Covid - coming out of Lockdown 3 - no politics, less opinion and more facts and information.

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, Roger Sunderland said:

And that is the nub of the issue. The EU is a huge layer of unelected bureaucracy  - on top of the already huge layer in each member state ( France is particularly bureaucratic ). Throw a crisis into the mix and it will never be nimble enough to adapt.

but here’s the thing. They want our AZ vaccine even though most of their member states have made several attempts to rubbish the vaccine and are presently not using it . Already vaccine is going to waste because Europeans are afraid of it or have been told it doesn’t work. Shameful if they are simply playing a political game, even more shameful that they aren’t sending unused vaccines to first world countries.

Rant over, back to the modelling.

 

Roger

 

I agree with most of what you have written, but there is little evidence any has been wasted. Its just stuck in store. Next up just over half have either suspended it or reduced those who can have it, there are some members who have used all their stocks, others like Germany, Italy and France have used as low as 40% of their allocation, it could be argued that some may be being held back for the second doses

 

Clearly the EU is not learning the lessons of others, the UK has been derided for delaying the second dose. Now transpires that by delaying it it increases the efficacy of it. Vaccinating more with only one shot saves lives (less hospitalisations and deaths). Yet they still fail to act, Simply 3 months on we have smashed the peak of infections, hospitalisations and deaths, what are they waiting for ?

 

They are clearly not following the science, stuck in the bureaucratic muddle they are in. They are in desperate leadership with a clear vision, national pride seems to be getting in the way

[Pete the Elaner]

1 hour ago, hayfield said:

 

As Arnold Parmer is quoted, the more I practice the luckier I get

 

The first piece of brilliance was to get the right professional in charge of the project, she kick started the program and insured the plan was well thought through from design to production

The speed of decision making through out the whole process including regulatory approval was also a huge help, as was the huge financial backing. 

 

None of the above was lucky, no body plans to fail !! Many have failed by poor planning

 

The Oxford vaccine was less of a gamble as it was already 4 years into development and very early on it was successfully altered for covid, we backed or rather ordered other vaccines as an alternative supply / insurance if any failed

 

Again good planning from industry professionals 

 

The NHS is the keystone of our vaccination roll out, ably assisted by the forces and volunteers. Perhaps this is where the luck occurred, is we have a ready made national health provider in situ, one of the best armed forces used to urgent deployment and our very willing army of volunteers 

 

The more we learn about what happened in the background the more impressive it looks

 

On the other hand it is seen that both the EU and its member states were in most cases well behind our curve, they are admitting they took too long to act and made too many mistakes. Bad luck or just bad planning and too much bureaucracy ? 

 

I agree that the infrastructure for manufacture & distribution was organised very well, but you seem to be looking at things purely from a political point of view.

 

I am looking at the issue from a science point of view. Scientific research never guarantees results because it is reaching into the unknown.

 

[hayfield]

Just now, Pete the Elaner said:

 

I agree that the infrastructure for manufacture & distribution was organised very well, but you seem to be looking at things purely from a political point of view.

 

I am looking at the issue from a science point of view. Scientific research never guarantees results because it is reaching into the unknown.

 

 

No politics in it, its been a joint endeavour starting from research scientists using all parts of society through to local volunteers. Well earned good fortune yes

 

The trouble with us in the UK is that we  all like a good moan, sadly all too often we fail to recognise a job well done. 

 

I remember my parents years ago used to say "I had a touch of good fortune today" , You could mistake good fortune to good luck, but in dads case it was well earned good fortune through endeavour, even if that someone repaying a previous good deed. 

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, hayfield said:

 

As Arnold Parmer is quoted, the more I practice the luckier I get

 

...

 

The Oxford vaccine was less of a gamble as it was already 4 years into development and very early on it was successfully altered for covid, we backed or rather ordered other vaccines as an alternative supply / insurance if any failed

Quite, as the old saying goes "you make your own luck." Oxford turned out well but others were being backed, knowing that some were likely to fail.

[hayfield]

1 minute ago, Reorte said:

Quite, as the old saying goes "you make your own luck." Oxford turned out well but others were being backed, knowing that some were likely to fail.

 

I think by mid summer the Oxford vaccine was a banker, the group who developed it had been working on it for 4 years, it was established technology and once the team had the genome sequence (March I think) they worked over a weekend and had a formula designed (they did a tv program on the team and what happened).

 

The real hard job was getting it tested and passed regulatory requirements, then in production up and running in months rather than years, those responsible have saved thousands of lives. No luck what so ever, vision and hard work.

 

This vaccine has been 4/5 years in the making, it was designed for something else, but quickly adapted for covid. 

[Pete the Elaner]

37 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

I think by mid summer the Oxford vaccine was a banker, the group who developed it had been working on it for 4 years, it was established technology and once the team had the genome sequence (March I think) they worked over a weekend and had a formula designed (they did a tv program on the team and what happened).

