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Coronavirus

Coronavirus - The Poll

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In fairness, I remember back to early 2020, and I seem to remember that COVID wasn’t hugely on the minds of most in Britain until about mid-March. I think many initially expected it to dwindle to nothing and not affect Britain in the way that many past outbreaks (e.g. SARS, swine flu) did. Even the more pessimistic probably didn’t expect anything like we’ve had.

As much as it’s very easy to criticise Boris and the Conservative Party about their handling of the pandemic; I’m not really sure if it would have been much different had anyone else been in charge. I’m not sure that any COVID response could have been genuinely perfect; each way of responding to something like the COVID pandemic has its own benefits and drawbacks.

And as I said before; hindsight is a wonderful thing, but had you been in Boris’ position in March 2020, would you have had the nerve to pull the trigger earlier than we ultimately did? I’m certainly not sure I would have done, as much as I can see the benefits of locking down earlier now…
 
Matt N said:
In fairness, I remember back to early 2020, and I seem to remember that COVID wasn’t hugely on the minds of most in Britain until about mid-March. I think many initially expected it to dwindle to nothing and not affect Britain in the way that many past outbreaks (e.g. SARS, swine flu) did. Even the more pessimistic probably didn’t expect anything like we’ve had.
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"Most of Britain" are not the leaders of the country, a government elected with the responsibility of making decisions to serve its people, aided and abetted by some of the world's leading scientists and billions in resources.

@Matt N, your characteristic optimism and desire to always look on the bright side may be a virtue, but be cautious that it's not exploited by cynical forces. We can't change the past, but we can learn from it.
 
This Indian variant is a problem

In my view, keep things as they are now until September
People to work at home if they can, a degree of social distancing still to apply

Numbers are increasing - which is worrying. This variant is doubling weekly, if it carries on there will be 10,000 plus daily again before long
 
Jb85 said:
This Indian variant is a problem

In my view, keep things as they are now until September
People to work at home if they can, a degree of social distancing still to apply

Numbers are increasing - which is worrying. This variant is doubling weekly, if it carries on there will be 10,000 plus daily again before long
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No it’s not
There is Proof that vaccine works again this variant this week.
Scaremongering reports from India showing plies of dead bodies. Poor health service in said country at aprox 2 % gdp compared to aprox 10% in uk.
Anyone getting reports from India this week on the news ????




We did worse than India per population
 
It works, but only 33% effective for Pfizer and AZ three weeks after the first dose. Then 85%+ two weeks after second dose.

Considering the majority are yet to have second doses and the 21st June is less then a month away it seems sensible to delay the final stage by a few weeks to give more time for people to have second doses and slow the spread of the variant by social distancing etc.
 
Yes it appears the vaccine works. No, it doesn't work as well as it does against the earlier variants, especially after one dose. So it's essential that both doses are administered to enable them to work effectively. The issue is we're only at 45.6% fully vaccinated and 73.3% first doses, and that doesn't include the couple of weeks needed for protection to develop.

So when the government pedal out the saying "we're in a race between the virus and the vaccine", they're right. That's why we've seen the cut to 8 weeks gap for doses from 12 weeks for those in priority groups, as it ensures those who are vulnerable are protected quicker. Remember, the vaccine isn't guaranteed protection against hospitalisation either, as Matt Hancock advised in the briefing last night, 5 of the 49 in hospital had both doses (just shy of 10%). That's a statistically small number to get a proper idea yet, but enough to be of a bit of a concern.

Now the likelihood is we will probably be fine because we do have that vaccine rollout picking up pace, so I don't think it's all doom and gloom. But, you can't ignore that hospitalisations along with deaths are beginning to increase again so it's absolutely right to have that little bit of concern.

A big push to get the rollout accelerated as quickly as possible, and reduce vaccine hesitancy is essential right now. Going purely anecdotally, chatting to people at my vaccine volunteering this week and it seems to be going pretty well in both respects.

I don't think it necessarily means we're going straight back into lockdown or anything, but I can now see it affecting the final date on the 21st. By how much remains to be seen, but it's certainly going to have an impact somehow.
 
monkeyboy said:
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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Funnily enough no I’m not.

In March last year the hospital I was working in was getting messages from colleagues in London telling us how bad it was, if that message can get 280 miles up the M1 I’m sure it was getting to 10 Downing Street.

Fact is I could have forgiven them the slow start, it was not the virus they expected. What I can’t forgive is:

In 2019 NERVTAG advised the government the PPE stockpile for pandemic preparedness was lacking certain equipment, it was ignored.

Until the end of April hospital staff where told not to wear masks whilst working.

