Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[cupid_stunt]

Looks like they have got the idiot that sent the suspicious package to covid production site.

A man has been charged over a suspicious package that was sent to a COVID vaccine production plant in North Wales.

The item arrived on Wednesday at the plant in Wrexham where the AstraZeneca vaccine is put into vials.

The plant was partially evacuated and work was interrupted for several hours while bomb disposal units were called in.

Anthony Collins, 53, from Chatham Hill in Chatham in Kent has been charged with dispatching an article by post with the intention of inducing the belief it is likely to explode or ignite.

He is expected to appear at Medway Magistrates' Court today.

Man charged after suspicious package sent to vaccine plant

A man has been charged over a suspicious package that was sent to a COVID vaccine production plant in North Wales. The plant was partially evacuated and work was interrupted for several hours while bomb disposal units were called in. At the time, a statement from North Wales Police said a team...

uk.news.yahoo.com

 

[existentialist]

So the police are cracking down on streak easies then?...

Yeah I know just hand me my coat...

That was quite good, but here's your coat anyway...

 

[existentialist]

Alas...

He'll probably do it in Latin - "eheu"

Or Ancient Greek - " φεῦ" (which he probably WILL use, because it sounds like "phew", the twat)

 

[planetgeli]

I have a good story from Spain.

A friend of my S-I-L who lives out there got bust for cutting hair under lockdown. While there, the police hunted around and found some cannabis and my S-I-L's friend also got done for dealing.

My S-I-L's response?

"It's outrageous. I've known her 9 years. I had no idea she was a hairdresser."

 

[brogdale]

He'll probably do it in Latin - "eheu"

Or Ancient Greek - " φεῦ" (which he probably WILL use, because it sounds like "phew", the twat)

Yeah; I'll stick with the proto-Germanic...cunt.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

Looks like they have got the idiot that sent the suspicious package to covid production site.

 

[elbows]

I can't "like" this enough. Before it was even known to have hit the UK there should have been a COBRA meeting, flights stopped etc. Even after the virus was known for sure to be here, there were people going to and from risky areas; iirc school trips to North Italy were still going ahead

Thanks. Sadly the failure to properly consider such a response went well beyond the UK. I remember how depressing it was early on when I had to tell people that rather than recommend travel restrictions and border closures, the WHO would go on about the importance of keeping suhc things open, and indeed that is the stance they took early on. Including press releases going on about the WHOs important work with the World Tourism board. Neoliberalism baked into global institutions.

 

[Sunray]

I've been wondering who in the Government managed to get all these vaccines. I was gritting my teeth thinking I'd actually have to praise a member of this barely functioning circus that call themselves leaders?

I discover its none of them, is anyone surprised?
See what happens when someone with a fully functioning brain and real expertise in the field does the job. She did it voluntarily too.

Well done Kate Bingham

 

[Sunray]

The politics of the EU are crazy, I think it's all grandstanding. They aren't going to gain anything from the actions they are taking, they just need to show they are doing something.
If the EU were to take all the vaccines from the UK into the EU at current manufacturing speed, it'd take them many years to vaccinate 50% of the population of the EU. Once they get what is a trickle, how are they going to divvy them up? Surely its Spain then France?

I don't think this is going to go well whatever they do. 448 Million people who want to go back to normal.

 

[hash tag]

Is there anyone so stoopid as an overpaid, prima Donna footballer
BBC News - Covid-19: Joelinton an idiot for sharing haircut photo, barber says

Covid-19: Joelinton an idiot for sharing haircut photo, barber says

Newcastle United star Joelinton shared a picture of himself with barber Tom Baxter on Friday.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Badgers]

I don't think this is going to go well whatever they do. 448 Million people who want to go back to normal.

How big a footfall of tourist/visiting is EU-GB?

Regardless of blame and sabre rattling. Both sides want business and travel up and running regardless of public safety if the EU and our own beshitted government want to do more travel then it could drag this on a long long time.

EU behind on vaccination
UK opening lockdowns too early
All trying to restart travel due to pressure from industry

#thiswillgowell

 

[editor]

Powerful and tragic. Fuck the fucking Tories for causing so many unnecessary deaths. And fuck the fucking loons too.

As a photojournalist who has covered war and humanitarian crises for 20 years, I am familiar with this kind of compartmentalizing. And I recognize the trauma I see in frontline workers, battling to maintain life and dignity in a situation of mounting horror. Though the vaccine — which has reached over seven million people in Britain — is a light at the end of the tunnel, the darkness of what the country has experienced must not be forgotten. For frontline workers and all Britons, these pictures stand as testaments to their trauma and their perseverance.

