Coronavirus - will we survive?

In my opinion it's absolutely bonkers to send schools back while there are still 10,000 cases a day and hundreds of deaths. Those figures are only going to increase.

Of course, schools have been open all along for teachers without adequate PPE to help children who had to attend for various reasons.

So not "reopening" so much as welcoming back all pupils....hopefully not all at once.

Swab testing at home by parents:- good or bad idea?

I agree with Wanderlust that it makes much more sense to set milestones rather than arbitrary dates which may have to be amended,,,,,which will lead to inevitable criticism when they have to u-turn/backtrack....again!  Government not heeding lessons....more in need of teaching than the children!

Half a million dead Americans. Makes me think back to Trump's comments when the pandemic broke and I can't help but feel that his ignorance directly caused many of them. Brazil is pushing 300k thanks to Bolsonaro and goodness knows how many have died in Africa where many countries don't even register deaths.
The lesson is clear - it's not just having the resources to fight it that kills but irresponsible ignorance or worse still, irresponsible leadership for short term political gain or popularity.

And not just political gains, but more likely personal gain comes a big first.

Apparently people with blood type A are more likely than other blood types to contract Covid and to endure more serious symptoms.

wanderlust wrote:Half a million dead Americans. Makes me think back to Trump's comments when the pandemic broke and I can't help but feel that his ignorance directly caused many of them. Brazil is pushing 300k thanks to Bolsonaro and goodness knows how many have died in Africa where many countries don't even register deaths.
The lesson is clear - it's not just having the resources to fight it that kills but irresponsible ignorance or worse still, irresponsible leadership for short term political gain or popularity.

It was not ignorance... as Trump told Bob Woodward last year.  “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don't want to create a panic," Trump said in a March 19 call with Woodward, according to an audio clip posted Wednesday on The Washington Post's website. The newspaper obtained a copy of the book, "Rage," which is scheduled to be released next week.In the same interview, Trump acknowledged that the disease was more deadly than he previously thought.

I finally got round to watching "Contagion" on Netflix last night and it soon became apparent where the government got their strategy for dealing with Covid from.

Released TEN years ago, the stellar cast (Matt Damon, Jude Law, Lawrence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Gwyneth Paltrow etc) deliver a chilling tale of pandemic that is so close to what actually happened on so many levels it's spinechilling.

No wonder it's trending. A must-see - and a sad indictment of our lack of preparedness given the knowledge the government clearly had at the outset.

I’ve just booked in for my jab, didn’t think they were offering to my age band yet.

BoltonTillIDie wrote:I’ve just booked in for my jab, didn’t think they were offering to my age band yet.

Hope you've booked your second one BTID - there's talk of India withholding half a million AZ jabs they've manufactured instead of sending them to the UK so we may have shortages for round two.
Perhaps if certain EU countries don't want the AZ jabs they are manufacturing maybe our government could buy them for the UK to cover any shortfall?

wanderlust wrote:

BoltonTillIDie wrote:I’ve just booked in for my jab, didn’t think they were offering to my age band yet.

Hope you've booked your second one BTID - there's talk of India withholding half a million AZ jabs they've manufactured instead of sending them to the UK so we may have shortages for round two.
Perhaps if certain EU countries don't want the AZ jabs they are manufacturing maybe our government could buy them for the UK to cover any shortfall?

They send for you for the 2nd I thought?

karlypants wrote:

wanderlust wrote:

BoltonTillIDie wrote:I’ve just booked in for my jab, didn’t think they were offering to my age band yet.

Hope you've booked your second one BTID - there's talk of India withholding half a million AZ jabs they've manufactured instead of sending them to the UK so we may have shortages for round two.
Perhaps if certain EU countries don't want the AZ jabs they are manufacturing maybe our government could buy them for the UK to cover any shortfall?

They send for you for the 2nd I thought?

Depends KP.

There are two ways of booking your jab, one is through your GP the other is via the NHS.

I got a text from my GP, linking me to the booking system, leading to my jab but the next day I also received a letter from the NHS inviting me to book one also (which actually was dated a few days before my GP text).

