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I think confidence drives conviction.

The UK gov are completely misreading the room. Johnson needs to be seen as good cop, as the hero of his story, and seems unable to recognise the capacity and resilience of the population for doing it tough.

Oh the irony ..
 
^^^Interesting. I guess here in the UK it's not been so much lack of confidence as lack of conviction on the part of Boris Johnson. The remark about the "freedom-loving British people" as opposed to the rule-following continental Europeans. Even in last Monday's (or whenever it was - the coronacalendar is getting a bit blurry) lockdown address, he couldn't help himself saying - and later tweeting - that he was sure that the British public was sick of getting more government instructions around this. When my perception was that the opposite is true - people were desperate to see some leadership, and for measures that would actually bring the situation under control.
Having said that, when it all started back in spring, I was admittedly also wondering how well people would follow it, also perceiving the national spirit, if there is such a thing, to be a bit more rebellious than in say, Germany. So I don't know how well restrictive measures would have flown if the situation wrt threat of death to loved ones and threat to the healthcare system hadn't been so grave, then and now.

In the grand scheme of things the Johnson and tory related stuff is just an extra dollop of shit on top, strip that bit away and there are still lots of similarities to approach, bad timing and feeble strength of measures between large countries in europe and the UK.
 
Lesotho, landlocked by South Africa, was the last African country to record a case. They are now overwhelmed, trapped by economic hardship, a reliance on South African workers, and a Christmas that saw a lot of migration mixed in with the new South African variant.


A couple of things stand out.

A Lesotho government source told the Guardian authorities had stopped quarantining travellers because most of those sent to the facilities were not showing symptoms. He said it was decided that seriously ill patients would be sent to hospital. However, the hospitals are also overwhelmed.



“We did away with quarantine facilities in June because most of the people sent there were not even showing signs, hence it was a strain on our already thin budget. It was decided that only those who were seriously ill would be sent to hospital. We now owe them [the quarantine centres] over R100m rand (about £4.8m),” the source said.

Of about 130,000 people who have entered Lesotho from South Africa since the beginning of December, just 20% had Covid clearance certificates and only about 39,000 were tested for the virus. Thousands more people are believed to have crossed the border illicitly, unable to afford the 800-rand (£38) Covid-19 test, and seven bodies were recovered from the Mohokare River in the last week of December. Police say others are still missing.
 
The county where I am got moved to high risk so the weekend ends at 1pm both days . ( there’s another tier above us ) . Speculation here in Portugal about a one week long set of restrictions .
 
So they've locked down Brisbane for 3 days and have managed to trace all of the original infected girls contacts and quarantine them. Now they are tracing possible casual contacts. There's been no new cases overnight. Immidiete changes have been made so that all workers in quarantine hotels ( which are full of Australians who've managed to get back from overseas) get tested daily not weekly now. And across the whole country they've halved ( or more) the number of returning Australians allowed back.



One of the issues that happened was that by giving people 12 hours notice of the lockdown, a lot of people apparently left Brisbane for the weekend to go to the gold coast or sunshine coast to avoid it.. obviously a bad thing.

So last night Victoria locked down it's borders to anyone from qld with 15 minutes notice

Victorians in Brisbane facing another lockdown after border closure

This morning it has also transpired that a uk returne who had been in quarantine and had a negative result after 10 days, flew to QLD but authorities are now saying that she was allowed to leave too early and a last test result has shown she is positive for the uk varient. Apparently there's not much risk involved , but that it happened has immideilty changed rules for people exiting quarantine, for the better.

This is qlds chief medical officer this morning. It's occured to me that whilst "all* Australian announcements and information such as this are always accompanied by a deaf and hard of hearing translator, the ones I've seen from the uk - such as johnson's speech the other day arent- surely I'm wrong about that ?

 
This is qlds chief medical officer this morning. It's occured to me that whilst "all* Australian announcements and information such as this are always accompanied by a deaf and hard of hearing translator, the ones I've seen from the uk - such as johnson's speech the other day arent- surely I'm wrong about that ?

Johnson's announcements & Downing Street press conferences are broadcast on the BBC News channel with a sign translator and IIRC sub-titles too, which is available on all platforms - Freeview, Freeset, Sky, Virgin, BT, etc. etc. So, other channels, like BBC1 & Sky News, don't need too.
 
Yes 2hats initially the Chinese regime failed to provide permissions for the visiting WHO team, I think this is the second or third attempt. I hope they get the required access and get to learn what they are after, but I fear China is not fully cooperating yet. It would also be interesting if they could discover proper stats on the outbreak in Wuhan as I think the published stats can't be honest.
 
