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Coronavirus

Coronavirus - The Poll

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GaryH said:
Here’s a really interesting read. Scientists in Malaysia think they have found a New coronavirus - in dogs. Interestingly it shares the same deletion in the proteins which allows it to infect humans.

They think it may be the next type of coronavirus which will jump from animals to humans, this time being dogs and will be the next virus the world will have to deal with.

One thing is for sure, Coronavirus isn’t going away any time soon!

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsa...ing-from-dogs?t=1621624617998&t=1621624727255
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If this is the one you’re on about, then it was discovered in 2018 and is not currently thought to be another pandemic risk: https://apple.news/AIouL964TQ8-7jxpan4WEhw

It has already jumped to a handful of humans since 2018, but they’ve all recovered from it, and spread has been limited.

On more positive news, the Pfizer vaccine is thought to remain 88% effective against the India variant after two doses, compared with 93% against the Kent variant. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is thought to be 60% effective against the India variant after two doses, compared with 66% against the Kent variant. So in terms of efficacy after two doses, this remains strong.

The efficacy faces a more profound drop when talking about a single dose, however; both the Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines are 33% effective against the India variant after a single dose, compared with 50% effective against the Kent variant. This still isn’t catastrophic by any means, and the vaccines are still very, very effective against the India variant, but I think it does reinforce the importance of the second dose for sure, and could explain why the government has reduced the second dose interval to 8 weeks down from 12 weeks.

It’s worth noting that these efficacy readings are thought to remain very high in terms of severe disease and death against the India variant, however, so the variant won’t hugely compromise our position compared to before in the way that the Kent variant did, even if it does become the dominant strain. It is worth remembering that India variant cases are still pretty low at the moment, and practically non-existent outside of a remote number of areas.
 
They say that they reduce the second dose interval from 12 weeks to 8 weeks. Jess is still waiting for her second one and she had her first jab 10 weeks ago. Considering that she is vulnerable, we did contact them early on this week to book her second and been told that she has to wait until she is called which can be anything up to 12 weeks. Again, what this government promises and what they deliver are entirely completely two different things.
 
The main two centres in my city are doing second jab walk-ins for people who had their first 8+ weeks ago, regardless of where you had your first. Experience seems to depend on where you live.

Also good news about the vaccines with the Indian variant. June 21st must go ahead as planned.
 
Great news about the jabs being open to over-30s; I think the government will quite comfortably meet its target of getting a first dose to all over-18s by 31st July if all goes to plan from here!

In other news, Boris Johnson’s former advisor Dominic Cummings gave evidence to a government inquiry into the COVID response today.

Mr Cummings firstly apologised to all of the families of COVID victims, which I think was a really kind, applaudable gesture.

