When will this shit end?

[Homer]

The wife's cooking tacos for lunch. Intrigued to see if she serves them with gravy.

[Ozanne]

2 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Not really. You seem to be implying that lockdowns only effect people who want to go to the pub.  Lot more to it than that. Not sure why you even bought it up in that context!

Nope. You claimed I said something, I’ve reposted what I said which doesn’t say that at all. I agree there’s more to it than that, it was one example of things we’ll have to put off a bit longer. If you took that to mean what you are saying then that’s on you. 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

10 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

Yep I agree ... but what we don’t want to do is open up everything have everyone that hasn’t had the jab get it over a very short period of time ... at the moment although anecdotal and hopefully someone will say I’m wrong there do seem to be increasing youngsters getting it and becoming ill so we need to be very wary of just letting it run rampant 

The obvious issue with Covid is the high hospitalisation rate, the NHS (or any health service in the world) clearly has nowhere near enough capacity to cope if it is let loose with no restrictions at all.

What we don’t know is once enough people are vaccinated to bring deaths and hospitalisations down to manageable levels, what is the Government’s (or indeed the public’s) tolerance of the risks to the rest of us?

I was reading this yesterday:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30527-0/fulltext
 

Broadly speaking it appears that (once you take out the older most at risk through vaccination) Covid is about twice as dangerous as flu in terms of hospitalisations.

So the question is, is that acceptable or not? Is it something we just have to live with alongside all the other things that can kill us, or do we all need protecting from it as much as possible until everyone is vaccinated?

Where is the cut off in terms of where something is too risky? is something that is twice as likely to put you in hospital as flu acceptable or not? And how do you balance that against the economy, and the fact that whatever restrictions you have people will ultimately still mix together in different ways anyway.
 

I don’t pretend to know the answer.

[zahidf]

1 minute ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

The obvious issue with Covid is the high hospitalisation rate, the NHS (or any health service in the world) clearly has nowhere near enough capacity to cope if it is let loose with no restrictions at all.

What we don’t know is once enough people are vaccinated to bring deaths and hospitalisations down to manageable levels, what is the Government’s (or indeed the public’s) tolerance of the risks to the rest of us?

I was reading this yesterday:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30527-0/fulltext
 

Broadly speaking it appears that (once you take out the older most at risk through vaccination) Covid is about twice as dangerous as flu in terms of hospitalisations.

So the question is, is that acceptable or not? Is it something we just have to live with alongside all the other things that can kill us, or do we all need protecting from it as much as possible until everyone is vaccinated?

Where is the cut off in terms of where something is too risky? is something that is twice as likely to put you in hospital as flu acceptable or not? And how do you balance that against the economy, and the fact that whatever restrictions you have people will ultimately still mix together in different ways anyway.
 

I don’t pretend to know the answer.

Interesting. Is that twice as deadly for younger people or amongst those older people who would be vaccinated?

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

10 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Interesting. Is that twice as deadly for younger people or amongst those older people who would be vaccinated?

I have to say I might have misinterpreted the data but that’s what it seemed like to me, broadly speaking it seems to suggest twice as many hospitalisations for Covid. Flu was worse at the extremes, so worse for really young and really old (below 18 and above 80) and then Covid worse in the middle, broadly speaking.

 

This retrospective, nationwide cohort study included 89 530 patients who were hospitalised for COVID-19 between March 1 and April 30, 2020, and 45 819 patients who were hospitalised for seasonal influenza between Dec 1, 2018, and Feb 28, 2019. Almost twice as many patients were hospitalised for COVID-19 than for seasonal influenza, over a shorter time period (2 months for COVID-19 and 3 months for seasonal influenza). The

I’m unclear now if it just literally means twice as many people were hospitalised.

 

 

Edited December 28, 2020 by Deaf Nobby Burton

[zahidf]

Just now, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

I have to say I might have misinterpreted the data but that’s what it seemed like to me, broadly speaking it seems to suggest twice as many hospitalisations for Covid. Flu was worse at the extremes, so worse for really young and really old (below 18 and above 80) and then Covid worse in the middle, broadly speaking.

 

 

I guess the question is, if Covid without vaccines had twice as many flu hospitalisations, then would we have done lockdowns in the first place?

If we are working on the assumption that there a lot higher real infections with asymptomatic people, and the vaccines will stop some spread, then I'm thinking it may not be as bad as that 

[funkychick2007]

1 hour ago, RobertProsineckisLighter said:

And how do you pay for it? 

I don't disagree but it's a balancing act... 

