Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[elbows]

We are already at a stage where I would highly recommend people change their behaviours significantly and prepare for disruption.

From the BBC live updates page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/59559623

Data suggests the doubling time for Omicron cases may be as short as two to three days, Sturgeon says. And the R number - which represents the average number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to - could be well over two.

There are now confirmed cases in nine out of 14 health board areas in Scotland, “suggesting that community transmission is becoming more widespread and possibly more sustained”, she says.

There is a reasonable degree of certainty that the Omicron variant is more transmissible than Delta, "perhaps considerably so", Nicola Sturgeon says.

The first minister adds that early data suggests it is more capable of infecting people who have previously had the virus.

There is also concern it may evade the immunity provided by vaccination, she says.

However, she says vaccination remains "vitally important".

Sturgeon says it is vital to "strengthen compliance" with existing measures to slow the spread of Omicron.

People are already advised to work from home where practical, but she says employers are now being asked to ensure this is happening.

If staff were working from home at the start of the pandemic, they should be asked to do so again, she adds.

This advice will be in place until the middle of January, when it will be reviewed.

People are also asked to do a lateral flow test before mixing with other households.

However, the first minister says she "cannot guarantee" further measures will not be needed.

It is important to remain open to any proportionate measures, such as the extension of Covid certification, she adds.

 

[elbows]

 

[prunus]

Fucks. Sake.

 

[elbows]

The earlier Sturgeon statement in full. I will just quote the closing rhetoric.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) update: First Minister's statement – 7 December 2021

Statement given by the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh on Tuesday 7 December 2021.

www.gov.scot

And if you were working from home at the start of the pandemic, please do so again for the next few weeks.

None of this is what any of us want two years into this ordeal. I know that. But it is the best way of slowing the spread of the virus in general and Omicron in particular.

And by doing that, we do give ourselves the best possible chance of enjoying a Christmas that is more normal, but also safe - and of avoiding a new year hangover of spiraling cases.

Please - and I really hope this will be for one last time in this pandemic - let’s all pull together, do what is necessary, and get each other and the country through this winter and into what we all hope will be a better and brighter spring.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Naive to appeal to people's better natures. Far too many simply won't lift a finger for the greater good.

 

[elbows]

Its been crucial to the response in previous waves and is not something that should be abandoned now. A significant chunk of people will do the right thing and its a vital difference maker.

 

[elbows]

Mainly late 20s/early 30s.

I'd now say this trend is also starting to show up via footballers testing positive.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Its been crucial to the response in previous waves and is not something that should be abandoned now. A significant chunk of people will do the right thing and its a vital difference maker.

I agree, and I expect masks to make a decent comeback once Omicron gets its hooks in properly. But I think loads won't. Just walked round a supermarket with signs at the door saying we request you wear a mask. 50% TOPS masked. I work in a college where the official line is masks are compulsory but we can't make students wear them

 

[elbows]

Masks have already made a decent, but incomplete comeback.

There are lots of other things people will need to do, and I'm sure many of them will. For a multitude of reasons there are plenty of examples where the right thing isnt done, and I understand peoples focus on that, but I prefer not to focus on all that stuff at the expense of the vast sacrifices people have made already and will make again.

 

[Sue]

I agree, and I expect masks to make a decent comeback once Omicron gets its hooks in properly. But I think loads won't. Just walked round a supermarket with signs at the door saying we request you wear a mask. 50% TOPS masked. I work in a college where the official line is masks are compulsory but we can't make students wear them

FWIW, my friends are all currently cancelling social engagements. All 40s and double vaxxed but worried about passing Covid on to elderly parents/relations over Christmas.

 

[StoneRoad]

Pre-covid, we normally used to go over to SiLs over crimble / new year and to my elderly father for the other one & combined with a stay on the boat at whitehaven ... probably none of them this year.
Will be staying at home ...

 

[two sheds]

been invited round to neighbours for christmas day but phoned today and said we should see how things go.

I was idly wondering what the odds of meeting someone with the virus for different infection rates, given that around me is 400 to 700 per 100,000 so 1-in-250 to 1-in-140 chance per person.

Starting from if you have 23 people in a room then there's a 50-50 chance that two people will have the same birthday (so 1 in 365). If that's relevant, and given of course that (hopefully) many who are infected will be self isolating.

