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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

JCVI has issued a statement on vaccinating children:

JCVI statement on COVID-19 vaccination of children and young people: 22 December 2021

www.gov.uk www.gov.uk

Children aged 5 to 11 years in a clinical risk group (as defined in the Green Book), or who are a household contact of someone who is immunosuppressed (as defined in the Green Book), should be offered two 10 micrograms doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty®) with an interval of 8 weeks between the first and second doses. The minimum interval between any vaccine dose and recent COVID-19 infection should be 4 weeks.

Further advice regarding COVID-19 vaccination for other 5 to 11 year olds will be issued in due course following consideration of additional data. Data being sought includes:

  • updated estimates of the proportion of children aged 5 to 11 years who have already been infected
  • the level of protection afforded against COVID-19 disease due to the Omicron variant from previous SARS-CoV-2 infection
  • post-marketing adverse event reporting data from the international use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in those aged 5 to 11 years
  • considerations from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and other government departments on the potential educational impacts (both benefits and disbenefits) of COVID-19 vaccination in those aged 5 to 11 years

Booster vaccination of 12 to 17 year olds​

The following cohorts of children and young people should be offered a booster dose of 30 micrograms Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty®) no sooner than 3 months after completion of their primary course:

  • children and young people aged 16 to 17 years
  • children and young people aged 12 to 15 who are in a clinical risk group or who are a household contact of someone who is immunosuppressed
  • children and young people aged 12 to 15 years who are severely immunosuppressed and who have had a third primary dose
Prioritisation of booster vaccination within eligible cohorts should generally be in the order of descending age groups, or clinical risk, whichever is more expedient. Boosting of children in clinical risk groups should commence after the equivalent clinical risk adult groups; higher age is independently associated with a higher risk of complications from COVID-19 and these adults will have received their primary vaccinations earlier in the vaccine programme.
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It goes on a bit so I've only quoted the first bit.
 
Wilf said:
All of which, mood music wise, sounds very different to this:
www.theguardian.com

NHS may set up ‘field hospitals’ in car parks to cope with Omicron

Hospital canteens, offices and meeting rooms could also be turned into wards if health service is overwhelmed
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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The bigger problem is likely to be a lack of medics to deal with increased cases.

One in 10 doctors are off work in the UK, figures revealed on Wednesday, as medical leaders warned the highly transmissible new variant was fuelling the worst absence rates in the NHS since the start of the pandemic.

A survey conducted by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) found 10.5% of doctors were absent. The picture is worse in London, where one in seven doctors are off work (13.9%).

The number of absences is growing, the RCP said, leaving “exhausted and demoralised” staff on wards struggling to cope with the pressure of more cases coupled with mounting winter pressures.
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Shocking figures.
 
cupid_stunt said:
Yep, and you can see how it's spreading out of London, with most surrounding counties now dark purple.

West Berkshire will go that way tomorrow, closely followed by Hampshire, us in West Sussex, then East Sussex soon after. It's just like watching the spread from north Kent last Dec., and into Jan. :(
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Both West Berkshire & Hampshire turned dark purple today, West Sussex will tomorrow, and East Sussex a day or two later, the spread out from London is so clear.

2bb.png
 
Interesting summary here. Sounds like Sage are basically saying 'Stop using the mildest scenario as basis for decisions!!!'.
www.spectator.co.uk

Sage memo makes the case for lockdown

On Monday, Covid restrictions were rejected after the cabinet debated the issue robustly for the first time since the pandemic started. The Prime Minister said he’d revisit the decision, so the debate is very much still ongoing. But it wasn’t just ministers meeting that day. Sage assembled its...
www.spectator.co.uk www.spectator.co.uk

Which suggests to me they'll be ignored.
 
cupid_stunt said:
Both West Berkshire & Hampshire turned dark purple today, West Sussex will tomorrow, and East Sussex a day or two later, the spread out from London is so clear.

View attachment 302355
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Reminds me of the Dads Army opening titles (or maybe the Germans cut off at Stalingrad). You Worthing people are cutoff, you need to counterattack out of the pocket and break out to the west
 
In many ways it seems like the worst thing they could do (NB, this increases likelihood of them doing it) would be to have a few days with hospitality etc still open after Xmas because, while I think quite a lot of people have been careful in the last week or two to try to ensure they get Christmas with their family, after Boxing Day, especially if they know restrictions are coming, a lot of people might go 'Fuck it, we've done Christmas, let's go out for a drink/meal with everyone while we can because we'll all be sat at home for the next few weeks anyway so it won't matter if we get COVID!'
 
So the thing I mentioned a few times already about London hospital admissions and whether they reach 400 by the end of the week being used as some sort of trigger threshold ( New Covid restrictions could be avoided if hospital admissions in London do not soar this week )

The article says its not a fixed threshold and that other stuff is being looked at too. But I have to wonder if actually that value for London has been used as a trigger in the past.

I checked the previous occasions where London daily hospital admissions data crossed over the 400 line.

March 23rd 2020 - That day Johnson told everyone they must stay at home, lockdown.

December 19th 2020 - That day Johnson announced tier 4 restrictions for London and other areas that were already in tier 3 measures.

Caveat: the dates for daily hospital admissions on the dashboard are the admissions date, not the date that data was actually publicly published. And I dont know exactly how quickly the government get those numbers compared to when we get to see them.
 
What's the longest you've waited for PCR results? I'm waiting around 24 hours now - both times in the past it's been around 12.