In September (by which point I think we all agree we knew something about what we where dealing with) the government ignored the scientists asking for a lockdown.

When London and the south was burning in both April and January we got national lockdowns. When the north was struggling in November we got regional lockdowns and not much help.

In April 2021! They put Pakistan on the red list and not India despite India having a far higher case rate because they didn’t want to upset Modi!

As late as January this year we where having to throw away shoddy PPE that had been recalled, purchased via Tory cronies.

So yeah, my “sympathy” for the government long expired and I’m sorry if anyone thinks this is rude or intolerant but anyone who supports Johnson and this government (regardless of political ideology) is walking around with their eyes glued shut and complicit in the deaths of thousands.
 
It's still too early to say, but seeing as it does look like you need both doses to get significant protection from the new variant found in India it would not be the end of the world to push back the 21st June date to allow for more people to receive their second dose.

It is no surprise that cases have started to increase again now that we are on step 3 and indoor mixing is allowed. I think that would have happened with or without the new variant. Hopefully the scientists can determine whether any increase is largely due to the easing of restrictions or the new variant. And how these translates to hospital admissions is key to what happens going forward. Again there will always be an increase in admissions as cases rises but you would like to think that any increase would be more gradual thanks to the impact of vaccination. But the virus will always find a way to those who do not have protection (either because they're not vaccinated or the vaccine has not worked for them).

I'd rather us push 21st June a few weeks down the line than go ahead with it as planned because the Daily Mail demand as much and then find ourselves in another disaster come the end of the summer.
 
I think Boris Johnson will be under pressure from his backbenchers to try and stick to the 21st June date, but he did say it was the earliest date for that relaxation to happen. However if the government relax the measures too quickly just to satisfy the anti-lockdown brigade and (god forbid) we get another wave then I think Boris Johnson's position becomes increasingly untenable. I don't think his party or the country will stand for another national lockdown.
 
RoyJess said:
The only person that I'll be hugging and kissing on June the 21st will be my wife
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Aww what? That's my plans out the window, I was looking forward to that.

Regarding excusing government performance, I'm only reading excuses for March. What about all the rediculous decisions made after that? Car crash of a government and its shocking how forgiving people are. It's not about disliking Borris and the Tories, it's about competence. I liked Gordon Brown (who prepared meticulously for Bird Flu when he was PM by the way) but if he was PM behaving like this I'd be saying the same thing.

Party politics has nothing to do with this. Why do we have to "be fair to Borris" (I think he's been treated more than fair)? He's the Prime Minister, he works for us. He's democratically elected. He's accountable to us. His duty first and foremost is to protect UK citizen's from things like desease and wars, that's his job.

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I can't really put my feelings towards Boris and the current UK Government in here because they don't quite stick to the community standards. The fact that in 2021 they STILL hadn't learnt from past mistakes and people STILL defend them just make me angry.
 
Went to a vintage kilo sale today and was totally overwhelmed by how close people were standing, social distancing aside it was bad for even normal times. I hate being in crowded places and found myself standing alone panicking in whatever empty space I could find looking a bit odd until I could carry on looking again, but everyone else seemed to have no kind of spacial awareness. This itself is annoying, but has anyone else found after not being used to being in crowded spaces for so long, they're much worse in them now?

EDIT: I meant to put this in Pet Hates but I guess it's relevant here?
 
rob666 said:
Pardon my ignorance...
Vintage kilo sale?
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Haha sorry I shouldn't have assumed people would know what I mean, it's a vintage sale where you pay by weight, normally £15 per kilo. They're normally done by companies that travel around and put them on in different cities in places like community halls. They're popular with students because vintage clothes are normally quite expensive.
 
MattyH said:
I can't really put my feelings towards Boris and the current UK Government in here because they don't quite stick to the community standards. The fact that in 2021 they STILL hadn't learnt from past mistakes and people STILL defend them just make me angry.
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Unfortunately the opposition is no where to be seen atm.

Even when starmer had all the ammo this Wednesday at pmq, he failed to deliver. Just poor


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There’s been a a lot of noise in the press this week particularly from the US which has been reopening the origins of Covid 19 with focus on the lab in Wuhan again which has made me wonder if scientists have found something to make them start questioning it again.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/wuhan-covid-lab-leak-fact-check-b1854556.html

This unfortunately comes from the daily Mail but if there is any truth in this then no doubt we will hear more, but they are suggesting they now have found proof in the “fingerprints” of the virus which does indeed suggest that while the Virus did come from bats, it has been altered by humans to make it infect humans and all eyes could once again be on China. If it’s proven - what should the world do?! Compensation? War? Or just stop buying Chinese tat?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-lab-tried-cover-tracks-new-study-claims.html
 
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