Opinion | ‘It’s Still Getting Worse.’ Inside Britain’s Vicious Second Wave. (Published 2021)

One hundred thousand people dead. A new, more contagious variant. The toll is close to unbearable.

www.nytimes.com

 

[weltweit]

Rather than making headlines about their less than ideal vaccine deal, I think the EU should be negotiating the urgent foundation of more vaccine production plants on EU soil.

 

[MrSki]

Whoever let this get through the proofreading should be looking for a new job.

 

[teuchter]

Might not be able to achieve 100% but surely it’s worth having it as a goal.

The concept of "zero covid" doesn't really work if you don't achieve 100%. If you don't achieve 100% it's not zero covid.

 

[teuchter]

I think that one of the medium term consequences of Covid will be that international travel won't return to the level we have recently come to view as normal and the world won't be so interconnected, at least in terms of people and goods moving around so much, for some time to come.

And that could potentially be a good thing, in various non-Covid related ways.

Even if it returned to only 10% of its previous rate, it's still plenty of opportunity for infection to get into a "zero covid" country. Unless you can get people to accept 2 week quarantines as the norm. And you won't.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Another 1,200 deaths reported today, again down on the same day last week by a decent 148, taking the 7-day average down to 1,178, from the peak of 1,248 last Saturday, a drop of 5.7%.

Baby steps, but at least it's moving in the right direction.

 

[Sunray]

Another 1,200 deaths reported today, again down on the same day last week by a decent 148, taking the 7-day average down to 1,178, from the peak of 1,248 last Saturday, a drop of 5.7%.

Baby steps, but at least it's moving in the right direction.

There is a lag between infections and deaths. I was looking for how long this was and I came across this paper Data animation shows time lag between COVID-19 cases and deaths

They say it's 2-8 weeks, we are at the beginning of the fall in cases from two weeks ago. I really hope this flows through into the next two weeks.

They created a somewhat hard to read visualisation showing the lag. Too busy imo.

 

[Artaxerxes]

State of public transport in the UK...

 

[Cloo]

It seems to have been pretty pacy in North London, with both our sets of parents (Over 70s) having had their first, and 93-year-old step-grandma both, as she got her first very early. Maybe other boroughs not keeping pace as much. I honestly didn't expect my parents to have got theirs by now.

 

[teuchter]

State of public transport in the UK...

Yup.

 

[cupid_stunt]

State of public transport in the UK...

I call bullshit on that, it maybe the case in respect of the 'mass vaccination centres', which are only a small part of the vaccine roll-out, GP surgeries are the major players in providing vaccination centres, no one is going to be a 30 minute drive from those sites.

 

[StoneRoad]

I call bullshit on that, it maybe the case in respect of the 'mass vaccination centres', which are only a small part of the vaccine roll-out, GP surgeries are the major players in providing vaccination centres, no one is going to be a 30 minute drive from those sites.

unless you live riiiight out in t'sticks !
(some of us do, y'know)

 

[cupid_stunt]

unless you live riiiight out in t'sticks !
(some of us do, y'know)

So, you live a 30 minute drive from your GP?

 

[Supine]

So, you live a 30 minute drive from your GP?

Almost everyone in the lakes lives more than thirty minutes from the official vaccination centres.

 

[Raheem]

I call bullshit on that, it maybe the case in respect of the 'mass vaccination centres', which are only a small part of the vaccine roll-out, GP surgeries are the major players in providing vaccination centres, no one is going to be a 30 minute drive from those sites.

I think the way it is being done varies quite a bit, and people are not necessarily being given a choice of locations. Your GP's surgery might be doing vaccinations, but that doesn't mean that's where you'll be told to go. Think it's probably plausible that some people are not turning up because three buses in terrible weather when you're pushing 80 seems too much hassle.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Almost everyone in the lakes lives more than thirty minutes from the official vaccination centres.

What do you mean by 'official vaccination centres'?

GP surgeries are providing the bulk of the vaccination programme, and they are not operating unofficially.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

What do you mean by 'official vaccination centres'?

GP surgeries are providing the bulk of the vaccination programme, and they are not operating unofficially.

are / will all GP surgeries, though?

mum-tat lives towards the grove park edge of lewisham borough, she had to go to a GP practice at the new cross end of the borough, so that was two buses, and she must have passed a few other GP surgeries (including the one she goes to) on the way.

scale that up to larger rural area and i can well believe it...

 

[xenon]

My aunt and uncle just had their jab today. They were originally scheduled to have it tomorrow at a department store in another town in the county. Their GP phoned and said they could go there today instead. Which was obviously the better option. My uncle drives but it would have meant waiting around outside queuing.

 

[Supine]

What do you mean by 'official vaccination centres'?

GP surgeries are providing the bulk of the vaccination programme, and they are not operating unofficially.

Vaccination centres are run by primary care networks which are big groups on NHS catchment areas. There is some local vaccinations using AZ but the big centres are miles away because that is where the hospital is with the big cold freezer for Pfizer stocks.