BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 13 Apr 21 - 01:19 PM

"Stay in, it really is that simple!"

If only it was. How would your dog go for a run?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 13 Apr 21 - 01:14 PM

Just ponder on this for a minute...

2020 - We just have to stay in for a couple of months.
WW II - You have to leave your loved ones and might never see them again.

2020 - But my kids need some fresh air so we're all going to the park.
WW II - Your kids have to be evacuated and live with random good samaritans for their safety.

2020 - I can only Facetime my family and friends I can't see them.
WW II - I have written letters, I'm hoping they're received and I get a response this year.

2020 - I am trying to order my food shop online, it's taking ages to get to me I need, alcohol, and all the other foods I'm craving.
WW II - Are you coming to queue-up in the line for our rations-potato soup every day of the week?

2020 - The government hasn't said we can't go out, they just said we can but only once to exercise so I'm going to go meet my friends and do what I want.
WW II - I'm not going out just in case a bomb drops so I will stay in listening to some music quietly because the air raid siren might go off.

2020 - Netflix needs to sort the streaming out I can't even watch a series without it crashing.
WW II - We are sitting in the dark around a candle playing cards keeping as much light in as possible so the warplanes don't see us from above.

2020 - Every man for themselves, so I'm going to stock-pile as much as I can because we are more important than anyone else, never mind the elderly that gave us this freedom.
WW II - I'm so grateful for this community, everyone is helping each other out when and where we can, we must stay strong.

This is the perspective that we should have, we don't know how LUCKY we have it and people still aren't listening.

Stay in, it really is that simple!

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Apr 21 - 06:21 PM

So today in England we've had the Great Release. Shops, gyms and swimming pools reopened. Pub gardens heaving. Massive queues from 7 AM outside Primark (for Christ's sake). Shopping centres are absolutely stuffed with people. Traffic jams on the M5 coming down to Cornwall. My town, Bude, almost gridlocked with holidaymakers. We have vox pops on the telly bleating about how much we all need all this, and now. Need to get in your bloody motor home and come to Bude. Can't live another day unless you can come to your chalet in a holiday park in Newquay (which has hundreds of other chalets, all identical with yours), or queue outside Primark because you can't wait one more day to replace your Bangladeshi slave-labour knickers. Celebratory clips of people having their hair cut or their faux-blondness renewed at long last. I don't get that. I look like the wild man of Borneo right now and I'm sporting the look as a badge of honour. We've had a national orgasm today, and it's worrying.

There should never have been this lockdown. The government should have put all its energy into creating a national ethos of responsibility, by giving information, advice and by constant urging. Instead, the country thinks today that the thing is all over. That we're in the sunlit uplands.

Well we are not. The vaccine has not yet been rolled out to under-50s. In countries still struggling with the virus, it's the under-50s who are now being hard hit. But we've leaned hard compressing the spring but have suddenly let it go. We are in for another wave. Doomed. Watch this space...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 12 Apr 21 - 02:01 AM

Concern in China about expressing concern about the efficacy of Chinese vaccines

Efficacy of Chinese Vaccines

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Apr 21 - 01:42 AM

So have we exhausted new COVID news and are now reduced to bickering?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Apr 21 - 01:24 AM

Oh, yes, Steve Shaw, I live for you. I especially like that sharp left dancing turn you take whenever you realize you have been shown -again- to be wrong about something.

Sorry, the rest of y'all. Want to talk about pairs of X chromosomes?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Apr 21 - 12:33 AM

Just when the shorelines and roadside bushes are filling up with castoff single use masks, come Will i am
and the new powered fans bluetooth noise cancelling high tech mask.

Rejoice, we are truly (some kind of) saved. If only so many masks were now causing an environmental hazard along with the thousands of supermarket bags that we once again get for free in the checkout because we are not expected to shop with reusable bags during Covid.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Apr 21 - 08:32 PM

Couldn't agree more, Doug. I no longer have an actual arse, as it was bored off me umpteen posts ago. But do bear with me. I'm being charitable to Mrrzy here, as well as Nigel, tangentially, by giving them something to live for. This lockdown malarkey is tough, and one does have to indulge the less fortunate...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 11 Apr 21 - 07:05 PM

From: Mrrzy
Right, Steve Shaw. And I countered with ......

From: Steve Shaw
*sigh.* This is what you said: ........

From: Mrrzy
Oh, ok, you weren't wrong, you just didn't mean .......

