Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[TopCat]

I linked to a study, if your racial bias wont allow you to accept any information that includes differences between certain racial groups then that is a your problem, they exist, its factual and is not in my mind a great excuse for you or anyone else to engage in playground name calling

When did this cunt pop up?

 

[maomao]

I linked to a study, if your racial bias wont allow you to accept any information that includes differences between certain racial groups then that is a your problem, they exist, its factual and is not in my mind a great excuse for you or anyone else to engage in playground name calling

This is the main UK coronavirus thread. There are probably better threads, or indeed websites, for your cheap race baiting.

 

[maomao]

I doubt that. There was very little done except hand washing in March. There's a few more tools to fight it now and doctors will have had nearly a year's experience treating it. And the pubs and trains won't be so busy if only because half the country's skint. There could well be a second wave, but I can't see the UK death figure hitting four figures a day again without something going very wrong.

This post hasn't aged well.

 

[SpookyFrank]

This post hasn't aged well.

You gave yourself the 'unless something goes very wrong' get out clause though, a clause which Johnson and pals have gleefully invoked.

 

[maomao]

You gave yourself the 'unless something goes very wrong' get out clause though, a clause which Johnson and pals have gleefully invoked.

He was in charge in August though and we all knew what an incompetent cunt he was then.

 

[SpookyFrank]

When did this cunt pop up?

Ages ago. I've had him on my mental ignore list but he's now been promoted to the actual ignore list.

 

[zora]

He was in charge in August though and we all knew what an incompetent cunt he was then.

Same here, I remember my boyfriend asking me about winter, and I confidently said "no, it won't get as bad again as in spring, because there is much better testing in place, and even if it does threaten to spiral out of control again, the brakes would be slammed on much sooner." I was quickly disabused of that notion - a couple of weeks later I watched aghast as universities started up again in the face of rising numbers...

 

[editor]

Re: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/16/covid-vaccine-black-people-unlikely-covid-jab-uk


What a bunch of spineless gits in here, the people mentioned in the survey are idiots OK and all you can do is bait me (I know what you are trying to do, its obvious and im not that fucking stupid)
Oh and Numbers its a link...but then you knew that

User banned off thread: disruption/personal attacks.

 

[mr steev]

I guess B12 deficiency is probably more of a problem for a veggie/vegan diet (i'm veggie).

B12 is generally not an issue with being vegetarian as there is plenty in diary products. If you have a vegan diet you have to be a bit more careful.

 

[Cloo]

Same here, I remember my boyfriend asking me about winter, and I confidently said "no, it won't get as bad again as in spring, because there is much better testing in place, and even if it does threaten to spiral out of control again, the brakes would be slammed on much sooner." I was quickly disabused of that notion - a couple of weeks later I watched aghast as universities started up again in the face of rising numbers...

It feels to me like we will have to go through one winter with people vaccinated (eg, end of this year) so we can be sure it makes things manageable before we anyone can talk about business as usual really returning. I was optimistic that this summer would be as 'free' as last summer, but then that was preceeded with no kids in school. I'd really like them to be back after Easter, but then I worry whether we ought to. I also hoped to go to my parents' place in Slovakia this summer, seeing as it was possible last summer, but I guess everywhere may be insisting on quarantine, certainly from plague-pit UK - unless places introduce testing and isolation until result though wouldn't surprise me if Slovakia did do something that, they're quite organised that way. But clearly we're not going to get majority of people vaccinated until second half of year, and that's if things go right.

 

[existentialist]

When did this cunt pop up?

It seems like a longer time than it actually is.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Another Hancock cock-up.

Matt Hancock cancelled contracts with private hospitals that would have given the NHS 8,000 extra beds.

The Health Secretary’s astonishing blunder is revealed today as the NHS struggles with the second wave of coronavirus.

Tonight a critical care unit nurse said: “It’s pure incompetence.”

Desperate health chiefs have been barred from using thousands of emergency private hospital beds because Matt Hancock failed to renew vital contracts.

Desperate medics lose 8,000 hospital beds after Matt Hancock's NHS blunder

EXCLUSIVE: An under-the-cosh NHS is now facing a new nightmare as a deal for 8,000 private beds has lapsed in an astonishing blunder by Health Secretary Matt Hancock

www.mirror.co.uk

 

[SpineyNorman]

I linked to a study, if your racial bias wont allow you to accept any information that includes differences between certain racial groups then that is a your problem, they exist, its factual and is not in my mind a great excuse for you or anyone else to engage in playground name calling

What might those differences be? Where do they come from, how do they manifest and in what way have the influenced the behaviours in the link you posted?

