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

[eastglosmog]

I am glad to say that my elderly mother (100 last September) will be getting her 2nd jab this Wednesday - was to have been next Saturday, but brought forward as sufficient supplies and capacity to give it earlier.

[APOLLO]

Those that booked on the NHS website were given the option to book their second jab 12 weeks later. Both myself & wife have had our first jabs and booked our second ones, which I understand is a big help prevention wise.

 

One fear for me is if we open up too quick again we will see another wave. Thought is needed re pubs etc, can't just open them for older fully vaccinated folk, can't keep younger people out. At some point we will have to open up internally (UK pubs, restaurants etc), perhaps either later in the year when a good proportion of the population is vaccinated.

 

Foreign hols - I think they are a write off this year.

 

Brit15

[Reorte]

28 minutes ago, -missy- said:

 

I certainly do not feel any safer out and about, if anything I feel I need to be more careful currently.

 

No vaccine for me until May sometime at the soonest. Not all 'younger' adults feel invincible...

There's a wide range of different opinions between feeling invincible and feeling vulnerable. I don't feel invincible but the risks to someone in my age group and health are low enough that they won't sway my opinions towards being more cautious for my own sake (I'd never set foot outdoors otherwise).

 

Note I said for my own sake, I'll be cautious for others.

[John M Upton]

With reports of a third wave on continental Europe I think any form of holiday outside the UK is an absolute no no until at least this time next year.

 

People will moan but the last thing we need is someone jetting off to Spain and then bringing back a new variant that sees us back to square one and Lockdown IV just as we are finally getting a grip on it.

 

Too many loudly voiced MPs pushing for too much relaxation via the usual media of the Sunday Chip Wrappers for my liking...

Edited March 21, 2021 by John M Upton

[zarniwhoop]

47 minutes ago, chris p bacon said:

  Everyone I know who has had the jab has reported different side effects although none were bad.

Interesting article about side-effects : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56375307

[fezza]

There is a lot of nonsense talked about new variants. There are constantly new variants of flu every season. We just tweak the vaccine every year based on what is predicted to be most prevalent and dangerous. That's what we'll do with Covid 19. We can't keep people in prison forever - public opinion will grow weary. 

[Hobby]

1 hour ago, -missy- said:

 

I certainly do not feel any safer out and about, if anything I feel I need to be more careful currently.

 

No vaccine for me until May sometime at the soonest. Not all 'younger' adults feel invincible...

 

Just avoid sunny beaches, city centre pubs and other places the Teflon mobs gather such as festivals and protest marches. Luckily I don't like any of the above! 

 

53 minutes ago, Reorte said:

There's a wide range of different opinions between feeling invincible and feeling vulnerable. I don't feel invincible but the risks to someone in my age group and health are low enough that they won't sway my opinions towards being more cautious for my own sake (I'd never set foot outdoors otherwise).

 

Spot on. 

 

7 minutes ago, fezza said:

There is a lot of nonsense talked about new variants. There are constantly new variants of flu every season. We just tweak the vaccine every year based on what is predicted to be most prevalent and dangerous. That's what we'll do with Covid 19. We can't keep people in prison forever - public opinion will grow weary. 

 

Its all about timing, luckily they seem to have learned from the last lockdown this time around. 

 

Though I am getting sick of hearing that there should be exemptions for protests. Why ffs? If you want to spread it there's the best way, large numbers of people many with no masks and no control on social distancing. It seems some people never learn. 

[fezza]

Remember we locked down to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed and protect the vulnerable from dying. The NHS never came close to being overwhelmed and is very unlikely to be now given that practically all vulnerable people have been offered the vaccine and have been protected from the worst effects. New hospital admissions are very low. Many now I hospital caught weeks ago before they could be vaccinated. 

 

Unless the government changes the goalpost I would expect them to broadly follow the published timetable to end lockdown. 

[Neil]

1 hour ago, fezza said:

There is a lot of nonsense talked about new variants. There are constantly new variants of flu every season. We just tweak the vaccine every year based on what is predicted to be most prevalent and dangerous. That's what we'll do with Covid 19. We can't keep people in prison forever - public opinion will grow weary. 

 

There's a lot of nonsense equating prudent life saving restrictions with imprisonment.

 

49 minutes ago, fezza said:

Remember we locked down to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed and protect the vulnerable from dying. The NHS never came close to being overwhelmed and is very unlikely to be now given that practically all vulnerable people have been offered the vaccine and have been protected from the worst effects. New hospital admissions are very low. Many now I hospital caught weeks ago before they could be vaccinated. 

 

Unless the government changes the goalpost I would expect them to broadly follow the published timetable to end lockdown. 

