When will this shit end?

[Spindles]

Now far be it from me to suggest that it was a stupid idea to send kids and students back to educational settings, or that this is the key driver to this wave.....

[Ozanne]

30 minutes ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

Is there PMQs today? Or is it off because of Tory conference?

PMQs is on today, should be an interesting one. 

[priest17]

30 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

562 where I am. Am I the winner?

Snap 

I live really near Birley Halls which is probably that uni halls the papers have gone on about most in Manchester and it's been weird, last night there were 3 Asda vans parked outside handing out what looked like care packages with toilet roll and the like to students. In the town centre there were students walking about with no where to go (this was around 11pm) it was weird. I hadn't walked round with all the bars closed yet either which was no fun. Only gonna get weirder the next couple of weeks I guess.

[Mr.Tease]

10 minutes ago, Spindles said:

Now far be it from me to suggest that it was a stupid idea to send kids and students back to educational settings, or that this is the key driver to this wave.....

And to do at the same time as sending parents back to the workplace, and having absolutely no plan on place for the consequences - genuinely seems to have caught them by total surprise! 

[Zoo Music Girl]

35 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

I think it’s on, no conference recess this year 

 

7 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

PMQs is on today, should be an interesting one. 

Thanks, am wondering if I can face it...

[Zoo Music Girl]

5 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

And to do at the same time as sending parents back to the workplace, and having absolutely no plan on place for the consequences - genuinely seems to have caught them by total surprise! 

And this despite the fact that we can literally see a few weeks into the future by looking at what's happening in Europe.

[steviewevie]

Didn't someone once say we'd have to choose between closing pubs or closing schools?

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Didn't someone once say we'd have to choose between closing pubs or closing schools?

not quite.

They pointed out that if it was a choice of one or the other, the choice was obvious.

[Crazyfool01]

1 hour ago, Toilet Duck said:

Well, there is some good news...The FDA didn't allow Trump to bully them into approving a vaccine before the election, and have stuck to their guns on the minimum required safety data before they will grant EUA for a vaccine (this is good, no room for complacency on safety). This puts a timeline of end of November for that authorisation at the earliest. The other good news on that front is that both the FDA and the EMA are reviewing trial data on a rolling basis (rather than waiting for a scheduled interim analysis) and this moves things a fair bit quicker as well ( @stuartbert two hats , you were asking about this the other day...looks like they are indeed evaluating trial data already!). Entirely possible that 2-3 vaccines could have their evaluation complete in December (Oxford/Pfizer/Moderna). The big guns in the vaccine world are coming up on the rails too...Sanofi/GSK, J&J both now in phase 3 trials, with massive manufacturing capacity (1bn doses per annum). Huge amount has happened in the last 6 months, the next 6 months will have even more! I know it seems like this has gone on for ever, but it will end. 

Thanks toilet duck ... I just shed a couple of happy tears onto my Danish pastry 🥮 

[DeanoL]

 

11 hours ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Seems to me that they should just extend furlough, but only for businesses that have been officially forced to close

It's not that simple though - you could close pubs and offer furlough for pub employees, but what then about breweries? They're not being "forced" to close but they've had 90% of their demand just taken away. So you offer it to breweries, but then what about those who supply the brewery. And so on.

10 hours ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

they've all been meeting up for pub crawls every Saturday afternoon recently so I'm not sure indoor household mixing bans really prevent anyone from socialising.

This is something I think causes a lot of problems and we could do with guidance on. "If you go out, just go out to one pub". Seems an obvious way to reduce risk and it's not exactly a big ask.

[FestivalJamie]

https://news.sky.com/story/scientists-and-politicians-split-over-how-to-tackle-rising-covid-infections-as-northern-leaders-say-restrictions-are-not-working-12096597

Oh ffs, not this herd immunity again. What percentage of the population have actually already been infected. Given you need 60-70% to achieve herd immunity and the rising cases are triggering rising hospital admissions, this hardly seems a wise strategy to me?

[JoeyT]

2 minutes ago, FestivalJamie said:

https://news.sky.com/story/scientists-and-politicians-split-over-how-to-tackle-rising-covid-infections-as-northern-leaders-say-restrictions-are-not-working-12096597

Oh ffs, not this herd immunity again. What percentage of the population have actually already been infected. Given you need 60-70% to achieve herd immunity and the rising cases are triggering rising hospital admissions, this hardly seems a wise strategy to me?

I wonder how the voting would end up if they put this option v harsher restrictions on the ballot paper?

[FestivalJamie]

3 minutes ago, JoeyT said:

I wonder how the voting would end up if they put this option v harsher restrictions on the ballot paper?

I think most people would vote for herd immunity over harsher restrictions. Personally I vote for harsher restrictions and sorting the damn track and trace out.

The government tried for herd immunity back in March/April, and it failed catastrophically. If I’m right there’s only 17% immunity in London and 5% in the rest of the country. 

Im pretty sure achieving herd immunity is near to impossible with this virus, Sweden have seen rising cases again since the dip and we already have dramatically rising hospital admissions with cases.

Im pretty shocked they say simple measures such as “hand washing” and “staying home when sick” will be enough to protect hospitals from being overwhelmed, isn’t this the method we tried in March? I’m pretty sure hand washing has only a small effect on spread given it seems to be mainly an airborne virus therefore masks and social distancing are key.

Protecting the vulnerable and successfully achieving herd immunity are two very difficult strategies to achieve. We can see we already had 76 deaths from this virus yesterday and that’s with all the measures we had in place. Opening universities is hallway there to increasing the amount of infected individuals but by no means achieving herd immunity. Also our rising numbers will mean other countries will ban us leading to reduced economic opportunities in that respect.

