Coronavirus

[Bjornebye]

True 

[Rico1304]

A minutes silence for all the U.K. victims would last 76 days.  

[Section_31]

NYT

 

 

News about the vaccines continues to be excellent — and the public discussion of it continues to be more negative than the facts warrant.

Here’s the key fact: All five vaccines with public results have eliminated Covid-19 deaths. They have also drastically reduced hospitalizations. “They’re all good trial results,” Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, told me. “It’s great news.”

Many people are instead focusing on relatively minor differences among the vaccine results and wrongly assuming that those differences mean that some vaccines won’t prevent serious illnesses. It’s still too early to be sure, because a few of the vaccine makers have released only a small amount of data. But the available data is very encouraging — including about the vaccines’ effect on the virus’s variants.

“The vaccines are poised to deliver what people so desperately want: an end, however protracted, to this pandemic,” as Julia Marcus of Harvard Medical School recently wrote in The Atlantic.

[A Red]

1 hour ago, Rico1304 said:

A minutes silence for all the U.K. victims would last 76 days.  

I'll suggest it to the mrs

[Guest]

Didn't take long for Boris Johnson to dance on Tom Moore's grave. He'd still be alive if it weren't for that bad hairdo. 

[Bjornebye]

I've just got my date and time for giving plasma. Soft-arse here thought I'd just be giving blood, quick in and out of there. Nah I'm gonna be hooked up to a machine for 45 minutes donating two units (560ml) and its gonna be in Speke not Moorfields. It was Ancelotti who made me do it actually with that half-time advert.  

 

Any other Covid veterans doing it? 

[suzy]

5 hours ago, Champ said:

 

Which one did you have?

 

I had the Pfizer one. Everyone I’ve spoken to seemed to have had a bit of a sore arm but not much else

Pfizer one for me too.

[Harry's Lad]

2 hours ago, Bjornebye said:

I've just got my date and time for giving plasma. Soft-arse here thought I'd just be giving blood, quick in and out of there. Nah I'm gonna be hooked up to a machine for 45 minutes donating two units (560ml) and its gonna be in Speke not Moorfields. It was Ancelotti who made me do it actually with that half-time advert.  

 

Any other Covid veterans doing it? 

Good on you and anyone else who does this. *doffs cap*

[johnsusername]

From the FT...

 

How to save the world from long Covid

 

‘We need to spend whatever it takes on wartime-style mobilisation to make, distribute and inject vaccines’

   

February 4, 2021 5:00 am by Simon Kuper

When I listen to scientists talk about where we might be a year from now, two main scenarios emerge. The first one is good: Covid-19 keeps circulating but loses its sting. Most people in rich countries, and the most vulnerable in developing countries, get vaccinated in 2021. The vaccines prevent disease caused by all strains. Covid-19 weakens: once it finds potential victims protected either by vaccination or past infection, it becomes at worst a nasty cold. “The most likely thing is that it will mutate into a more benevolent form. That may solve the problem,” says Anthony Costello, a former director at the World Health Organization.

 

But there’s another scenario, less likely yet so momentous that we need to think it through: the world gets “long Covid”. Vaccine-resistant mutations cause years of mass death, repeated lockdowns, economic disaster and political dysfunction. What determines which one comes true?

 

Precedent favours the benign outcome. “Four human coronaviruses . . . circulate endemically around the globe; they cause only mild symptoms,” write Jennie Lavine of Emory University and others in the journal Science. These viruses may once have been deadly too, until humans acquired protective immunity through infection in infancy. When people were reinfected as adults, their immune systems knew how to fight back.

 

 

Covid-19 may make that same journey much faster, with vaccines hastening herd immunity. Even as mutations emerge, previous vaccines and infections should confer enough immunity to protect us at least from severe disease; some existing vaccines seem to be handling the British and South African mutations. In this benign scenario, poorer countries can wait for vaccines, as their young populations aren’t very vulnerable to Covid-19. (More than half of African people alive today were born this century.)

 

Yet the malign scenario remains plausible, says Costello. New variants have appeared fast. Philip Krause, chair of a WHO working group on Covid-19 vaccines, told Science: “If it is possible for the virus to evolve into a vaccine-resistant phenotype, this may happen sooner than we like.” It may be happening now in the Brazilian city of Manaús: devastated by the first wave of Covid-19, it’s being devastated again, possibly because victims of the first wave aren’t immune to the new strain.

 

Vaccine-makers could probably rejig them to combat new strains but it might take months. Then countries might struggle to summon millions of recently vaccinated people back for more jabs. And new vaccines might be only 50 per cent effective, like the flu vaccine. We also don’t know how long vaccines will provide immunity against Covid-19. Will people return for booster shots?

 

Worse, highly infectious mutations have raised a country’s bar for achieving herd immunity. Getting there might now require vaccinating 78 to 95 per cent of people aged over 12, warns the consultancy McKinsey. Some will refuse vaccination. Meanwhile Covid-19 keeps circulating and mutating, especially in poor countries. By mid-January, 29 low-income countries combined had vaccinated just 55 people, all in Guinea, said the WHO.

 

Ian Goldin, professor of globalisation and development at Oxford, sees a more likely scenario than global long Covid: a new pandemic. He notes the growing frequency of pandemics this century, as habitats of animals and humans become compressed, and global travel increases transmission.

 

Imagine a pandemic that lasts years, killing millions. Whole sectors — tourism, restaurants, the arts, aviation, conferencing — could collapse. So might democracies, as isolated people mainline conspiracy theories in their bedrooms. Bankrupt states would helplessly print money. The jobless young might grow up unequipped to deal with people off-screen. Many would rebel against lockdowns, fighting the forces of order. The mental-health pandemic would rage beyond control. A few countries — New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Vietnam — would become oases besieged by would-be immigrants from everywhere else. Between deadly waves, people would seek relief in the wildest experiences.

