep an eye on what these variants are doing. 

Edited January 5, 2021 by Toilet Duck
typos!

[zahidf]

4 minutes ago, Toilet Duck said:

So, this is a complicated one and it's complicated because our immune response to SARS-CoV-2 (and other things of course) is complicated and very variable! Sometimes the E484K mutation reduced neutralising activity by about 10 fold, other times it didn't do much at all (and it also varied in the same patient when serum from different time points was used). How well lab measured decreases or increases in neutralising activity translate into different outcomes for patients is entirely unknown, but they do observe various things that could start to help us understand how the immune response to this virus evolves after infection (some patients start to develop a broader antibody response, in others it narrows....what this means in terms of reinfection etc, we don't know...will vaccination lead to the same diversity in immune responses? again, we don't know). What it suggests to me is that we should keep an eye on variants that have the E484K mutation, but in some of the patients they looked at, the mutation had no impact at all on neutralising activity (presumably because other antibodies were able to neutralise the virus). Its also important to note that while neutralising antibodies are important, binding antibodies that direct other parts of our immune system to the virus also play a role in our immune response to it, so there's still a lot more to unravel (and tis is complex to study in the lab). Booster shots that massively increase the neutralising antibody titers well above those observed in convalescing COVID patients may also mean that even an order of magnitude decrease in neutralising activity has little clinical impact (and indeed, waiting a bit longer after the initial shot in the case of the Oxford vaccine led to a 3 fold increase in neutralising antibody titers even before the boost was given). So...raises as many questions as it answers, but a good idea to keep an eye on what these variants are doing. 

Cool thanks for that! You make it a bit easier to understand 

[Crazyfool01]

today ....