From: Steve Shaw
I said precisely what I meant. ......

From: Steve Shaw
........... a phrase in quotes that clearly did not come from me, ...........

From: Mrrzy
Yes, it did. I copied it ..........

From: Steve Shaw
I have NEVER said .....



So, there really is something in this world more boring than reading about COVID-19.


DC

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Apr 21 - 05:31 PM

Well far be it from me to end this fun, but here's precisely what you said:

"If *any* lockdowns had actually been "more severe than necessary" you would no longer have covid where the lockdown was. But you do, so they obviously weren't, duh."

I did not say that, despite your quote marks. Anyone can check that (including you). You ascribed a meaning to my statement that I patently did not intend (it really isn't hard, this stuff..)

If you truly think that "The lockdowns we have had were massively more severe and lengthy than they needed to have been purely because of government incompetence" means the same thing as "more severe than necessary" then your level of literacy is, disappointingly, somewhat lower than what I've credited you with. Eat more low GI carbs is my advice. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Apr 21 - 02:26 PM

Yes, I did. Here is the whole paragraph with header from 07, not 17, April, copied part in bold, emphasis mine:

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 07 Apr 21 - 06:06 AM

Let's not talk past each other here. The lockdowns we have had were massively more severe and lengthy than they needed to have been purely because of government incompetence and refusal to listen to the science. Given prompt (key word, Boris) and, OK, maybe short, sharp action, as we saw in some other countries, this country could have been running at near-normal for most of the last twelve months. I think everyone would have understood that, and subsequent behaviour, informed by proper advice and accurate information, would have been at least as good as in any lockdown or ridiculous and ineffective tier system. Instead, we are heading for a crippling recession, austerity like we've never seen, mass unemployment, increasing child poverty and physical and mental ill-health on a scale that could even rival or dwarf the pandemic. As for "overwhelming the NHS", you presumably mean the NHS that these Tories have run into the ground for a decade? That one? The same Tories who did nothing when they were starkly warned, four years ago, that the NHS in its then state was in no position to handle a major epidemic?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Apr 21 - 10:12 AM

It has been fourteen months now, but the FDA is finally recommending to health care providers that they can now cease reusing disposable respirators:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is recommending health care personnel and facilities transition away from crisis capacity conservation strategies, such as decontaminating or bioburden reducing disposable respirators for reuse. Based on the increased domestic supply of new respirators approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) currently available to facilitate this transition, the FDA and CDC believe there is adequate supply of respirators to transition away from use of decontamination and bioburden reduction systems.

The FDA recommends that health care personnel and facilities:

Limit decontamination of disposable respirators. Decontaminated respirators and respirators that have undergone bioburden reduction should be used only when there are insufficient supplies of new FFRs or if you are unable to obtain any new respirators.
Transition away from a crisis capacity strategy for respirators, such as decontamination of N95 and other FFRs.
Increase inventory of available NIOSH-approved respirators—including N95s and other FFRs, elastomeric respirators, including new elastomeric respirators without an exhalation valve that can be used in the operating room, and powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs). Even if you are unable to obtain the respirator model that you would prefer, the FDA recommends that you obtain and use a new respirator before decontaminating or bioburden reducing a preferred disposable respirator.

This begs the question why were all of these devices disposed of after one use if they can be satisfactorily decontaminated? Think of the materials that go into these devices and the cost of purchasing new. If they made them a little more sturdily, could they routinely be decontaminated as a regular matter of practice? How does the cost new compare to the cost of decontamination protocols? It used to be that everything was cleaned and sterilized (in the 1970s I worked at Ellis Island, the old immigrant processing station. In the long-closed hospital there was an early 20th century room-sized autoclave with doors that sealed like the doors in a submarine).

Of course technology won't all return to that of 100 years ago, but aside from the bloated overhead of management staffing in health care institutions, the cost of equipment and materials is also inflated. It is what the market, up till now, would bear.

