Coronavirus

[Bruce Spanner]

27 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

He comes.out kicking and screaming at the same time kuntsberg turns on Alex. Interesting. 

 

23 minutes ago, Shooter in the Motor said:

This is probably why Johnson started on the nuclear stockpile. Let's change the subject. How many missiles do we have? How many can we afford now the NHS is only getting a 1% pay rise. People will feel better knowing we have another 40 nuclear missiles.

 

As @Bjornebye said earlier, we all have faults but Cummings is a cluster fuck of a human being and Johnson took it up the arse from him.

 

Just realised the NHS letter I posted above was released minutes before todays press conference, which was called for no real reason as there was no real news, but Hancock was sent out as the letter was released to face the music without any help, nice work.

 

Yep, somethings cooking.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Bruce Spanner said:

 

 

Just realised the NHS letter I posted above was released minutes before todays press conference, which was called for no real reason as there was no real news, but Hancock was sent out as the letter was released to face the music without any help, nice work.

 

Yep, somethings cooking.

In the public domain, there's no such thing as coincidence. Everything that happens, definitely happens for a reason and it's part of someone's plan. Like you say, something's cooking and it would appear to be significant with the amount of coverage it's getting.

[Barrington Womble]

36 minutes ago, Bruce Spanner said:

 

 

Just realised the NHS letter I posted above was released minutes before todays press conference, which was called for no real reason as there was no real news, but Hancock was sent out as the letter was released to face the music without any help, nice work.

 

Yep, somethings cooking.

I think they do a press conference every weds. 

[Bruce Spanner]

6 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

I think they do a press conference every weds. 

No, they said they would do three a week,  they have dialled that back and they have been random, maybe today’s was, or informational when something happens/due to happen.

 

Either way it’s an almighty coincidence.

[Barrington Womble]

6 minutes ago, Bruce Spanner said:

No, they said they would do three a week,  they have dialled that back and they have been random, maybe today’s was, or informational when something happens/due to happen.

 

Either way it’s an almighty coincidence.

I've always felt there's been one on a weds, because it's nearly always been Alex after PMQs. Maybe they had changed it, but I look for one each weds if I'm not working. 

[Bruce Spanner]

'The daily Downing Street press conference on coronavirus has been stopped, the government has announced.

 

Boris Johnson led the final regular briefing, flanked by chief advisers Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance.

 

From now on televised briefings will be given on an "ad hoc" basis to "coincide with significant announcements," Downing Street said.

 

It comes as the PM announced an easing of the lockdown in England.

 

There have been 92 briefings, and two national addresses by the prime minister.'

 

Maybe they've fallen on Wednesday most, I don't know, I don't even know what day of the week it is anymore due to the crushing monotony...

 

I remember when it was announced thinking that they'll start to use them as political broardcasts and ad hoc was an easy way to score cheap points if something, anything, had gone well in this bleak unrelenting hellscape.

[Barrington Womble]

5 minutes ago, Bruce Spanner said:

'The daily Downing Street press conference on coronavirus has been stopped, the government has announced.

 

Boris Johnson led the final regular briefing, flanked by chief advisers Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance.

 

From now on televised briefings will be given on an "ad hoc" basis to "coincide with significant announcements," Downing Street said.

 

It comes as the PM announced an easing of the lockdown in England.

 

There have been 92 briefings, and two national addresses by the prime minister.'

 

Maybe they've fallen on Wednesday most, I don't know, I don't even know what day of the week it is anymore due to the crushing monotony...

 

I remember when it was announced thinking that they'll start to use them as political broardcasts and ad hoc was an easy way to score cheap points if something, anything, had gone well in this bleak unrelenting hellscape.

Is that from a while back? I've felt since this latest lockdown they've been on Mondays and Wednesdays. But a bit like you I do struggle to remember what day it is. 

[Bruce Spanner]

1 minute ago, Barrington Womble said:

Is that from a while back? I've felt since this latest lockdown they've been on Mondays and Wednesdays. But a bit like you I do struggle to remember what day it is. 

Maybe and maybe, I really can’t remember or find out off the interwebs.

 

Either way today’s leak timing was beautiful if it was to stiff Hancock.

