Off Topic Coronavirus - 606 tales from the Inquiry

Not a dig at our Government specifically, but a comment on the whole Developed World...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60152760

Of all the things that have happened worldwide since the Pandemic began, this (sadly) was the most foreseeable.
I seem to remember several of the economic superpowers of the world saying they would not let this happen.
It's not unfair I think for all of us in rich countries to ask our Governments to increase efforts to get vaccines into arms in the developing nations.

 

Looks like some murky goings-on surrounding when Novax really caught COVID19...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/59999541

Hardly surprising.
UK and French Tennis authorities take note.
Do you really need the kind of hassle the Australians put up with?
Tell him now that he's not welcome - unless he gets his jabs and provides watertight proof he's had them.

 

Looks like 90,000 infections per day could be the new normal

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60161124

Unless this is just a temporary resurgence due to restrictions being relaxed.
Would have thought it's a tad early for that factor to be feeding through yet though.
Let's see where we are in a couple more weeks.

 

You'd think if there was a genuine reason for the discrepancies there would have been a response from Novax's legal team, or the Serbian authorities. And if he'd got away with it he'd probably be in the final right now.
We seem to have forgotten abahrt the Chinese tennis player who disappeared.

 

I was pleased to see the Australian Tennis authority overturn the ban on people wearing "Where is Peng Shuai" T-shirts at the Open.

 

The Government painted itself into a corner deciding to force anti-vacc NHS staff to jab or change job.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60193410

Now if it U-turns all the Anti-vacc loonies will have a field day.

It is a matter of concern to me, that some doctors in particular won't take the vaccine.
There is no reasonable basis for such a refusal.
Therefore the competence of such a doctor must be questioned. Somebody who will not protect themselves (and their patients) from COVID19 because of an irrational decision based on fear, should perhaps not be responsible for giving potentially dangerous medical treatment to other people.

But if the NHS loses 5% of its doctors and nurses from front line care overnight, that will lead to danger for many patients.

This whole issue has been badly handled.

 

Very sad to hear an Anti-vacc agitator in the audience being given a chance to spout misinformation on Question Time this evening.
Rattling on about "horrific side-effects" and other disproportionate nonsense he's read on the internet.

On the panel is a top level expert on vaccination. The Anti-vacc guy just won't accept anything the expert says.
Won't listen to reason. Is just utterly certain that he's right.

Another woman in the audience says she knows best what to put in her body, and she isn't Anti-vacc despite refusing to take it herself.
She defends her right to choose what's best for herself.

Self, self, self.
The shameless mantra of the Anti-vacc minority.


By the way, I'm not saying there should be no debate on this subject.
Just that I'm saddened and depressed to hear selfish and unjustifiable Anti-vacc opinions being expressed without being challenged.
There's a lot of talk going on about personal freedom to choose.
Very little talk about personal responsibility to care for others.

 

I once was in a trench, Gallipoli...

 

The BBC, which I often defend, has erred here. In their efforts to represent all opinions they decided they had to represent the unvaccinated. They were supposed to have experts to prevent anti-vaxx activists in the audience, but it seems they failed in this regard. I hope they rethink, and don't allow stuff like this again, which is clearly against the public interest. They used to wheel out the idiot Nigel Lawson as a climate-change denier to counter the expert knowledge of climatologists, and they should have learned from that mistake.

 

Another Porky from Peppa Pig World Boris...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60245483

He's repeated it seven times apparently.
Surely misleading Parliament?
And not "inadvertently" either. He'd been warned beforehand in a letter that it wasn't true!

I'm starting to think he's actually got some kind of sociopathic issue with the truth.
It's almost as if he doesn't comprehend the difference between something that's factually true and something simply fabricated.

 

Starting to think? He's been sacked twice for lying. I don't know what it says about this country that a man of this ilk should rise right to the very top of our political system. I'd describe him as a natural liar rather than a sociopathic or pathological liar, which is the term I would apply to The Donald. Boris is very very good at it.

 

Strangely enough I see things the other way round.
The Donald knows exactly what he's saying, and strikes me as very calculating in his utterances.
Though I could be mistaken, as I haven't followed what DT has been saying since shortly after the Capitol riot. Naturally events in the UK have been foremost in my mind.

Boris has been happy to make stuff up for political gain in the past (in a Trump-like way but not quite so poisonous) however his troubles since March 2020 seem born more of a psychological inability to perceive that following lockdown rules was important for him personally, or the staff he has around him.
Added to a belief that any justification he offers, however ridiculous it sounds to everybody else - as in the case of Cummings' road trip - somehow becomes reality simply because it makes sense inside his head.

It's fortunate that here in the UK we don't seem so willing to polarise against each other as Americans seem to be doing.
I accept that I got pretty condescending about some 'remainers' during the post-referendum wrangling. Frustration made me come on too strong.
But despite the deep divisions at the time I'd like to think we are still a country that shares broad values of respect for democracy and respect for our differences, and that we can co-exist without permanently seeing millions of our countrymen who have differing political views as unpatriotic, or traitors of some kind.

Despite all that has happened around our current PM's rise and fall, he has not divided us in the way Trump has divided America. Or rather, in the way Trump has acted as a violent catalyst to inflame deep existing divisions there - divisions that we do not suffer from to anything like the same degree.

Apologies
I've strayed off topic for the pandemic thread.
Think I might have caught it to be honest. Not been feeling too well today...

 

ALL pandemic rules in the UK could be scrapped before the end of February

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60319947

I am very much looking forward to not having to wear a mask in the supermarket.
I've never got used to it. I find it almost intolerable after more than about 15 minutes.

