When will this shit end?

[Homer]

1 minute ago, st dan said:

We should just lockdown every New Years Eve anyway as it is hands down the worst day/night of the year. Just everything about it is terrible. 

That's actually prob the most sensible post ever in this thread - and that comes from someone who hasn't been at home on NYE for over 25 years.

[Chapple12345]

5 minutes ago, Homer said:

As long as it doesn;t come to this, am fine.

You leave the Hootenanny out of this, its never done anything wrong

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Well yes. I'm referring to the china reference. (And I dont trust the China numbers)

Ah so you don’t trust polling when it shows data you don’t want to see and you don’t trust figures from a nation when it gives an outcome you don’t like either. I’m sending a theme here...

Edited December 31, 2020 by Ozanne

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

The worst thing is- it's not just that we messed up back then, it's that we've messed up repeatedly over the past year and seem to learn nothing at all from any of the mess ups. Summer is completely barmy when you look back at it- the government just seemingly deciding that it was all over and done with, and everything would be fine by Christmas, encouraging/threatening everyone to bin home working and eat out on mass.

It's not even as though we don't have good info and predictable outcomes any more- this last quarter has been like a slow motion disaster unfolding when at each stage you could see what was going to happen. Fair enough, maybe not the new variant, but I think we were still set on this path with the original ending of the lockdown a few weeks ago and the plans to have a 5 day Christmas bonanza at the worst time of the year for stresses on the NHS and higher transmission rate conditions for the virus.

Yeah, I find it amazing that some people still think the government couldn’t have done any better. How much more evidence of in importance do people need?

It’s literally happened the same all other again but this time with hospitals filling up more and NHS staff actively talking our about it. We really need more action on this but the government only act when it’s too late. 

[zahidf]

6 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Ah so you don’t trust polling when it shows data you don’t want to see and you don’t trust figures from a nation when it gives an outcome you don’t like either. I’m sending a theme here...

Looollll. I said why I dont 100% the polls on that issue. Even within those polls the support for restrictions are going down

On China, they are clearly lying on figures. Like Russia adding 120k deaths last week 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

Not knocking their response but this article is quite timely regarding China’s actual numbers:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/30/wuhan-nearly-490000-people-could-have-had-covid-study-finds
 

As I say, not making any comment on their response vs ours, but their official figures are pure fantasy.

[Zoo Music Girl]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55496444

There is "absolutely no reason" schools in England will not be ready to mass test pupils when they return next term, the education secretary has said.

Now he has put it like that, I can't see any way they will be! 

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Looollll. I said why I dont 100% the polls on that issue. Even within those polls the support for restrictions are going down

On China, they are clearly lying on figures. Like Russia adding 120k deaths last week 

Even if they are lying there numbers will still be multitudes better than the UKs by all metrics. Yes they have experience of handling a virus and were very heavy with their measures at the start but they have that normality right now that you crave so much. 

[zahidf]

Just now, Ozanne said:

Even if they are lying there numbers will still be multitudes better than the UKs by all metrics. Yes they have experience of handling a virus and were very heavy with their measures at the start but they have that normality right now that you crave so much. 

We don't know the real situation in China. They lock up anyone trying to report on it.

Also, I think advocating locking families in their houses at gunpoint is going a little far.

[zahidf]

Anyone, from other threads, it sounds like 22 million is the new vaccination benchmark for 'priority vaccinations'. So around 11 weeks at 2 million a week (allowing for already vaccinated people) could still mean spring as a reopening point.

[Fuzzy Afro]

9 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Not knocking their response but this article is quite timely regarding China’s actual numbers:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/30/wuhan-nearly-490000-people-could-have-had-covid-study-finds
 

As I say, not making any comment on their response vs ours, but their official figures are pure fantasy.

Also Wuhan eliminated the virus by literally locking off entire tower blocks, having the secret police arrest people in the middle of the night, tracking everyone’s movements using phone data and multiple other horrendous breaches of individual’s freedom.

 

Absolutely no one should be fetishising their response. 

[gigpusher]

2 minutes ago, zahidf said:

We don't know the real situation in China. They lock up anyone trying to report on it.

Also, I think advocating locking families in their houses at gunpoint is going a little far.

But we do know the situation in the UK and that is that with all the supposed exceptionalism that the UK has to offer we are in the Top 10 worst in most numbers. You don't have to become a totalitarian dictatorship to have dealt with this better. There are basically over a hundred examples of countries who have done it better. 

My colleagues in Spain are all having small gatherings with friends in their homes tonight for New Year. Australia and New Zealand have the virus well under control. It can be done but the ineptitude of this government coupled with the absolute idiocy of a large number of people who live here means that we are lagging way behind. 

 

[JB15]

Hi

 

Long time listener, first time caller (well, not posted for around 10 years but read this thread most days)

 

Can I ask a question to @Toilet Duckregarding the 12 week gap for the Pfizer vaccine? Should we be worried about this as Pfizer have distanced themselves from this tactic?

 

Thanks all for the helpful and entertaining posts

[Fuzzy Afro]

3 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Anyone, from other threads, it sounds like 22 million is the new vaccination benchmark for 'priority vaccinations'. So around 11 weeks at 2 million a week (allowing for already vaccinated people) could still mean spring as a reopening point.