Wanting results before going home to parents - currently in work digs - need to check out today. Nowhere else to go after but parents. Bit of a fix. Was meant to be getting a booster today too, but I'd better cancel that now as sore throat! Not sure if this is the right thread, but cheers guys :)
 
Ĝasper said:
What's the longest you've waited for PCR results? I'm waiting around 24 hours now - both times in the past it's been around 12.

Wanting results before going home to parents - currently in work digs - need to check out today. Nowhere else to go after but parents. Bit of a fix. Was meant to be getting a booster today too, but I'd better cancel that now as sore throat! Not sure if this is the right thread, but cheers guys :)
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Someone I know has been waiting 48 hours now after a +tive LFT, and with the numbers of cases I'd expect waiting times are longer than they have been previously tbh. Can you call and check?
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
Someone I know has been waiting 48 hours now after a +tive LFT, and with the numbers of cases I'd expect waiting times are longer than they have been previously tbh. Can you call and check?
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We’ve been waiting 48 hours now for a result for my son (-ve LFT but a bit of a cough); we were told up to 72 hours at the time.
 
I did mine at 1130 on Saturday, and got the result when I woke up yesterday (Wednesday). Some of that might have been about postal delays, despite posting it in a priority box, the timings would suggest it didn't get collected until Monday :(
 
I wasnt sure if my opinion of Burnham could get worse in this pandemic, but yes he found a way to make it worse.

I mean the mental health point has plenty of truth to it, and its one of the reasons I'm not going completely nuts on the forum about the need to lockdown this time around, even though I clearly believe we should have acted much more strongly again this time, and quicker. However peoples mental health will hardly be helped if we end up with a big mass of hospital admissions and deaths and then a longer period of restrictions as a result of the complete failure to take strong, early action. And what about the mental health of healthcare workers?

Plus I think it is reasonable to suspect that the motivations of the 'delay any strong action for as long as possible' wankers in the establishment are less about mental health and that its just convenient for them to hide behind that justification.

The use of the word rushing also earns him some extra contempt points in my eyes, fuck you Burnham. The word proportionate is also used. Only time will tell whose sense of proportion is correct this time - I'm still desperately waiting to be wrong about such matters and will be delighted when the moment finally arrives where my sense of pandemic proportion is proven to be out of step with reality. But am I convinved that time has come now? Sadly no. Ready to eat my hat if I'm wrong though, but will there be any consequences for people with Burnhams stance if the shit hits the fan?

 
elbows said:
I wasnt sure if my opinion of Burnham could get worse in this pandemic, but yes he found a way to make it worse.

I mean the mental health point has plenty of truth to it, and its one of the reasons I'm not going completely nuts on the forum about the need to lockdown this time around, even though I clearly believe we should have acted much more strongly again this time, and quicker. However peoples mental health will hardly be helped if we end up with a big mass of hospital admissions and deaths and then a longer period of restrictions as a result of the complete failure to take strong, early action. And what about the mental health of healthcare workers?

Plus I think it is reasonable to suspect that the motivations of the 'delay any strong action for as long as possible' wankers in the establishment are less about mental health and that its just convenient for them to hide behind that justification.

The use of the word rushing also earns him some extra contempt points in my eyes, fuck you Burnham. The word proportionate is also used. Only time will tell whose sense of proportion is correct this time - I'm still desperately waiting to be wrong about such matters and will be delighted when the moment finally arrives where my sense of pandemic proportion is proven to be out of step with reality. But am I convinved that time has come now? Sadly no. Ready to eat my hat if I'm wrong though, but will there be any consequences for people with Burnhams stance if the shit hits the fan?

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Politicians will politick...
 
Ĝasper said:
What's the longest you've waited for PCR results? I'm waiting around 24 hours now - both times in the past it's been around 12.

Wanting results before going home to parents - currently in work digs - need to check out today. Nowhere else to go after but parents. Bit of a fix. Was meant to be getting a booster today too, but I'd better cancel that now as sore throat! Not sure if this is the right thread, but cheers guys :)
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I’ve previously always had results by 24hrs but not this time. Its only after 24 hrs for me so maybe they’ll arrive soon and your results too
 
Made a bit of a breakthrough with Paul at work yesterday. He was moaning that 'surely most people in the UK must have had it by now!!'. So I asked him how many people there actually are in the UK. He didn't know, so I showed him where to look to find out. 'Wow, that's a lot of people' he said, 'how many have had Covid?'. So I checked the same site, and told him just over 11 and a half million. We agreed it was probably more than that due to asymptomatic cases and early lack of testing, but even so, with a generous margin, there's probably 30 million who haven't (yet) had it. I think I managed to impress on him how it's actually quite easy to find reliable sources of information, and that it was better to find facts than to speculate wildly.

It's only been 2 years. We're getting there though, I think.
 
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The weekly ONS infection survey that isnt so affected by attitudes to testing etc. As usual the biggest flaw is that this stuff is well out of date by the time it comes out:

Some 1,370,700 people in the UK would have tested positive for coronavirus in the week ending 16 December, according to the latest Office for National Statistics survey estimates.

This is the highest level of infections recorded by the ONS since its survey started.

The figure equates to roughly 2.1% of the population, or one in 45 people.
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And an especially appalling figure:

The ONS says one in 15 primary school children (5.9%) in England would have tested positive for Covid 19 that week.
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Quotes taken from various entries on the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59764750
 
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