 

A few countries — New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Vietnam — would become oases besieged by would-be immigrants

 

To avoid global long Covid, states need to hurry. The quicker humanity achieves herd immunity, the less time the virus has to mutate beyond control. We need to spend whatever it takes on wartime-style mobilisation to make, distribute and inject vaccines. Costello calls for a “Home Guard” of contact tracers and vaccine promoters, including retired doctors and nurses.

 

We also need to get vaccines to poor countries fast. The Covax facility — meant to ensure fair global distribution of vaccines — is fighting hard to reach 27 per cent of people in lower-income countries this year, in the face of underfunding and hogging of supplies by rich countries. Covax’s funding target for 2021 is $6.8bn. Compare that to the cost of a week’s lockdown in a rich country. In total, says Goldin, “Rich countries have found $12 trillion for themselves, but only $100 billion has been pledged to developing countries.”

 

“No one is safe until everyone is safe,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, has warned. People in rich countries tend to dismiss such pieties. We’ve learnt from experience that we can be safe even while pandemics decimate the world’s poor. For once, this may no longer be true.

[Strontium]

On 22/03/2020 at 09:40, Bjornebye said:

The worst place to come out of this will be Africa. The next 12 months will be very very grim over there.

 

11 months later, it turns out that Africa (the entire continent) has had fewer covid deaths (93 thousand) than the UK alone.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-4a11d568-2716-41cf-a15e-7d15079548bc

[Bjornebye]

7 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

 

11 months later, it turns out that Africa (the entire continent) has had fewer covid deaths (93 thousand) than the UK alone.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-4a11d568-2716-41cf-a15e-7d15079548bc

I'm delighted for the African people that I am man enough to admit that I was wrong. 

[Strontium]

I'm pleased for you that you're able to say you once made a prediction that was less than 100% accurate and people don't bang on endlessly about it. Must be nice not to have the level of scrutiny that others get.

[Bjornebye]

5 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

I'm pleased for you that you're able to say you once wrote something that was less than 100% accurate and people don't bang on endlessly about it. Must be nice not to have the level of scrutiny that others get.

Hahahaha you've literally just dug up a post from nearly 11 months ago to try and make a point you absolute ladle.

 

You called people out with the "will anyone be man enough" then when it was YOU that was wrong you have avoided it like he plague because YOU aren't man enough. YOU were 100% incorrect. Don't make smarmy comments questioning everyone elses decency and not expect to be pulled up on it when YOU are proven to be wrong. I can handle being wrong, your narcissism can't. 

 

Nice try though chief. 

[Strontium]

I found that post by accident when I was looking for posts about covid transmission on surfaces (as I expected, it turns out that doesn't really happen).

 

I've already admitted I underestimated the extent to which covid would supplant other respiratory diseases as a factor in seasonal deaths of the vulnerable. I don't really know what more I can say.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

"embarrassing" 

[Bjornebye]

7 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

I found that post by accident when I was looking for posts about covid transmission on surfaces (as I expected, it turns out that doesn't really happen).

 

I've already admitted I underestimated the extent to which covid would supplant other respiratory diseases as a factor in seasonal deaths of the vulnerable. I don't really know what more I can say.

Nice try. 

[Rick Sanchez C-137]

17 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

I found that post by accident when I was looking for posts about covid transmission on surfaces (as I expected, it turns out that doesn't really happen).

 

I've already admitted I underestimated the extent to which covid would supplant other respiratory diseases as a factor in seasonal deaths of the vulnerable. I don't really know what more I can say.

 

What wave are we on though?

[Bjornebye]

3 minutes ago, Rick Sanchez C-137 said:

 

What wave are we on though?

Wave? Its not even winter yet 

[3 Stacks]

47 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

I found that post by accident when I was looking for posts about covid transmission on surfaces (as I expected, it turns out that doesn't really happen).

 

I've already admitted I underestimated the extent to which covid would supplant other respiratory diseases as a factor in seasonal deaths of the vulnerable. I don't really know what more I can say.

Yeah, it doesn't transmit through surfaces, it's airborne, which is far worse. So congrats on that, I guess.

[Section_31]

24 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

Yeah, it doesn't transmit through surfaces, it's airborne, which is far worse. So congrats on that, I guess.

I don't think it's airborne is it? It's contained in liquids (snot and the likes) which itself can be airborne if you sneeze. It's not floating around though infecting people as I understand it, that's why the outdoors is relatively safe and they encourage you to keep windows open. 

[Guest]

 

[Jairzinho]

4 minutes ago, Shooter in the Motor said:

 

I watched a bit of the interview with David Davis a few weeks ago (not as bad as it sounds). Then saw him today in parliament talking about this, which even made the Spanish news. Admittedly, predominantly because the studies have been in Cordoba.

 

I do wonder why it hasn't made much of a stir. People have been talking about this stuff for a year.

 

[3 Stacks]

6 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

I don't think it's airborne is it? It's contained in liquids (snot and the likes) which itself can be airborne if you sneeze. It's not floating around though infecting people as I understand it, that's why the outdoors is relatively safe and they encourage you to keep windows open. 

No, it is airborne, as well as being in droplets. There's a scientific debate about "how airborne is it really" but it is at least partially proven to be airborne. I assume the reason transmission is reduced outdoors is because of wind and sunlight which can disperse and kill virus respectively.

[Bobby Hundreds]

Limmy on twitter has said  "I'm ever in court for murder, I'm going to ask the jury to join me in clapping for my victim. And knowing this country of stupid cunts, I'd probably walk free."

 

[Bjornebye]

Why can't it be transmitted on surfaces all of a sudden?