I suppose the answer comes down to human nature - will the humans given the job of decontamination be given the proper instructions and adequate pay incentive to do the job thoroughly and correctly 100% of the time? We'd waste a lot less material if this were the case.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Apr 21 - 09:08 AM

I have NEVER said that lockdowns "had actually been 'more severe than necessary,'" never never never, not in that or any other post. That's all you, even though you put it in quotes as though it was me. So you did not "copy" it from any post of mine.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Apr 21 - 08:41 AM

Yes, it did. I copied it from your post of 17 April 06.06 am.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Apr 21 - 08:25 AM

Implicit in my comments on this is that I'm trying to make it clear that what I was supposed to have said I didn't actually say, as should have been apparent straight away when Mrrzy put a phrase in quotes that clearly did not come from me, despite the implication that it did.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 11 Apr 21 - 08:07 AM

Steve:
Maybe you're 'getting there'.
You're getting there, Nigel, but what I really meant has still evaded you. "Longer than should have been needed" would have cut it.
Implicit in your above comment is that you did not make your meaning clear previously, and are only clarifying it after that lack of clarity has been pointed out to you.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Apr 21 - 07:06 AM

I said precisely what I meant. Vexatious reinterpretations are entirely down to you. I hope they give you pleasure.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Apr 21 - 10:53 PM

Oh, ok, you weren't wrong, you just didn't mean what you said. I can live with that, not always being limpidly clear in my phrasing either.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Apr 21 - 03:27 PM

You're getting there, Nigel, but what I really meant has still evaded you. "Longer than should have been needed" would have cut it. Now chaps. If I carry on with this I shall have to start questioning my own sanity. Feel free to argue the point in my absence.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Apr 21 - 02:08 PM

lockdowns were longer and more severe than they need have been because of government incompetence. I didn't make any comment as to whether I thought the government were imposing lockdowns that were more severe "than necessary"
Longer than needed, but not longer than necessary. That seems to be a distinction without a difference.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Apr 21 - 01:14 PM

*sigh.* This is what you said:

"If *any* lockdowns had actually been "more severe than necessary" you would no longer have covid where the lockdown was. But you do, so they obviously weren't, duh."

That looks like you were quoting me from the post before yours. But that is not what I said. My simple point was that lockdowns were longer and more severe than they need have been because of government incompetence. I didn't make any comment as to whether I thought the government were imposing lockdowns that were more severe "than necessary". Fer chrissake.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Apr 21 - 10:15 AM

Right, Steve Shaw. And I countered with Had any lockdowns been even long *enough* they would have worked. They didn't, so they weren't long enough, let alone too long.
Again, what are you claiming *I* misunderstood?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Apr 21 - 06:44 AM

Our entire surgery was being used for covid jabs this morning!

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Apr 21 - 06:18 AM

Mrs Bonzo is in the cripples' queue for her second jab right now at our surgery. Average age must be 85+!!!

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Apr 21 - 06:13 PM

Well I hate lockdowns and I'm a lucky bugger compared to most. I live in a low-infection area and I have no kids to school and I have a big garden, etc. I'm retired and my savings are better than ever because I'm in the second year of not going on a couple of foreign hols, and I haven't been to a restaurant for a good (expensive) blowout for 13 months. All I want is for this thing to go away. I believe that we Brits will respond positively to good information and advice from the government. I believe that we don't want any more lockdowns. We want our pubs, flicks, restaurants and theatres back. We've bloody well had enough. But we need some savvy people at the helm who'll stop pissing around with stupid schemes that pander to Tui, Virgin, Ryanair and EasyJet. We seriously need to stop leisure travel both in and out of the country. If we do that properly, this thing will end sooner rather than later. If we kowtow to this ridiculous government traffic light scheme, we'll be enduring this misery for many more months to come. Remind me in a year that I said that, and if I'm wrong I'll eat my hat. Just remember that we have a buffoon at the helm who never learns.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 09 Apr 21 - 12:54 PM

Indeed Europe is not having a good time of it. Only 21 miles away from me,cases of infection are 500 and more per 100,000. Here in Dover for the week up to 4.4.21 it was 9.3 cases per 100,000

Yesterday because of favourable weather conditions, the French coast was clearly visible to the naked eye. Not far away at all.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Apr 21 - 12:06 PM

We can't help new variants but we can minimise the risks of getting them. Encouraging good public behaviour by putting out frequently-updated information and advice, and closing the borders to all leisure travel in and out, and keeping the vaccination programme on track, are the ways to avoid a third wave. There's a third wave 21 miles away from us right now. We should be doing the things that we CAN help. If we let people in and out of the country in droves, we WILL get a third wave. Enjoy your pint. I have Prosecco and Negroamaro. That'll do me for now.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 09 Apr 21 - 09:54 AM

"The one thing that will nobble this country is foreign travel."

That is just not the one thing. You cannot rule out the emergence of a more serious variant in the UK. We do not have to abroad to get one of those.

