Generic Virus Thread

[HanoiVillan]

16 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

There's no way you can lock borders long term; it just isn't feasible, the world is too international. People live in other countries. Are expats supposed to just abandon a physical relationship with their family?

You're right, it isn't feasible in the medium term. The good news is it won't be necessary, and we are well into the 'panicking about hypotheticals' stage of things. We simply are not going to keep borders shut for years due to fears about variants that either do not exist yet or that will pose vastly less threat in a vaccinated future. The doomerism is tiresome, it really is.

[sidcow]

9 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Why have we just shut all schools for 6 weeks? 

Well like I said "if it's to be believed" 

Regardless, stats have now come out saying that Teachers are no more statistically at risk  than other professions from when schools were open before so I remain comfortable that age is the best way to go. 

[DCJonah]

5 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Well like I said "if it's to be believed" 

Regardless, stats have now come out saying that Teachers are no more statistically at risk  than other professions from when schools were open before so I remain comfortable that age is the best way to go. 

I think I agree. The whole vaccine process seems to be working so I'm reluctant to want it to change. 

[sidcow]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56240220

Quote

Covid vaccines cut risk of serious illness by 80%

A single shot of either the Oxford-AstraZeneca or the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid jab reduces the chance of needing hospital treatment by more than 80%, an analysis in England shows.

Quote

It was based on people aged over 80 who were the first to receive the jab.

Government scientists hailed the result, but stressed that two doses were needed for the best protection.

Quote

He added: "They may also help to explain why the number of Covid admissions to intensive care units among people over 80 in the UK have dropped to single figures in the last couple of weeks."

Also speaking at the news conference, England's deputy chief medical officer - Prof Jonathan Van-Tam - said the data offered a glimpse of how the vaccine programme "is going to hopefully take us into a very different world in the next few months".

Quote

The data also showed vaccination cuts the risk of people over 70 developing any Covid symptoms by around 60%, three weeks after an initial dose.

Prof Van-Tam said the decision to give the AstraZeneca vaccine to older people was "clearly vindicated".

 

[limpid]

46 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Regardless, stats have now come out saying that Teachers are no more statistically at risk  than other professions from when schools were open before so I remain comfortable that age is the best way to go. 

Source please. This is the opposite of the figures that the government stopped publishing for several months from October about infections in teachers..

[sidcow]

2 minutes ago, limpid said:

Source please. This is the opposite of the figures that the government stopped publishing for several months from October about infections in teachers..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56238468

Quote

School staff do not have a markedly higher risk of infection than other working-age adults, a study suggests.

The number of staff testing positive for Covid antibodies increased by a similar percentage to their peers while schools were fully open.

Experts described the findings as "very reassuring", and suggested efforts by schools to control infections were working.

They said this did not mean teachers were at zero risk, however.

Testing positive for Covid antibodies indicates someone has had the virus in the past.

In December, 15% of teaching and support staff tested positive for antibodies compared to about 18% of people of working age in the same local authorities - giving them about an average risk for their age.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/teachers-at-no-greater-risk-of-covid-than-other-workers-of-their-age-rzglf6pfq

Quote

Teachers and school staff are no more likely to have been infected with the coronavirus than other working-age adults in their local areas, according to a study.

Researchers said that measures put in place in schools, such as creating “bubbles” of a class or year group, increased cleaning regimes and opening windows, were likely to have played a role in minimising risk.

Quote

In December 14.6 per cent of primary staff tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies, indicating past infection, and 15.7 per cent of secondary staff. The comparable figure for community testing was 18.2 per cent.

Dr Shamez Ladhani, consultant paediatrician at Public Health England (PHE) and the study’s chief investigator, said schools should be given credit, adding: “If you look at other institutions such as

Continue reading

 

[mikeyp102]

1 hour ago, Awol said:

 

Domestic holidaying should make up much of the loses tourist businesses in UK face as a result of travel restrictions. 

It really won’t. People go abroad all year round. Domestic travel will only be in the summer months, it will barely touch the sides. 
 

[limpid]

@sidcowthanks. So the govt not releasing the figures was most likely incompetence.

It would be interesting to know how much of a downstream each teacher causes compared to others. If a teacher tests positive, that's a whole class in isolation (unless they change the "rules" AND can get all parents to comply with the new testing plans) and at least one parent having to stay home. A few teachers in a smaller school and that's the whole school closed.

This is the argument for teachers being vaccinated early, rather than anything else.

[blandy]

2 hours ago, Awol said:

we’re not allowed to eat tourists

What! Oh FFS. Health and safety gone mad! Whatever next?