In answer to my own question it will be cuts to public services and the NHS.

Absolutely correct frontline services we have already been told our funding will be cut again and we won’t get a pay rise!!! 
sad thing is it doesn’t suprise us anymore we just expect it!! 

[Ozanne]

8 minutes ago, funkychick2007 said:

Absolutely correct frontline services we have already been told our funding will be cut again and we won’t get a pay rise!!! 
sad thing is it doesn’t suprise us anymore we just expect it!! 

That doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be the answer though. We shouldn’t be cutting public services after a pandemic. 

[stuartbert two hats]

17 minutes ago, zahidf said:

I guess the question is, if Covid without vaccines had twice as many flu hospitalisations, then would we have done lockdowns in the first place?

If we are working on the assumption that there a lot higher real infections with asymptomatic people, and the vaccines will stop some spread, then I'm thinking it may not be as bad as that 

Kind of. The question is more, "if covid without vaccines had twice as many hospitalisations as flu, but we had vaccines ready to go immediately to bring those numbers down, would we have locked down?"

[efcfanwirral]

The more I think about it I can actually see why the government might have issues around closing the schools. It makes a lot of assumptions- that we are really on the home straight, that it'll only be a one off closing of them etc. 

By doing it now, they are essentially admitting that they need to do it in any area where cases spike any time. And what if it isn't as quick to resolve as we're all hoping? 

Then on the other hand it will be catastrophic if this south African strain takes hold and it is indeed more deadly to young people as their health minister said. 

Some very tough decisions 

[funkychick2007]

5 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

That doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be the answer though. We shouldn’t be cutting public services after a pandemic. 

It doesn’t have to be, I don’t really understand the finance part of it and the economy I’m sure there are other ways!! Just really frustrates me when we work with the most vulnerable of society and we have no budget to work with!! The reality is shit! 

[Ozanne]

3 minutes ago, funkychick2007 said:

It doesn’t have to be, I don’t really understand the finance part of it and the economy I’m sure there are other ways!! Just really frustrates me when we work with the most vulnerable of society and we have no budget to work with!! The reality is shit! 

You might find this video helpful.

 

[RobertProsineckisLighter]

1 hour ago, Ozanne said:

There’s plenty of other ways to pay for it rather than more austerity. I frankly find it amazing that someone would even suggest after a pandemic the answer would be to cut health services, have we learned nothing from all this?

We don’t have to cut public services, if anything when we are in an economic downturn we need to INVEST more in public services to drive up consumer confidence. We could look at raising taxes whether that’s on the wealthy or small increases for the whole population. It’s also different when we own our own currency which we are borrowing from the publicly owned BoE at historically low interest rates which won’t need to be repaid for a very long time. As we essentially owe the money to ourselves there is also an argument that we never need to pay it back and it can be written off to give the economy room to breathe.

There’s also other ways to pay for the pandemic (green investment etc) but cuts to public services isn’t the answer. This pandemic has shown if we run with an under-funded health service then we run the risk of it not being able to be fully there for us when we need it most. 

You do know that's not going to happen right? 

[Jack.194]

I’m personally hoping they close schools, online learning really isn’t as bad as some people make out, and four-ish weeks of it would do very little harm to kids development.

It’d help stop the spreading of the virus, as everyone knows schools do a lot of harm in spreading the virus.

I want ~a month full lockdown, with all schools doing online learning in the meantime, and a big push forward with vaccines in that period.

[Ozanne]

1 minute ago, RobertProsineckisLighter said:

You do know that's not going to happen right? 

It doesn’t have to happen though and shouldn’t.

[Ozanne]

2 minutes ago, Jack.194 said:

I’m personally hoping they close schools, online learning really isn’t as bad as some people make out, and four-ish weeks of it would do very little harm to kids development.

It’d help stop the spreading of the virus, as everyone knows schools do a lot of harm in spreading the virus.

I want ~a month full lockdown, with all schools doing online learning in the meantime, and a big push forward with vaccines in that period.

 

[Crazyfool01]

3 minutes ago, Jack.194 said:

I’m personally hoping they close schools, online learning really isn’t as bad as some people make out, and four-ish weeks of it would do very little harm to kids development.

It’d help stop the spreading of the virus, as everyone knows schools do a lot of harm in spreading the virus.

I want ~a month full lockdown, with all schools doing online learning in the meantime, and a big push forward with vaccines in that period.