The letter said to book both jabs but the text only asked you to book the first one so I wondered if I had done something wrong?

I didn't want to go on the text link again and put in a second date and inadvertantly overwrite my 'first' jab as the 'second' jab 12 weeks later, if you see what I mean and couldn't book a second NHS jab without having booked an initial one first!

I decided to have a walk to the nearest 'jab' centre to ask if I had messed up somehow?

Seems there are two streams, the NHS where you book both at the outset and the GP when they call you for the second which could be sooner than the 12 weeks based on supplies at the time but no later than the 12 weeks.

Fwiw, when I had the jab it was a very organised process, straight in and out for me (if you are driving you have to wait 15 mins after the jab before you can leave).  I had the Oxford jab and had no side effects whatsoever.  I had it before all the worry about blood clots but would have still had it non the less.

Seems for the young ones like BTID protection kicks in around three weeks after the jab but for us oldies it is around 5 weeks.

Protection isn't 100% but certainly far better than not having the jab at all.

Maximum protection is after the second jab but one jab is still much better than non.

Correction: it’s 5 million jabs not half a million that are late arriving from the Indian factory- but Boris puts it down to “supply issues” rather than political will.
Government in talks with India about this, possibly as part of the “global Britain” objectives neatly summarised here in this Bloomberg article.

Yup, I booked my second jab via NHS when I booked my first and allegedly they have reserved doses for that whereas my GP couldn’t guarantee supply.

Footie's back on!
Having been told we couldn't restart our Friday night game as we'd have to play 3 a side in order to comply with the rule of 6 thing (not happening) when the first easing happens on the 29th, I've just been informed that our Monday night game can go ahead (in Norwich) because that game is covered by "an official organisation" - which I didn't even know we're a part of - I just rock up, pay the money to my mate and play but apparently we're in an association.
Don't often play the Monday game as it's a 20 minute drive as opposed to round the corner but needs must.
It seems the rules differentiate between a friendly and a club game - even though in our case, it's the same group of lads who play every week (or did before lockdown)
Anyhoo I'll give it a go and hope my body doesn't pack in after months of minimal exercise. But for anyone else into team sports, check the rules and you may be able to get back into it as of next week.

Brilliant, Boncey. Here's a bit more of the original Professor Unwin. There's a hint of Tony Benn in there, if you ask me. Might be unintentional, of course.

Just thought I post this up to counter some of the bollocks that has been often posted on here in the past by a certain few.

The Germany government, who could do no wrong in dealing with the pandemic and often held up to show how utterly useless the Tory government was in comparison to them are clearly not doing so brilliantly now unfortunately.

15:17
Merkel apologises and cancels strict Easter lockdown

Chancellor Angela Merkel has made an extraordinary plea to the German people to forgive her, after she cancelled a strict Easter lockdown just a day after announcing it.

She says the idea of a five-day lockdown over the Easter holidays had been “designed with the best of intentions because we absolutely have to slow down and reverse the third wave of the pandemic”.

But she admits there was not enough time to implement the shutdown “in such a way that there is a reasonable balance between the cost and the benefit”.

The so-called Easter Pause would have been the harshest Germany has seen, with most shops closing and religious services moving online; it had been met with resistance from business leaders.

Coronavirus cases in Germany are soaring and public trust in the government’s handling of the pandemic is wavering, the BBC’s Jenny Hill in Berlin reports.

While Merkel has been seen as the safe pair of hands who brought Germany through the first wave of the infection, this time round she appears to be struggling to keep the country together, our correspondent notes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-56507669


My point being that no government in the world knows the perfect way to steer itself through all of this and errors and mistakes will be made - even at this stage.

It isn't just that the Tory government is just shit at everything and everybody else deals with the pandemic better, every government gets somethings right and somethings wrong.

Looks at the moment that the EU procurement of vaccine has been such an utter disaster that it's going to have a significant impact on our vaccine rollout if they go about stopping contractual delivery's from companies situated in the EU manufacturing the vaccines.

