When will this shit end?

[Mr.Tease]

52 minutes ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

I think I'm in the minority here that is feeling pretty positive with these announcements. I can see the end ahead of us and after the last few months personally I'm happy to go slowly to get there. 

Me too, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that makes it a bit easier to pace myself. I'd rather be a little bit more cautious for a few more weeks if it buys you much more leeway further down the line. (plus the longer you wait to open things up, the lower the prevalence of the virus AND the more people have been vaccinated, so you really do greatly boost the chances of success)

 

[MEGABOWL]

10 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

How about we keep them off that two weeks then send them in the two weeks they normally have off over Easter? I mean, that's so much better than doing it the other way around surely? What, did they have other plans for the holidays?!

Not a bad idea on the surface but a lot of parents will have booked holidays around Easter, but working up until then

[DeanoL]

Just now, Barry Fish said:

its not "brain washing"...

People like you post about these "no brainers" without applying thought to the reality.

You can't just swap school holidays around like that.  Contracts of employment / Catering Supply Contracts / Childcare issues / Care Issues / Planned Maintenance / Transport Contracts / Supply Chain Employment Contract Issues (think bus drivers)....

It would raise so many questions.

 Myeh, you're sort of right, but only because I was acting like schools were closed right now. When they're not, they're actually open and half full, which I sort of forgot. 

If we had actually shut schools I'd be right though!

[efcfanwirral]

27 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

The EU 😂😂😂

We've still got to live here after all this even if they've got this wrong. Nothing to laugh about there....i think they win eventually by just not being England 

7 minutes ago, BobWillis said:

This isn’t the sort of news I was expecting to see. I thought they were supposed to reduce severe disease by 100%? 

My Grandad is mid 80s and ended up in hospital with something unrelated, got diagnosed with covid while in there about 3 weeks after he'd had one dose. Technically he was a 'covid patient' as he was in a covid ward to avoid spread and would've been picked up in the reports for the daily stats. But he only had mild actual covid symptoms, he was still only in hospital for the original reasons he went in.

When we're talking people of that type of age I can't imagine he was a one off, and presumably these are the numbers being used to get to the percentages in the quoted tweet. 

Edited February 22, 2021 by efcfanwirral

[Toilet Duck]

2 hours ago, zahidf said:

Pfizer and AZ vaccines reduce hospital admissions by 85% and 94%, study suggests

The Covid vaccination programme has been linked to a substantial reduction in hospital admissions, PA Media is reporting. The PA story goes on:

Researchers examined coronavirus hospital admissions in Scotland among people who have had their first jab and compared them with those who had not yet received a dose of the vaccine.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh, the University of Strathclyde and Public Health Scotland examined data on people who had received either the Pfizer/BioNTech jab or the one developed by experts at the University of Oxford with AstraZeneca.

By the fourth week after receiving the initial dose, the Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines were shown to reduce the risk of hospital admission from Covid-19 by up to 85% and 94%, respectively, they found.

I think what's particularly impressive about this is that Pfizer was used in Healthcare quite a bit, so lots of younger people got it (they also had higher exposure which may explain the slightly lower apparent efficacy after 1 dose), but the AZ shot has been the backbone of the vaccination programme for the >70 cohort (exactly the people that were at greatest risk and the ones not currently getting it in other jurisdictions due to a lack of evidence). This is real world use and the very evidence that was missing from the AZ trial (post hoc analyses are not as clean as randomised trial data, but there will have been all sorts of co-morbidities and management of chronic conditions in the people that received their vaccination, so very good signs!). Dose 2 should solidify this even further. 

[gooner1990]

29 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Any accommodation with a kitchen / cooking facilities...

Sounds like we should be ok then. 🙂

[WestCountryGirl]

17 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

I've started to lose track of the amount of holidays and annual leave that I've cancelled, rebooked then cancelled again!

Its just me and my girlfriend going so as long as its open we are good to go. 🙂

Well fingers very much crossed for you 🙂 I think it looks promising that you'll be fine.

[gooner1990]

4 minutes ago, WestCountryGirl said:

Well fingers very much crossed for you 🙂 I think it looks promising that you'll be fine.

Hopefully it goes ahead as I'm fully expecting to cancel the holiday to NYC for my 40th in August. 😞

[DeanoL]

3 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

You still wouldn't of been right...  Doesn't remove any of those issues I posted.

And if we had fully closed schools then we would of robbed the NHS / Pharmacies / Key infrastructure etc of staff 

So many employment contracts have been broken during the pandemic though and so many people working in other sectors have had to deal with those issues, just because we have been in a pandemic, and it's been necessary. 

It's all doable, if you have the political will and genuinely think kids education should be the priority.