But will depend on whether they have kids at an infested school.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I agree, and I expect masks to make a decent comeback once Omicron gets its hooks in properly. But I think loads won't. Just walked round a supermarket with signs at the door saying we request you wear a mask. 50% TOPS masked. I work in a college where the official line is masks are compulsory but we can't make students wear them

BIB, I suspect we will continue to see different levels of mask wearing in different areas.

Big Tesco here was around 95% wearing them, dropping to around 50% more recently, and has now bounced back to about 90%.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Downing Street press conference today with Johnson, time not yet announced, possible introduction of more restrictions.

Boris Johnson is 'set to hold a press conference today' to announce Plan B measures in England, according to reports.

Key restrictions would be a further reintroduction of face masks, working from home and Covid vaccine passports.

The Plan B proposals draw on the findings of a review into vaccine passports earlier this year, which concluded that certification could help keep events going and businesses open.

Covid press conference: When Boris Johnson could announce Plan B restrictions

Boris Johnson is 'set to hold a press conference today' to announce Plan B measures in England, reports suggest.

www.oxfordmail.co.uk

 

[cupid_stunt]

More...

Following the discovery of the Omicron variant, which Downing Street fears is more transmissible than the Delta variant, the prime minister is mulling tougher measures to slow the spread of cases.

Senior government sources revealed Mr Johnson is minded to move to Plan B as early as this week, with the introduction of COVID vaccine passports and a return to the work from home order for millions of people.

The prime minister received a presentation from England's chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, on the current coronavirus situation on Tuesday.

COVID-19: Boris Johnson minded to move to Plan B of rules this week, Sky News understands

Senior government sources reveal Boris Johnson is minded to move to Plan B in England as early as this week, with the introduction of COVID vaccine passports and a return to the work from home order for millions of people.

news.sky.com

 

[Supine]

Getting busted for the party. Time to throw in more restrictions to takeover the news cycle.

 

[elbows]

Getting busted for the party. Time to throw in more restrictions to takeover the news cycle.

It was time anyway, based on Omicron estimates and obvious clues such as Sturgeons rhetoric yesterday.

The anti-lockdown tory backbench loons will have a field day with this awkward timing, for example this sort of shit:

Downing Street party: No 10 staff joked about party amid lockdown restrictions

The video obtained by ITV comes after days of questions about the event that took place last year.

www.bbc.co.uk

And the former vice chair of the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers, Charles Walker, said the video "makes it very, very difficult now for the government to have anything but voluntary restrictions on people's mixing and mingling".

"People, if required in law not to meet friends and relatives, will say, 'look, it didn't happen last year at No 10 Downing Street [so] it is not going to happen this year at No 10 Acacia Avenue'."

Some people will probably have the attitude that shithead Walker describes there, but many will not, and will do the right thing beause public health trumps grubby politics and other ways to get upset about the hypocrisy will be found.

 

[existentialist]

It was time anyway, based on Omicron estimates and obvious clues such as Sturgeons rhetoric yesterday.

The anti-lockdown tory backbench loons will have a field day with this awkward timing, for example this sort of shit:

Downing Street party: No 10 staff joked about party amid lockdown restrictions

The video obtained by ITV comes after days of questions about the event that took place last year.

www.bbc.co.uk

Some people will probably have the attitude that shithead Walker describes there, but many will not, and will do the right thing beause public health trumps grubby politics and other ways to get upset about the hypocrisy will be found.

Johnson isn't well known for doing things on time, usually, though...

 

[elbows]

Johnson isn't well known for doing things on time, usually, though...

Well for reference, its likely any new measures they announce today are things I would have wanted to see 7-10 days ago. And I'll probably be of the opinion that some of them should have been done much longer ago than that, to deal with the ongoing Delta wave, never mind Omicron.

 

[hegley]

I agree, and I expect masks to make a decent comeback once Omicron gets its hooks in properly. But I think loads won't. Just walked round a supermarket with signs at the door saying we request you wear a mask. 50% TOPS masked. I work in a college where the official line is masks are compulsory but we can't make students wear them

This is why they [govt] should never have dropped the mask wearing requirement in the first place; they didn't in Scotland and it's never really waned too much up here. I'd say it's a good 90%+ adherence in every shop, supermarket etc. that I go in.