 

 

[torahboy]

If my sheer incompetence in a job led to the death of a solitary person i would leave that job, full of shame, remoresful and devastated that i was responsible for destroying a life and leaving a family in the depths of grief. Boris Johnson, though, is responsible for killing fucking thousands yet doesn't give a toss. Or am I just being too sensitive?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/18/delaying-englands-winter-lockdown-caused-up-to-27000-extra-covid-deaths

[Rick Sanchez C-137]

6 hours ago, torahboy said:

If my sheer incompetence in a job led to the death of a solitary person i would leave that job, full of shame, remoresful and devastated that i was responsible for destroying a life and leaving a family in the depths of grief. Boris Johnson, though, is responsible for killing fucking thousands yet doesn't give a toss. Or am I just being too sensitive?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/18/delaying-englands-winter-lockdown-caused-up-to-27000-extra-covid-deaths

 

Being responsible for deaths is part and parcel of being a Tory. They don't know any different. As long as the people dying are poorer than them, they aren't really people.

[Stickman]

I'd have thought High Horse FC would have been all over this 

 

 

 

[SasaS]

14 hours ago, Section_31 said:

I know I'm viewing the EU through the British media prism here, but this basically seems to be what's happened.

 

European countries set about ordering vaccines.

 

EC says bollocks to that, we'll work together and strongarm the suppliers. Works well when buying bog roll from Costco so will work here too. "Give us a good deal or else we'll take our business elsewhere!"

 

Suppliers say "go ahead, everyone wants it and there's hardly enough as it is."

 

We get loads, EU says "fuck that" and blames the fact it now has short supplies on chicanery, rather than its own dithering. Starts talking about a blockade. Reunites Ireland over night without telling anyone. Looks stupid. Backs down.

 

Plan B is to say they didn't want it anyway cos it's shit. Germany says it doesn't work in old folks, Macron says its shit. Then this clots business. Health chiefs call it out and say non, and demand supplies continue, but seemingly there's still no scope for rapid expansion.

 

Now it's back to Plan A again and talk of blockades.  

One thing people often don't acknowledge is that EU (EC) more or less had to tell its member states not to order individually, to avoid the situation in which rich countries pay the premium price and get all the vaccines for themselves (which has in the end happened to a degree, with poorer countries prioritizing much cheaper AZ in their orders and falling behind due to shortfalls), with disastrous political consequences.

 

Another problem for the EU is, nation state governments would always have the advantage in situations of wars and disasters such as pandemic, because they can act faster and cut corners when needs must. Healthcare is not even the responsibility of EC, it is with member states.

 

What they should have done, from the European perspective, is take the BioNTech (Pfizer) vaccine and make it a German national programme (as UK more or less did with the Oxford (AZ), fuck Pfizer off or make it a partner under strict supply conditions and then expand the programme to supply all of EU. The problem is, that would have been politically tricky. So they left it to companies to sort it out.

 

What they can still do is stop playing games and waiting for companies like Sanofi to catch up with their own inferior programmes, increase production (you would have thought that was an absolute priority for every government and society in a pandemic) and make up for any shortfalls.

[Mudface]

A bit of background (and supposition) about the upcoming vaccine delay- https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/18/coronavirus-vaccine-supply-dip-spotlights-tensions-between-matt-hancock-and-nhs

 

Final paragraph is quite illuminating, this is a government that constantly seeks to obfuscate and in this case it bit them on the arse, so fuck 'em.

 

The most baffling question is why was the obfuscation necessary? If Hancock or AstraZeneca had transparently explained the source of the supply dip, talked through who it would affect and reiterated that the only difference would be that the UK would not be so far ahead of schedule, while reassuring the public that targets would still be met, they could have been looking at very different newspaper front pages.

But in this parallel universe, there are many questions left unanswered.

[SasaS]

1 hour ago, Mudface said:

A bit of background (and supposition) about the upcoming vaccine delay- https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/18/coronavirus-vaccine-supply-dip-spotlights-tensions-between-matt-hancock-and-nhs

 

Final paragraph is quite illuminating, this is a government that constantly seeks to obfuscate and in this case it bit them on the arse, so fuck 'em.

 

 

 

I think it's all about the perception of being in total control of the process. It reminds me of the needless testing PR screw-up with the self-imposed meaningless deadline by which meaningless round number had to be reached, was it in April? So despite making significant and important progress with testing they fiddled with the numbers to hit the unnecessarily imposed target so instead of huge progress in testing the story became how they counted the sent out tests which may never be returned as completed.