 

Protecting the vulnerable and letting everyone else go about life as normal sounds remarkably like the widely discredited Great Barrington declaration. New variants are one of the key problems with all Great Barrington type strategies. If a variant emerges that is resistant to current vaccines it will take time to adjust vaccines to be effective. Then we would have to re-vaccinate everyone and that's a huge task. We may also find ourselves somewhere in the middle of the queue for a tweaked vaccine as there's no guarantee  that we'll be fortunate to be at the front next time. We should also not make the mistake of equating Covid with flu. Covid is more dangerous, you only have to compare the aim to vaccinate all adults against Covid with the regular target of vaccinating those over sixty five against flu to realise this.

[APOLLO]

I think we all may need a yearly "top up" vaccination, perhaps in conjunction with the flu jab. Time will tell.

 

Brit15

[hayfield]

3 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

One minor point there is that nowhere near half of the adult population in Britain has been fully vaccinated.  According to NHS figures for England by 14 March 20, 661, 496 (=45.4% of the population) had received their first dose of vaccine.  By the same date only 1, 110,156 people (2.4%) had received a second dose.  As the vaccines are both based on the need for two doses to deliver their full efficacy only a tiny percentage of the population of England had been fully vaccinated by 14 March.    

 

By 20 March the figures had risen to 22, 873, 079 and 1, 520, 680 respectively.  Or looking at it another way the rate of completing the course of vaccination in England is lagging massively behind the administration of the first dose of vaccine and is currently in fact not even matching the pace of delivery of first doses back in January although the rate has risen in the past couple of weeks.  The rate of delivery of second doses has to increase by a factor of 5 by April if the 12 week interval is to be properly achieved.  That either needs a lot more  vaccine (at least twice as much) or the rate of giving first doses will have to drop to almost zero. 

 

Let's not be misled by words and sloppy language used by some parts of officialdom, politicians, and the media - you are not fully vaccinated until you have received both doses of one of the vaccines.  Up until that point all you have received is your first dose of vaccine.

 

Mike

 

We are constantly being told we need to reduce the infections, prevent people going to hospital and stop people dying, infection rates down by 80%, hospital admissions and deaths down by 90%. Extending the time between both inoculations was both very brave and a stroke of genius. Places in Europe sadly are seeing infection rates increasing by 25%, hospitals filling up, with many wishing their politicians has acted as well as ours. But forget the papers and spin, the difference is we following what our experts are asking us to do. Act quickly and protect as many as possible

 

Of curse those fully vaccinated are lagging behind, as we have only started giving the 2nd doses to those waiting 12 weeks. I for one have benefited by having my 1st jab early and hopefully protected from serious illness or death. The last 5 days 552,000 2nd doses given, 9 weeks ( no figures on the portal before Jan) ago the 7 day average 250,000 a day, but have we got to these yet.  Plus are we not getting half a dose next, waiting longer and halving the 2nd dose works better with the Oxford vaccine. I assume the Pfizer is a full dose. 

 

Every target the government has set was initially mocked and disbelieved, all met !!!

[NIK]

1 hour ago, John M Upton said:

With reports of a third wave on continental Europe I think any form of holiday outside the UK is an absolute no no until at least this time next year.

 

People will moan but the last thing we need is someone jetting off to Spain and then bringing back a new variant that sees us back to square one and Lockdown IV just as we are finally getting a grip on it.

 

Too many loudly voiced MPs pushing for too much relaxation via the usual media of the Sunday Chip Wrappers for my liking...

Hi,

 

It may not be just continental Europe that could be off limits for the time being but also any country where their COVID data is doubted by the UK.

 

Regards

 

Nick

[hayfield]

3 hours ago, AY Mod said:

 

It would certainly be more helpful if they used phrases such as 'over 50% of persons over the age of 21 have partial protection and x% have increased protection' to reinforce that the younger population has no immunity and that no-one has full immunity (some people think they're invincible anyway but you can't vaccinate for stupidity*).

 

* I think it should be a crime but Mrs Y says I'm being a bit harsh.

 

Certainly lately phrases of X% of the adult population, or X% over 18 have had the first dose is being reported (perhaps not with the headlines) when I watch/listed to the news or read the portal

I think the government is being quite careful with these announcements, but the initial target is to get those most at risk protected  from hospitalization or worse, the 2nd dose give more immunity but not total. I agree with you about the Darwin award candidates 

 

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, Hobby said:

 

Just avoid sunny beaches, city centre pubs and other places the Teflon mobs gather such as festivals and protest marches. Luckily I don't like any of the above! 

 

 

So Walton on the Naze is out then !!!