He then revealed some very interesting info about the early stages of the UK’s pandemic response, including (this is collated from various sources so as to provide you with as much info as possible from Mr Cummings’ speech):
  • The government apparently wasn’t remotely concerned by COVID in January & February. Boris was on holiday in Chequers for the first few COBRA meetings about it. Mr Cummings’ exact words were that the government was not on a “war footing” when the virus emerged, and that “lots of key people were literally skiing”.
  • Even in February 2020, Boris Johnson regarded COVID-19 as nothing more than a scare story; he referred to it as “kung flu” and “the new swine flu”. He even reportedly considered getting Chris Whitty to inject him with COVID-19 on live TV to prove to the public that the virus was nothing to fear.
  • Herd immunity was a key cornerstone of the government’s plan right up until mid-March; the two options being discussed were either “herd immunity by September” or “herd immunity by January 2021, with a second peak”.
  • Leading on from this, the PM was reportedly encouraged to go on TV on 12th March and tell people to mix together to generate herd immunity, in a similar vein to chicken pox parties. Mr Cummings himself reportedly discouraged this, saying that COVID-19 was “nothing like chicken pox”.
  • Controversial large events, such as Cheltenham Festival, were allowed to go ahead because Boris felt that if they weren’t, “people would just go into pubs to watch, making pubs overcrowded”. At the time, the prospect of closing pubs was reportedly thought to be “incomprehensible”.
  • The day that changed the government’s mind was 14th March, when Boris Johnson was told that models placing the peak weeks away in June were “completely wrong”. The PM was warned “The NHS is going to be smashed in weeks. Really we’ve got days to act”.
  • The government knew that a lockdown was needed on 14th March, and the reason for the delay was because “there was no plan for how it would work”. The government reportedly didn’t know how to go about imposing a lockdown, and the week was spent strategising how it would work.
  • Mr Cummings believes that Health Secretary Matt Hancock “should have been fired for at least 15-20 things”.
  • Mr Cummings has cited his reasoning for travelling to Barnard Castle as being due to security threats in London, including one incident where a gang had gathered outside his house threatening to kill his family. Mr Cummings said that not explaining this at the time was a “terrible, terrible mistake”.
  • Boris was reportedly reluctant to impose a second lockdown in Autumn because in his words, “only 80-year-olds die from COVID”, and he said that “if [he] were 80, [he] wouldn’t care. [He’d] be more concerned about the economy”.
That’s a basic summary of Mr Cummings’ speech and what he said. I might have missed a few bits, so I apologise if I did.

What are your thoughts on Mr Cummings’ revelations?
 
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I still think Cummings is a slimeball to an extent, but if what he's saying is true, then I'm honestly not surprised. Chunks of what he's said have been mentioned previously, and I was still convinced that they were gunning for natural herd immunity for a chunk of the year. Even back when it was allowed to take place, I knew letting Cheltenham go ahead was an absolute disaster waiting to happen, though given Matt Hancock's constituency is Newmarket...Make of that what you will. There seems to be a running pattern of Boris delaying doing anything until the absolute last minute, which is incredibly concerning, and I'd question what the *censored* kind of planet he's living on with his disregard for life, particularly the "let the bodies pile high in their thousands" comments. Those - if true - are just grotesque, and show a total lack of care for the citizens of the country he's supposed to be running.

These are just some initial thoughts from me.
 
Matt N said:
  • Even in February 2020, Boris Johnson regarded COVID-19 as nothing more than a scare story; he referred to it as “kung flu” and “the new swine flu”. He even reportedly considered getting Chris Whitty to inject him with COVID-19 on live TV to prove to the public that the virus was nothing to fear.
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This is one of the most disquieting things I've ever heard or read in contemporary British politics. It's only so funny because it didn't happen. But if we're to believe Cummings, it really nearly did. It's a mad, mad world.
 
Cummings is a spiteful proven lier, if he told me it was raining outside I would go and check.
It’s quite funny that everyone has spent the last 12 months slagging him off but now he attacks Boris and the government so he must be a good bloke after all.
What a load of hogs manure, if anything this will make Boris even more popular with the public.
 
I don't like Cummings nor the government, and I wouldn't trust either of them as far as I could throw them. These latest revelations don't change that.

You are right though... it doesn't matter what cock ups, scandals and failings the government makes, their rating just goes up anyway. Go figure.
 
It's almost as if most politicians are liars and making it up as they go along!

Hey ho! Had 2nd Astrazeneca jab yesterday and feeling surprisingly decent this time around. No issues other than a dead arm.

Saw that the Liverpool rave experiment had no noticeable spread of Coronavirus. So fingers crossed we're on course for getting back to some normality this year :sunglasses:
 
Scientists have apparently discovered why the AstraZeneca/Janssen jab causes blood clots in some recipients, and know how to fix the problem: https://apple.news/AE8vsJB58QWiX7rqCdDH_bg

Apparently, it’s something to do with the “virus” that these vaccines inject sometimes mutating when it enters the body, and entering the wrong part of the cell. When the mutated virus protein enters the nucleus, this causes problems.