[Mudface]

7 minutes ago, SasaS said:

I think it's all about the perception of being in total control of the process. It reminds me of the needless testing PR screw-up with the self-imposed meaningless deadline by which meaningless round number had to be reached, was it in April? So despite making significant and important progress with testing they fiddled with the numbers to hit the unnecessarily imposed target so instead of huge progress in testing the story became how they counted the sent out tests which may never be returned as completed.

Yep, it's Johnson's constant boosterism and seemingly pathological need to make grand announcements to deflect during difficult times. Makes for good short term PR, but it inevitably catches up with them, like most conmen.

[DJLJ]

So the Norwegian doctors has found out that the vaccine does indeed cause these specific kind of blood clots. Next step is up to EMA to decide what to do next with the AZ vaccine. 
 

https://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/norsk-laegegruppe-astrazeneca-vaccine-udloeste-blodpropper/8507757

[Mudface]

5 minutes ago, DJLJ said:

So the Norwegian doctors has found out that the vaccine does indeed cause these specific kind of blood clots. Next step is up to EMA to decide what to do next with the AZ vaccine. 
 

https://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/norsk-laegegruppe-astrazeneca-vaccine-udloeste-blodpropper/8507757

Oh dear. Translation-

 

A Norwegian medical group said on Thursday that it was immune reactions that triggered blood clots in three health workers after vaccinations with Astra Zeneca's covid 19 vaccine. It writes the newspaper VG.

- We've found the cause. There is nothing but the vaccine that can explain the immune reaction that occurred, says Pål Andre Holme, professor and chief physician at Oslo University Hospital, to the newspaper.

Holme has led a group at the hospital, which has worked under great time pressure to find the reason why three health workers under the age of 50 were admitted with a blood clot after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Now they believe they have confirmed the theory that there was an immune response associated with the vaccine.

- In collaboration with the hospital's specialized department for blood clots at the University Hospital of Northern Norway (UNN), we have now shown that it was specific antibodies against platelets that can give the image we have seen elsewhere, and with medication as the triggering cause, says Holme and adds:

- We take the vaccine to get an immune response to what we need to be protected against. Thus, antibodies are developed. Certain antibodies can then react by activating the platelets, which in some cases causes a blood clot.

He says there will be too few platelets in the reaction.

Later on Thursday, the European Medicines Agency, EMA, is expected to present its assessment of the vaccine after a dozen countries in the EU have suspended its use.

- This is serious, and it is a partly expected conclusion, unfortunately, based on the described disease picture. We are awaiting the EMA and the Norwegian Medicines Agency's assessments, says Lill Sverresdatter Larsen in the Norwegian Nurses' Association to VG.

The Norwegian Medicines Agency will wait to comment on the matter until the EU Medicines Agency has submitted its assessment.

Nor does AstraZeneca immediately want to comment on the matter.

- We are awaiting the EMA's decision later today, says AstraZeneca's press manager, Christina Malmberg Hägerstrand, to NTB.

[SasaS]

EMA's emergency meeting apparently over. Announcement imminent.

[Duff Man]

Not ideal. What's most likely to happen, here? It gets pulled totally, or only for folks likely to have a reaction?

[VladimirIlyich]

I had my first jab today,and my missus yesterday. Astra Zeneca stuff too. Been nice knowing you all!

[Mudface]

8 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

Not ideal. What's most likely to happen, here? It gets pulled totally, or only for folks likely to have a reaction?

I'm not sure they'd be able to identify people likely to have a reaction. The correct thing is to carry on with the vaccinations while noting this is a 1 in a million adverse side effect, but it's all got very political so fuck knows what individual countries will do or how people will respond.

[SasaS]

4 minutes ago, VladimirIlyich said:

I had my first jab today,and my missus yesterday. Astra Zeneca stuff too. Been nice knowing you all!

You should take an Aspirin.

[Rick Sanchez C-137]

41 minutes ago, SasaS said:

You should take an Aspirin.

 

And buy a lottery ticket

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

EMA have declared AZ vaccine as "safe and effective" vaccine and say that benefits outweigh the risks. 

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

The EMA add that there's no reason to believe that the vaccine increases risk of thrombo events, but they can't entirely rule out a causative link between the vaccine and such events.