Generic Virus Thread

[bickster]

11 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

You can sign up next week can’t you? Not saying that approach is right, and you’ll still have to wait for everyone else to get vaccinated if they do take that approach.

Meanwhile in a remarkable turnaround it seems like I’ll be getting a jab here in Poland myself earlier than I’ll be offered it in the UK (32 and in fine fettle). Next Saturday, a Boris & Boris one shot and then I’m coming for my battered chips, fish and gravy with my shiny blue vaccine passport.

You'll be arrested at customs for planning to commit a food crime. The authorities have already been informed of your evil intentions

You will have to quarantine in a gravyless chip shop of the governments choosing at a cost of £200 a night (food not included) for an entire month

Edited April 29, 2021 by bickster

[mjmooney]

14 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

People thinking 'yeah it's normal we need a vaccination to work from the office'. 

It is. 

Edited April 29, 2021 by mjmooney

[fightoffyour]

Forgot to add, I presume the reason for me being able to get a vaccine here already is that the uptake is relatively low rather than that the program has accelerated beyond the pace of the UK’s.

[Mic09]

7 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

It is. 

is not.

;)

[It's Your Round]

48 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

We had a zoom team meeting yesterday and were presented with 4 options:

Work from home only going into an office very infrequently.

Work from office

Predominantly work from home with option to go into office

Predominantly work from office with option to work from home

Pretty much everyone chose option 1. I chose option 3. Then everyone was asked for any concerns they had if they had to go back into office and I was shocked by some of the things people came out with. Such things as how would I know what the person I am sat by had been up to, where they'd been the night before, who they had been in contact with, if they were socially distancing away from office etc. How will we know who has/hasn't had the vaccine.

As part of my job I spend 50% of my time on site so have since covid came about continued to be out and about, interacting with people etc. Those who have been totally home based though it was clear are now seeing the world as a scary place and even simple interactions with colleagues are now a big deal. I can understand them being anxious but the longer they live like this the harder it will be to get back to normal.

I am under no illusions where I work we will never go back to all being in the office again. I ideally want the option to go in sometimes though just so I can separate the home/work environment.

Some of my colleagues are like this, they’ve spent the entire lockdown staying in the house. Not even going to supermarkets for food or for walks to clear their heads. I mentioned that I was driving down to Telford to seen my mum who lives alone and hasn’t seen anyone for a year (technically I’m her bubble), the reaction was to question me about whether that’s really necessary!
 

There’s a lot of fear out there, and I’m all for being careful but some people are so scared to death of catching the virus that they’ve boxed themselves in completely. They are really going to struggle with the transition to normality. 

[Mic09]

12 minutes ago, It's Your Round said:

Some of my colleagues are like this, they’ve spent the entire lockdown staying in the house. Not even going to supermarkets for food or for walks to clear their heads. I mentioned that I was driving down to Telford to seen my mum who lives alone and hasn’t seen anyone for a year (technically I’m her bubble), the reaction was to question me about whether that’s really necessary!
 

There’s a lot of fear out there, and I’m all for being careful but some people are so scared to death of catching the virus that they’ve boxed themselves in completely. They are really going to struggle with the transition to normality. 

It's incredible how the human brain works - while it's not healthy, they should learn to adapt, (and it's a bit stupid to live in fear of this virus) I don't blame your colleagues at all.

We are programmed to think that so many people die - not that the mortality is somewhere around the 1-1.5% for the average person, and if you look after yourself, exercise, don't eat shit, that mortality is likely to drastically drop down further. 

We tend to look at the worst case scenarios. I know flying is mostly safe, but I hate flying and I'm scared of it. I do fly, and I know it's stupid to fear it, but I can't help it.

While I'm terrified, I know I have to get on with it because it's incredibly unlikely something bad will happen in an airplane. I wonder if the people who are terrified of the virus will live to think similarly?

Surely it won't be like this in 2025?

Edited April 29, 2021 by Mic09

[bickster]

8 minutes ago, It's Your Round said:

Some of my colleagues are like this, they’ve spent the entire lockdown staying in the house. Not even going to supermarkets for food or for walks to clear their heads. I mentioned that I was driving down to Telford to seen my mum who lives alone and hasn’t seen anyone for a year (technically I’m her bubble), the reaction was to question me about whether that’s really necessary!
 