It can apparently be solved by simply resequencing the spike protein in the vaccine a bit.

I don’t know about you, but I think this is excellent news! Here’s hoping that AstraZeneca and Janssen are able to take this advice on board and modify their vaccines accordingly at some point!

Also, with regard to the government; I think they’ve responded very well, personally.

In hindsight, it’s very easy to say that “we should have locked down sooner” or “we should have adopted face masks more quickly”, but I think that decision is much harder to make when you’re the one pulling the trigger, and you have all kinds of different factors to weigh up. Had Boris locked down earlier, for example, he might have risked a big outcry from the public.

So in that regard, I think the government has responded fine to COVID, personally.
 
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Matt N said:
Also, with regard to the government; I think they’ve responded very well, personally.

In hindsight, it’s very easy to say that “we should have locked down sooner” or “we should have adopted face masks more quickly”, but I think that decision is much harder to make when you’re the one pulling the trigger, and you have all kinds of different factors to weigh up. Had Boris locked down earlier, for example, he might have risked a big outcry from the public.

So in that regard, I think the government has responded fine to COVID, personally.
P.S. Sorry for double posting!
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We've discussed the government's response last year quite a bit, and I wholly disagree with anyone's opinion that the government have responded 'very well'.

In terms of this year and ignoring the Cummings circus yesterday, there have been two glaring failures of the government with the Indian variant (copied from a Facebook comment I made last night about France imposing mandatory quarantine on UK travellers 'cos I'm lazy):

There are of course some cases of the Indian variant in Europe and our increased sequencing is finding a lot of cases. Regardless of that though, we're clearly seeing a rise and now an impact to hospitalisations, so I can't blame other countries for being cautious as a result.

Even taking away the higher sequencing that the UK carries out, there were massive failures with test and trace with data on the new variant not being passed to local authorities.

Not adding India to the red list earlier was beyond reckless, and purely a political decision for the fabled trade deal. When other countries in a better state were added much earlier, it's hard to argue otherwise.

I doubt the variant could have been stopped, but the impact could have been massively mitigated if it weren't for the complete incompetence shown yet again by the government.

So whilst there are things they can be applauded for, there are some very clear and obvious errors that have been made, and they should rightly be criticised heavily for them.
 
Matt N said:
Also, with regard to the government; I think they’ve responded very well, personally.

In hindsight, it’s very easy to say that “we should have locked down sooner” or “we should have adopted face masks more quickly”, but I think that decision is much harder to make when you’re the one pulling the trigger, and you have all kinds of different factors to weigh up. Had Boris locked down earlier, for example, he might have risked a big outcry from the public.

So in that regard, I think the government has responded fine to COVID, personally.
P.S. Sorry for double posting!
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Sometimes your way over the top optimism brightens up my day, but I'd be very interested to know how one of the worst death rates of any developed country can be viewed as anything other than a disaster?

Before anyone chimes on about the country being 'small' and having an elderly population, that is no excuse in a country that has some of the highest living standards in the world, one of the best health care systems in the world and is one of the richest countries in the world.

Thanks Dominic Cummings for telling us almost everything we already knew anyway. He's so immoral it wouldn't surprise me if he was encouraging and advising on the pathetic leadership we saw last year.

The government had all the legal powers from the Health Act (Control of Disease) 1984 to lockdown whenever they wanted. With Shocking images coming out of Italy at the time and it known to be spreading around the country (although they didn't know enough as they didn't bother testing enough people), they chose not to act.

If the initial reaction is to be forgiven as it wasn't treated seriously in government until too late, then fine, but what was the excuse in the Autumn when they repeated the same mistake AGAIN. They clung on to their laughable Tier system, gave confilcting and ever changing advice and sent out mixed messages, never fixed track and trace and testing even though they were advised well in advance by the WHO. Clown Borris came back out telling people to go back to work, 'Eat out to Help Out' and making rediculous promises about Christmas and the Education secretary even threatened legal action against local authorities regarding school closures, only to make the same decision days later.