Edit: didn't see thread ban

 

[andysays]

Another Hancock cock-up.

Desperate medics lose 8,000 hospital beds after Matt Hancock's NHS blunder

EXCLUSIVE: An under-the-cosh NHS is now facing a new nightmare as a deal for 8,000 private beds has lapsed in an astonishing blunder by Health Secretary Matt Hancock

www.mirror.co.uk

So while the general government policy has been to throw contracts and money at mates who then turn out not to be able to deliver, poor old Matt is now getting it in the neck for failing to renew contracts which might, despite reservations about the existence of private hospital beds in the first place, actually have helped ease the pressure on the NHS.

 

[elbows]

I do hope the shitheads feel the heat:

Media’s libertarian Covid sceptics under fire from senior Tory

Journalists who downplay virus ‘have a hell of a lot to answer for’, says party vice-chair Neil O’Brien

www.theguardian.com

Neil O’Brien, the MP for Harborough, accuses prominent Tory-supporting journalists of making things up and repeatedly peddling claims that have been disproved.

His increasingly heated disagreements with right-wing figures including Toby Young, Allison Pearson and Julia Hartley-Brewer has been building on Twitter over recent days. It mirrors splits among Tory MPs who are themselves deeply divided over how serious the virus is and the need for draconian lockdowns.

But writing in the Observer O’Brien goes further, calling the group “the guilty men (and women) of the media” who must themselves be held to account for putting people at risk.

He adds: “The truth is, the Covid sceptics aren’t really sceptics at all. They engage in motivated reasoning; make stuff up, and double down on claims that have been disproved. They’re powerful figures in the media, not used to being questioned. But the truth is, they have a hell of lot to answer for.”

O’Brien says that from the beginning of the pandemic these media figures underplayed the dangers of Covid-19, then wrongly predicted that the virus was disappearing and by late last summerthen denied there would be a major second wave.

Recently, O’Brien writes, they have shifted their arguments again. Now, “with the new variant exploding, and TV news showing ambulances queuing outside hospitals and wards full of people gasping for breath, the story had to change again. Yes, people were now dying. But not in unusual numbers.

“On 4 January this year Julia Hartley-Brewer reassured us: ‘The virus kills. It just isn’t causing excess deaths anymore.’ This was rather difficult to square with the Office for National Statistics saying there were excess deaths, and that 2020 had seen the largest increase in deaths in a single year in England and Wales since 1940.”

And the article they are quoting from:

I’d love to ignore ‘covid sceptics’ and their tall tales. But they make a splash and have no shame | Neil O'Brien

 

[editor]

There's a raging Tory-denying Tory posting up all sorts of disinformation on a recent Buzz article. If anyone would like to correct his claims I'd be much obliged:

Opinion – Covid-19, and how it has exposed the rotten core of UK government

Although Brixton Buzz mainly deals with local issues, we’re all being affected by the ongoing pandemic, with matters made considerably worse by the government’s incompetent and bumbling…

www.brixtonbuzz.com

 

[Wilf]

I don't deny the logistical challenges of delivering the jab... and there's also that within a few weeks they'll have to start delivering the 2nd jab to the first groups of vaccinated people, but September!!
All adults in UK to be offered Covid vaccine by September, says Raab | World news | The Guardian
In the piece, raab is talking about 32 million getting the vaccine by 'early Spring' (end of March?). Given that they are talking about adults only, my maths has that at:

66 million - UK population
minus age group 18 and under (12 m) = 54 m to be vaccinated in total
32 m already done by 'early Spring'
= 22 m to be vaccinated say April to September (5 or 6 months)

That seems pretty slow for a number of reasons. Firstly, there will be more vaccines available and newly approved vaccines. Also, the mass vaccination centres will be up and running. Then there's that the vaccinations in that Summer phase will be mass age group appointments (rather than more complicated logistics of care home residents, people with vulnerabilities at the moment). Maybe they are not wanting to offer hostages to fortune, but fecking September!

Have I embarrassed myself and got the maths wrong?

 

[maomao]

I don't deny the logistical challenges of delivering the jab... and there's also that within a few weeks they'll have to start delivering the 2nd jab to the first groups of vaccinated people, but September!!
All adults in UK to be offered Covid vaccine by September, says Raab | World news | The Guardian
In the piece, raab is talking about 32 million getting the vaccine by 'early Spring' (end of March?). Given that they are talking about adults only, my maths has that at:

66 million - UK population
minus age group 18 and under (12 m) = 54 m to be vaccinated in total
32 m already done by 'early Spring'
= 22 m to be vaccinated say April to September (5 or 6 months)

That seems pretty slow for a number of reasons. Firstly, there will be more vaccines available and newly approved vaccines. Also, the mass vaccination centres will be up and running. Then there's that the vaccinations in that Summer phase will be mass age group appointments (rather than more complicated logistics of care home residents, people with vulnerabilities at the moment). Maybe they are not wanting to offer hostages to fortune, but fecking September!