Weather permitting, and providing my local opens, I might pop out on Monday for a pint in the pub garden.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Apr 21 - 08:52 AM

I have a nasty feeling that things are going to go pear-shaped in the UK. We are short of vaccine. Under-50s vaccination is largely on hold so that older people can at least get their second jab. Our local vaccination centre is closed. Larger centres in Devon and Cornwall are closing. Vaccine fear is building up because of this nonsense about clots and Astra Zeneca. The country is opening up on Monday. We can go abroad in about six weeks' time. Sports venues with large crowds will be permitted. Instead of closing our borders to all except essential imports and exports, we are instituting a complicated "traffic lights" scheme in order to mollify the big hitters in the leisure travel industry (please don't tell me it's for any other reason). We may be able to go to pubs, clubs and footie matches if we can show that we're vaccinated (not 100% reliable, and no guarantee that we're not still spreaders), have just been tested (scarily unreliable), or have had the disease (prove it). A fake vaccination passport will also do the job. All the big nations round and about are having a big third wave. The Channel is 21 miles wide.

It's madness. We haven't learned a thing. The one thing that will nobble this country is foreign travel. All just to keep EasyJet and Virgin happy and to let Brits get Guinness, fish and chips and skin cancer in the Med.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Apr 21 - 08:49 PM

You said "lockdowns more severe than necessary" and that is patently not what I said. I said "The lockdowns we have had were massively more severe and lengthy than they needed to have been purely because of government incompetence..." The government's incompetence caused lockdowns that were longer and more severe than they otherwise would have needed to have been. I didn't say anything about their being more severe than necessary. The severity was necessary because of government incompetence.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Apr 21 - 06:32 PM

I was responding to this sentence:

The lockdowns we have had were massively more severe and lengthy than they needed to have been purely because of government incompetence and refusal to listen to the science.

What did I not understand?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Apr 21 - 06:09 PM

Its the first I mentioned the predominence, why are you respondsible/defensive?
My actual estranged brother Steve is fully Magatized. Believes everything Trump and Q says and thinks others are deluded. Although he lives in a Spanish speaking country he is even anti immigrant. He welcomes the vaccine but alcohol abuse is breaking his bones from falls yet he still thinks he is OK.
Many share his perseverence which I call mental illness.
Anti Vaxers go one step further into the void.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 08 Apr 21 - 02:00 PM

It is certainly more virulent. First became noticed here during our November lockdown. Cases just kept going up and up despite the country being in lockdown.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Apr 21 - 11:43 AM

The predominate strain for the hospitalized infections in the US is the UK strain. Its a bad'n.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Apr 21 - 04:27 AM

If you can be arsed we could take that argument to the Brit thread. Carry on here and we'll be getting a bollocking.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Apr 21 - 07:59 AM

If *any* lockdowns had actually been "more severe than necessary" you would no longer have covid where the lockdown was. But you do, so they obviously weren't, duh.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Apr 21 - 06:06 AM

Let's not talk past each other here. The lockdowns we have had were massively more severe and lengthy than they needed to have been purely because of government incompetence and refusal to listen to the science. Given prompt (key word, Boris) and, OK, maybe short, sharp action, as we saw in some other countries, this country could have been running at near-normal for most of the last twelve months. I think everyone would have understood that, and subsequent behaviour, informed by proper advice and accurate information, would have been at least as good as in any lockdown or ridiculous and ineffective tier system. Instead, we are heading for a crippling recession, austerity like we've never seen, mass unemployment, increasing child poverty and physical and mental ill-health on a scale that could even rival or dwarf the pandemic. As for "overwhelming the NHS", you presumably mean the NHS that these Tories have run into the ground for a decade? That one? The same Tories who did nothing when they were starkly warned, four years ago, that the NHS in its then state was in no position to handle a major epidemic?

As for this:

"Without the first lockdown there would have been no second peak. The first one would have just rolled on, overwhelming the NHS and (possibly) increasing the death toll."

You can't know that numbers wouldn't have fallen anyway during the summer. There were still low levels of disease around all summer, but the country had a free-for-all apropos of staycationing (sorry) and we got away with it for two or three months. But the September warning signs? Ignored. Cornwall was still heaving during the late-October half-term.

As for us Cornish not following the science, we can't. We wear these dodgy masks that keep the controllers happy. But we can't socially distance. There's no room. No room in Sainsbury's, no room in Morrisons, no room in Boots, no room in the co-op. No room on the pavements.

