Generic Virus Thread

[Xela]

3 hours ago, Genie said:

I noticed on the interactive vaccine map that the big cities are all behind everywhere else with first vaccines.

Are they genuinely lagging behind, or are people who live in the cities refusing it?

I would guess (and its only that) that areas with higher percentages of minorities have lower vaccination rates, due to higher distrust of the authorities. 

 

[Mark Albrighton]

3 minutes ago, sharkyvilla said:

It sounds like they're taking the 'it's better now than doing it in colder months' approach.  Kids won't be mixing in classrooms either so they should cut transmission a fair bit I'd have thought.  On balance I'm for the relaxation now it seems the vaccine has been effective against the Delta variant in terms of hospitalisations, whereas 4 weeks ago it was too early to tell.

To my mind, the kids are kinda regulated at school. Smaller groups, kept apart, that sort of thing. I would guess that during the six weeks holiday, with restrictions now ultimately “as you like”, replicating that would be non existent.

It’s a fair point about the potential warmer weather, hopefully means everyone is outside more.

It’s the threat of long covid that’s my main worry.

[Xela]

2 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

We’re in a shared office space.

My office is a long, narrow island surrounded by corridor on all four sides. Due to Covid policies the landlord has installed a perfectly reasonable one way system, even swapping out some carpet tiles for directional arrow tiles. We also wear masks in communal corridors. All very commendable.

However, this means that on nipping out to the WC, I then have a choice of walking around 98% of the circumference of the office, or walking 3 metres the wrong way up the one way corridor. Obviously, being an adult I can see that popping back against the direction arrows for what is literally 4 paces is unlikely to lead to anyone’s untimely death.

Today, nipping back in to the office the wrong way up the one way, a woman from another office spotted me and frankly went absolutely nuts about it. About how I was breaking covid rules, about how ‘it isn’t over’ and how she can’t believe people even now in July 2021 still don’t understand the rules.

I mean technically, she’s right, she’s caught me. But equally, **** off darling, you chatting shit stood in the corridor is a much greater risk. But I knew she was right, struggled for a quick retort, as i was already back in my own office. So I, er, laughed. I’m not proud, but yeah I just laughed and walked away.

This did not help the situation and 20 minutes later we had a building wide email from the landlord about observing covid protocols for our own safety and the safety and health of others.

I am a bad man. 

 

Walk backwards for the 3 metres. That'll stump her. 

 

[Xela]

Number of cases isn't really the metric we should be looking at is it? If more people are tested, more people will have it. 

Just need to go on hospital admissions and deaths surely? 

[sharkyvilla]

4 minutes ago, Mark Albrighton said:

To my mind, the kids are kinda regulated at school. Smaller groups, kept apart, that sort of thing. I would guess that during the six weeks holiday, with restrictions now ultimately “as you like”, replicating that would be non existent.

It’s a fair point about the potential warmer weather, hopefully means everyone is outside more.

It’s the threat of long covid that’s my main worry.

I doubt many kids will be socialising indoors with dozens of people in the holidays which is surely the main problem, even if schools have done their best to minimise mixing there is still more chance of the virus getting around that way.  Like you, I'm worried about getting long covid, my mate is still suffering from it and he is several years younger than me.  That said I think Chris Witty said that long covid is actually several syndromes rather than covid itself, so I'd hope that the vaccine meaning that serious illness is very unlikely will mean there will be fewer other complications that make up 'long covid'.  He said there isn't enough data yet to confirm it yet though.

[Davkaus]

I didn't see the conference but it reads like there's an expectation that this is a temporary reprieve and things are locking down again over the winter?

[Mark Albrighton]

9 minutes ago, sharkyvilla said:

I doubt many kids will be socialising indoors with dozens of people in the holidays which is surely the main problem, even if schools have done their best to minimise mixing there is still more chance of the virus getting around that way.  Like you, I'm worried about getting long covid, my mate is still suffering from it and he is several years younger than me.  That said I think Chris Witty said that long covid is actually several syndromes rather than covid itself, so I'd hope that the vaccine meaning that serious illness is very unlikely will mean there will be fewer other complications that make up 'long covid'.  He said there isn't enough data yet to confirm it yet though.

I’m thinking soft plays, cinemas, swimming pools…hopefully you’re correct. 

I didn’t see the story but I just heard the news headline about a Birmingham pub saying they’ll be keeping the mask policy. Personally I’d be happy to see and hear more of that level of caution.
 

[sharkyvilla]

20 minutes ago, Xela said:

Number of cases isn't really the metric we should be looking at is it? If more people are tested, more people will have it. 

Just need to go on hospital admissions and deaths surely? 

Yes these graphs show how effective the vaccine has been and I assume what they've largely judged things on.  They just had to take time to work out what the Delta variant was doing to people.

[sidcow]

3 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

We’re in a shared office space.

My office is a long, narrow island surrounded by corridor on all four sides. Due to Covid policies the landlord has installed a perfectly reasonable one way system, even swapping out some carpet tiles for directional arrow tiles. We also wear masks in communal corridors. All very commendable.

However, this means that on nipping out to the WC, I then have a choice of walking around 98% of the circumference of the office, or walking 3 metres the wrong way up the one way corridor. Obviously, being an adult I can see that popping back against the direction arrows for what is literally 4 paces is unlikely to lead to anyone’s untimely death.