Personally I think they should already be putting the plans in place to cut the summer holidays from 6 weeks to 1 to actually catch up some of the missed education all these kids will have suffered. 

But it's amazing how kid's education is the top priority when it comes to reopening things in a pandemic, and yet not when it comes to disrupting summer holidays or having to change contracts or what not. 

Fixed holidays schools are apparently more important than educating kids. But educating kids is more important than going to the gym, seeing friends, seeing family, and literally everything else.

Which means fixed holidays for schools are more important than anything else in lockdown too. To me, that's barmy.

[aj6658]

11 hours ago, gizmoman said:

The view that "vaccine refusers" should be punished by restricting their access to pubs etc. is quite popular on here, it's easy to call for discriminatory measures against a faceless group of people you violently disagree with but the reality is many of these people will be friends or family of you or your close contacts. The reality is this policy will impact everyone, even those who get the vaccine and are happy to get a passport. For example let's assume Glastonbury goes ahead next year with access to those with a vaccine passport only. Most people go in groups so lets say in a group of 6 one person isn't vaccinated and won't get one, that would change the dynamic of the group, what if it is your best mate who you normally hang around with? Are you happy to lose friends because you disagree with their views on this? I'm sure some of you would but even so it will have had an impact on you. This year is going to be very interesting, the pro-vax v anti-vax debate is going to get nasty, we already have a taste of it on here.

I mean if Glastonbury says you need a vaccine passport to go and one of my friends doesn't have it because they 1. Think it was made too fast, 2. They don't know what's in it, 3. Laziness not to go get it or any other reason where they found an article on FB, then tough. They cant go and ill have a good time. Im happy to lose friends for things like this just like im happy to lose friends if they don't believe in climate change or are a trump supporters. Kinda defines what type of person you are.

If there is a genuine medical reason (e.g. you're pregnant as there's no peer reviewed studies on the effects of yet) then fine, I have no issue with you and there needs to be exceptions for things like that with vaccine passports.

My issue is those who are anti-vaxers are not subject matter experts. I'm an accountant. I don't have a degree in immunology or anything related to biology other than one A level. It would nothing short of arrogance for me to say im not taking the vaccine because of x,y,z because at that point im calling 99%  researchers, doctors and medical professionals a liar because they are telling me this is safe.

 

 

 

[Toilet Duck]

10 minutes ago, BobWillis said:

This isn’t the sort of news I was expecting to see. I thought they were supposed to reduce severe disease by 100%? 

Yesterday there was some discussion about an estimate of 20% of people the vaccine wouldn't work for (which was considered to be an excessive estimate, not really backed up with any hard evidence). Here we are seeing that in real world use, after 1 dose, it's protecting significantly more than that. Dose 2 should improve this further (it did in the Israeli data). I don't think we are going to completely eliminate morbidity and mortality associated with COVID, but a successful vaccination programme will bring it back in line with other respiratory ailments we have to deal with on an annual basis. The level of protection offered by the various vaccines remains excellent (and more and more data from their use is supporting this). 

[northernringo]

Just now, Toilet Duck said:

Yesterday there was some discussion about an estimate of 20% of people the vaccine wouldn't work for (which was considered to be an excessive estimate, not really backed up with any hard evidence). Here we are seeing that in real world use, after 1 dose, it's protecting significantly more than that. Dose 2 should improve this further (it did in the Israeli data). I don't think we are going to completely eliminate morbidity and mortality associated with COVID, but a successful vaccination programme will bring it back in line with other respiratory ailments we have to deal with on an annual basis. The level of protection offered by the various vaccines remains excellent (and more and more data from their use is supporting this). 

Seeing as we can't pinpoint the time when the person became infected, I wonder is there also a chance that those who were still hospitalised actually became infected before the vaccine took effect fully.

Ie, possibly they were hospitalised after X days but in reality they were infected before X days so didn't have full immunity at the time.

[efcfanwirral]

49 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

You might not have any intention but if you have no choice then you will have no choice...  I don't buy you will refuse to go to a gig if you have to show one.  Is that what you are saying ?

I am completely against it and will attempt to ride it out in the hope it is a short lived thing. Wetherspoons only if I want a pint 😂 I guess

[Toilet Duck]

22 minutes ago, northernringo said:

Seeing as we can't pinpoint the time when the person became infected, I wonder is there also a chance that those who were still hospitalised actually became infected before the vaccine took effect fully.

Ie, possibly they were hospitalised after X days but in reality they were infected before X days so didn't have full immunity at the time.