There’s a lot of fear out there, and I’m all for being careful but some people are so scared to death of catching the virus that they’ve boxed themselves in completely. They are really going to struggle with the transition to normality. 

I don't think any of these people live in Liverpool

We know we've been relatively busy in comparison to other companies worldwide but we were told yesterday by our software suppliers, that we have been the company with the most active cars worldwide that use their services during the pandemic. That might sound like a small boast but we use an Aussie company and they are one of the very few players in the market that can handle very large fleets, they essentially run nearly every cab firm in Australia, large fleet in Singapore, Scandinavia, the US. The Aussie Cab firms are HUGE monolithic companies that cover entire states

I get the impression that this city have been consistently breaking Lockdown for the best part of a year now.

[sidcow]

28 minutes ago, It's Your Round said:

There’s a lot of fear out there, and I’m all for being careful but some people are so scared to death of catching the virus that they’ve boxed themselves in completely. 

150,000 dead with brilliant early vaccine rollout and lockdown will make most sane people a tad worried. 

[markavfc40]

14 minutes ago, sidcow said:

150,000 dead with brilliant early vaccine rollout and lockdown will make most sane people a tad worried. 

Especially when a large proportion of those deaths could have been prevented had we have had a competent government that when it was clear to see what was coming had locked down earlier on two occasions. 

We have a government with blood on their hands who are happily cleaning it off with some of the billions of pounds they have funnelled to their family, friends and donors off the back of covid.

[Straggler]

I have been one of the mostly isolated / strict lockdown adherents for the last year.  I got my first jab last week so I am staring down the reality of getting back out into the world.  We’ve not been complete hermits, I have 2 kids so there is the walk to and from school every day and we have seen friends in the garden when permissible, but always with good social distancing practiced.  We took social distancing very seriously from the start largely because my wife is in a couple of the more vulnerable categories and we don’t want to see her suffer or die from this disease if we can avoid it.  Obviously we have had to understand the risk of having kids attending school and we deal with that, and to be fair the schools have been great at providing tests etc to make the environment as safe as is reasonable.

I get that the mortality rate is low, but when you are my wife it is higher and even if it doesn’t kill you the chances of suffering badly from Covid or getting longer term complications from it are significant enough to warrant serious concern.  So I’d like to present the case for the people who don’t want to come back to the office or are struggling to readjust.  For me going back into the office means going back into the London Tube during rush hour.  The thought of being crushed together with a carriage full of people in those humid airless conditions is, after a year plus of not having to do it is deeply unpleasant and worrying to me.  You can’t socially distance down there and you will be getting exposed to hundreds of people every day.  I didn’t like the tube before covid now it feels like a petri dish for variant development.

Again, it’s not the mortality rate, what of the numbers who went on ventilators and survived, the % who had to get sent to hospital and got out ok, what about the numbers with long covid, it isn’t the flu it is proper horrible for a decent % of people who catch it even if it doesn’t kill you.  For my wife she has a one in 10 shot (roughly) of something significantly bad happening to her if infected. 

Related to this is just who I am as a person.  I’m not a fan of crowded places.  This may be an odd thing to say for someone who has been coming to Villa Park for 35 years, that works in London, uses the tube etc, but I’m not phobic, I would just rather open spaces.  So I take all my personal circumstances and then look at what I get out of working from an office space.  The answer is not all that much.  There are community bits I miss, the problem solving that is quicker with impromptu meetings just strolling over to the person you need.  However I put value on my undisturbed time, concentrating on the jobs I need to get done without being disturbed by passers by.  And I get disturbed a lot because I’m just damn fun to be around and very approachable…..

In my personal life I have attached great value to the time I am no longer using to commute (we are talking a good 4 hours a day I have got back).  I took up exercising, I’m fitter and stronger than I have been at any time in my adult life and I love it.  I train with my eldest son so am getting great time hanging out with him.  I do the school run for my youngest, I get to help make dinner, I understand what the kids are doing at school and I can help with homework, I have even managed to attend parent teacher meetings.