I personally think a herd immunity strategy would lead to another national lockdown. We tried it once back in March, it failed. So what’s different now to say that it wouldn’t have devastating impacts on the health of the population?

 

[steviewevie]

The problem with the herd immunity thing is shielding elderly and vulnerable from the virus...no one is doing it because it's probably not possible.

[Leyrulion]

4 minutes ago, FestivalJamie said:

achieving herd immunity is near to impossible

It's entirely possible, just depends how many deaths a country wants to incur on the way to achieving it. 

Herd immunity is the only way out, but (obviously) it's preferable we get there via a vaccine.

[Andre91]

I live between two places and work in a third so my figures are quite wide ranging: 
 

Doncaster (where I live at weekends and non-term time) has 121 per 100k with 376 in the last week. 

North Kesteven (where I live Mon-Fri) has 53 per 100k and 62 in the last week. 

South Holland (where I work) has 29 per 100k with 28 in the last week. 

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

It's entirely possible, just depends how many deaths a country wants to incur on the way to achieving it. 

Herd immunity is the only way out, but (obviously) it's preferable we get there via a vaccine.

you can also achieve herd immunity with a vaccine...right?

[Fuzzy Afro]

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

The problem with the herd immunity thing is shielding elderly and vulnerable from the virus...no one is doing it because it's probably not possible.

I don’t think it would be possible to completely shield the vulnerable, there would always be some spill over. But you could definitely reduce the number if vulnerable people getting the virus through a shielding programme. It would reduce the number of deaths but not completely minimise it.

 

Regardless, I’m on the view that herd immunity is unlikely to work because this virus will probably end up being cyclical like the flu where you catch it once then you’re immune for a period of time then you catch it again and so on. Long term realistic best case is probably a vaccine that will immunise the vulnerable or at least reduce their risk levels to be in line with the rest of the population, which would allow the government to just let the virus become endemic in the rest of the population.
 

We could also work towards treatments for those of us unlucky enough to get the Long covid. 

[eFestivals]

20 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

you could close pubs and offer furlough for pub employees

except you can't, unless they're already on furlough.

[Mr.Tease]

4 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

The problem with the herd immunity thing is shielding elderly and vulnerable from the virus...no one is doing it because it's probably not possible.

I doubt its possible nor is it desirable (especially without a vaccine), at this point people are only suggesting it because they can't be arsed anymore (makes no sense to advocate it when we're waiting on the vaccine results) . Got to love the shamelessness of people who complain about how unbearable 2-3 months of lockdown was, but are more than happy to ensure vulnerable people are locked down indefinitely because it won't affect them! 

[Fuzzy Afro]

2 hours ago, eFestivals said:

cases in Bristol have doubled in a week, from around 20 per 100k to over 40.

Students are just arriving back now. Will be an interesting one to watch.

 

Nottingham has also been doing its best impression of Lombardy province the last few days. Gone from relatively few cases to top 10 in the country since Saturday

 

Student cities are very much driving the outbreaks now 

[Fuzzy Afro]

Just now, Mr.Tease said:

I doubt its possible nor is it desirable (especially without a vaccine), at this point people are only suggesting it because they can't be arsed anymore (makes no sense to advocate it when we're waiting on the vaccine results) . Got to love the shamelessness of people who complain about how unbearable 2-3 months of lockdown was, but are more than happy to ensure vulnerable people are locked down indefinitely because it won't affect them! 

I mean if it’s a case between locking down a subset of society versus locking down everyone, is it really reasonable to lockdown the complement of that subset? The vulnerable need to stay at home regardless. 

[DeanoL]

12 minutes ago, FestivalJamie said:

I think most people would vote for herd immunity over harsher restrictions.

If that's true it's almost not a problem because you can let those people go out and get herd immunity and die where necessary to create the herd immunity while the rest of us stay inside and safe while they do it.

Unfortunately I imagine the reality is that a lot of those preaching "herd immunity" mean that other people should go out and get it, while they continue to work from home, and aren't worried about hospital capacity if they do get it because of their private healthcare. I'd love to see how many of those in favour of herd immunity were still in favour of it if it was "there's going to be a lottery, and 70% of people will be picked and have it squirted up their nose".

3 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

except you can't, unless they're already on furlough.

That was in reference to the idea of bringing furlough back just for industries that were forced to close in lockdown.

(Although the new, much less generous November scheme doesn't have any restrictions around people being previously on furlough, as far as I can see?)

[Leyrulion]

18 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

you can also achieve herd immunity with a vaccine...right?

Yes.

18 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

I’m on the view that herd immunity is unlikely to work because this virus will probably end up being cyclical

I think the actual meaning of the term herd immunity has been lost amongst the terrible messaging in March. 

Even if the virus is cyclical (which it's not clear it is) you could still reach herd immunity, it just wouldn't be particularly long lasting herd immunity.

[drunk pumpkin]

2 hours ago, RobertProsineckisLighter said:

Exactly. I'm not saying don't take it seriously, don't follow the rules etc... But if you are sensible, you can have some sort of life. There are some frustrations, like I aired myself over the weekend. 

I just think there needs to be some sort of context put around these numbers. It's 200 and something cases per 100k where I live or 1 in 1000. At the moment I probably stand within 5 metres of a handful of people a day and that includes collecting a child from school - the odds are stacked in my favour. 

If I catch it I catch it, it's not going to be through recklessness on my part, it could be due to a lapse of concentration or letting your guard down briefly but that's not recklessness. We have already lost most of a year to this shit, it's time to start living with it. 

It's Kublor Ross in action at a national scale. 

Never thought i'd see this referenced on the forum! 

I am however very happy it was. 

Good analogy