 

The real hard job was getting it tested and passed regulatory requirements, then in production up and running in months rather than years, those responsible have saved thousands of lives. No luck what so ever, vision and hard work.

 

This vaccine has been 4/5 years in the making, it was designed for something else, but quickly adapted for covid. 

 

Even AZ's CEO does not agree with that.

He has stated they went into production last summer hoping it would be successful.

They obviously had very promising results before making this decision but it seems like there was an element of doubt there.

[stewartingram]

Don't forget that any news we get - I'm talking official sources here, not the headline -ridden media - is 'old' news (relatively speaking) by the time we get to hear it. Much goes on in the background before things get released to us. Just look at the dates on the charts they show on the briefings for instance. No-one in any authority release info they heard at 12 o'clock just a couple of hours later, they substantiate it first. Only the media presents 'instant news' as 'facts'.

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

There's a huge nationalistic flag waving element in the vaccine development story.

 

When I read any American sourced media here its Trumps Operation Warp Speed that was responsible for the vaccine, no other country had anything to do with it, like winning WW2. Even the less Trump friendly sites like CNN, MSNBC and the Washington Post seem to concede that the vaccines were due to Trump. They never add that they are talking about the US so the implication to their US viewers is that Trump and Warp speed saved the whole world.

 

 Similarly, coverage we see here from UK media like the BBC (and even Rmweb!) etc is big on emphasising the Oxford vaccine and its rollout, and how world beating it is, in comparison almost every other country is apparently a floundering mess. (Which they may possibly be by the way!)

 

  It can get very confusing to us in the rest of the world.

Edited March 18, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[APOLLO]

With 7.8 Billion jabs (15+ if two jabs are required), big pharma stands to make many $Billions. At least AZ have presented it to the world at cost.

 

Forget politics, follow the money.

 

Brit15

[Hobby]

Wonder what excuse they'll use now not to use it... 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56447367

[vaughan45]

1 hour ago, Hobby said:

Wonder what excuse they'll use now not to use it... 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56447367

 

There is a school of thought that indicates the two key words in the title of that item are 'EU Clot' - but of course that it is only one opinion

Edited March 18, 2021 by vaughan45

[hayfield]

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

There's a huge nationalistic flag waving element in the vaccine development story.

 

When I read any American sourced media here its Trumps Operation Warp Speed that was responsible for the vaccine, no other country had anything to do with it, like winning WW2. Even the less Trump friendly sites like CNN, MSNBC and the Washington Post seem to concede that the vaccines were due to Trump. They never add that they are talking about the US so the implication to their US viewers is that Trump and Warp speed saved the whole world.

 

 Similarly, coverage we see here from UK media like the BBC (and even Rmweb!) etc is big on emphasising the Oxford vaccine and its rollout, and how world beating it is, in comparison almost every other country is apparently a floundering mess. (Which they may possibly be by the way!)

 

  It can get very confusing to us in the rest of the world.

 

In the UK we have had two central themes running as the way out of the pandemic.  Firstly testing followed by a vaccine. There was a world wide hunt for the latter which a year ago did not exist

 

In the UK we had to build up a testing regime from almost scratch, when the government listed a range of testing targets they were laughed at. Well from struggling to do a few thousand a day we are hitting 1.5 million tests a a day. We were very fortunate that were have a wonderful medical research facilities in the UK, and they had the basis of a vaccine which could be adapted in the pipeline. Within months we have an authorised vaccine which is active in our population making a real difference in fighting this modern day plague. Something which in the past would have taken years

 

The Oxford and Pfizer vaccines, with a well planned rollout, has put the UK in the forefront of the vaccination process, with the Oxford being far easier to administer, the US is doing well, and Israel was wise and small enough to be the ideal test bed for Pfizer. In Australia you are fortunate being able to cut yourself off along with very few other countries (another way of protecting yourselves)

 

 For a verity of reasons we were one on the worst affected countries. Thanks to the last lockdown, increased testing and the vaccine roll out our future is far more secure, had the virus been left unchecked we would be in an awful state

 

Europe is being locked down yet again, infections are rising dreadfully, as are hospital admissions and I assume  death rates will sadly rise. Certainly many in Europe suffering their third wave are asking their own politicians, why are they not in the same position as the UK. Many EU countries are not even close, yet supposedly it is one of the most powerful blocks in the world, they should be in a much better place than they are. Hopefully in 2 months they will be where we are. 

 

Perhaps the question should be, with so many advanced countries in the world, why is the world not in a better position ? 

[MJI]

To be honest we did have some advantages.

 

We did bet the farm on incomplete and untested vaccines in the hope they would pay off. Biontech and Oxford did for a start, GSK failed, we also had decent deals to guarantee a supply.