And here's the next crackpot scheme. Vaccine passports, or whatever Boris wants to call them (a poll tax is a poll tax however you try to dress it up...) won't be needed in the most dangerous places of all, bus stations, railway stations, tube stations, on buses and on trains. Do me a bloody favour...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 07 Apr 21 - 05:25 AM

Unfortunately, Steve, your idea of "Tell us the science and let us decide how to react to it" would not work.
Some would isolate themselves indefinitely, others would go out and party with the masses.

Without the first lockdown there would have been no second peak. The first one would have just rolled on, overwhelming the NHS and (possibly) increasing the death toll.

Unlike you I believe that Boris is listening to the scientists. But he also has to look at the need for the country to come out of this at the end without being a total wreck. We need to keep businesses open, or capable of being re-opened. Boris has the job of balancing the health and financial needs of the country.

You seem to think that, given the necessary scientific information, your part of the country could manage itself, without the influx of tourists (who keep the economy of the West Country going) then you go on to say There's little or no social distancing going on here in Bude, and round here we generally behave ourselves. It seems that you don't believe that your countrymen are capable of following the science.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 07 Apr 21 - 05:21 AM

I am still unsure if you agree with the use of lockdowns or not? They could hardly operate on a voluntary basis could they? You are no longer working but for those that are, a voluntary lockdown would have been confusing.

With regards to my previous comment about a curfew, I forgot that they introduced a 10 PM closing time last summer. That did not make a lot of sense to me.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Apr 21 - 08:52 PM

No I did not do the eat-out thing. Now what did I just say? I said that I don't want edicts. I want the government to give us all full and abundant information and advice. Tell us what the science really says. Better still, put a sock in Boris's stupid mouth and get the scientists to tell us. The government encouraged us to go and dine out. Was that the sort of advice you think I meant? People came to the Westcountry in droves last year. The whole place was overcrowded between June and the end of October, all the accommodation full and the place crawling, literally, with extra day trippers who couldn't go on their foreign hols or cruises. No-one was advising them not to come. The risks were played down. We got away with it until half way through September, and then the numbers started going up. It was another SIX WEEKS before there was any clampdown. The science was there and the science was ignored. The upshot of that delay was the dreadful winter that we've just had, far worse than it should have been. Thank God that the vaccine rollout has staunched it. So where was the information, the advice, the urging, last mid-September? You go to a place heaving with people and you think, well, it must be OK because we haven't been advised not to come here. Then when we do finally get the edicts, it all suddenly seems so arbitrary. In the last few weeks the Westcountry has been just about the safest place in the country. But the blunt instrument of lockdown has hit us just as badly as in the worst-affected areas. The only reason we need to wear masks round here is because no-one is telling people that coming here from all over the place from next week onward isn't sensible. "Try to stay local." What does that mean? I read somewhere it means stay in your local authority area. For me, that means I'm OK driving two hours to Penzance or Land's End! As for those masks, I disagree with you. They are the single most visible manifestation of government control. Have you ever seen anyone checking that the masks people are wearing are clean? Not a paper one worn every day for a week before chucking it? The front not touched? Never been hitched under the nose or chin? Never been stuffed in your pants pocket next to your ten-pound notes, bank cards and tissues? No big gaps? Nobody cares about any of that. All they care about is that half your face has something shoved over it. Never mind the quality, feel the control.

Tell us what we need to know, about the disease, the transmission, the risks, how to be safe, the vaccines. Give us good advice predicated on real scientific information. We'll do the rest, at least as well as we are doing now. There's little or no social distancing going on here in Bude, and round here we generally behave ourselves. No-one told Morrisons to limit numbers, to make the aisles wider, to institute a one-way system. No-one takes any notice of the one-way arrows painted on our crowded, narrow pavements. You can't enforce arbitrary edicts in a country used to being a democracy. So let's make sure they are ditched. With no rules but good advice we certainly won't do any worse than we do now, and a more positive ethos founded on personal responsibility may even mean we do it better. And I'll always have a mask with me.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 06 Apr 21 - 07:50 PM

They have got things wrong but when a lockdown was needed were they wrong to insist on it?

When people wanted to travel to the west country, were the government right to say you should not make unnecessary journeys?

If you met one of those visitors to the west country would you have agreed with their personal choice?

I don't know if you took advantage of the eat out offer in the summer. Was it wrong for others to do so?

In the scheme of things having to wear a mask comes low down on the list of rights to be given up. Closing businesses, curbing both domestic and foreign travel, curbing people's right to meet up are rather more important rights to give up. Are you saying the government were wrong to insist that we follow those rules?

At least they haven't brought in a curfew. I guess we have that to look forward to.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Apr 21 - 04:03 PM

He doesn't listen to scientists. He is far more a fan of British bulldog Quasi-Churchillian Boris exceptionalism. The lockdowns so far have happened because he has been serially behind the curve at every juncture, making each wave much worse than it need have been. Didn't learn from what happened in Italy, preferring to cheerily tell us that we'd beat the virus in twelve weeks. Sent untested old people from hospital straight into care homes, killing thousands. Encouraged all sorts of shenanigans in the summer, eat out to bloody help out, didn't see the autumn wave coming until it was too late, and still didn't listen. You think he finished with making mistakes? I should bloody coco... Passports...Traffic lights...Here we go again...

Those scientists who he won't listen to have done all the good work for him. They're all in pharmaceutical companies. He just wears a white coat and a silly hat.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Apr 21 - 03:54 PM

Clearly the decisions should have been left entirely to the keyboard warriors of Mudcat who think they know it all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 06 Apr 21 - 03:01 PM

Steve, I am not a fan of new laws being introduced. Ordinarily I think that we have adequate laws available which just need to be applied.

However. Do you think that the government was wrong to bring in the lockdown? To close schools etc? If it was left to personal choice I think it is safe to say that the NHS would certainly have been overwhelmed due to the second wave. The Kent variant spread like wildfire as it was.

Then again Boris is not making these decisions on his own. There will be scientists telling him to do it as well.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 06 Apr 21 - 02:12 PM

That is good news Stilly. The more vaccines that get approved the better. The UK have ordered 60 million doses of the Novavax,which is awaiting approval in the UK. It will be manufactured in the UK.

The biggest problem with all the vaccines is the lack of manufacturing capacity. I am not aware of any country hoarding vaccines. The majority are using them as soon as they can. I seem to recall that the US was storing AstraZeneca vaccine,pending approval. I don't know if that is still the case.

Here in the UK the government have funded a vaccine manufacturing centre. The hope is that it will be ready to start making vaccines later this year. Once that is up and running they will be able to start shipping vaccines abroad.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Apr 21 - 01:02 PM

To be clear, I want government instruments of control to be removed. If a shop, a bus driver, a publican or a cinema asks me to wear a mask, I will not refuse to comply but I may or may not decide to go elsewhere. If a hospital or care home asks me to wear a mask, I'll comply cheerfully for now. But it's them asking me, not an entitled Etonian buffoon telling me. It should be up to me or the shop, not Boris Johnson. The government, instead of making edicts, should be bombarding us with all the information we need in order to make informed choices as to our behaviour. It has always been the case that a shop, etc., may lawfully refuse to let me in without giving a reason. That's how it should be. We should protest constantly and loudly against edicts that say we can't visit our friends and relatives. We can decide among ourselves, in the light of good information, what we should be doing. We need to develop an ethos of personal responsibility. The last person on this planet who should be imposing "responsibility" on us is a scruffy clown who doesn't even know how many children he's sired. But we need to close our borders to all casual travel. The danger is that he's going to piffle around with his petty controlling yet allow leaky borders. Fatal. Literally.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Apr 21 - 11:29 AM

Thanks for that long article, Stilly, but put a link to it in the vax thread too, wouldja?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Apr 21 - 11:04 AM

From 9 April anyone will be able to access free, rapid lateral flow tests (LFDs) for themselves and their families to use twice a week, in line with clinical guidance. The significant step, alongside the vaccine rollout, will pave the way for businesses and society to reopen after lockdown.

The regular testing will be delivered through multiple streams including: an online home ordering service, workplace testing programmes, community testing programmes provided by local authorities, collection at local PCR test sites, testing on-site at schools and colleges, and a new ‘Pharmacy Collect’ Service which will provide an additional route regular testing.

Rapid testing is currently only available for those most at risk and for those needing to leave home for work. As one in three people with covid-19 do not experience any symptoms, the new regular rapid tests will help prevent and contain outbreaks so a more normal way of life can resume. Since LFDS rapid testing was introduced, over 120,000 positive cases of covid-19, that would not have been found, have been identified.

