Generic Virus Thread

[HanoiVillan]

3 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

That’s because they haven’t had a first wave yet and hopefully never will, but any number of cases over single digits really and it will break out, spreading rampantly like it did everywhere else last year. Also the short lockdowns clearly work because they’ve always contained any outbreaks so far.

They’re locked in and intermittently down until enough people have been vaccinated for herd immunity, and that seems like a slow process at the moment. Not sure why they’re not using AZ in that case.

Yeah, I get that there's not much acquired immunity of course. I'm not convinced about the efficacy of the lockdowns, not least because they are accompanied by what appears to be an extremely good test and trace system; I find it hard to believe the best solution is to lock a few million people in their houses for 48 hours if you've literally got a list of the names of everyone your two cases have been in contact with. That was kind of the purpose of having a good test and trace system in the first place.

[KenjiOgiwara]

8 hours ago, mottaloo said:

You really think that ? Have you any idea of the business Australia has within the ASPAC region ? Heck, they even closed state borders within the country in a hardline manner....and the most important thing was, they did it early with little or no mucking about.

Checked some numbers now. You are right, there's more air travel in Australia than I suspected. But I feel my point some what stands. 

There's more air travel in London through Gatwick, Stanstead and Heathrow than Perth, Sidney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Auckland, Adelaid, Christchurch, Goldcoast combined ( by passenger total). And that's to a single city, while Australia and kiwis have that spread over two continents, two countries and **** knows how many square meters. 

But my maint point that I didn't really explain well, is that the massive traffic into the UK due to it's position in business and tourism, means they were very exposed for the import spread of covid 19.

Then add the fact that the UK is half of Norway in surface area, and you're in for a difficult time. London had a really shit time in April 2020. 

Edited June 29, 2021 by KenjiOgiwara

[Seat68]

6 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Checked some numbers now. You are right, there's more air travel in Australia than I suspected. But I feel my point some what stands. 

There's more air travel in London through Gatwick, Stanstead and Heathrow than Perth, Sidney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Auckland, Adelaid, Christchurch, Goldcoast combined ( by passenger total).

But my maint point that I didn't really explain well, is that the massive traffic into the UK due to it's position in business and tourism, means they were very exposed for the import spread of covid 19.

Then add the fact that the UK is half of Norway in surface area, and you're in for a difficult time. London had a really shit time in April 2020. 

You have to account, a little, that around 35% of Heathrows passengers go on to other destinations. 

[bickster]

11 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Checked some numbers now. You are right, there's more air travel in Australia than I suspected. But I feel my point some what stands. 

There's more air travel in London through Gatwick, Stanstead and Heathrow than Perth, Sidney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Auckland, Adelaid, Christchurch, Goldcoast combined ( by passenger total). And that's to a single city, while Australia and kiwis have that spread over two continents, two countries and **** knows how many square meters. 

But my maint point that I didn't really explain well, is that the massive traffic into the UK due to it's position in business and tourism, means they were very exposed for the import spread of covid 19.

Then add the fact that the UK is half of Norway in surface area, and you're in for a difficult time. London had a really shit time in April 2020. 

London hasn't been the hardest hit area of the UK at all. That would be Greater Manchester. If your reasoning were true. London would have been by far the worst affected area yet it's not remotely close to being the worst

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

You have to account, a little, that around 35% of Heathrows passengers go on to other destinations. 

And that Gatwick and Stanstead (and Luton for that matter) are mainly short haul holiday flights that probably service 50% of the UK population.

[KenjiOgiwara]

6 minutes ago, bickster said:

London hasn't been the hardest hit area of the UK at all. That would be Greater Manchester. If your reasoning were true. London would have been by far the worst affected area yet it's not remotely close to being the worst

I'm talking about being able to control those who carried the virus, i.e. block it out. Not worst affected area of sick people. 

[KenjiOgiwara]

12 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

You have to account, a little, that around 35% of Heathrows passengers go on to other destinations. 

That's the whole point I am making. It's a hub with a lot more passengers and flights than most places. 

[LondonLax]

6 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Yeah, I get that there's not much acquired immunity of course. I'm not convinced about the efficacy of the lockdowns, not least because they are accompanied by what appears to be an extremely good test and trace system; I find it hard to believe the best solution is to lock a few million people in their houses for 48 hours if you've literally got a list of the names of everyone your two cases have been in contact with. That was kind of the purpose of having a good test and trace system in the first place.

The short lockdowns are entirely to support the test and trace system. They need everyone to stop what they are doing for 48 hours while they contact them and tell them to isolate. 

[Seat68]

6 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

That's the whole point I am making. It's a hub with a lot more passengers and flights than most places. 

Is it? I thought you were saying infection came from other countries whereas you have to discount at least 35% of passengers. Thats not accounting for internal travel. 

[KenjiOgiwara]

1 minute ago, Seat68 said:

Is it? I thought you were saying infection came from other countries whereas you have to discount at least 35% of passengers. Thats not accounting for internal travel. 

Yeah, but the spread happens regardless of where you come or go from doesn't it? Whether you commute from London to Manchester you will still create havoc when that one Norwegian skiing alp fanatic acts as a superspreader. This is obviously also why it's more difficult to handle import infection in smaller areas. 

[blandy]

6 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

every time I see an Australian on Twitter talking about covid they are getting extremely concerned about cases in the single digits, and welcoming short lockdowns that to my mind can't possibly be of much help at all given they are shorter than the incubation period of the virus. As you say, it seems like it's going to take a pretty big mental reversal to get to a state of accepting that there just will be covid, forever, and that they can't wait it out.