So yeah I have a bunch of reasons why I don’t want to go back to the office.  Some of it worry, some of it because I don’t trust our “let the bodies pile up” govt to keep us safe and some of it because my work life balance improved by not travelling so damn much.  I get why so many people are keen to get back, we all have different circumstances and needs, but I don’t want the rush back to ‘normal’ to be a thing because for many of us that normal is unhealthy and there is a better way.  This is not meant as a criticism of those that want to go back, it’s just there to show that there are probably nuances behind people saying they don’t want to go back to the office that run deeper than being scared of a virus especially as the risk diminishes so significantly with the vaccine.  I don’t think I would say all of this as open and honestly in an office setting, I can’t imagine I’m the only one.

[It's Your Round]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

150,000 dead with brilliant early vaccine rollout and lockdown will make most sane people a tad worried. 

Definitely, and I’ve been one of them. 

[KenjiOgiwara]

Maybe this has been discussed, but I haven't seen in. With the rumours of need for a shot 3-4 etc. to keep the vaccination effect going. What's the likelihood of this becoming an annual vaccination?

If it becomes and annual thing, will it most likely be for those who are in the risk groups like we already see for other influenzas? Or will the degree of contagion mean we need to vaccinate everyone?

Since vaccination doesn't actually offer immunity I assume the degree of contagion is relevant when it comes to keeping the infections down?

[HanoiVillan]

4 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

We had a zoom team meeting yesterday and were presented with 4 options:

Work from home only going into an office very infrequently.

Work from office

Predominantly work from home with option to go into office

Predominantly work from office with option to work from home

Pretty much everyone chose option 1. I chose option 3. Then everyone was asked for any concerns they had if they had to go back into office and I was shocked by some of the things people came out with. Such things as how would I know what the person I am sat by had been up to, where they'd been the night before, who they had been in contact with, if they were socially distancing away from office etc. How will we know who has/hasn't had the vaccine.

As part of my job I spend 50% of my time on site so have since covid came about continued to be out and about, interacting with people etc. Those who have been totally home based though it was clear are now seeing the world as a scary place and even simple interactions with colleagues are now a big deal. I can understand them being anxious but the longer they live like this the harder it will be to get back to normal.

I am under no illusions where I work we will never go back to all being in the office again. I ideally want the option to go in sometimes though just so I can separate the home/work environment.

I was listening to PM last night, and they had a segment where a woman reported from some sort of social event in Liverpool, where there were about a hundred people indoors (not sure what it was, she didn't say and I turned it off before the explanation). It was only brief segment, but the whole thing was her literally gasping at the sight of people without masks, gasping at somebody brushing her elbow while walking past, etc. If I'd heard it before covid I would have assumed it was about a woman with some crippling phobia trying to get over her fears.

It's hard for me to understand, because I just don't feel that way, but obviously it's going to take some people a loooong time to get over this year. Sadly, I think the politics that this phobia of other people will bring is going to be horrific.

[sidcow]

1 minute ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Maybe this has been discussed, but I haven't seen in. With the rumours of need for a shot 3-4 etc. to keep the vaccination effect going. What's the likelihood of this becoming an annual vaccination?

If it becomes and annual thing, will it most likely be for those who are in the risk groups like we already see for other influenzas? Or will the degree of contagion mean we need to vaccinate everyone?

Since vaccination doesn't actually offer immunity I assume the degree of contagion is relevant when it comes to keeping the infections down?

Apparently the 60m extra Pfizer doses the UK Government ordered yesterday are for Autumn booster jabs and it's uncertain if they are for new variants, but most reports say they are still just the existing vaccine. 

I suspect they will need to do at least 1 more next year for new variants.  

I would guess after that it will depend on a lot of things:

How well the global vaccination rollout has gone

How well this controls all known variations

How long immunity lasts for

How much Coronavirus remains in general circulation 

How many new variants emerge. 

 

Most experts seem to think it's here forever and we will need annual jabs, at least for the most vulnerable will be needed, however the vaccines seem to work much better than anyone hoped, and seem to stop transmission better than they hoped.  Bearing in mind these vaccines were also their very first efforts developed in a hurry who knows. Maybe a second generation of vaccines will come out which are even more effective and we can get to the point where the virus can be backed into a corner with no way to spread. 

These mRNA vaccines are a brand new technology, maybe we can beat diseases in ways never thought possible before. 

I think a big key is going to be getting third world countries vaccinated so pockets don't remain to spring up all the time. 

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Maybe this has been discussed, but I haven't seen in. With the rumours of need for a shot 3-4 etc. to keep the vaccination effect going. What's the likelihood of this becoming an annual vaccination?

If it becomes and annual thing, will it most likely be for those who are in the risk groups like we already see for other influenzas? Or will the degree of contagion mean we need to vaccinate everyone?

Since vaccination doesn't actually offer immunity I assume the degree of contagion is relevant when it comes to keeping the infections down?

There are already second generation vaccines in development, they may completely change the game

But....

Quote

for other influenzas

This is not the flu.

[mjmooney]

22 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Maybe this has been discussed, but I haven't seen in. With the rumours of need for a shot 3-4 etc. to keep the vaccination effect going. What's the likelihood of this becoming an annual vaccination?

If it becomes and annual thing, will it most likely be for those who are in the risk groups like we already see for other influenzas? Or will the degree of contagion mean we need to vaccinate everyone?

Since vaccination doesn't actually offer immunity I assume the degree of contagion is relevant when it comes to keeping the infections down?

Probably just the vulnerable and elderly. I get a flu jab every year. I imagine I'll be getting a covid one with it in future. 

[villakram]

1 hour ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Maybe this has been discussed, but I haven't seen in. With the rumours of need for a shot 3-4 etc. to keep the vaccination effect going. What's the likelihood of this becoming an annual vaccination?

If it becomes and annual thing, will it most likely be for those who are in the risk groups like we already see for other influenzas? Or will the degree of contagion mean we need to vaccinate everyone?

Since vaccination doesn't actually offer immunity I assume the degree of contagion is relevant when it comes to keeping the infections down?

It's already endemic and the question now if of persistence, i.,e will it become the flu, with yearly flare-ups and vaccines programs or will it die off in coming years as happened after the 1918 pandemic. The human immune system is really good at adapting to these corona viruses, which while they do mutate, do so much less aggressively than the flu. My reading is that this is very much an unknown right now.

As things open back up (NYC announced full opening come June 1 this morn), I'm interested when the messaging changes to using endemic instead of pandemic or perhaps that's somewhat silly given the ongoing outbreaks globally.

[sharkyvilla]

Going to the office occasionally but working from home most of the time seems the best model for working to me.  This is as someone who doesn't have the option to work from home and wants to chin several colleagues.  I can understand why people miss the interaction but I reckon it won't be long until that novelty wears off.

[Follyfoot]

5 hours ago, Mic09 said:

It's incredible how the human brain works - while it's not healthy, they should learn to adapt, (and it's a bit stupid to live in fear of this virus) I don't blame your colleagues at all.

We are programmed to think that so many people die - not that the mortality is somewhere around the 1-1.5% for the average person, and if you look after yourself, exercise, don't eat shit, that mortality is likely to drastically drop down further. 

We tend to look at the worst case scenarios. I know flying is mostly safe, but I hate flying and I'm scared of it. I do fly, and I know it's stupid to fear it, but I can't help it.

While I'm terrified, I know I have to get on with it because it's incredibly unlikely something bad will happen in an airplane. I wonder if the people who are terrified of the virus will live to think similarly?

Surely it won't be like this in 2025?

improvise adapt overcome

OORAH !!

[Jonesy7211]

Had a company wide "briefing" from our CEO today, via Teams. He wants everyone back in the office asap. His reasoning - "I couldn't get a table at a restaurant in Central London yesterday because it was so busy. People are happy to socialize, but apprehensive about returning to an office. I want to see everyone in." This was to 300 people. Nothing better than basing your company policy on sweeping generalizations eh? And I'm not paraphrasing my CEO. He really said this.

I felt very angry at this and offered my resignation to my boss. I've been shielding since the first lockdown and haven't even been to the corner shop. I walk my dog in the fields and go to hospital every 8 weeks. That's it for my "socializing". I'm extremely vulnerable to covid so have been very cautious.

There's going to be a real difference of opinion in this country about when things are safe and when they're not, and for a whole lot of different reasons. Some valid, and some absolutely idiotic, like my CEO.