SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

[Ekkie Thump]

Anyone thinks the U.K. might end up going into restrictions or even the dreaded lockdown in the coming months?

Personally I'd think not. I don't know very much though. My reasoning is simply that there's not much political will to do so, we're at 80% of over 12s vaccinated, boosters continue to be rolled out and the Molnupiravir (Lagevrio) pills will be coming online and promise to cut hospital entries by maybe 50%.

I guess there could be regional restrictions, but very much doubt there'll be a national one.

 

[Ferguson’s Hairdryer]

Christmas is going to be a very hard time in England.

If hospitalisations cases are what determines restrictions and lockdown they’ve been lingering at the 750 mark since July.

What could drastically increase those numbers in the coming month?
1) More people socialising & colder weather.. I don’t know by how much social contact increases in Christmas, but will it be more than all the people mixing after “freedom day”
2) Vaccine efficiency reducing off on vaccinated
3) New variant

Covid will not go away, instead of lockdowns and furloughs to help people etc shouldn’t the money be spent on building icu capacity to deal with covid and respiratory viruses

 

[Ferguson’s Hairdryer]

Personally I'd think not. I don't know very much though. My reasoning is simply that there's not much political will to do so, we're at 80% of over 12s vaccinated, boosters continue to be rolled out and the Molnupiravir (Lagevrio) pills will be coming online and promise to cut hospital entries by maybe 50%.

I guess there could be regional restrictions, but very much doubt there'll be a national one.

What you say does make sense. As long as this fecker doesn’t evolve into a new variant for 2022 then I think we should be ok.

 

[jojojo]

Anyone thinks the U.K. might end up going into restrictions or even the dreaded lockdown in the coming months?

Unlikely.

Not impossible of course. Something could happen - an immunity dodging variant or a variant that attacked the young as aggressively as this one did the old. But, if the virus doesn't change that much, and the boosters work as well as initial data from Israel and the UK suggests then it's hard to see a lockdown.

You might see specifics change again. Requests to work from home reinstated. Sending home groups of school students rather than just those that test positive. More incentives/pressure to get vaccinated/boosted. But those will mostly be about navigating through Christmas and getting hospitalisations down again in time for the flu season.

Not great and a bumpy ride for sure, but it's hard to see why England in particular would go for a lockdown. NI might do - lower vaccination rates and lower past infections. Scotland and Wales might try to clamp down further but I doubt we'll see anything looking like last year's lockdown there either.

 

[R'hllor]

I dont know about enforcing things on people these days, guess it depends of a nation. During 90`s in Yugoslavia back then, when i was dunno 9-11 years old, people came to schools and kids got shots for some shit, maybe small/bigpox, maybe something else, no parents, no requirements for their permission, doubt they even knew before kids came back from school telling them how they got shot for something or were running hiding in toilets ( i was one of them ).

Reading last page or two actually made me wonder about scar i have on upper arm, i know its from some vaccine but reading about it now, its actually a BCG, its actually common for people from this part of the woods.

 

[Gambit]

Christmas is going to be a very hard time in England.

I reckon we're heading to a mini lockdown over the Christmas school break.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Austria tried to isolate it to the unvaccinated folks but things only got worse so they had to expand it.

Actually, they tried that for an entire 4 days, I’d say that strengthens my point about being unable to trust that decision and instead quickly turn to the Covid standard for “overly cautious”.

What else did they expect in 4 days?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

With so much grim data and news flying around right now, everything I read about boosters is massively encouraging.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Worth reading the whole thread. Includes a tweet from someone 8+ months after boosting whose antibody levels are still off the charts high.

 

[decorativeed]

Given that this thing is now endemic do we (the UK) have any plans to perpetually increase ICU capacity and train up more specialist nurses? Obviously the second of those'll take time but plans are in place yeah?

With the Tories in power? Do we feck. Not unless one of their mates can benefit somehow.

 

[decorativeed]

Can't agree with that at all and it's not the first time a vaccination is mandatory in Austria (and many other countries either). In 1948, we had compulsory vaccination against smallpox. With huge success too.

In 1948 they didn't have the wonderful social media we all 'enjoy the benfits of' today.

 

[11101]

America has approved to extend the booster program from over 65s and those with medical conditions to all over 18s. The most shocking thing about it is that 80-90% of the adult population already qualified under one of those two previous criteria

 

[FootballHQ]

Fecking grim watching this again. I knew Covid wasn't going anywhere soon but thought we were done with lockdowns at least.

You wonder how many more waves are coming tbh, don't most viruses die out by 3/4th wave and become increasingly weaker. This one certainly bucked most trends for last two years.

 

[stw2022]

Can't stand this govt but objectively it's odd how the insistent rising cases were down to incompetence when it involves Britain doesn't seem to have been applied elsewhere. There seems to be much more sympathy for administrations elsewhere. And indeed sympathy with it's people.

When it comes to the UK it seems to almost be the impression it's what we deserve by electing clowns but looking at central Europe now the rising cases are presented a lot more sympathetically.