It's a chaotic, blustering, knee jerk, incompetent government, the same one that illegally prorogued parliament in 2019 architected by Borris and Cummings themselves. They seem to have been forgiven because the opposition has been so pathetic, Borris got Covid (which he got sympathy for but hardly a role model for the rest of us is he?), had a baby, hid behind the popularity of his chancellor and seems to be taking the credit for the vaccine rollout and the hard work and ingenuity of others. All they've done is throw money around like sweets to try and make it all go away.

It's been a disaster from begining to end. With a strong majority and no credible opposition in England, this bunch of gung ho fools are now going to be responsible for somehow trying to keep the union from splitting, striking trade deals with countries outside the EU and paying down the eye watering levels of borrowing accrued during the crisis (much of which was spent to compensate for their own poor handling of the whole thing). We should all be very very worried.

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Anything Cummings says should be treated with upmost caution, that said you don’t really need his testimony to see how incompetent the government has been:

1) Massive delay in starting any sort of intervention in March 20

2) PPE supply failures (first few months we had limited PPE and NHS and care staff where out at huge risk.

3) Patients from hospitals flooded into care homes without testing

4) Open border policy

5) Delay in second lockdown

6) Delay in putting India on the red list despite countries with lower infection rates in the same region being in the red list.

7) inept track and trace

8) Procurement of equipment via companies with no experience of that product provision but had a bottle of champagne with Matt Hancock last year.

The only real success is the vaccination procurement but that was lead by an expert in the field and not a Tory minister and the roll-out was run by the NHS (track and trace has the NHS logo attached to it but it’s managed externally).

Anyone who thinks Boris Johnson and this government have been competent over the last year have their eyes closed.
 
Dave said:
Anything Cummings says should be treated with upmost caution, that said you don’t really need his testimony to see how incompetent the government has been:

1) Massive delay in starting any sort of intervention in March 20

Boris didn’t want to lockdown, neither did his scientists at that early time. So if he had lockdown he would have be blamed for causing house arrest with no proof.
I was on holiday in late February and had never heard of the implications of known virus, did you? Apart from it being in China

2) PPE supply failures (first few months we had limited PPE and NHS and care staff where out at huge risk.

Agreed the government should be held to account of not having a plan. If the world implodes then we should have a plan to self contain.

3) Patients from hospitals flooded into care homes without testing

Ok but what choices were available in March. It was an unprecedented virus, with hindsight could have been dealt with better. No tracing was available

4) Open border policy

Agreed poorly managed

5) Delay in second lockdown

Data says lockdowns don’t work they just delay

6) Delay in putting India on the red list despite countries with lower infection rates in the same region being in the red list.

Agreed but there will be lots of variants, do we lock down every time the virus mutates? We have to evaluate every new risk.
What damage to the economy/mental health/education etc


7) inept track and trace
What track and trace
Anyone that you speak to in work would not download the app because having 2 weeks off work unpaid means missing a mortgage payment because they went to the same shop as someone with symptoms. It just doesn’t work.
Yes employers should pay but mmmmmm


8) Procurement of equipment via companies with no experience of that product provision but had a bottle of champagne with Matt Hancock last year.
Not ok


The only real success is the vaccination procurement but that was lead by an expert in the field and not a Tory minister and the roll-out was run by the NHS (track and trace has the NHS logo attached to it but it’s managed externally).

Well done to all that made this happen(who cares what party your from) big up Uk spirit

Anyone who thinks Boris Johnson and this government have been competent over the last year have their eyes closed.
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Are you mr Cummings in disguise?

Yes there have been some mistakes
Yes you can say more people have died because of previous decisions but you can’t go back.
Put yourself back to Feb March last year, was covid at the top of your concern?

On a positive note we can all kiss each other June 21st


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