[Andy Hayter]

1 hour ago, fezza said:

Remember we locked down to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed and protect the vulnerable from dying. The NHS never came close to being overwhelmed and is very unlikely to be now given that practically all vulnerable people have been offered the vaccine and have been protected from the worst effects.

 

Tell that to those working in NHS ITU.

Tell that to those that have had cancer treatment suspended or delayed

Tell that to the millions who are now going to have to wait many months if not years for routine operations like hip or knee replacements.

 

I think you must inhabit a different world from the one I know.

 

I do agree that things are now improving but it would take very little to return to where we were.

Edited March 21, 2021 by Andy Hayter
auto-correct.

[boxbrownie]

Not sure I understand why the debate (in here) about how many adults have been vaccinated, the ONLY official statement I heard so far is 50% of the adult population have had the first vaccination dose.

 

Whether the media report it quite as accurately is another matter, they should but then they have form on accurate reporting during this epidemic for the sake of headlines.

 

 

[boxbrownie]

19 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

Tell that to those working in NHS ITU.

Tell that to those that have had cancer treatment suspended or delayed

Tell that to the millions who are now going to have to wait many months if not years for routine operations like hip or knee replacements.

 

I think you must inhabit a different world from the one I know.

 

I do agree that things are now improving but it would take very little to return to where we were.

Indeed, my Son was working as a Doctor during most of the first year in Covid wards........I just couldn’t bring myself to answer that post by fezza, for obvious reasons 

[Hobby]

You can look up the figures on the Gov websites, the figure was of last night was over 2 million have had both doses and as I said earlier that figure will rise massively over the next few weeks as we get to those who had their first dose in Jan. Consequently first dose figures will decline but as we are looking at the folk who are less vulnerable that are now coming up for their first dose that shouldn't be a issue. 

[boxbrownie]

33 minutes ago, NIK said:

Hi,

 

It may not be just continental Europe that could be off limits for the time being but also any country where their COVID data is doubted by the UK.

 

Regards

 

Nick

Let’s hope so, it might lead to a few more U.K. citizens explore the country they live in but are often oblivious to its beauty and unique contrasts, and heaven knows our hospitality sector* needs them.

 

*and I lean more towards the actual often poorly paid workers that need them rather than anyone else, it has been so very hard on the casual/part time and temporary workers in the sector, let alone those that qualified for furlough and other financial help.

[Hobby]

Was the NHS close to being overloaded? Possibly, but the fact that most of the nightingale hospitals didn't get used showed that what was done was sufficient, though a close call... 

[boxbrownie]

Just now, Hobby said:

You can look up the figures on the Gov websites, the figure was of last night was over 2 million have had both doses and as I said earlier that figure will rise massively over the next few weeks as we get to those who had their first dose in Jan. Consequently first dose figures will decline but as we are looking at the folk who are less vulnerable that are now coming up for their first dose that shouldn't be a issue. 

Problem is people don’t bother or are ignorant to the very easy official figures which are available, or just more than happy to once more “take a poke”.

[Hobby]

Hence the one million quoted recently when the two million figure was already out there and with no reasoning why the figures were like they are. 

Edited March 21, 2021 by Hobby

[boxbrownie]

Just now, Hobby said:

Was the NHS close to being overloaded? Possibly, but the fact that most of the nightingale hospitals didn't get used showed that what was done was sufficient, though a close call... 

it was very very close, my Son got to the stage of attending his allotted Nightingale site and preparing equipment for imminent use, thankfully the peak levelled out.

[Markwj]

5 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

it was very very close, my Son got to the stage of attending his allotted Nightingale site and preparing equipment for imminent use, thankfully the peak levelled out.

My local hospital sends us emails regarding COVID updates, I recall at the peak there were approx 170ish in patients which was the equivalent of nearly 6 wards, we were definitely overwhelmed and the amount of patients now on waiting lists for various surgeries and investigations are a witness to this. A lot of routine stuff has been and continues to be cancelled.

I believe part of the reason for the nightingale hospitals not being utilised was staffing there are a hell of a lot of vacancies across the nhs currently so they struggle to staff existing services. 

[AY Mod]

27 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

thankfully the peak levelled out.

 

I'd say that was only because the lockdown came in the nick of time (no-one could have asked for a single drop more from the hospital staff); certainly too late for many and we couldn't have been too far from needing the Nightingales to manage the excess or no favourable projected outcomes with the forces/charities and emergency aid managing end of life situations. Thankfully enough people understood the severity then and more recently (apart from a recent poster it seems so I've removed his access to the topic for talking rubbish) to stop us falling into an abyss (wind back to how things looked a year ago today - very, very bleak and we understood so little).

 

I find it insulting when people can't see where we actually were.