 

[F-Red]

Can't stand this govt but objectively it's odd how the insistent rising cases were down to incompetence when it involves Britain doesn't seem to have been applied elsewhere. There seems to be much more sympathy for administrations elsewhere. And indeed sympathy with it's people.

When it comes to the UK it seems to almost be the impression it's what we deserve by electing clowns but looking at central Europe now the rising cases are presented a lot more sympathetically.

I think the term @Brwned used describes it best, 'Rinse & Repeat'.

 

[Stanley Road]

Can't stand this govt but objectively it's odd how the insistent rising cases were down to incompetence when it involves Britain doesn't seem to have been applied elsewhere. There seems to be much more sympathy for administrations elsewhere. And indeed sympathy with it's people.

When it comes to the UK it seems to almost be the impression it's what we deserve by electing clowns but looking at central Europe now the rising cases are presented a lot more sympathetically.

Not in the Netherlands, people are blaming the government when its the people not following the rules by and large. A ban on new years fireworks is the latest excuse to riot, last years ban made no difference as people buy them in Belgium and Germany. For me they can reintroduce the curfu and let the military police it. There may be respect for measures in southern Europe but in East and west there is not.

 

[golden_blunder]

Had to take my kid to a testing camp today. This one is run by the army. One of their lads had his mask on but kept pulling it down to talk to the others. In a tent with sick and coughing people. Brainless

 

[Stanley Road]

Im thinking about doing a vigilante stint by standing in the supermarket entrance and asking non masters why they aren't wearing one. Then I will punch them severely until they see the error of their ways, this includes 70 plusers

 

[stw2022]

Im thinking about doing a vigilante stint by standing in the supermarket entrance and asking non masters why they aren't wearing one. Then I will punch them severely until they see the error of their ways, this includes 70 plusers

Non-mask wearers always have an issue with social distancing too. Even pre-pandemic it's polite not to stand so close behind me we're one stumble away from becoming intimate.

 

[stw2022]

The 'Domestic' bit on the NHS app is there for a reason. I could well see a hospitality passport being introduced for clubs, pubs, cinemas etc if cases rise much above 40,000 each day for a sustained period. I'd be fine with it. Like track and trace though, I suspect many venues will turn a blind eye.

 

[Sparky Rhiwabon]

The 'Domestic' bit on the NHS app is there for a reason. I could well see a hospitality passport being introduced for clubs, pubs, cinemas etc if cases rise much above 40,000 each day for a sustained period. I'd be fine with it. Like track and trace though, I suspect many venues will turn a blind eye.

That bit on the app is already used in Wales for this - no blind eyes appear to be taken though. I did hear of one independent cinema doing so but they've been handed a closure notice

 

[jojojo]

And just as a reminder of what we're really talking about when we look at case numbers rising going into winter.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Stanley Road]

Thats a bold statement which probably applies to NL too

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

America has approved to extend the booster program from over 65s and those with medical conditions to all over 18s. The most shocking thing about it is that 80-90% of the adult population already qualified under one of those two previous criteria

That simply cannot be true. Surely?

 

[11101]

That simply cannot be true. Surely?

You'd think not but a) it was on CNN, not some random Twitter page and b) it's America.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

You'd think not but a) it was on CNN, not some random Twitter page and b) it's America.

That’s an absolute madness of a stat.

 

[Champ]

And just as a reminder of what we're really talking about when we look at case numbers rising going into winter.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Not really that stark, most people will probably contract it over Winter I'd imagine, and I'd imagine a small proportion of them will die, whereas the large proportion will recover.
Exactly what's happening right now really.

 

[jojojo]

A basic update on where the UK (in particular England as it's the one with the fewest mitigations) is sitting now.

Broadly, England has had a R number wobbling around 1 for months. We currently have a (slowly) rising number of cases overall, mostly driven by high case rates in school students, and falling numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. That's a fragile balancing act, basically vaccines and boosters v virus.

This graph is only looking at the change in case rates by age. Anything below the one means cases are declining. Anything above the one means cases are increasing in that age group.

If you look at booster rollout you can see what looks like the reason for that pattern. Booster doses in over 60s are rolling out fast, with very high rates already achieved in the 70-80 year olds.

And what that means about actual case rates:

Graphs from:
https://twitter.com/AlastairGrant4
https://twitter.com/john_actuary

 

[Stanley Road]

I'm feckin sick of covid tbh, NL has R of 1.2 and rising, shoot everybody that isn't vaxxed

 

[jojojo]

Interesting article on why the UK's situation isn't quite as unexpected or as fragile as you might guess when you see our headline case rates.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59378849

Those estimates come from one of the SAGE modelling teams.