 

Infections are finally dropping back here in Spain, although the deaty rate is still around 250-300 per day (I believe it has even gone up since the infections started falling). From today we can go outside without a mask, which I am overjoyed about, though indoor stuff and big outdoor crowd like football and concerts are still masked up. But hopefully we are seeing the tide turn a little.
One thing I saw the other day on TV confirmed what @The Penguin said. Spain now has 90% of the population double vaxxed (18 years and up) and a big percentage with a booster. The Uk seems to still be in the 70-80s. Now while I loathe every aspect of the UK government, I think it's fairly obvious that the initial excellent vaccine roll out in the UK was down to the NHS (and not the Tories or Brexit as Rees-Mogg claimed) and the slow down when other countries have chugged past isn't the Tories either, but for some reason a higher percentage of anti vaxxers. No idea if this is actually the case, but if and when the next variant comes along, it will have grown amonst the non vaxxers. Freedom to infect others is a pretty ugly personality trait, but it seems to get some traction on the right - I've seen a lot of republican politicians in the US getting into a frenzy about the Canadian Truckers holding the country to ransom about covid rules.
Still, at the moment the news isn't good (all those dead people) but there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Where's Whitty?



Though personally I'm looking forward to not having to wear a mask in the supermarket at 6am when there are about 10 other people in there, I'm not just going to pretend COVID19 never happened. Especially when 200+ people per day are still dying of it.
I'm still going to keep my distance and avoid crowds and wash my hands frequently, until infection rates have fallen very low indeed - maybe late summer?

Assuming Boris is going to formerly announce the end of Isolation upon a positive test (rather than just chuck it in for a cheap cheer at the beginning of PMQ's) I wonder which expert he is going to pick to stand at the adjacent lectern?
Who will be up for batting away awkward questions about a scientific basis for telling people they can go to work knowing they have COVID19, without losing all credibility? Something Boris no longer has to worry about, since all his credibility has long since vanished over the horizon.

Of course, the PM could just pick one or two of his cabinet cronies to do the press conference with him. No need to bother with a scientist now that the science has been forgotten about. Mayhap we will never again hear the words "next slide please".

I'm also quite interested in any measures the Government may have to protect millions of people who (through no fault of their own) are very vulnerable to the virus. Particularly when millions more unvaccinated refuseniks are still wandering around spreading it indiscriminately. They are probably the reason that infection and death rates still remain stubbornly high.
Or will the vulnerable just be left for Corona to take as it will - or spend the rest of their lives never leaving home again?

 

Sad to see Novax being given prime time on BBC breakfast news to spout his anti-vacc nonsense.

They're so chuffed with themselves for getting an 'exclusive' interview with him, they'll happily let him crap all over the nurses and other healthcare staff who have been driven to their wits end looking after thousands of critically ill refuseniks.

As usual it's all about him. Freedom to choose what he puts in his body etc. etc.
And the great man (who still says he is not anti-vacc ) claims he's willing to sacrifice his career for his principles.

Good. Do that then mate. Chuck your career away.
We don't want Anti-vacc agitators like you at Wimbledon.
160,000 people in this country have DIED you arrogant, self-obsessed wazzock.

 

Cases still dropping fast here in Spain. The infection rate is somewhere around 1300 per 100,000 people, and restrictions are vanishing like the dew in the dawn - which is a little odd as they came in on much lower infection rates. Death rates in Spain are still horrible though. We had one day with over 400 dead last week, and over 600 over the weekend.

I also enjoyed ( a bit) the police reaction in France and Belgium to the Freedom Convoy. Sad these people are so up themselves they feel it'll be okay to bring cities to a grinding halt as they want to decide (from a very laymans point of view) how to control Covid. The Canadians are apparently getting ready to hit the truckers blocking a city with some heavy stuff. Good. They are under the umbrella of the vaccinations the rest of us took.

 

Over 120,000 new infections reported in the UK on Monday 7th March.
Presumably explained by no record keeping at weekends now.

Rather more worryingly, still around 1,000 people per week dying within 28 days of getting infected.
And of even more concern, 0ver 100,000 children now diagnosed with Long COVID.
Kids who had relatively mild symptoms to start with, but were then struck down again just as they seemed to recover.
Children who now struggle to walk up stairs, struggle to breathe, struggle to be active in any way and suffer stomach and muscle pains.
Reduced, effectively, to the activity levels of an average 80 year old.
Bad enough to keep them off school in may cases.
That's a terrible thing for youngsters to have to live with. For months or years perhaps.
And evidence emerging now that COVID19 causes permanent brain damage, at least to some degree.

Stay safe everyone.
Remember, there is no isolation now, just advice.
And pretty much no free testing even if you do choose to isolate.
One of our office staff was away with COVID just last week. Her whole family were down with it.

I think I'm going to continue to avoid large crowds.

 

I thought that this was going to diminish, but the usual irresponsible governance from Bojo the Clown, in the face of criticism from every medical expert who offered an opinion brings the UK back into possible problems.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ce-for-rising-covid-cases-says-sajid-javid-uk

As a point of comparison, Spain is a couple of weeks behind the UK. We still have masks indoors and on transport, thugh there is talk of this ending. The infection rates are down, but the rate they are going down is, well, going down. We are somewhere around 430 cases per 100,000 people, so way better that the 3000 per 100,000 we had back in february, but we were around 39 cases per 100,000 in october. I know we are all desperate to get back to some sort of normal living again, but is it really necessary to jump the gun again and again? Personally if I want an opinion about something medical, I go to the doctor, not a politician.