Have I embarrassed myself and got the maths wrong?

Also if it only offers eight months immunity, as has been suggested a couple of times, they'll have to start again straight away.

 

[elbows]

That seems pretty slow for a number of reasons. Firstly, there will be more vaccines available and newly approved vaccines.

Its one thing to say that in general terms, but the actual schedule for quantities of vaccine that will actually be available over time is unknown to me and is considered sensitive. As demonstrated by the recent incident with Scotland where they published detailed supply schedule info and then took it down because the UK government said it contained commercially sensitive info.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Also if it only offers eight months immunity, as has been suggested a couple of times, they'll have to start again straight away.

From my understanding 8 months has only been mentioned, because that's the longest period since the first people on the trials received it, no one knows how long immunity will last ATM.

 

[elbows]

By the way I notice that in the most recent press conference Johnson made a very deliberate point of going on about people catching it by touching things. First he mentioned this in the context of supermarkets, and then again later in response to a question about workplaces.

 

[LDC]

By the way I notice that in the most recent press conference Johnson made a very deliberate point of going on about people catching it by touching things. First he mentioned this in the context of supermarkets, and then again later in response to a question about workplaces.

Yeah I noticed that too, I wonder if that's anything to do with the new variant and the way it transmits...? More robust little viruses outside the body? (That's my best medical speak btw.)

 

[platinumsage]

I suspect he was just blathering on the fly while trying to figure out what to say next.

 

[maomao]

That's the problem with Johnson. Anything he says could be carefully scripted by health authorities or it could just be him blathering to fill time.

 

[elbows]

Yeah I noticed that too, I wonder if that's anything to do with the new variant and the way it transmits...? More robust little viruses outside the body? (That's my best medical speak btw.)

Maybe there is something in this January 14th SAGE document about reducing within-household and between-household transmission in light of the new variant:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/952799/s1020-Reducing-within-between-household-transmission.pdf

I do not have time to read that document properly right now.I'm just speculating based on the date and the sort of thing Johnson is probably briefed on.

I suspect he was just blathering on the fly while trying to figure out what to say next.

I believe the first reference was in the initial scripted part, otherwise I might not have bothered to mentioned it. But I cannot face going back to check.

 

[platinumsage]

I believe the first reference was in the initial scripted part, otherwise I might not have bothered to mentioned it. But I cannot face going back to check.

I just had a look and yes, it was scripted, but it was in the context of first explaining Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives, and then explaining Hands, Face, Space. In that context it would have been strange if he hadn't mentioned why people should wash their hands.

 

[elbows]

If anyone wonders why I go on about hospital transmission a lot in this pandemic, I covered some recently publisehd detail on the nerdy thread: #59

It is quite a factor, not a minor curiosity I'm afraid. And it was always expected to be. The response from the establishment has been deeply inadequate at every stage, it drives me nuts.

 

[elbows]

I just had a look and yes, it was scripted, but it was in the context of first explaining Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives, and then explaining Hands, Face, Space. In that context it would have been strange if he hadn't mentioned why people should wash their hands.

Sure. At a minimum I interpreted it as a combination of reinforcing that existing message, but in combination with an emphasis on supermarket spread. I believe that the Welsh government were making quite a lot of noise about clear evidence of supermarket transmission that same day.

 

[brogdale]

There's a raging Tory-denying Tory posting up all sorts of disinformation on a recent Buzz article. If anyone would like to correct his claims I'd be much obliged:

Opinion – Covid-19, and how it has exposed the rotten core of UK government

Although Brixton Buzz mainly deals with local issues, we’re all being affected by the ongoing pandemic, with matters made considerably worse by the government’s incompetent and bumbling…

www.brixtonbuzz.com

Christ alive, what a tedious cunt.
I know we have our own pedantic contrarians in here, but fuck me, he's a grade A one.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I don't deny the logistical challenges of delivering the jab... and there's also that within a few weeks they'll have to start delivering the 2nd jab to the first groups of vaccinated people, but September!!
All adults in UK to be offered Covid vaccine by September, says Raab | World news | The Guardian

That worries me, because I would have said September sounded like a realistic date rather than the nonsense ones they've been throwing out previously, but now the Tories have said it so it won't happen