Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
This is weird. I can understand if not condone the lecturer being asked not to wear one, but why the students? What difference could it make to anything? What about niqabs and so on?
Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
- Thread starter Sasaferrato
- Start date
This is weird. I can understand if not condone the lecturer being asked not to wear one, but why the students? What difference could it make to anything? What about niqabs and so on?
I know. It's really bizarre. I think it shows the desperation of universities to make everything "normal" again. My interpretation is that the curtain has been pulled back on the fact that without lectures, universities often aren't really providing much of a service. Rather than fix this, they want to get the students back in the lecture theatre before they notice this.
It's not an order to not wear a mask, it's a request. But given that your average 22 year old is not that keen to wear a mask in the first place, it's basically eliminating masks.
This is a medical MSc, by the way, in the School of Medicine and Dentistry in Barts hospital.
bluescreen
tofu eating wokerati
How many children have to be hospitalised before it's regarded as serious? How many deaths?
I'd naively assumed the great British public would be more affected by Covid's effect on young people but I was wrong about that.
Meanwhile, people are celebrating that it's becoming endemic.
As if that meant it's attenuated.
Malaria is endemic.
So is yellow fever.
Living with it =/= ignoring it.
I'd naively assumed the great British public would be more affected by Covid's effect on young people but I was wrong about that.
Meanwhile, people are celebrating that it's becoming endemic.
As if that meant it's attenuated.
Malaria is endemic.
So is yellow fever.
Living with it =/= ignoring it.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Is there an alternative?
bluescreen
tofu eating wokerati
There's no alternative to reality (OK, there probably is) but it is sensible to respond to reality by, eg, washing hands, masking up, getting the jab.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Attitudes are affected by media coverage, absolute numbers, and the reassurances that the establishment came out with when some of the numbers and trends were getting more attention online recently.
Walk in vaccinations for the 5-11 group with vulnerabilities has now begun today, so this can be added to the mix.
By the way I've just in the last hour been reading a paper SAGE looked at in January which investigated paediatric intensive care data for 2020. As well as looking at covid numbers and the effect of cancelled planned operations, they also noticed some data pertaining to diabetes and also the effect that lockdowns etc had on other respiratory conditions that normally cause a larger peak of child intensive care admissions. It concludes with this:
Is there actually going to be a large public debate about that sort of thing? I have big doubts about whether there will be many signs of that. Our priorities suck!
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Well no, we should all have the jab as we do with flu, we should carry on with mask wearing as has happened in Japan etc. since the early 2000's and we should wash hands regularly anyway, in spite of it not being a significant vector of Covid, we should just do it.
elbows
Well-Known Member
With hospitals there were some specific relaxations made to pandemic inection control procedures a month or two ago, but much of that stuff remains firmly in place. It does have an impact on capacity, but I would hope some changes stick and lead to a permanent change to the extent to which hospitals have long been a contributory factor to seasonal resiratory disease deaths. When people shit on about how many flu deaths we live with, I would rather consider what lessons from the pandemic could be applied to permanently reducing such things. This very much includes care home and hospital infection control, routine testing, etc.
What I hope is that we dont see a big resurgence in flu for several seasons to come, and that people start to wonder why, and stumble upon some of this stuff in addition to other explanations.
elbows
Well-Known Member
We dont all have the flu jab, I dont think I've ever had one because I still fall in a broad age group in the middle, a group which the flu vaccine programme has not been expanded to cover yet. The establishment probably has a similar thing in mind for covid vaccines going forwards, if they think they can get away with that approach and make the hospitalisation numbers add up.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Another paper SAGE looked at this month, in regards voluntary risk-mitigation behaviours, a very important aspect, especially these days with less formal rules:
Sunray
Its sunny somewhere.
Anyone can get a flu vaccine, its about £16 in boots if you don't qualify for a free one.
Its efficacy is hugely variable, rarely about 60%, sometimes as low as 10% so its debatable its worthwhile if your young and healthy.
Saying that I've had bad flu twice in my life 15 and 21. Unflinchingly brutal with no end. It took me over two months to fully recover both times. Covid-19 was nothing in comparison.
Sunray
Its sunny somewhere.
Its only been a month since the UK regulator approved it for under 12.
Parents need to be involved so its not like the general public just wandering into a vaccination centre.
elbows
Well-Known Member
There is a very big difference between people being able to get a vaccine and there being a large national programme that encourages a high percentage of uptake.
It was a horrible flu epidemic in the UK in 1989-90 that really kickstarted mass flu vaccination here, although its happene gradually in many stages. Its been expanding ever since, with older people given a different sort of flu vaccine in recent years due to low efficacy against H3N2 from the previous vaccine in the last decade or so, and the programme has also been expanded in children quite significantly. There has also been a lot of effort put into trying to improve the percentage of NHS workers who get the flu vaccine. How much they seek to expand the programme further in future is unclear to me.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
I bounced back amazingly well from a serious dose of flu at 53, but the flu at 58 and especially 59 (2018/2019) properly floored me - and if at 60-plus I'm going to need covid top-ups, I hope I will be offered a free flu jab too ... hopefully the vaccine efficacy will improve thanks to what is being learned about SARSCV2
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Yes, the 'normality' thing is really important in Universities at the moment. It's also a 'competitive normality', given that the institution up the road might be doing more of the day to day reality of student life. The other thing is vice chancellors are desperate to align themselves with government thinking, even when that thinking is about saving johnson's arse.
wtfftw
melting like a toastie
Yes. I'm saying this country has not vaccinated under 12s.
it looks like around 120 deaths within 28 days of a positive test in under 19s since the start of the pandemic. not deaths necessarily because of covid - not shown in data - but within positive test.
obviously sad but at the same time it's statistically a very small number. more kids die in road accidents in london every year, for example.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
More than the currently tiny numbers, I'd imagine.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
They gave me mine with my Covid booster jab, anyone over 40 was offered it.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Everyone in the vulnerable group has been offered it for free for ages. Frau Bahn helps out at flu clinics in the autumn, they get though 1000's of old codgers in a day. Also primary age kids get it too. And anyone else who wants it can pay for it. So it's fairly ubiquitous and I would have thought the Covid boosters will be similar, no?
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
Via your GP
bluescreen
tofu eating wokerati
What are you arguing from your sample of one? That Covid isn't that bad? Well, it kills some people. You have to be very ill to be admitted to hospital, so 'mild' is a low barrier.
Yeah, sorry - I was improperly focusing on the kneejerk dead kids number rather than people (children are people) who become ill and/or suffer long Covid. (And yes, I know there are those who argue that long Covid isn't a thing but they can GTF.)
Sad, but look at road deaths... Can you hear what you're saying? 'OK, this thing is sad but that thing over there is worse'?
I wasn’t offered it with my booster on 21 December
No they weren't. I wasn't.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Mine was 10th December, but Frau Bahn's was the day before at the same place and she wasn't offered it, so I guess they were just jabbing folk with whatever they had to hand. She was able to get one at pharmacy attached to our GP's free of charge, in spite of being under 50, it was a walk in service, no queue at all.
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