I agree ... although not having kids im probably not in the best place to judge the impact .... but the shutdowns in terms of positive tests will make the school year more and more unfair ... some will be forced to miss large chunks of the year due to isolating of bubbles ... and others might face no disruption whatsoever ..... bloody tough judgement but it needs to happen early to allow planning from teachers and parents so they can sort out the necessary childcare ... 

[RobertProsineckisLighter]

1 minute ago, Ozanne said:

It doesn’t have to happen though and shouldn’t.

The only thing you can gurentee from the outcome of this is that the levels of inequality will grow. 

[Jack.194]

8 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

I agree ... although not having kids im probably not in the best place to judge the impact .... but the shutdowns in terms of positive tests will make the school year more and more unfair ... some will be forced to miss large chunks of the year due to isolating of bubbles ... and others might face no disruption whatsoever ..... bloody tough judgement but it needs to happen early to allow planning from teachers and parents so they can sort out the necessary childcare ... 

Completely agree, it’s not fair on the kids who miss some of their learning, but as long as things are put in place to alleviate the inequality caused (which I’ll be honest I don’t trust this government can or want to do) then it would 100% be better and more importantly safer to close schools.

It needs to happen soon though, as you said. I go back to school on Monday and have no idea what’s happening in my school, my head was furious when the government suggested teachers might have to administer tests (which I genuinely will outright refuse to do, I teach a class of SEN children, who I promise you will not submit easily to their teacher (someone who for some of these kids is one of the only adults they trust) administering a scary, uncomfortable test - nor would any child. I sat down earlier to start planning for a term that might not happen, and decided it’s probably best to leave it.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Jack.194

[Crazyfool01]

1 minute ago, Jack.194 said:

Completely agree, it’s not fair on the kids who miss some of their learning, but as long as things are put in place to alleviate the inequality caused (which I’ll be honest I don’t trust this government can or want to do) then it would 100% be better and more importantly safer to close schools.

It needs to happen soon though, as you said. I go back to school on Monday and have no idea what’s happening in my school, my head was furious when the government suggested teachers might have to administer tests (which I genuinely will outright refuse to do, I teach a class of SEN children, who I promise you will not submit easily to their teacher (someone who for some of these kids is one of the only adults they trust) administering a scary, uncomfortable test. I’m sat down earlier to start planning for a term that might not happen, and decided it’s probably best to leave it.

I did a test on myself a couple of hours ago .... was fine for me to do but totally understand the difficulties on administering it to others .... total nightmare ... good luck with that planning or attempts at it .... Full admiration for teachers in this 

[Jack.194]

1 minute ago, crazyfool1 said:

I did a test on myself a couple of hours ago .... was fine for me to do but totally understand the difficulties on administering it to others .... total nightmare ... good luck with that planning or attempts at it .... Full admiration for teachers in this 

Cheers, I feel sorry for the doctors/nurses and others having to administer tests to children, I genuinely don’t see how it’d be possible with some of my kids. 
As much as I hate online learning/teaching, for the sake of everyone’s health I really am crossing my fingers for a school closure announcement later

[stuartbert two hats]

3 hours ago, stuartbert two hats said:

You do realise that it's like being "pro chemotherapy". Nobody likes that stuff, they're just really not keen on cancer.

And we do need to extend the Christmas holidays and put everyone in Tier 4 ASAP. Well, Manchester at least.

I like to think of myself more as "anti-exponential growth" rather than "pro-lockdown". Or anti-graphs-like-the-below.

Seriously though, what a fucking waste of months of restrictions to keep retail open when the numbers were clearly going to start heading upwards again. What a waste.

[funkychick2007]

@Jack.194 got to say the schools in our area were amazing during lockdown!! They were phoning children everyday etc!! Like you say it’s in the planning if they made the decision at the beginning of December to close after school holidays for a month parents wud be able to plan ahead and support put in!! Lots of learning can be done in the home environment!! It’s the lack of planning that annoys people!! Just like Christmas change of plans!! 
as for teachers administering tests I agree they shouldn’t do it it effects so many things creating a negative experiences in what shud be a positive environment!! ! Another reason why the school nurse role shud not have cut due to funding!! 

Edited December 28, 2020 by funkychick2007

[Fuzzy Afro]

12 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Seriously though, what a fucking waste of months of restrictions to keep retail open when the numbers were clearly going to start heading upwards again. What a waste.

Why are you so convinced that retail shops are driving the spread?

[Ozanne]

39 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

I did a test on myself a couple of hours ago .... was fine for me to do but totally understand the difficulties on administering it to others .... total nightmare ... good luck with that planning or attempts at it .... Full admiration for teachers in this 

Do you do the test yourself even at a testing station?