A) there's no such thing as a 'BAME community' and b) It's really not rocket science to hear, see, what the fuck is going on. In my area, I do think it would be might useful to have multi-lingual signs up, and in shops other than supermarkets, as the matriarchs, some of whom possibly don't speak much English, who don't shop in supermarkets (they shop in the little local shops). The tea shops, whatever - it's clearly not being communicated properly.
Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
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A) there's no such thing as a 'BAME community' and b) It's really not rocket science to hear, see, what the fuck is going on. In my area, I do think it would be might useful to have multi-lingual signs up, and in shops other than supermarkets, as the matriarchs, some of whom possibly don't speak much English, who don't shop in supermarkets (they shop in the little local shops). The tea shops, whatever - it's clearly not being communicated properly.
baldrick
hmmmmm
That's a very interesting graph and it correlates with my anecdotal evidence about where I live in terms of visible mask compliance & who is attending the testing/vaccine centre - it's majority British Indian here and a smaller but significant number of Caribbean heritage people. I wonder if there's something available at a local level, I will have a look.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Regarding vaccine uptake, it will be interesting to see if ideas like the 'vaccination bus' that I believe they've tried in some parts of Bolton are repeated elsewhere and make a real difference to uptake. I've forgotten where I was reading detail of this but when they explored the issues they decided that poverty and car ownership were impacting on people getting the jab.
cupid_stunt
Merry fecking Christmas.
I can't remember if it was Sky or the BBC reporting from the vaccine bus site in Bolton earlier today, but the doctor interviewed did mention those issues.
Sussex has had a vaccine bus on the road for months, calling on rural communities and poorer areas in various towns too.
It’s worth remembering that both polling (eg YouGov) and academic studies (eg OCEANSII) in Sept/Oct consistently put serious vaccine hesitancy at about 25-30% and the UK governments vaccine plan in December was anticipating just a 75% take-up. From the word go, that proved to be way too pessimistic and true take up across the population is over 95%. BAME take-up is also higher than initially anticipated, but it’s obviously still low in this context. I can (and have!) written an essay on why this difference between anticipated hesitancy and real-life hesitancy arose and the reasons are multifaceted. I’m pretty sure it’s nothing whatsoever to do with rational information, though. If you want to increase take up in areas that where it is currently low, you need to start by understanding why in other areas it ended up surprisingly high.
Another batch of (7) positive tests todayWas working at the Luton Lateral Flow test centre today. Had the first (4) positive tests for a week which was an Indian familyalso we had to refuse entry to several people with symptoms for the first time in a while. Might have just been one of those days
More concerning is that the South African variant has now been found in Luton. Waiting to hear more on that.
A
all Indian sad to say.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Veering somewhat off-topic, this is the price I think we will end up paying for things like Windrush and the Home Office's "hostile environment" policy. It might tick all the boxes as far as anti-immigration voters are concerned, but it poisons the well big time for those who are (perfectly legitimately or otherwise) here. The government has played into the populist nationalist narrative, so is it any wonder that groups who find themselves on the sharp end of that are hardly going to be eager to trust the authorities with vaccination, far less feel motivated to do it for the common good - a good that they are, at least in the political narrative, excluded from.
cupid_stunt
Merry fecking Christmas.
For anyone not using the 'by-pass paywalls extension', which is fucking brilliant, here's the full article from The Times, it's a shocking read, but I doubt anyone here will be surprised by it.
At least 20,000 passengers who could have been infected with a virulent strain of coronavirus were allowed to enter Britain while Boris Johnson delayed imposing a travel ban from India.
The prime minister only added India to the so-called red list on April 23, three weeks after announcing a ban on flights from neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh.
A huge surge in cases of the Indian variant threatens to derail the easing of lockdown restrictions.
The government is sticking by plans for the biggest easing of lockdown rules on Monday, which will allow people to socialise indoors in homes, pubs and restaurants. Physical contact between households will be permitted for the first time in more than a year and limited audiences will be allowed back into theatres, music venues and sports stadiums. Foreign travel will also be allowed.
But senior government sources have admitted that they would not be able to say whether the final lifting of lockdown could go ahead on June 21 until “a week before”, leaving many people’s plans for the summer up in the air for another month.
To combat the variant’s spread, people aged over 50 and the clinically vulnerable will have their second doses of a Covid vaccine accelerated — but that is expected to cause delays to vaccinations for younger people.
Those in England aged over 35 will be able to book their vaccinations from Monday. But hopes in government that the threshold might have been reduced this week to 30 have been put on hold.
