Genie Posted December 30, 2021 Share Posted December 30, 2021 13 minutes ago, bickster said: Worse in what way? That it’s caused the reintroduction of additional restrictions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted December 30, 2021 Moderator Share Posted December 30, 2021 Just now, Genie said: That it’s caused the reintroduction of additional restrictions. Yes but worse restrictions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted December 30, 2021 Share Posted December 30, 2021 7 minutes ago, bickster said: Yes but worse restrictions? I don’t understand what you’re getting at sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted December 30, 2021 Moderator Share Posted December 30, 2021 1 minute ago, Genie said: I don’t understand what you’re getting at sorry. You said Omicron made it worse and when asked why, you said it was because it introduced additional restrictions. I'm saying the current restrictions are nothing like what we've had to do endure the early stages of the pandemic, so Omicron hasn't made things worse. It's actually possible that Omicron is the beginning of the end. Like Blandy says, there maybe a few more years of this but I doubt anything will be as bad as what has gone before Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted December 30, 2021 Share Posted December 30, 2021 9 minutes ago, blandy said: Sure, vaccines won’t wipe covid from the face of the earth, but they’ll be needed for years to come. The virus will continue to mutate, because that’s what coronaviruses all do. It’s not going to blow itself out, with Omricon, there’s way too many people unprotected across the world for that to happen. I reckon we’re years away from zero constraints and restrictions, but we’ll get used to them as part of daily life. I was reading and watching some of the material from the end of 2020. It seem to have been sold as life back to normal by Easter. Of course the virus wouldn’t be eradicated but I think they over stated how much of the heavy lifting the vaccines would be doing. We didn’t expect the virus to vanish, but did we expect it to still be putting so much pressure on normality at this stage? When things do get back to normality will it be driven by medicine or by normal mutations of the virus to something less intrusive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted December 30, 2021 Share Posted December 30, 2021 34 minutes ago, LondonLax said: Well you’re not going to give out AZ in this wave because it’s useless for stopping the transmission but I had read that if you had AZ first and mRNA second you were at a bit of an advantage over those who had mRNA for all three. I’ll see if I can find where I read it, I think it was one of the Australian papers. Edit: Here’s a link discussing it: https://patient.info/news-and-features/what-are-the-benefits-of-mixing-and-matching-covid-19-booster-vaccines If that turns out to be true, those of us that have three Pfizer (anecdata - me, my wife and pretty much everyone of my age group that I know) will be told to get a bit of AstraZeneca in us at the first available opportunity given it'll work better? I mean, it may well be the case. It just feels a bit like convenient face-saving from a significant portion of the Government and the Brexit press who spend the first part of 2021 losing their collective shit at the rest of the world saying that they didn't think the AZ vaccine was as good as the others. And are now sheepishly saying that maybe it isn't as good as some of the others. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted December 30, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted December 30, 2021 35 minutes ago, Genie said: I wonder how the vaccine programme will be looked at in years to come? Before the rollout it was hailed as the ticket out of the pandemic, everyone gets a jab and we all go back to normal. But it never really happened that way, even before Omicron. We were still contained by the virus. Omicron made it worse. The exit from the pandemic isn’t going to be a vaccine I don’t think. It’s going to have to blow itself out, maybe Omicron is that mutation. Well I don't know about you but before Omicron I was travelling into the office on public transport. Going to pubs and restaurants, going to the cinema and theatres. My lad finally managed to get his nightclub life going. People were jetting away on holiday. None of which would have happened without the vaccine. Look at the graphs of new cases steep rise and steep falls after the vaccination programme got up to speed. It's an amazing graphic visualisation of how the pandemic changed. And if Omicron was more deadly and the vaccines totally ineffective I'm sure they would have rushed out new ones by now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted December 30, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted December 30, 2021 (edited) Remember when Germany were held up as the perfect example of how to deal with the pandemic and we were an omnishambles? Adjusted for population sizes their death figures are now only 10,000 behind ours and the gap is closing all the time. It will probably end up not so far away from us at all. I'm convinced our problem was that we got Delta earlier than other countries. Edited December 30, 2021 by sidcow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted December 30, 2021 Share Posted December 30, 2021 Just to be clear, I’m not saying the vaccine was a waste of time or anything like that. We’d be **** without it. Just what will it’s role be remembered as when we look back overall. I think it’s role will have been a containment action for a shorter period than expected. We really need the virus to evolve into something that stops putting people in hospital in large numbers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted December 30, 2021 Share Posted December 30, 2021 20 minutes ago, bickster said: You said Omicron made it worse and when asked why, you said it was because it introduced additional restrictions. I'm saying the current restrictions are nothing like what we've had to do endure the early stages of the pandemic, so Omicron hasn't made things worse. It's actually possible that Omicron is the beginning of the end. Like Blandy says, there maybe a few more years of this but I doubt anything will be as bad as what has gone before We had restrictions, then a wave of Omicron arrives (onto a largely vaccinated population) and we have some more restrictions on top. I said a week or 2 back that hopefully this is the beginning of the end. It’s the herd immunity that was plan A hence my point about the role of medicine. We all thought vaccines were the ticket out of this, but in fact the vaccines have played their part buying us time whilst we waited for a favourable mutation (even if it arrived like a rocket). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted December 30, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted December 30, 2021 3 minutes ago, Genie said: We had restrictions, then a wave of Omicron arrives (onto a largely vaccinated population) and we have some more restrictions on top. I said a week or 2 back that hopefully this is the beginning of the end. It’s the herd immunity that was plan A hence my point about the role of medicine. We all thought vaccines were the ticket out of this, but in fact the vaccines have played their part buying us time whilst we waited for a favourable mutation (even if it arrived like a rocket). To answer your question I think history will look back and go **** me backwards with a barge pole. It was amazing what they did with vaccines back then to dig mankind out of a hole. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted December 30, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted December 30, 2021 1 minute ago, sidcow said: To answer your question I think history will look back and go **** me backwards with a barge pole. It was amazing what they did with vaccines back then to dig mankind out of a hole. Unless 95% of the worlds population is wiped out by them and Piers Corbyn is president of the world declaring new laws via the medium of hip hop. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted December 30, 2021 Moderator Share Posted December 30, 2021 9 minutes ago, Genie said: We had restrictions, then a wave of Omicron arrives (onto a largely vaccinated population) and we have some more restrictions on top. What restrictions did we have immediately before Omicron? Life was pretty normal. And in reality what restrictions do we have now? Life is still pretty normal. I really don't think much has changed for me personally at all. I get up, I go to work, I come home, I go to work, I come home, I go shopping, I can go to the pub, I can go out to eat. Seems pretty normal. I just have to wear a mask every now and again. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted December 30, 2021 Share Posted December 30, 2021 Maths question: Student is home for the holidays. Booster jab is booked in for 10:45a.m., at a vaccine centre 10 minutes drive away. What time do I suggest they might want to get out of bed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted December 30, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted December 30, 2021 Just now, chrisp65 said: Maths question: Student is home for the holidays. Booster jab is booked in for 10:45a.m., at a vaccine centre 10 minutes drive away. What time do I suggest they might want to get out of bed? 10.35 obviously 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted December 30, 2021 Share Posted December 30, 2021 27 minutes ago, Genie said: We had restrictions, then a wave of Omicron arrives (onto a largely vaccinated population) and we have some more restrictions on top. I said a week or 2 back that hopefully this is the beginning of the end. It’s the herd immunity that was plan A hence my point about the role of medicine. We all thought vaccines were the ticket out of this, but in fact the vaccines have played their part buying us time whilst we waited for a favourable mutation (even if it arrived like a rocket). It's role has been huge in preventing deaths. It's not about not catching Covid. It's about making covid less deadly when people catch it. Vaccines have been a game changer in terms of how we have dealt with the virus and saved many many lives Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted December 30, 2021 Moderator Share Posted December 30, 2021 39 minutes ago, sidcow said: I'm convinced our problem was that we got Delta earlier than other countries. Not sure that is the correct analysis tbh. I'm also not sure what is either I think it is wiser to say that we recognised the Delta variant earlier than other countries, they have no idea if it actually originated here. That it was first recognised in Kent also makes me think it was actually imported from elsewhere. We and South Africa were doing far more analysis than other countries at the time. I also really can't remember what restrictions were in place over in that Europe at the time Delta was recognised Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted December 30, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted December 30, 2021 1 minute ago, bickster said: Not sure that is the correct analysis tbh. I'm also not sure what is either I think it is wiser to say that we recognised the Delta variant earlier than other countries, they have no idea if it actually originated here. That it was first recognised in Kent also makes me think it was actually imported from elsewhere. We and South Africa were doing far more analysis than other countries at the time. I also really can't remember what restrictions were in place over in that Europe at the time Delta was recognised Delta originated in India. It was referred to as The Indian variant for ages in the press till the WHO decided to stamp out that nonsense and announce the naming system. It is what was responsible for all those horrible scenes in India and seemed to take off here much earlier than in the rest of Europe. Presumably because we have much stronger ties to India than other European nations. It's also the reason why India blocked a big shipment of AZ vaccine which was destined for the UK and instead used it for their own people which caused a big slowdown in our own vaccination programme for a couple of weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted December 30, 2021 Share Posted December 30, 2021 20 minutes ago, bickster said: What restrictions did we have immediately before Omicron? Life was pretty normal. And in reality what restrictions do we have now? Life is still pretty normal. I really don't think much has changed for me personally at all. I get up, I go to work, I come home, I go to work, I come home, I go shopping, I can go to the pub, I can go out to eat. Seems pretty normal. I just have to wear a mask every now and again. There are restrictions on many things. I’m not complaining about them, but it’s a fact. We had some, then we had more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted December 30, 2021 Moderator Share Posted December 30, 2021 3 minutes ago, sidcow said: Delta originated in India. It was referred to as The Indian variant for ages in the press till the WHO decided to stamp out that nonsense and announce the naming system. Yep, my mistake, Kent was the Alpha variant. bloody confusing stuff 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts