Off Topic Coronavirus

Just when you think things can’t get much worse, a study finds that the number of people testing positive for antibodies to COVID-19 has fallen by 26% over 3 months, indicating that any immunity gained by having caught the disease once is pretty short lived. Just like the common cold, which you can get every 6-12 months, but, of course, with potentially much more serious consequences.

Apparently your immunity is stronger the worse your symptoms first time round, or if you have have pretty continuous exposure to the virus since, such as working in healthcare.

If this is accurate, that’s ‘herd immunity’ (which is actually a nuts concept in the absence of a vaccine anyway) totally out of the window.

And the more I read the less likely I think it will be that we get a very effective vaccine, especially one that works for the most vulnerable, in the near future. We’ll have something, but we will be living with the virus for the rest of our lives, like colds and flu. Treatments which reduce the impact of the disease in the short and long terms offer more realistic hope for turning this into another ‘routine’ seasonal bug, I think.

 

Agree my herd immunity theory has gone out the window. All this time many were hoping that you get it once and it shouldn't come back is also a myth. I guess we will have to wait for the 'rats arse & bat balls' vaccine to inject into our bodies? Meanwhile Covid deaths have gone up 53% here in the last week.

 

I would not give up on a vaccine just yet Ellers.
Antibodies are not the be all and end all.

The "memory " of the immune cells are in T cells and memory B cells. These go quiet until they get another infection and then burst into life.
I expect a second infection will be much less severe than the first..

And in unaffected people who receive the vaccine they will only get a mild version.

I am also not sure on the sensitivity of the antibody test . I do not think it picks up low levels of antibodies that may still be circulating...and so may be giving a bit of false information about antibody levels.

 

Bloody hell: Infections 22,885 Deaths 367

 

The virus also mutates with various strains, often weaker as a result. The truth is no one knows just how this will play out long term, so much of the initial guesswork has been wide of the mark. Even when restrictions were lifted at the end of lockdown I didn't change my habits too far from what I'd done throughout. I'm just careful but not paranoid, it's the sensible way and until a vaccine arrives I'll carry on the same...

 

Agree

 

Probably would have been worth following the science in hindsight.

 

Couple of days ago the news was all about how well the Oxford vaccine was progressing and how its doing everything they want it to. Today on the radio they're saying we might never get a vaccine or it might not work for everyone and if it does it won't be for very long.

 

done that argument. A 2 week lockdown is not the long term answer. Plus the country is skint according to you recently... who will support all those businesses?

 

It’s not meant to be the long term answer but it’s intended to save money and lives in the long run.

Serco can help out. They’re swimming in cash.

 

Bloody hell Emperor Macron is addressing the French nation tonight and some are hinting at a month-long lockdown as cases spiral out of control. 500 deaths yesterday with an estimated 52K infections. Be our turn next?

 

Probably. Perhaps they should have done it when Sage advised it, but then Starmer got hold of it, so it was out of the question.

Playing politics with people's lives, as you like to say.

 

We have been over this before. How would a 2 week National lockdown solve this? Agree it would slow the rate down but what happens after the 2 weeks we do it all again in January/March/June/Sept? What about all the local business in parts of the country that are struggling but we have little infection rates? Do we kill them off for a 2 week lockdown?
I will agree though that the worse thing that happened was Starmer seizing the opportunity. It was a stupid political move that had a knock on effect.
Like everyone else I don't have the answers but I believe that we have to get on and live with it and be careful.

Finally re the infection rate, we can blame that on idiots that had no respect for the guidelines (universities/Liverpool/people partying in the streets). I saw a BBC report from Nottingham on Monday where they said the high spread of infections where in the university area and started when in September when students started the term. Everyone on here was quick to condemn that race meeting in March for the spread and blamed the government for allowing it to happen. Well this time we need to wake up and agree that people have not obeyed the guidelines or have ignored them?

 

Starmer suggested something that didn’t happen but it’s his fault for the government not following his (SAGE’s) recommendation but if the government had followed it, it would have been worse.

Exceptional logic.

 

The stupid political move was Johnson's in not following the Sage advice in September, Starmer merely picked up on it when the minutes were released weeks later. Johnson is going to have to impose the 'circuit-break' at some point, but has painted himself into a corner. When is he going to learn that Cummings is not the genius that he's portrayed to be?

 

The ****ing government insisted that universities should restart and that students should be physically present, even though there is virtually no face to face teaching. Just like they insisted that schools reopen. Only people who are trying to hide their own failings would blame young people, away from home for the first time, who have been sold a lie about what they will experience, for behaving like young people away from home for the first time. Ask any parent, you don’t need to be a behavioural psychologist to have predicted the way these kids would act.

Cue the ‘when I was their age..’ outrage. A world based on obedience without question. **** that.

The demonisation of some sections of our society, led by narrow minded paranoiacs who always need an enemy, someone to blame for their own shortcomings, will have consequences. I know that if I were 40 years younger I would have zero respect for the ****s who are running this country, whether government, opposition, advisors, elites or whatever and I would despise the system which created them. In fact I don’t need to lose 40 years for that.

What don’t you understand about the circuit breaker lockdown? It was never meant to ‘solve’ the problem, it was meant to buy time, slow the rate of infection, and ‘protect the NHS’, which is apparently more important than protecting the health of the people who pay for the NHS, because the worst possible thing that could happen is photos of patients dying in corridors embarrassing Johnson. Much better to have patients dying at home, out of sight.

 

Firstly regarding the young... I haven't seen scenes like the ones in the UK anywhere else. As my mate in Germany says people respect the guidelines.
And when we have a lockdown (because that's what it is, not a circuit break as you say) and business suffer, education suffers and the well being of people suffer you and your ilk will be the first to blame the government for that? Give me a good reason why my local businesses (that are already on their knees) need to close their doors for a two week lockdown when we have very few infections here? Posters on here bitched about the way the government put quarantine restrictions on whole countries instead of certain areas, but now it seems okay for the UK?
We are nowhere near a vaccine with good effect as confirmed on this mornings news. What happened after we had the last lockdown? we are still discussing it now! We need a better approach. It's no good locking down the Uk for two weeks for people to be flying in or coming into the country during and straight after.

 

Waffle.

 

Where did I advocate a lockdown? I was just trying to explain to you what SAGE was proposing. I can’t make you understand it obviously.

Still on with the N of 1 comparisons ‘my mate says’......? They are usually wrong

https://www.dw.com/en/we-are-not-afraid-young-partygoers-defy-coronavirus-rules-for-berlin-nightlife/a

I can post similar stories from US, Australia, Canada, Spain - the first 4 countries I looked at. Just because you haven’t seen scenes like the UK it doesn’t mean they haven’t happened, it just means you haven’t seen them because it doesn’t suit your prejudice to look. But blame the English young if you wish.

“we need a better approach” you say. For example?

 

How's your daughter doing?