The rise of the new variant has given rise to tensions in Whitehall about whether the prime minister delayed putting India on the red list because he was hoping to fly to Delhi on April 25 to discuss a post-Brexit trade deal with the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. Pakistan and Bangladesh were put on the red list on April 2, a measure that came in to force on April 9.
Johnson was forced to cancel the trip on April 19 amid surging infections, the day it was announced that India was being added to the red list — although travellers were given four days to get back to Britain.
Analysis of Civil Aviation Authority air traffic figures indicates an average of 900 people were arriving daily from India during the three-week period — 20,000 between April 2 and April 23.
A source who attended a Whitehall war gaming exercise on the Indian variant on Thursday said: “It’s very clear that we should have closed the border to India earlier and that Boris did not do so because he didn’t want to offend Modi.”
Johnson is facing pressure from scientists to “pause” the lifting of lockdown. At a series of meetings last week government advisers “pushed for a delay in fully opening the pubs of four to five weeks”, one source said.
Scientists at the Joint Biosecurity Centre provided analysis and data to the government which suggested that the conditions had not been met for the northwest of England to move to the next phase of the road map and that the northwest should be excluded from the easing of restrictions or that the roadmap be paused for the whole country.
Minutes of Thursday’s emergency meeting of the Sage committee of scientific advisers reveal that ministers were told progressing with “step three” of unlocking might lead to a “substantial resurgence” of hospitalisations “similar to, or larger than, previous peaks”, which would wreak havoc in the NHS. And if the government also persists in unlocking on June 21, the size of the third wave could double that of January’s peak.
Senior government sources said the modelling presented was “not convincing” and that ministers decided to press ahead because the Indian variant was leading to more cases but not yet to more hospitalisations.
Johnson and his senior ministers contemplated tighter controls in the worse hit areas, with Michael Gove calling for the toughest measures and Rishi Sunak opposed. Johnson and Matt Hancock, the health secretary, agreed on surge vaccination instead.
Ministers are shortly to announce that Heathrow’s Terminal 2 — known as the Queen’s terminal — will be set aside as a “red zone only” landing spot for passengers from the worst hit countries to stop those who have to quarantine from mingling with passengers from green and amber list countries.
Officials are considering adding further countries on the amber list to the red list because of fears that people are exploiting new routes to return from India and avoid paying hefty hotel quarantine fees.
An Oxford University study has confirmed that current vaccines work well against the Indian variant. Early findings from the laboratory study found that both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer jabs significantly diminish the risk of hospital admission and death.
Sir John Bell, Oxford’s emeritus professor of medicine, told Times Radio’s T&G programme: “It looks like the Indian variant will be susceptible to the vaccine in the way that others are. The data looks rather promising. I think the vaccinated population are going to be fine.”
Ministers admit that if it was the South African strain, “the pubs would not be opening” on Monday.
However, Professor Susan Michie of University College London, who sits on Sage, said that the government should suspend Monday’s unlocking. “If we are following data not dates, it is surprising that the road map is going ahead without adjustment,” she said. “Opening indoor hospitality venues has the potential to increase Covid-19 transmission.”
Dr Gabriel Scally, visiting professor of public health at the University of Bristol and a member of Independent Sage, said: “It’s astounding that the government still hasn’t learned one of the key public health lessons, which is that you have to act quickly — you must not hesitate.”
He called for immediate “ring vaccination” in Indian variant hotspots where everyone over the age of 18 would be offered the vaccination.
Questioned why Bangladesh and Pakistan had been added to the red list two weeks ahead of India, the health minister Edward Argar said the decisions were made “on the basis of the evidence”. He added: “It is impossible to completely hermetically seal the borders of the country”.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, said: “The PM has serious questions to answer about suggestions that he delayed adding India to the red list until he decided to cancel a scheduled trade visit to India, and that he did not put the safety of the British people first.”
Layla Moran, chairwoman of the all party parliamentary group on coronavirus, said the delay to banning travel from India would “no doubt come to be seen as a catastrophic error of judgment”.
A government spokesman has pointed out that there are three strains of the virus from India and that the one that has now become dominant was only identified as a concern six days after India was put on the red list — though before that at least one other variant had been thought to be immune to vaccination.
“We have some of the toughest border measures in the world,” the spokesman said. “We took precautionary action to ban travel from India on April 23, six days before this variant was put under investigation and two weeks before it was labelled as of concern. We have since sped up our vaccination programme and put in enhanced local support to curb transmission.”
The prime minister only added India to the so-called red list on April 23, three weeks after announcing a ban on flights from neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh.
A huge surge in cases of the Indian variant threatens to derail the easing of lockdown restrictions.