So much for the entente cordiale with our friends across the Channel!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-56507669

I think it's very gracious of the German government to apologise for their handling of the coronavirus - a lesson in humility and taking responsibility for their actions and something the Tories could learn from.
It takes balls to take ownership of failures as well as successes, but that's what good management requires.
And Merkel has stepped up to the plate having overseen 50,000 fewer deaths than the Tories despite having a population that's 15 million larger then the UK. Bravo if that's an appropriate expression for not killing as many of your citizens as Boris.

What it will take for the Tories to apologise for overseeing the highest covid death rate of ANY G20 country (1853 per millon*) I can't imagine.

* That's even higher than Brazil where the government was actively thwarting efforts to curb covid until recently, so it's some achievement.

Here are a few insights into how they got us to number 1

Thought I'd chuck this in to...

Did you know that 80% of the 'world beating' Test and Trace that cost £37 billion actually was/is spent the labs and the testing.

I didn't.

I'm not saying the Test and Trace has or has not been value for money - I've not seen all the facts to judge but it has been routinely slammed as being a huge waste and a trough for the Tory crony mates to stick their snouts into!

Perhaps the context of 80% of the money now being seen to go to the labs that were the first in the world to pick up mutations of the virus may make how people view the costs a little differently?

16:47
PM insists Test and Trace has provided 'tools to fight' Covid
Chair of the Public Accounts Committee Labour MP Meg Hillier asks Boris Johnson what his biggest regret is over the past year.

The prime minister prevaricates, saying he "wouldn't want to make a mistake about my biggest mistake and single out the wrong one" but commits once again to "a proper inquiry in due course".

Hillier homes in on the Test and Trace programme and asks the prime minister if he is "content" with having committed £37bn to it.

Johnson says Test and Trace has been "an extraordinary achievement", adding 80% of the money goes on labs and testing, which is "desperately needed". It has given us "the tools to fight" the virus, he states.

He says the data derived from the Test and Trace programme, in terms of new variants and where they have been arisen, has allowed the government to study "what is happening with the pandemic in a very granular way". He insists it has been of "crucial importance".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-56507669

wanderlust wrote:I think it's very gracious of the German government to apologise for their handling of the coronavirus - a lesson in humility and taking responsibility for their actions and something the Tories could learn from.
It takes balls to take ownership of failures as well as successes, but that's what good management requires.
And Merkel has stepped up to the plate having overseen 50,000 fewer deaths than the Tories despite having a population that's 15 million larger then the UK. Bravo if that's an appropriate expression for not killing as many of your citizens as Boris.

What it will take for the Tories to apologise for overseeing the highest covid death rate of ANY G20 country (1853 per millon*) I can't imagine.

* That's even higher than Brazil where the government was actively thwarting efforts to curb covid until recently, so it's some achievement.

Here are a few insights into how they got us to number 1

What are you on about?

Have you forgotten this???

UK Covid: Johnson 'sorry for every life lost' and takes 'full responsibility' as death toll passes 100,000

The BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, says the government was hoping to contain the number of deaths to 20,000, and it is now five times. She asks what went so wrong. She asks Whitty and Stevens if they can give any idea of the range of the possible totals that they are looking at now.

Johnson replies:

I think on this day I should just really repeat that I am deeply sorry for every life that has been lost and of course as a prime minister I take full responsibility for everything that the government has done.

What I can tell you is that we truly did everything we could and continue to do everything that we can to minimise loss of life and to minimise suffering during what has been a very difficult stage of a very, very difficult crisis for our country.

We will continue to do that. Just as every government that is affected by this crisis around the world is continuing to do the same.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/jan/26/uk-covid-live-vaccine-supply-eu-export-threat-boris-johnson-coronavirus-latest-updates

As for G20 deaths - do you or anyone else really believe the stats from places like Russia, China, Mexico and Brazil?

I certainly don't.

I don’t believe the official stats for the uk TBH.
And there’s a difference between voluntarily apologising for a new measure in advance and blurting out an “apology” retrospectively when asked a direct question on national television. 
The former was “sorry guys but we have to do this - it’s for your own good” whilst the latter was “you’ve caught me out so I’ll say some nice words to minimise damage to my popularity”.

But you knew that when you posted your original inflammatory comment didn’t you?