 

[Part 2]

PM imposes plan B with working from home and Covid passports

Boris Johnson has announced the return of work-from-home guidance from next week, tougher rules on facemasks and the introduction of Covid passports in an attem

www.thetimes.co.uk

 

[Cloo]

I have to say I can't really see the point of vaccine passports, very pro-vaxx as I am. Presumably lots of businesses won't want to check them, I don't see they'll really motivate many people into having a vaccination, and given that vaccines don't prevent transmission, if a place is really busy with no masks or social distancing I don't really see how the lack of a few unvaccinated people really makes things significantly safer. I mean, they'll be made more ill if they catch it while out, but they apparently don't care about that.

 

[cupid_stunt]

PM imposes plan B with working from home and Covid passports

Boris Johnson has announced the return of work-from-home guidance from next week, tougher rules on facemasks and the introduction of Covid passports in an attem

www.thetimes.co.uk

Let's break that paywall down, full article - archive.ph

Not much new in it, compared to links I posted above, apart from mention of care homes.

It is thought that the announcement, which could come into effect as soon as tonight, will implement the Plan B set out in the government’s winter plan rather than tougher lockdown measures.

One source said that the package was likely to include restrictions on the numbers of people able to visit care homes, raising the possibility of severe disruption to some elderly people’s Christmas plans.
In cabinet yesterday Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, spoke in favour of vaccine passports. Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, is said to have opposed the idea, which is fiercely resisted by many Tory backbenchers.

 

[Part 2]

All the same.... I'll show the article to my manager and excuse myself from the office this week.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I have to say I can't really see the point of vaccine passports, very pro-vaxx as I am. Presumably lots of businesses won't want to check them, I don't see they'll really motivate many people into having a vaccination, and given that vaccines don't prevent transmission, if a place is really busy with no masks or social distancing I don't really see how the lack of a few unvaccinated people really makes things significantly safer. I mean, they'll be made more ill if they catch it while out, but they apparently don't care about that.

I sort of agree with you, but re-BIB, which would add pressure on the NHS, especially ITUs.

 

[platinumsage]

If Omicron is as transmissible as some are claiming I'm not sure that "plan B" will do much in the way of sombrero squashing.

 

[cupid_stunt]

If Omicron is as transmissible as some are claiming I'm not sure that "plan B" will do much in the way of sombrero squashing.

As Professor Neil Ferguson says, it will slow it down, allowing for more booster jabs to get into arms.

From that Times article - archive.ph

He said this was not yet known but argued: “There is a rationale, just epistemologically, to try and slow this down to buy us more time, principally to get boosters into people’s arm.”
He said that plan B “wouldn’t stop it but it could slow it down. So it’s doubling, rather than every two or three days, every five or six days. Doesn’t seem like a lot but it actually is potentially a lot in terms of allowing us to characterise this virus better and boost population immunity.”

 

[elbows]

If Omicron is as transmissible as some are claiming I'm not sure that "plan B" will do much in the way of sombrero squashing.

Well its certainly nowhere near enough for me to imagine that no further restrictions will be deemed necessary again later.

But the work from home bit can certainly make a useful difference, as can the effects on behaviour that these sorts of announcements can have via the prevailing pandemic mood music.

 

[Wilf]

As johnson et al end up twiddling with the regs again, it just reminds you how common sense went out of the window - never even got inside the window - with something as simple as masks. Particularly in light of the latest info on how effective they are in controlling infection, masks are the cheap/just about no downside measure that could have been in place throughout. Aside from those with medical exemptions as well as well as the loons, we could be in a situation now where everybody wears one every time they go out. It would have become a normal, self protective, community minded thing to do. And how many lives would have been saved, along with all those who might have avoided long covid?

We've had discussions about governments ambiguity on masks as an ideological thing. But the failure to normalise mas wearing is just rank bad governance.

 

[Wilf]

But the work from home bit can certainly make a useful difference, as can the effects on behaviour that these sorts of announcements can have via the prevailing pandemic mood music.

We've just had an email at work - a university - cancelling an in person end of term meeting and lunch. Quite sensible, but the interesting thing was the Omicron variant was mentioned as the reason for cancelling, so there is clearly some thought going on about where things are likely to be up to in higher ed after Christmas. Having said that, I think the government will be keen to resist HE/colleges and particularly schools going online again. And loathe as I do everything about johnson's gang, 'balancing' education v virus protection is a genuine quandary as the virus rolls. Of course it's a balancing act taking place in the context of their previous failures...