The government is sticking by plans for the biggest easing of lockdown rules on Monday, which will allow people to socialise indoors in homes, pubs and restaurants. Physical contact between households will be permitted for the first time in more than a year and limited audiences will be allowed back into theatres, music venues and sports stadiums. Foreign travel will also be allowed.
But senior government sources have admitted that they would not be able to say whether the final lifting of lockdown could go ahead on June 21 until “a week before”, leaving many people’s plans for the summer up in the air for another month.
To combat the variant’s spread, people aged over 50 and the clinically vulnerable will have their second doses of a Covid vaccine accelerated — but that is expected to cause delays to vaccinations for younger people.
Those in England aged over 35 will be able to book their vaccinations from Monday. But hopes in government that the threshold might have been reduced this week to 30 have been put on hold.
The rise of the new variant has given rise to tensions in Whitehall about whether the prime minister delayed putting India on the red list because he was hoping to fly to Delhi on April 25 to discuss a post-Brexit trade deal with the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. Pakistan and Bangladesh were put on the red list on April 2, a measure that came in to force on April 9.
Johnson was forced to cancel the trip on April 19 amid surging infections, the day it was announced that India was being added to the red list — although travellers were given four days to get back to Britain.
Analysis of Civil Aviation Authority air traffic figures indicates an average of 900 people were arriving daily from India during the three-week period — 20,000 between April 2 and April 23.
A source who attended a Whitehall war gaming exercise on the Indian variant on Thursday said: “It’s very clear that we should have closed the border to India earlier and that Boris did not do so because he didn’t want to offend Modi.”
Johnson is facing pressure from scientists to “pause” the lifting of lockdown. At a series of meetings last week government advisers “pushed for a delay in fully opening the pubs of four to five weeks”, one source said.
Scientists at the Joint Biosecurity Centre provided analysis and data to the government which suggested that the conditions had not been met for the northwest of England to move to the next phase of the road map and that the northwest should be excluded from the easing of restrictions or that the roadmap be paused for the whole country.
Minutes of Thursday’s emergency meeting of the Sage committee of scientific advisers reveal that ministers were told progressing with “step three” of unlocking might lead to a “substantial resurgence” of hospitalisations “similar to, or larger than, previous peaks”, which would wreak havoc in the NHS. And if the government also persists in unlocking on June 21, the size of the third wave could double that of January’s peak.
Senior government sources said the modelling presented was “not convincing” and that ministers decided to press ahead because the Indian variant was leading to more cases but not yet to more hospitalisations.
Johnson and his senior ministers contemplated tighter controls in the worse hit areas, with Michael Gove calling for the toughest measures and Rishi Sunak opposed. Johnson and Matt Hancock, the health secretary, agreed on surge vaccination instead.
Ministers are shortly to announce that Heathrow’s Terminal 2 — known as the Queen’s terminal — will be set aside as a “red zone only” landing spot for passengers from the worst hit countries to stop those who have to quarantine from mingling with passengers from green and amber list countries.
Officials are considering adding further countries on the amber list to the red list because of fears that people are exploiting new routes to return from India and avoid paying hefty hotel quarantine fees.
An Oxford University study has confirmed that current vaccines work well against the Indian variant. Early findings from the laboratory study found that both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer jabs significantly diminish the risk of hospital admission and death.
Sir John Bell, Oxford’s emeritus professor of medicine, told Times Radio’s T&G programme: “It looks like the Indian variant will be susceptible to the vaccine in the way that others are. The data looks rather promising. I think the vaccinated population are going to be fine.”
Ministers admit that if it was the South African strain, “the pubs would not be opening” on Monday.
However, Professor Susan Michie of University College London, who sits on Sage, said that the government should suspend Monday’s unlocking. “If we are following data not dates, it is surprising that the road map is going ahead without adjustment,” she said. “Opening indoor hospitality venues has the potential to increase Covid-19 transmission.”
Dr Gabriel Scally, visiting professor of public health at the University of Bristol and a member of Independent Sage, said: “It’s astounding that the government still hasn’t learned one of the key public health lessons, which is that you have to act quickly — you must not hesitate.”
He called for immediate “ring vaccination” in Indian variant hotspots where everyone over the age of 18 would be offered the vaccination.
Questioned why Bangladesh and Pakistan had been added to the red list two weeks ahead of India, the health minister Edward Argar said the decisions were made “on the basis of the evidence”. He added: “It is impossible to completely hermetically seal the borders of the country”.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, said: “The PM has serious questions to answer about suggestions that he delayed adding India to the red list until he decided to cancel a scheduled trade visit to India, and that he did not put the safety of the British people first.”
