Coronavirus

That's where we are in the UK at the moment, roughly half the number of people dying each day of Covid than Cancer. Hopefully over the next 12 months, natural immunity, boosters and new treatments will continue to bring the rate down.

Read an interesting article yesterday that argued that for nudge reasons the booster should be called a third dose. Data from Israel suggests the efficacy from the 3rd shot is sufficient that perhaps it should have been approached as a 3 shot course from the outset...but obviously it was a mass experiment, we didn't know at the time - and Delta arrived and muddied the water right as vaccines started to be administered.

What's the problem with comparing different stages in the lifecycle? That's the point. It will rise in some states as it's waining in others. Italy has like 6% more of the population vaxxed than Germany, there isn't a huge difference.

The reason these counties "have to" have a surge is that - as evidenced by UK with high levels of previous infection and 80% vaxxed - is that vaccinations don't stop the spread unless you basically go into lockdown mode.

You say countries with the highest vaccination rates have far less hospitalisation, cases and deaths....so how do you explain the UK, 80% double vaxxed + 10mill boosters and we still have one of the highest case rates in Europe, death rates too.

Comparing various EU countries and the UKs efforts at controlling covid is setting the bar at a pretty low level to be honest.

Oh I read something interesting on the Zoe app today. Apparently they've discovered that 1 in 5 people who get Covid dont go on to have detectable N Antibodies afterwards (S Antibodies (spike protien related) are provided by the vaccine and the infection). It seems that the people most likely not to get antibodies are those in the most at risk groups.

In my case, this possibly explains why my wife and I both had what we were sure was Covid in December (classic symptoms and subsequent long covid symptoms which are still whacking me), but when we had antibody tests in August we were negative. It might not, there are other viruses which have similar results to Covid,(I've never before had a flu which made me stuggle to breath), but it would perhaps explain why we (both in the at risk group) didn't show as having antibodies.

Anyway, thought it was interesting.

Italy has 9% more vaccinated, that's quite a difference, they also much stricter green pass requirements. 
Vaccines don't stop the spread, with or without lockdown but they enormously reduce them.
UK is 74% vaccinated and with a large percentage with AZ which doesn't seem as effective as the MRNA ones.

We had my dad’s funeral today and there were a ton of family at the wake. It’s hard to maintain distance when there’s people I haven’t seen for over a decade, but I did my best. Still, it’s now time for round two of bricking it as my fly home test is on Saturday and if that’s positive I’ll be quarantined in the UK for another 10 days, which considering I’m already pretty homesick and stressing about getting home, isn’t fun.

That's 35,000 to 75,000 people a year dying of a preventable disease we're not taking the simplest of measures to prevent. That's very far from OK with me. In fact I think the people in charge of COVID policy in this country are murderous fucking psychopaths.

Not taking the simplest measures to protect from...other than admistering about 100 million vaccine doses in the last year plus providing about a million tests a day. Have the government made a shambles of Covid? yes. Could more lives have been saved? Definitely. But it's a bit of a stretch to suggest we are taking no measures to protect people from Covid. It sounds fatalistic but in a pandemic of a brutal coronavirus that is incredibly transmissible unfortunately, a lot of people are going to die.

Oh yeah there's loads more we could do and make masks mandatory in public would be a good start (and not using terms like "freedom day") but I had to contradict the other guys' notion that the UK Government is "doing nothing to protect its citizens" when everyone I know has had two or more doses of a vaccine, for free, on their doorstep basically. Plus we had two long lockdowns Spring 2020/ Winter 2021. And a massive amount of PR campaigns "hands, face, space" etc.

It's a bit hyperbolic to suggest the government is doing nothing at all.

"Ok, so you've got this book for 2 weeks instead of 4, just because other people are waiting for it"

"2 weeks? That's ok, TWO WEEKS IS LONGER THAN MY BROTHER LIVED AFTER GETTING THE VACCINATION"

Is a conversation I just had.

It's kind of harder to argue against, compared to the "vaccines let the government track you through 5G" crowd. Because even though it is almost certainly bullshit, there's a reeeeeaaaally small chance that her brother got vaxxed and had an adverse (and fatal) side-effect. Or that the death happened, but it was due to something unrelated and she got the correlation/causation thing the wrong way around, or assumed that the vaccines are dangerous in general.

Either way it's going to be pretty rough once we open up more and have to start dealing more with this kind of person. We're at about 85% vaccinated now, which is great! But 15% of the eligible population is still a looooooooot of people.

I think some of the post-vaccine deaths here were found to be caused by the vaccine. But it's like 8 confirmed ones, out of hundreds and hundreds of reported cases. To say nothing of the millions and millions who have gotten vaccinated without serious side effects.

For starters.
1) Ensure mask wearing in all indoor public spaces, transport etc. even better, encourage FFP2 masks and subside them.
2) Do everything possible to get as close to 100% vaccination as possible.
3) In the meantime, have a green pass system, like in Italy and France that will help protect over winter and encourage vaccination.
4) Invest in upgrading ventilation throughout the country.

Many preventable deaths will continue to take place, not only due to Covid but due to delayed treatments, scans etc. due to the idiotic removing of restrictions. Why any decent person would accept that is beyond me.

Many deaths are preventable, that's the point.
The virus itself is arguably preventable, it infected humans because of either a) Destroying the planet and encroaching on other species or (less likely) b) stupid fucking genetic engineering shit / insufficient lab safety measures.

Obviously the virus can't be simply wiped away now and will be around for years or decades but the only way to reduce the danger of the virus to humans and to eventually effectively get rid of it is to reduce transmission hugely worldwide and ensure that as close to 100% of the world's population are vaccinated.
We're not doing anywhere near enough to achieve that.

Looks like the Netherlands are going to do a 3-week circuit breaker type partial lockdown.