I'm sure there's all sorts of nuances in the data (and we don't know how they were corrected for or even if they were). They did omit people that were previously positive from their analysis, and the hazard ratios are lowest at the 4 week mark (so there are certainly some that were infected before they had the full benefit of dose 1), but we'll probably have to wait for the pre-print to get a deeper look at what is going on. But it's very encouraging. 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Toilet Duck
typo!

[Fuzzy Afro]

10 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

So many employment contracts have been broken during the pandemic though and so many people working in other sectors have had to deal with those issues, just because we have been in a pandemic, and it's been necessary. 

It's all doable, if you have the political will and genuinely think kids education should be the priority.

Personally I think they should already be putting the plans in place to cut the summer holidays from 6 weeks to 1 to actually catch up some of the missed education all these kids will have suffered. 

But it's amazing how kid's education is the top priority when it comes to reopening things in a pandemic, and yet not when it comes to disrupting summer holidays or having to change contracts or what not. 

Fixed holidays schools are apparently more important than educating kids. But educating kids is more important than going to the gym, seeing friends, seeing family, and literally everything else.

Which means fixed holidays for schools are more important than anything else in lockdown too. To me, that's barmy.

One week summer holiday? You’re having a laugh. You realise this would mean every single parent in the country fighting over this single week off. One of the main advantages of the 6-7 week break is that it allows parents to mutually agree with work colleagues what 2 weeks to have off to spend time with their kids (whether that be in the form of a foreign trip, a “staycation”, or just staying at home with them)

 

At the very minimum a 3-4 week summer holiday is needed. 

[st dan]

Sure we’ll be keeping a watchful eye on Wales - seems like they’re going to be several weeks ahead of us in terms of their reopening, so can track their data for any alarming spikes etc. 

[DeanoL]

5 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Head in the sand comes to mind...  You are just ignoring all the issues to stick to your dogma...

Fair play but its incredibly unintelligent. 

Not saying there aren't issues, just that they could be solved, if there was the will to actually put kids education first. But there isn't. There's the will to do the minimum possible without rocking the boat.

[Copperface]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

The four conditions that must be met at each phase of lockdown easing are:

1. The coronavirus vaccine programme continues to go to plan
2. Evidence shows vaccines are sufficiently reducing the number of people dying with the virus or needing hospital treatment
3. Infection rates do not risk a surge in hospital admissions
4. New variants of the virus do not fundamentally change the risk of lifting restrictions

Just seen that. Had a discussion about it the other day. They have at least now officially altered the original test framework and we know where we are at any stage.

Bit clearer.

Edited February 22, 2021 by Copperface

[Fuzzy Afro]

1 minute ago, st dan said:

Sure we’ll be keeping a watchful eye on Wales - seems like they’re going to be several weeks ahead of us in terms of their reopening, so can track their data for any alarming spikes etc. 

Spoiler alert: there won’t be any uptick in hospitalisations or deaths but cases will go up among the non-vulnerable population causing the zero covid brigade to freak out

[DeanoL]

2 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

One week summer holiday? You’re having a laugh. You realise this would mean every single parent in the country fighting over this single week off. One of the main advantages of the 6-7 week break is that it allows parents to mutually agree with work colleagues what 2 weeks to have off to spend time with their kids (whether that be in the form of a foreign trip, a “staycation”, or just staying at home with them)

 

At the very minimum a 3-4 week summer holiday is needed. 

Again: what is more important, the kids catching up on lost education or your summer break (where you might not even be able to go anywhere anyway)?

And if the answer is the summer break, then why are we so obsessed with getting schools back now, ahead of anything else? When we've just admitted than having a summer holiday actually matters more?

[st dan]

Just now, Fuzzy Afro said:

Spoiler alert: there won’t be any uptick in hospitalisations or deaths but cases will go up among the non-vulnerable population causing the zero covid brigade to freak out

Yep, obviously assume that will be the case but it is good to see it play out as expected in the real world. For all we know, cases may not rise much at all either, and then there would certainly be calls for it to end even sooner than planned. 

[JoeyT]

 

[steviewevie]

4 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Spoiler alert: there won’t be any uptick in hospitalisations or deaths but cases will go up among the non-vulnerable population causing the zero covid brigade to freak out

If more cases than there is a higher risk of variants that current vaccines don't work so well against.

[incident]

So many question is.. Given that the announcement today was supposed to be about "data not dates" and was praised for taking that approach - why the fuck are we hearing so many specific dates, and some of them so far into the future?

[st dan]

1 minute ago, incident said:

So many question is.. Given that the announcement today was supposed to be about "data not dates" and was praised for taking that approach - why the fuck are we hearing so many specific dates, and some of them so far into the future?

Yep - and even more contradictory to that point is that the data is excellent, so you’d have expected sooner dates.