Layla Moran, chairwoman of the all party parliamentary group on coronavirus, said the delay to banning travel from India would “no doubt come to be seen as a catastrophic error of judgment”.
A government spokesman has pointed out that there are three strains of the virus from India and that the one that has now become dominant was only identified as a concern six days after India was put on the red list — though before that at least one other variant had been thought to be immune to vaccination.
“We have some of the toughest border measures in the world,” the spokesman said. “We took precautionary action to ban travel from India on April 23, six days before this variant was put under investigation and two weeks before it was labelled as of concern. We have since sped up our vaccination programme and put in enhanced local support to curb transmission.”
David Clapson
Well-Known Member
So we've risked a third wave because Johnson didn't want to offend a ruthless genocidal crackpot. Fuck my life. Pleeease can we be a sensible country run by a clever, collaborative woman? Where is our Kaja Kallas, our Tsai-Ing Wen, our Jacinda Ardern, our Katrín Jakobsdóttir, our Sanna Marin? Why are we so shit?
cupid_stunt
Merry fecking Christmas.
So, Scotland is going ahead with surge vaccination. England to follow in a couple of weeks?
www.dailyrecord.co.uk
Glasgow Covid vaccine rollout expanded to over 18s amid Indian variant concerns
All adults in 'affected areas' have been invited to take up the first dose of the jab amid a recent spike in case numbers - which is believed to have been caused by a so-called Indian variant of the virus.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I wont attempt to repeat all of my previous comments on why we are crap, but phrases that have tended to spring to mind include:
An arrogant thin veneer, hollow, hafl-arsed, going through the motions, mere lip-service, shit priorities, a dysfunctional ruling class. A strong dedication to a can't do mentality.
elbows
Well-Known Member
And its all the more infuriating for the fact that lots of people try really hard. But their efforts are often squandered by shit decisions from on high. And some of the shit and ineffective attitudes do trickle down.
Scotland and Wales are not free from this dodgy sphere of influence, but there are times when they begin to demonstrate that more can be achieved with even a relatively mild change of emphasis.
Scotland and Wales are not free from this dodgy sphere of influence, but there are times when they begin to demonstrate that more can be achieved with even a relatively mild change of emphasis.
Sunray
Its sunny somewhere.
So, Scotland is going ahead with surge vaccination. England to follow in a couple of weeks?
Glasgow Covid vaccine rollout expanded to over 18s amid Indian variant concerns
All adults in 'affected areas' have been invited to take up the first dose of the jab amid a recent spike in case numbers - which is believed to have been caused by a so-called Indian variant of the virus.
This is all too late.
Takes at least 3 weeks to have any effect so whatever happens with the India variant was set in stone by not preventing people coming from Indian via quarantine.
Fortunately, infections and deaths are now decoupled due to the vaccines but this is a real test of their effectiveness and one we as an Island nation shouldn't be doing.
The reality is we should push back May 17th to early June. It's not like anyone would really notice.
cupid_stunt
Merry fecking Christmas.
Of course it's not too late, sure there's a delay between vaccination & protection, but after 2-3 weeks such a vaccination roll-out should start reducing any 'serious illness' or death.
Even if he does, Johnson has, again, massively fucked it. He must know this, perhaps contributing to why he's prevaricating. Places are getting ready to open. One of the local pubs is recruiting bar staff. Another, I mentioned above, is a brand new business that's barely had any time to trade planning to finally (re) open this coming week. Once again this fucking clown has put himself into an impossible position because of his stupidity ignorance and ideology. Consequently fucking everyone else in the process. This really ought to be a resignation matter. If only there was an opposition to hammer the point home and drive the last nail in this cunt's John Lewis coffin
That's how I see it anyway
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Bit pissed so this isn't the most erudite post, but...
Just heard about the local vaccine bus here, incredibly poor attendance and also someone turned up started throwing stuff and shouting 'murderers' at it. Eventually was de-escalated but fucking hell...
Do think people spreading anti-vax and conspiracy stuff need fucking locking up or hammering in some way something, they're actually killing people in reality. (I know all the issues with that, but I'm pissed, so fuck them.)
Would it be at all possible to create a kind of 'vaccine buffer' around the areas affected by the Indian variant, by surging vaccinations in, say, Lancashire, Cheshire and Merseyside for example, so that by the time the variant reaches those areas in number in a few weeks it runs into a blockade of people of all ages who have had their first jab? Or is it already too late for that? It's presumably already too late just to vaccinate everyone in Blackburn/Bolton because it takes weeks for the protection to come into effect, but could a firebreak of sorts be created? Or is that just fanciful thinking?
elbows
Well-Known Member
That is what some of the SAGE papers were getting at the other day, yes. I will fish out some quotes when I get a chance.