 

Oh and one national health provider rather than many.

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

33 minutes ago, hayfield said:

In Australia you are fortunate being able to cut yourself off along with very few other countries (another way of protecting yourselves)

I assume you mean we controlled our borders by banning international travel out of the country and only allowing in returning residents who were quarantined on arrival.

 

I live on in the hope that one day maybe, someone will be able to explain why the UK couldn't have similarly done this at the start. All I get  is "Its OK for Australia, the UK is different". And "We've discussed this before!" without any actual valid reasons given.

 

 Are you all more important than us so need to travel out of the UK and do  vital overseas work or something while we are just a pretend country that can shut our borders without any ill effects?  Do you have more Z listers who need European skiing holidays than we do ? I can't honestly think of ANY travel that is more important than  protecting the health of the population and  halting the virus.  We have many companies and organisations that span multiple states here and even travel between their offices was banned but they were all still able to function, let alone with overseas branches.  We used the internet.

 

Like I said, one day maybe someone will actually explain to me why your island nation isn't one of your 'very few  other countries...".

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[LBRJ]

I could give you quite a few reasons, but you come as across so passive aggressive I really cant.....

Its a model railway forum not the tail end of Yahoo Answers....

[monkeysarefun]

16 minutes ago, LBRJ said:

I could give you quite a few reasons, but you come as across so passive aggressive I really cant.....

Its a model railway forum not the tail end of Yahoo Answers....

Another non answer.

[Oldddudders]

7 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

I can't honestly think of ANY travel that is more important than  protecting the health of the population and  halting the virus.  We have many companies and organisations that span multiple states here and even travel between their offices was banned but they were all still able to function, let alone with overseas branches.  We used the internet.

Ah, yes, Sydney, the city that offloaded Ruby Princess without testing anyone. 

[Neil]

I was jabbed on Wednesday morning at my local health centre. An impressively slick operation; I was told my time was at 11:06 and not to arrive too early. I was through the doors at 11:05, jabbed at 11:06 and then back out to the car to listen to the radio for fifteen minutes before heading home. Absolutely no side effects (AZ vaccine).

 

I think we're a little bit behind in the rollout here in mid-Wales (I'm in the 60+ group) but worth it as I haven't had to travel a long distance to a mass vaccination hub.

 

Something not yet mentioned here, as far as I can tell, is this report from Channel 4 news that the NHS will need an extra twelve billion pounds each year in order to recover from the pandemic.

 

Also when talking about the NHS and funding this headline from the Daily Mirror caught my eye this morning.

 

 

[lapford34102]

8 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Like I said, one day maybe someone will actually explain to me why your island nation isn't one of your 'very few  other countries...".

I'll have a go. We might be an island geographically but in practical terms we are no different from Denmark or Italy, just we have a bit of water between us and the rest of Europe. Go to Dover or Folkestone, both just down the road, and look at the volume of traffic. If that was stopped or even limited we would soon be on our knees. As our esteemed Foriegn Minister, Mr Raab, said when he (first?) visited Dover "didn't realise it was so busy!". I've taken day trips to Paris from here. Our day to day lives are/were inextricably linked with the European mainland. How many truck drivers turn up in Aus, deliver their load and then get back on the ferry to go home?Holiday - Shall we go to Malaga or Margate, probably cost the same.

Yes, we could have imposed some level of tighter restrictions on travel, think everyone agrees that - but we didn't - though how much difference it would have made who knows. The real issue was that Covid was coming in from a direction no-one seems to have anticipated and the rest as they say is now history.

Stu

[Hobby]

Several of us have given detailed reasons why we are different to Australasia, locking the borders is only a part of the difference, population density, ethnicity, attitudes to authority, ease of travel, country size and so on make a big difference in pandemics like this. Yes I agree we will have to do things differently next time and a much tougher border control will no doubt be part of it, but that's only one part of the problems we have which go much deeper than that. The old thread had several detailed explainations of the differences in detail.

 

We'll shortly being applying blame where it's due (and not due) with a thorough investigation and I've no doubt we've all learned from this time round and will do things differently next time, but that's the benefit of hindsight!

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, lapford34102 said:

I'll have a go. We might be an island geographically but in practical terms we are no different from Denmark or Italy, just we have a bit of water between us and the rest of Europe. Go to Dover or Folkestone, both just down the road, and look at the volume of traffic.

An RMwebber called Fat Controller works for something called Eurotunnel. He could tell you the huge volume of people and lorries on trains that daily passed through the Channel Tunnel prior to Covid. I believe the numbers are quite impressive. Add in the ferries, including other routes from Plymouth, Portsmouth etc, and the Channel looks rather unimportant in limiting travel. And we haven't even mentioned air......

[hayfield]

9 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

I assume you mean we controlled our borders by banning international travel out of the country and only allowing in returning residents who were quarantined on arrival.