[HanoiVillan]

How is it possible that we are more than a year into the pandemic, and some of our biggest media outlets appear to have literally no idea how the virus is spread?

I challenge the producers of Good Morning Britain to find an example of outdoor transmission through casual exercise anywhere in the world in the last year, and then once they've found one we can discuss it.

When I talk about how most people have no idea how the virus is spread, this is what I mean. This show is a genuine news source for tens if not hundreds of thousands of people. Dismal.

[Awol]

1 hour ago, mikeyp102 said:

It really won’t. People go abroad all year round. Domestic travel will only be in the summer months, it will barely touch the sides. 
 

Not suggesting this is a medium or long term solution, I am suggesting that we might need to be realistic about expectations in the short term and what will/will not be possible. 

We got stung badly last year through a lack of caution and people (in power) not taking worst case scenarios seriously.

This time a worst case includes variants evolving in an unvaccinated RoW to escape current counter measures, then getting into UK and undoing everything. 

Forecasts for many countries to get vaccinated run well into 2022 at the earliest, that’s a lot of time and human hosts for this virus to experiment in. 

I’d rather the government be apologizing later for an over abundance of caution with border controls, than be apologizing for putting the country back into lockdown because they’d crossed their fingers and winged it. Again. 

[snowychap]

Mutations won't just occur in completely (or even largely) unvaccinated populations.

Edited March 2, 2021 by snowychap

[bickster]

10 hours ago, sidcow said:

stats have now come out saying that Teachers are no more statistically at risk  than other professions from when schools were open

So the stats that said they were twice as likely to catch it were just wrong?

[bickster]

7 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

How is it possible that we are more than a year into the pandemic, and some of our biggest media outlets appear to have literally no idea how the virus is spread?

I challenge the producers of Good Morning Britain to find an example of outdoor transmission through casual exercise anywhere in the world in the last year, and then once they've found one we can discuss it.

When I talk about how most people have no idea how the virus is spread, this is what I mean. This show is a genuine news source for tens if not hundreds of thousands of people. Dismal.

Joggers should wear masks 24/7/365 from now until the end of time. I really don't want to see their smarmy look at me I exercise faces... oh yeah... covid... what

I especially include power walkers in this, most notably the woman who is stick thin, about 70 if she's a day and power walks up the middle of our road at all hours of the day

[Genie]

9 hours ago, limpid said:

@sidcowthanks. So the govt not releasing the figures was most likely incompetence.

It would be interesting to know how much of a downstream each teacher causes compared to others. If a teacher tests positive, that's a whole class in isolation (unless they change the "rules" AND can get all parents to comply with the new testing plans) and at least one parent having to stay home. A few teachers in a smaller school and that's the whole school closed.

This is the argument for teachers being vaccinated early, rather than anything else.

They have “refined” the rules at some point. There was positive case in my daughters class and they didn’t isolate the class. Only 1 or 2 children that sat next to the positive student.

[sidcow]

33 minutes ago, bickster said:

So the stats that said they were twice as likely to catch it were just wrong?

I don't know. If these new stats are wrong then the authors of that original study need to come out and prove theirs are better I guess.  Maybe they will respond, they should do. 

The other question is who commissioned both studies? As they say there are lies, damn lies and statistics. 

[sidcow]

8 minutes ago, Genie said:

They have “refined” the rules at some point. There was positive case in my daughters class and they didn’t isolate the class. Only 1 or 2 children that sat next to the positive student.

But now they are testing all pupils twice weekly so that should make the environment much safer than it was.  Also that should settle the question once and for all about how much covid children carry.  They're going to have masses of data on how many test positive.  They will catch all the asymptomatic cases they would have missed last time round. 

[Davkaus]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

Mutations won't just occur in completely (or even largely) unvaccinated populations.

Of course not, it's a lot more likely to mutuate in a less vaccinated population though, and also will find it easier to take hold and spread.

The beauty of having a well vaccinated population and controlled borders is that it makes it far more practical for our world-beating test and trace system to do its job...

[snowychap]

5 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Of course not, it's a lot more likely to mutuate in a less vaccinated population though, and also will find it easier to take hold and spread.

Whilst that may be the case for a normal variant, a 'successful' escape variant may well be as likely if not more in a partly or even mostly vaccinated population - where it would need to be a fit, successful mutation in order to escape. Obviously, worst case kind of scenario and all that.

[limpid]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

They have “refined” the rules at some point. There was positive case in my daughters class and they didn’t isolate the class. Only 1 or 2 children that sat next to the positive student.

They haven't. I hope no-one in that bubble got seriously ill or that might constitute gross negligence (all the way up to manslaughter) against the person that decided they knew better.