Wrong thread surely? Feed it to one of our loons in conspiracy corner.

It's not quite conspiracy though but maybe you're right. Thought it was on this thread we discussed cultural/national attitudes for stuff around vaccinations and health?
 
Needs much further investigation with controls, in particular for patients recovering from COVID. Though might incentivise some to mask up, distance and get vaccinated.
Collectively, our findings provide direct evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can infect the testis and germ cells, indicating the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on spermatogenesis and male fertility. Nevertheless, further study is essential to reveal the underlying mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 infection of testicular cells and the correlation of testis infection with the clinical course of COVID-19.
Pathological and molecular examinations of postmortem testis biopsies reveal SARS-CoV-2 infection in the testis and spermatogenesis damage in COVID-19 patients, DOI: 10.1038/s41423-020-00604-5
 
I've been doing some courses with an online Jewish learning school based in South Africa that my dad's friend from when he was at school there told me about. I hadn't heard about when they were starting back this year and sent the administrator an email, and had no response. Then this evening I heard back from her saying she hadn't replied or had time to look at any emails because her family had been very unwell with Covid, and some of them had died. :(
 
RTP which is the Portuguese State Broadcaster reporting that from Thursday there will be a national confinement for 15 days and then a review


The country is expected to enter general confinement at 12:00 am next Thursday. The calendar is already designed.
On Tuesday morning the meeting with specialists takes place at Infarmed's headquarters.

In the afternoon, the President of the Republic receives parties with a parliamentary seat and issues a decree for a new state of emergency that should be in force for 15 days.

This document will be voted on Wednesday morning in the Assembly of the Republic. And on the same day, in the afternoon, the Council of Ministers meets to define and announce the restrictive measures that accompany this new general confinement.

Everything indicates that non-essential trade will close again, including restoration.

Schools must remain in operation.
 
I was hearing yesterday from a friend that in France you have to jump through loads of hoops to get the vaccine. You have to see a GP first - I think at a separate appointment - and sign lots of paperwork, including a waiver that says fuck off if you get any side effects cos you knew the risks in advance.

I can't understand the reasoning behind the waiver. Either the vaccines have been deemed safe and tolerable enough to roll out nationally/globally, or they haven't (and they have). You'd expect some tiny proportion of people to experience adverse effects, but surely not enough to warrant a waiver? :confused:

It just seems like shooting the whole country in the foot and making the whole process and uptake extra difficult.

And indeed a grand total of 138 people have had the vaccine in the whole country, as of 30 December :eek:

View attachment 246526

What am I missing?

A bit more on that, here (from a couple of days ago):
A sluggish start is being blamed on bureaucracy and vaccine scepticism, writes Hugh Schofield, in Paris.
... After the first week, when neighbouring Germany had inoculated around 250,000 people, France was on a mere 530. By Friday, the figure had gone up to 45,500 - still so small as to be statistically meaningless.

So why has it taken so long for France to put the plan into action? It is not as if the authorities did not have time to prepare. And it is certainly not a question of a lack of vaccine. In fact, more than a million Pfizer doses are already in cold storage, waiting to be used.

The primary reason for the delay seems to be the cumbersome, over-centralised nature of France's health bureaucracy. A 45-page dossier of instructions issued by the ministry in Paris had to be read and understood by staff at old people's homes.

Each recipient then had to give informed consent in a consultation with a doctor, held no less than five days before injection. The lengthy procedure is in theory to save lives - those of patients who might have an adverse reaction. But as the critics have been arguing, delay in inoculating the population is also costing lives.

Another problem in France is the high level of scepticism towards vaccination - product of a more general suspicion of government. Polls suggest as many as 58% of the public do not want to be given the jab. The effect - critics say - has been to make the government unduly cautious. When urgency was required, the authorities were reluctant to move fast for fear of galvanising the anti-vaxxers.

(But it's only just occurred to me that my friend probably meant consent form, rather than waiver.)
 
Deffo looks like Wednesday midnight for confinement . Formal announcement expected Wed tea time. Initially for 15 days and then reviewed as according to the constitution. Supermarkets etc will be open but no news on takeaways from cafes and restaurants. There isn’t a huge amount of home delivery services and there are very few places that are normally takeaway only so not like the U.K. . We’ve just started the Presidential election voting so be interesting to see if the left pick up anything on campaigning for better lay off pay .
 
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