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Coronavirus

Coronavirus - The Poll

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I regularly take a multivitamin tablet that has (apparently) 200% of the RDA for Vitamin D (alongside a load of others), and have done for some time. Costs £8 for a tub of 180 tablets, so a little more than £16 for a year, or £1.35 a month. I don't spend much time outside, so this tablet does help. (I also take extra Vitamin C when needed.) It's rare for me to get ill, though this has been the case for a number of years. Somehow not missed a single shift at work due to illness. I don't know how many people take things like this, but surely it's cheaper in the long run to spend a small amount of money to have better general health.
 
Jonathan said:
It's rare for me to get ill, though this has been the case for a number of years. Somehow not missed a single shift at work due to illness. I don't know how many people take things like this, but surely it's cheaper in the long run to spend a small amount of money to have better general health.
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It’s worth remembering though that simply taking pills, will on their own without any other action such as regular exercise and healthy eating, in the long term, not be enough to keep your health at a sustained reasonably healthy level.

Age has a nasty habit of creeping up on you, and certainly by the time you get the late 30’s to early 40’s our lifestyles start to catch up with us, and there is certainly more effort needs to be put in to getting in to a regular exercise routine and watching what you eat.

Plus, the days of never having had a shift off ill are all but a long distant memory.
 
I must say looking at the excellent heat maps on the government website it's pretty damn impressive seeing those green shades in the upper age groups who've been vaccinated (zoom in to this year from January onwards to see the change more easily). In the north east we're lagging behind in terms of overall infection rates, but seeing the 75's-84's in the 40 per 100k range is amazing, especially when in mid January it was around the 250 mark. When other lower age groups are in the 150-180 per 100k mark still, it's absolutely remarkable seeing the difference it's made:
 

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One thing I’ll admit I do find very interesting is that the AstraZeneca vaccine is actually proving slightly more effective after one dose than the Pfizer vaccine, despite the latter having substantially stronger phase 3 trial results.

Do we think this is because the Pfizer jab is more reliant on the second dose than the AstraZeneca, or do we think that it’s a different reason?
 
I think it's more because trials can only tell you so much, especially when they amongst limited groups and at the time they were quite literally having to chase the virus around the world to get sufficient prevalence. The trials establish a baseline efficacy, but real world deployment will nearly always be different. Remember the AZ trial results actually gave us quite a variance in efficacy, from fairly disappointing to really decent. We've just been very lucky that real world deployment following the conclusion of the trials has given us the upper levels of that.
 
Thameslink Rail said:
BBC News - Furlough support scheme to be extended until September
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56259094
I hope this benefits a lot of people although I don't see why it would be extended so far past the end of lockdown
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There's a number of reasons why the government have chosen to extend the furlough scheme to September. First up, 21st June is the minimum date for restrictions to be removed. Yes, judging by the current situation that's unlikely to be moved back but businesses need reassurance that support is there should any delays happen, and extending the furlough scheme ensures that. Decisions concerning staffing need to be taken with consideration for the notice periods in employee's contracts, so they can't be made at short notice.

Businesses also need time to come back to full strength. For example a business supplying the leisure industry may not see a decent amount of orders start coming in until after those businesses fully open and able to operate as normally as possible in May/June. The invoices for those products/services may not be paid until a month or two after that. The September date gives them breathing space and reassurance that support is there until they're back to full strength.

It's all aimed at keeping as much of the workforce in a job as possible and minimising redundancies until businesses are able to recoup some of their losses and be in a stronger position to continue to operate.
 
A month or two is a good result for invoices being paid for our small business. Often our clients from big corporations don't pay for 90 days from the end of the month the invoice was sent in! For a small business like ours it's a heck of a long time.

September gives us some breathing room because if it was all dropped at the end of June it'd be a worry.
 
Extending furlough until the end of Septmber is very sensible, as pointed by the above two posts. It gives businesses more certainty and flexibility in their planning for the year going forward.

I do not want to tempt fate, especially with the budget today, but so far this year the Government seem to be getting quite a lot right with their Covid response. Certainly seems like lessons have been learnt from last year!
 
Italy has blocked a large shipment of vaccines to Australia, claiming that as AZ has not fulfilled it's EU contract and they're needed more in the EU than Australia. This is despite the vaccine contract being best effort not a set number.
 
Poisson said:
Italy has blocked a large shipment of vaccines to Australia, claiming that as AZ has not fulfilled it's EU contract and they're needed more in the EU than Australia. This is despite the vaccine contract being best effort not a set number.
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Has anyone actually seen the specific wording of the contract to see what is classed as best effort?
 
Daughters COVID test done this afternoon, all clear so schools back on from 8:30 tomorrow.

Fantastic news.
 
Bit of advice when you get your vaccination, take the next day off work. The thing made me feel very ill indeed.

Sent from my VOG-L29 using Tapatalk
 
Matt.GC said:
Bit of advice when you get your vaccination, take the next day off work. The thing made me feel very ill indeed.

Sent from my VOG-L29 using Tapatalk
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Which vaccine did you get? I got the Pfizer and apart from a bit of a sore arm for a couple of days I had no other side effects. A week later and I have a huge ulcer on the bottom of my tongue. Could just be coincidence but I've never had an ulcer before.
 
Austin Towers said:
Which vaccine did you get? I got the Pfizer and apart from a bit of a sore arm for a couple of days I had no other side effects. A week later and I have a huge ulcer on the bottom of my tongue. Could just be coincidence but I've never had an ulcer before.
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I had the AstraZenica one. Stopped me sleeping, made me feel flu like without the nausea for 2 days, shivers, sore skin, sleepless nights, aching joints and exhaustion. Other than a very painful arm (never had pain after any other injection I've ever had), I felt fine after 2 days but the day after was horrible.

Sent from my VOG-L29 using Tapatalk
 
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Matt.GC said:
I had the AstraZenica one. Stopped me sleeping, made me feel flu like without the nausea for 2 days, shivers, sore skin, sleepless nights, aching joints and exhaustion. Other than a very painful arm (never had pain after any other injection I've ever had), I felt fine after 2 days but the day after was horrible.

Sent from my VOG-L29 using Tapatalk
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(depending on exactly what happened consider a yellow card Official MHRA side effect and adverse incident reporting site for coronavirus treatments and vaccines | Coronavirus (COVID-19) )
 
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