You can get an idea of the analysis underlying that chart from this month's ONS antibody survey. Broadly, 95%+ of over 50s are double vaxxed and an increasing number have now had boosters. The ONS survey was done during the first week in November. In the race between vaccine waning and boosters things should still be improving.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Basically the message under all of this:
If you haven't been vaccinated, get vaccinated.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coron...dose-of-the-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccination/
Or use a walk in centre

If you are eligible for a booster (over 40, or eligible for some other reason and second vaccine dose more than 5 months ago) make a booking for your booster:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coron...ter-dose-of-the-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine/

Walk-in centres are available if you're 40+ and you're 6 months past your second dose.

 

[golden_blunder]

Anecdotal story

my mates 2 kids aged 9 and 13 are Covid positive. His youngest had it first, cough, sore throat and temperature. The temperate went away after 2 days but they saw fit to get him tested before taking him back to school. (Plus he had leukaemia when he was little more than a baby). Positive. No other symptoms just a lingering “cough”. Not even a full one, just the type where you are constantly making a sound like “ahem” to clear your throat.
their daughter who was one day away from getting her 2nd vaxx then tested positive.
mum and dad, despite being around them all the time, tested negative. They are both fully vaxxed.

the vaxx works people.

 

[Volumiza]

Anecdotal story

my mates 2 kids aged 9 and 13 are Covid positive. His youngest had it first, cough, sore throat and temperature. The temperate went away after 2 days but they saw fit to get him tested before taking him back to school. (Plus he had leukaemia when he was little more than a baby). Positive. No other symptoms just a lingering “cough”. Not even a full one, just the type where you are constantly making a sound like “ahem” to clear your throat.
their daughter who was one day away from getting her 2nd vaxx then tested positive.
mum and dad, despite being around them all the time, tested negative. They are both fully vaxxed.

the vaxx works people.

Totally similar in our house. All 3 kids came down with apparent colds of differing severity, all tested positive in various LFT's and PCR's and even though we'd all been together, round the dinner table, watching tv, tidying their rooms and hugging etc neither me nor Mrs Volumiza caught it. We put it solely down to the double jab. No other explanation.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Anecdotal story

my mates 2 kids aged 9 and 13 are Covid positive. His youngest had it first, cough, sore throat and temperature. The temperate went away after 2 days but they saw fit to get him tested before taking him back to school. (Plus he had leukaemia when he was little more than a baby). Positive. No other symptoms just a lingering “cough”. Not even a full one, just the type where you are constantly making a sound like “ahem” to clear your throat.
their daughter who was one day away from getting her 2nd vaxx then tested positive.
mum and dad, despite being around them all the time, tested negative. They are both fully vaxxed.

the vaxx works people.

Yeah, stuff like this gets lost in the general hysteria. Vaccines aren’t infallible but they’re fecking helpful!

Side note, it also supports the notion that kids pass it back and forth to each other but not so much to adults. A factor that influenced decision to keep schools open through previous surges

 

[golden_blunder]

Yeah, stuff like this gets lost in the general hysteria. Vaccines aren’t infallible but they’re fecking helpful!

Side note, it also supports the notion that kids pass it back and forth to each other but not so much to adults. A factor that influenced decision to keep schools open through previous surges

You see that theory still doesn’t make complete sense to me; specially before we all got jabbed. You’re around your kids, hugging them etc but how did more connections to schools not be made?

 

[Big-Red]

You see that theory still doesn’t make complete sense to me; specially before we all got jabbed. You’re around your kids, hugging them etc but how did more connections to schools not be made?

Anecdotal, but, my partner is a teacher in a rough enough area, high incidence area, a lot of kids won't get tested. Parents will just pull them when they test positive and keep them off. The "pod" system meant if a child did test positive its only the 6 or so people they sit near that need to be checked as close contacts at the time, not the entire class that they've been playing with in yard, or out on the road after school.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

You see that theory still doesn’t make complete sense to me; specially before we all got jabbed. You’re around your kids, hugging them etc but how did more connections to schools not be made?

I think kids are just less infectious. They’re more likely to have extremely mild symptoms and recover very quickly. Much less virus for them to spread around (even though they’re disgusting little animals). Very different to an adult coughing out huge clouds of bugs for a week or two at a time.

Vomiting bugs, on the other hand…

 

[Massive Spanner]

My theory is that people who think schools don't contribute are people with kids because they hate them and don't want them at home @Pogue Mahone

 

[golden_blunder]

My theory is that people who think schools don't contribute are people with kids because they hate them and don't want them at home @Pogue Mahone

 

[Pogue Mahone]

My theory is that people who think schools don't contribute are people with kids because they hate them and don't want them at home @Pogue Mahone

Hate is a very strong word.

Can we go with “intensely dislike”?

 

[christy87]

Just to give my 2 cents, when my sister lived at home and when she was a child minder and creche worker, myself and my brother's were guaranteed to have at least 6 colds a year, when she left that went to 2 and to 1 when she quit child minding, children do pass viruses but its the carrier's (A symptomatic) who cause the most harm.

By the way aren't colds a form of coronavirus and rhinovirus and others.

 

[F-Red]

Just had my booster (Moderna) this afternoon.