 

I live on in the hope that one day maybe, someone will be able to explain why the UK couldn't have similarly done this at the start. All I get  is "Its OK for Australia, the UK is different". And "We've discussed this before!" without any actual valid reasons given.

 

 Are you all more important than us so need to travel out of the UK and do  vital overseas work or something while we are just a pretend country that can shut our borders without any ill effects?  Do you have more Z listers who need European skiing holidays than we do ? I can't honestly think of ANY travel that is more important than  protecting the health of the population and  halting the virus.  We have many companies and organisations that span multiple states here and even travel between their offices was banned but they were all still able to function, let alone with overseas branches.  We used the internet.

 

Like I said, one day maybe someone will actually explain to me why your island nation isn't one of your 'very few  other countries...".

 

 

Nothing at all about being more important at all. Our borders are very porous stemming from firstly the need to import many basics (food groceries etc) as well as import and export of other commodities. But sadly as I have said we have very porous boarders. We have migrants coming over in rubber dinghies !! What I would say is you are coming over very aggressively, please keep it friendly

 

Next up is Heathrow and Gatwick being used as an international transport hubs. . Why we have not been far more selective on who can travel here is a mystery to us as well.

 

In the UK we are told to stay local, many just ignore this. Those who get caught are fined. but our transport system makes it so easy to cross counties. The M25 travels through 7 or 8 counties. It is totally impossible to stop people travelling. As it is impossible to stop some people having parties/raves mixing in parks and home. 

 

No one is going abroad to ski or even skiing in the UK unless they live close to the ski slopes, going on holiday has been banned since October and was only allowed for a few weeks in the summer when infections were very low. Most of us have not seen relatives for months unless they are very local, even then outside and briefly. Sorry but you have no idea of what most Europeans are having to deal with. Some people have been shielding at home for a year . In Australia you are very lucky. if only in having a government who were able to act differently than most 

 

The normal UK population is not travelling abroad for holidays, there was limited travel last summer but not even allowed to stay away from home overnight except for business. However the powers that be still allow business travel and citizens returning home. Only recently has it been a requirement to isolate, then most do so from home

 

Being so close to the continent there are many entry points into the UK, until January there was unlimited access from Europe anyway by legal agreement, there is still unlimited access from Ireland, in theory Europeans can travel to the UK via Ireland and then face no border checks

 

No one knows how many illegal migrants/overstayers are in this country, conservative estimates start at over a million but its totally unknown, certainly there are many Australian overstayers, as I guess many Brits overstaying in Australia

 

Having said all of this the UK is showing the way out of the pandemic, we designed the easiest to use vaccine, we now have vaccinated 40% of our Adult population, vaccinated most of those who are at greatest risk, hunting the virus down with 1.5 m tests a day. Infections have fallen but now stalled (rife in the younger generation), hospitalization falling ( Critical care was up to 20,000, now less than 2,000) as are deaths from covid (from 2k a day at its height, to double figures) . If all other first world countries acted like this your dream of a pre covid world would be so much nearer. Hopefully we have shown a well organised vaccination process can have very positive results in weeks

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, Neil said:

I was jabbed on Wednesday morning at my local health centre. An impressively slick operation; I was told my time was at 11:06 and not to arrive too early. I was through the doors at 11:05, jabbed at 11:06 and then back out to the car to listen to the radio for fifteen minutes before heading home. Absolutely no side effects (AZ vaccine).

 

I think we're a little bit behind in the rollout here in mid-Wales (I'm in the 60+ group) but worth it as I haven't had to travel a long distance to a mass vaccination hub.

 

Something not yet mentioned here, as far as I can tell, is this report from Channel 4 news that the NHS will need an extra twelve billion pounds each year in order to recover from the pandemic.

 

Also when talking about the NHS and funding this headline from the Daily Mirror caught my eye this morning.

 

 

 

My daughter is a local authority worker, like many in both the private and public sector have done this for years. Not every employee is a clock watching miser.

 

Having said this I think all the NHS should at least receive a substantial one off bunus and or additional holidays. 

[Reorte]

10 hours ago, hayfield said:

Perhaps the question should be, with so many advanced countries in the world, why is the world not in a better position ? 

Hopefully it's just because we were one of the first out of the blocks. Look how rapidly it's got going in the UK. But a lot of the preparation for that was somewhat out of sight of most people. With the UK and a few other countries out in the lead now that preparation elsewhere is suddenly getting a lot more attention, but fingers crossed that that's just because it's a little behind rather than fundamentally flawed.

[Reorte]

12 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

... Infections have fallen but now stalled ...

I'm crossing my fingers that that's the result of a huge number of additional tests being done picking up more rather than cases really not dropping. That the number of tests has risen by 70% and detected cases hasn't increased is quite reassuring really.