What they’ve had is, basically “no pandemic” (if we loosely take pandemic to mean 10s of thousands, or more, of dead people, overrun hospitals, furlough, businesses closed and all the rest). Yes they’ve had some deaths, some short lockdowns and inter state and international travel blocks, but they’ve been spared the carnage we’ve had. They’ve seen the wreckage in the rotw, though and really don’t want that, thank you very much. They’re right to be very concerned about cases in single digits. If only the uk had been we’d have been in much less bad shape.

But, because they’ve been living normally there’s been a lack of express impetus to get vaccinated “it’s ok, we don’t have COVID here, I’ll leave it for now”. Then add in vaccine scare stories and getting supplies etc. and they’re in a vulnerable situation if the virus does break out. They know that.

you’re right, they can’t wait it out, but what they can do is go get vaccinated, and come out of all this basically unscathed (comparatively). I guess the killer issue is the travel ban. People stuck abroad can’t get home, and the country can’t open up to foreigners until either all the Aussies are vaccinated or all the foreigners are virus free. So they’re in a wierd stasis of having mostly unfettered and normal lives, but in a bubble.

[NurembergVillan]

Double jabbed as of this morning!  Went to Alderley Edge for it this time.  It was a very different experience than the Etihad!

[ferguson1]

3 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

Double jabbed as of this morning!  Went to Alderley Edge for it this time.  It was a very different experience than the Etihad!

Not seeing Grealish in the car park?

[NurembergVillan]

2 minutes ago, ferguson1 said:

Not seeing Grealish in the car park?

No, he was looking for houses this time!

[bickster]

33 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

Double jabbed as of this morning!  Went to Alderley Edge for it this time.  It was a very different experience than the Etihad!

 Football Stadium and Footballer's Homes

[NurembergVillan]

5 hours ago, bickster said:

 Football Stadium and Footballer's Homes

Zackly.

It was at Alderley Park, which was a very impressive place in itself, but the set-up was amazing. Even the hand sanitizer was bluebell-fragranced.

[jones1328]

The company my wife works for are an absolute shambles. She was told that if any staff member has to self isolate (i.e if they've been pinged by the NHS Covid app and instructed to self isolate) then they'll only be paid SSP for the time they're at home, as the company doesn't have a working from home policy. Even though most members of staff could very easily work from home if the company actually got themselves together and got the systems in place to let people work from home.

However, just to complicate matters, if an employee has been told to self isolate and is seen as a 'crucial employee' then they may be paid their full salary whilst they're at home, at the directors discretion. If a staff member is told to self isolate, then can the company even pick and choose who gets full pay and who gets SSP?! It sounds very dodgy to me. 

And what happens if an employee is told to self isolate but is also told they'll only get SSP whilst they're away from work, but cant afford to be on SSP. Ain't they almost blackmailing staff to attend work even though they should be self isolating.

[Xela]

8 hours ago, NurembergVillan said:

No, he was looking for houses this time!

Lies. He purchased a house last year when he was signing for Man Utd! 

[ender4]

12 hours ago, jones1328 said:

The company my wife works for are an absolute shambles. She was told that if any staff member has to self isolate (i.e if they've been pinged by the NHS Covid app and instructed to self isolate) then they'll only be paid SSP for the time they're at home, as the company doesn't have a working from home policy. Even though most members of staff could very easily work from home if the company actually got themselves together and got the systems in place to let people work from home.

However, just to complicate matters, if an employee has been told to self isolate and is seen as a 'crucial employee' then they may be paid their full salary whilst they're at home, at the directors discretion. If a staff member is told to self isolate, then can the company even pick and choose who gets full pay and who gets SSP?! It sounds very dodgy to me. 

And what happens if an employee is told to self isolate but is also told they'll only get SSP whilst they're away from work, but cant afford to be on SSP. Ain't they almost blackmailing staff to attend work even though they should be self isolating.

That's terrible. 

but just to point out that the choice between paying SSP and a full salary CAN be at management discretion for specific employees.  

As a positive example... my company would normally give full pay up to 3 months and then they would go onto SSP. But we had a guy who's daughter had leukaemia and he was off  'sick' for 10 months to look after her. The MD decided at his discretion to pay him full salary for the whole 10 months.    

It's the same call being made in your wife's company, but in reverse for negative reasons.  It's not dodgy though, just a bit crap and badly thought out.

Edited June 30, 2021 by ender4

[Genie]

BBC
 

Quote

Nearly 2,000 Covid cases in Scotland have been linked to people watching Euro 2020 football matches.

Public Health Scotland said two thirds of the 1,991 cases were people who travelled to London for Scotland's game with England on 18 June. 

This included 397 fans who were inside Wembley for the match.

A relatively small number of cases reported attending the Fanzone in Glasgow, or Scotland's two home matches at Hampden.

Scotland was only allocated 2,600 tickets for the match at Wembley because of Covid restrictions.

But tens of thousands of fans are believed to have travelled to London despite warnings not to do so unless they had a ticket.

About 90% of the cases were male, with three quarters of the total - 1,470 cases - being aged between 20 and 39.

Not good but “the news” really need to be reporting hospitalisations now.  It would also be useful to know the vaccination status of those who caught Covid.

Its like having constant stories about people with a cold in winter.

Edited June 30, 2021 by Genie