Boris said something about “NPIs” going in the spring but other restrictions like hand washing and face coverings staying in place for longer. That makes a lot of sense to me. 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

Just now, Fuzzy Afro said:

Also Wuhan eliminated the virus by literally locking off entire tower blocks, having the secret police arrest people in the middle of the night, tracking everyone’s movements using phone data and multiple other horrendous breaches of individual’s freedom.

 

Absolutely no one should be fetishising their response. 

Yeah, Wuhan was obviously ground zero for the virus, they effectively walled Hubei off and then locked everyone in their homes with the measures you described whilst the rest of the country carried on more or less normally, so their economy could still function as well.

Its the equivalent of finding our first case in London, walling that off under a super strict quarantine and letting the rest of the country function as normal.

Its best to compare our response to other countries in Europe like France, Germany, Spain etc and pick the bones out of it that way.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, zahidf said:

We don't know the real situation in China. They lock up anyone trying to report on it.

Also, I think advocating locking families in their houses at gunpoint is going a little far.

That’s something I didn’t say, I’m not sure why you continually make out that people say things when they don’t.

You don’t have to be an advocate for those measures to see that the UK by all metrics is some of the worst in the world with this hybrid system we implemented. The morale of this is that you go hard and early to stamp down on the spread of the virus.

[steviewevie]

Not just China, but also other parts of far east and south east asia dealt with this virus much better than in Europe and Americas, probably for many reasons but mostly because of previous experience with SARS.

[steviewevie]

Office where I work is shut because of tier4. Yay.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

Not just China, but also other parts of far east and south east asia dealt with this virus much better than in Europe and Americas, probably for many reasons but mostly because of previous experience with SARS.

Most definitely but a respiratory virus was at the number 1 threat to the nation and still the government had no planning in place. Any barely competent human should be able to realise that if something is a major threat to you then you plan for it. 

[Fuzzy Afro]

3 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Not just China, but also other parts of far east and south east asia dealt with this virus much better than in Europe and Americas, probably for many reasons but mostly because of previous experience with SARS.

Yeah Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore etc have done well. Remember that low deaths is far from the only measurement of “doing well” though. 

[Ryan1984]

5 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Most definitely but a respiratory virus was at the number 1 threat to the nation and still the government had no planning in place. Any barely competent human should be able to realise that if something is a major threat to you then you plan for it. 

And you certainly learn from the mistakes. Some countries have been proactive, others reactive. For too many parts of it, we have been inactive.

[Toilet Duck]

13 minutes ago, JB15 said:

Hi

 

Long time listener, first time caller (well, not posted for around 10 years but read this thread most days)

 

Can I ask a question to @Toilet Duckregarding the 12 week gap for the Pfizer vaccine? Should we be worried about this as Pfizer have distanced themselves from this tactic?

 

Thanks all for the helpful and entertaining posts

At this stage, it’s an unknown quantity. I do remember commenting when they released their NEJM paper describing their trial data that it could probably have been tested as a single dose vaccine, so the available data suggests it’s probably ok, but they haven’t tested this, so it’s a calculated risk (extrapolated from the AZ trial data). Pfizer will obviously want the vaccine used they way they got approval for it, if it dents the efficacy, they would see it as harming their product, so they have little incentive to support it. I think if hospitalisation and death was under better control, it would be left as it was (still think AZ would have the larger gap though based on the data they submitted). 

 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Ryan1984 said:

And you certainly learn from the mistakes. Some countries have been proactive, others reactive. For too many parts of it, we have been inactive.

Absolutely. Heading into the Autumn we could’ve learned from our mistakes but again and again we have failed to do so. It’s so sad to see this and the effects it will have on lives. 

[zahidf]

18 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

That’s something I didn’t say, I’m not sure why you continually make out that people say things when they don’t.

You don’t have to be an advocate for those measures to see that the UK by all metrics is some of the worst in the world with this hybrid system we implemented. The morale of this is that you go hard and early to stamp down on the spread of the virus.

But I was referring to a tweet specifically comparing the UK to China.  Everyone else is trying to widen it out! I'm not saying the UK is the best in the world

 

[ShakeyCrash]

10 hours ago, Leyrulion said:

So the vaccines have had no cases of hospitalisation (as far as I know) after the first dose has taken effect. If you look at 60-79 they make up 38% of deaths in England and roughly totals another 5.6 million. So there's about 10 million people in the 60+ age who make up 91% of deaths. If we take the government at their word they'd have all been offered one dose of either vaccine by 7th Feb. 

So mortality could well be significantly lower by end of Feb, as you and I think @Toilet DuckDuck mentioned it's a question of morbidity and what impact that will have on hospitals. Even if deaths are low we won't be getting many restrictions lifted if hospitals are still rammed. 

We should get numbers on vaccinations done today for pfizer in wales (not sure when in the UK as a whole) but if this averages out at 250k per week (so 1 million in total) and we vacinate 750k next week (500k oxford  and 250k pfizer) then we may have vaccinated over a third of over 80s. With lockdown measures and this we should see a plummet in deaths and hospitalization by mid January (10 days after jabs next week). If this pans out, the opportunity is there to say final push as a justification to keep lockdown till at least the end of January at which point a significant number of over 60s, health care professionals and people with underlying health issues should also be done. We’ll also know more about effects on transmissions.

In short i think by mid-January we may be getting to a point when we can answer when will this shit end