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littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
There was a Freedom Rally in Regent's Park today, so the stickers were probably put around by them.
I could see the point in those rallies in January, but it all seems rather futile two days before a major easing of restrictions with infection levels currently right down. I had a wander through them. From what I could tell, there wasn't any real focus to it. More of a gathering than a protest. I had to stop myself from bursting out laughing at a young man with an 'Icke Was Right' t-shirt on.
elbows
Well-Known Member
OK in regards to doing it in a wider area:
Their general attitude is that they dont know if it will work, especially until they know how well vaccines work against this variant. But they think its worth a try because of a large potential upside. However it is worth noting that there are limits to what they expect it could achieve:
And obviously the government have not so far paid much heed to the third of those earlier bullet points, about the need for other interventions to cover the area in question in order to allow time for surge vaccination to take effect.
Those quotes are from the recent SAGE pandemic modelling group document: https://assets.publishing.service.g.../986709/S1237_SPI-M-O_Consensus_Statement.pdf
On the theme of the actions SAGE suggested as opposed to what Johnson has actually gone for so far, and geographical area, there is this from the main SAGE minutes:
Thats from https://assets.publishing.service.g...e/986564/S1236_Eighty-nineth_SAGE_meeting.pdf
Johnson lacks those principals, he favours "later, softer, narrower", the fucking piece of shit. We know that so far in the pandemic this eventually leads to u-turns and having to take a belated "even harder and broader for longer" approach because situations are allowed to grow much larger than was necessary.
Sunray
Its sunny somewhere.
No, fuck them all.
I am reminded of this scene
SPOCK: Do not grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many, outweigh…
KIRK: The needs of the few.
Attachments
elbows
Well-Known Member
The Guardian says Johnson is under mounting pressure, but I'm not currently convinced the pressure is different to pressures he resisted for ages when fucking up at the start of previous waves.
www.theguardian.com
There are signs there of Labour choosing the safe ground, criticise the failure to quickly agree to surge vaccination, criticise past border mistakes, rather than calling for the difficult and potentially unpopular stuff like delaying Mondays relaxations.
In the past at moments like these I have been tempted to call for people to take matters into their own hands and for people to refuse to take advantage of the new relaxation of measures. Not everyone would go along with it, but if sizeable chunk of people did then it would help reduce the damage Johnsons decisions cause. In reality some people already take this sort of stance, they just do it individually without making a big deal of it. This time round due to Johnsons shift to a 'take personal responsibility, use your own judgement and common sense' thing, it is even more tempting to call for people to take this far beyond anything Johnson could imagine. But where are the high profile entities that will call for such ideas, discuss them loudly in the public sphere, get the idea to show up in the headlines? Nowhere as far as I can tell so far in this pandemic, and it would probably be stupid of me to hope otherwise this time.
Johnson ‘must think again on plans to relax Covid rules’
Top adviser warns of India variant impact, as scientists urge delay in Monday’s changes
There are signs there of Labour choosing the safe ground, criticise the failure to quickly agree to surge vaccination, criticise past border mistakes, rather than calling for the difficult and potentially unpopular stuff like delaying Mondays relaxations.
In the past at moments like these I have been tempted to call for people to take matters into their own hands and for people to refuse to take advantage of the new relaxation of measures. Not everyone would go along with it, but if sizeable chunk of people did then it would help reduce the damage Johnsons decisions cause. In reality some people already take this sort of stance, they just do it individually without making a big deal of it. This time round due to Johnsons shift to a 'take personal responsibility, use your own judgement and common sense' thing, it is even more tempting to call for people to take this far beyond anything Johnson could imagine. But where are the high profile entities that will call for such ideas, discuss them loudly in the public sphere, get the idea to show up in the headlines? Nowhere as far as I can tell so far in this pandemic, and it would probably be stupid of me to hope otherwise this time.
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Boris? Why call him Boris? He's not your friend.
We've had 15 months of pretty much solid lockdown and I think this would be unlikely to work. Apart from how fed up everyone is, loads of employers -- whose employees have been wfh up till now -- are now planning on making everyone get back to the office ASAP.
My employer is definitely doing this, despite there not being enough space for social distancing if everyone's in the office. And they're being extremely insistent about it too. Get back to the office or bugger off is essentially the message.
Eta And this is in a sector where they have problems recruiting too.
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Yes. There wasn't much else to take tbh.
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