Today, nipping back in to the office the wrong way up the one way, a woman from another office spotted me and frankly went absolutely nuts about it. About how I was breaking covid rules, about how ‘it isn’t over’ and how she can’t believe people even now in July 2021 still don’t understand the rules.

I mean technically, she’s right, she’s caught me. But equally, **** off darling, you chatting shit stood in the corridor is a much greater risk. But I knew she was right, struggled for a quick retort, as i was already back in my own office. So I, er, laughed. I’m not proud, but yeah I just laughed and walked away.

This did not help the situation and 20 minutes later we had a building wide email from the landlord about observing covid protocols for our own safety and the safety and health of others.

I am a bad man. 

 

@chrisp65 on the way for a piss. 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, sharkyvilla said:

Yes these graphs show how effective the vaccine has been and I assume what they've largely judged things on.  They just had to take time to work out what the Delta variant was doing to people.

Nothing against what you've said but those two graphs are not follwing similar paths in any shape or form. One is a peaking Bell curve, the other is growing exponentially and not showing any signs of stopping

[bickster]

3 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

We’re in a shared office space.

My office is a long, narrow island surrounded by corridor on all four sides. Due to Covid policies the landlord has installed a perfectly reasonable one way system, even swapping out some carpet tiles for directional arrow tiles. We also wear masks in communal corridors. All very commendable.

However, this means that on nipping out to the WC, I then have a choice of walking around 98% of the circumference of the office, or walking 3 metres the wrong way up the one way corridor. Obviously, being an adult I can see that popping back against the direction arrows for what is literally 4 paces is unlikely to lead to anyone’s untimely death.

Today, nipping back in to the office the wrong way up the one way, a woman from another office spotted me and frankly went absolutely nuts about it. About how I was breaking covid rules, about how ‘it isn’t over’ and how she can’t believe people even now in July 2021 still don’t understand the rules.

I mean technically, she’s right, she’s caught me. But equally, **** off darling, you chatting shit stood in the corridor is a much greater risk. But I knew she was right, struggled for a quick retort, as i was already back in my own office. So I, er, laughed. I’m not proud, but yeah I just laughed and walked away.

This did not help the situation and 20 minutes later we had a building wide email from the landlord about observing covid protocols for our own safety and the safety and health of others.

I am a bad man. 

 

Quick Michael Jackson moonwalk next time, that'll confuse the f*** out of her

We have a circulatory route in our call centre (which is by and large empty and we have no plans to fill it), not once have I followed it. Stupid rules should be treated as just that

[Mozzavfc]

2 hours ago, Xela said:

Number of cases isn't really the metric we should be looking at is it? If more people are tested, more people will have it. 

Just need to go on hospital admissions and deaths surely? 

I assume the worry is the more people that catch it, the more chance of a new variant, which is resistant to the vaccine

I agree that hospitalisations should be the metric though

[Genie]

Does Boris have the balls to keep his foot on the gas when it’s 20,000, 40,000, 80,000, 100,000 daily infections again?

Are they going to get the hospitals doing routine ops again or are they going to wait and see what happens?

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, Mozzavfc said:

I assume the worry is the more people that catch it, the more chance of a new variant, which is resistant to the vaccine

This will be a possibility forever. It happens every year with the flu. There's not much that can be done about it.

[StefanAVFC]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

This will be a possibility forever. It happens every year with the flu. There's not much that can be done about it.

Yep.

What is the solution people propose other than endless lockdowns and reopenings?

[Keyblade]

9 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Yep.

What is the solution people propose other than endless lockdowns and reopenings?

If hospitals get overrun again, I don't see an alternative?

[StefanAVFC]

1 minute ago, Keyblade said:

If hospitals get overrun again, I don't see an alternative?

Until when?

[HanoiVillan]

4 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

If hospitals get overrun again, I don't see an alternative?

Well that's very much a 'we'll cross that bridge when we come to it' situation isn't it.

Obviously if a vaccine-resistant strain emerges and is highly lethal, then we will have to address that. But that's a tomorrow problem, and very much not a certainty in either the short or medium term.

[Keyblade]

8 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Until when?

Whenever that happens, if it does, then as long as it takes for the numbers to be manageable again I'd imagine.

Unless you were against lockdowns from the very beginning, this is a weird slippery slope argument. I get that people are starting to get fed up, but nothing has changed. We're still dealing with a potentially deadly disease, just like we were at the start, so if this was always going to be life moving forward, what was ever the point of taking any measures in the first place? 

[StefanAVFC]

36 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Whenever that happens, if it does, then as long as it takes for the numbers to be manageable again I'd imagine.

Unless you were against lockdowns from the very beginning, this is a weird slippery slope argument. I get that people are starting to get fed up, but nothing has changed. We're still dealing with a potentially deadly disease, just like we were at the start, so if this was always going to be life moving forward, what was ever the point of taking any measures in the first place? 

Lots changed. 

Millions of vaccinated people for one. 

Eventually we have to accept some level of covid. Until hospitalizations and deaths go to unacceptable levels again, we have to learn to live with it. 

Edited July 5, 2021 by StefanAVFC