Dr Susan Hopkins, Covid-19 strategic response director at PHE and chief medical adviser to NHS Test and Trace, said: ‘I encourage everyone to take up the offer of these free rapid tests, they are quick and easy to carry out in your own home.

‘Rapid testing helps us find Covid-19 cases that we wouldn’t otherwise know about, helping to break chains of transmission. These tests are effective in detecting people that are infectious and therefore most likely to transmit infection to others. They are another tool we now have to help maintain lower infection rates.’

The government has already introduced a scheme for regular rapid Covid-19 tests in the workplaces of 50 or more staff, to provide safer working environments for sectors where employees cannot work from home. Already 100,000 UK businesses have registered their interest.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Apr 21 - 11:02 AM

This is HUGE news!

Researchers Are Hatching a Low-Cost Coronavirus Vaccine

A new formulation entering clinical trials in Brazil, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam could change how the world fights the pandemic.

From the article (a big middle chunk of it, in case it can't be read outside the US):

But simply injecting coronavirus spike proteins into people is not the best way to vaccinate them. That’s because spike proteins sometimes assume the wrong shape, and prompt the immune system to make the wrong antibodies.

This insight emerged long before the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2015, another coronavirus appeared, causing a deadly form of pneumonia called MERS. Jason McLellan, a structural biologist then at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, and his colleagues set out to make a vaccine against it.

They wanted to use the spike protein as a target. But they had to reckon with the fact that the spike protein is a shape-shifter. As the protein prepares to fuse to a cell, it contorts from a tulip-like shape into something more akin to a javelin.

Scientists call these two shapes the prefusion and postfusion forms of the spike. Antibodies against the prefusion shape work powerfully against the coronavirus, but postfusion antibodies don’t stop it.

Dr. McLellan and his colleagues used standard techniques to make a MERS vaccine but ended up with a lot of postfusion spikes, useless for their purposes. Then they discovered a way to keep the protein locked in a tulip-like prefusion shape. All they had to do was change two of more than 1,000 building blocks in the protein into a compound called proline.

The resulting spike — called 2P, for the two new proline molecules it contained — was far more likely to assume the desired tulip shape. The researchers injected the 2P spikes into mice and found that the animals could easily fight off infections of the MERS coronavirus.

The team filed a patent for its modified spike, but the world took little notice of the invention. MERS, although deadly, is not very contagious and proved to be a relatively minor threat; fewer than 1,000 people have died of MERS since it first emerged in humans.

But in late 2019 a new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, emerged and began ravaging the world. Dr. McLellan and his colleagues swung into action, designing a 2P spike unique to SARS-CoV-2. In a matter of days, Moderna used that information to design a vaccine for Covid-19; it contained a genetic molecule called RNA with the instructions for making the 2P spike.

Other companies soon followed suit, adopting 2P spikes for their own vaccine designs and starting clinical trials. All three of the vaccines that have been authorized so far in the United States — from Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech — use the 2P spike.

Other vaccine makers are using it as well. Novavax has had strong results with the 2P spike in clinical trials and is expected to apply to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization in the next few weeks. Sanofi is also testing a 2P spike vaccine and expects to finish clinical trials later this year.

Two prolines are good; six are better

Dr. McLellan’s ability to find lifesaving clues in the structure of proteins has earned him deep admiration in the vaccine world. “This guy is a genius,” said Harry Kleanthous, a senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “He should be proud of this huge thing he’s done for humanity.”

But once Dr. McLellan and his colleagues handed off the 2P spike to vaccine makers, he turned back to the protein for a closer look. If swapping just two prolines improved a vaccine, surely additional tweaks could improve it even more.

“It made sense to try to have a better vaccine,” said Dr. McLellan, who is now an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

In March, he joined forces with two fellow University of Texas biologists, Ilya Finkelstein and Jennifer Maynard. Their three labs created 100 new spikes, each with an altered building block. With funding from the Gates Foundation, they tested each one and then combined the promising changes in new spikes. Eventually, they created a single protein that met their aspirations.

The winner contained the two prolines in the 2P spike, plus four additional prolines found elsewhere in the protein. Dr. McLellan called the new spike HexaPro, in honor of its total of six prolines.

The structure of HexaPro was even more stable than 2P, the team found. It was also resilient, better able to withstand heat and damaging chemicals. Dr. McLellan hoped that its rugged design would make it potent in a vaccine.

Dr. McLellan also hoped that HexaPro-based vaccines would reach more of the world — especially low- and middle-income countries, which so far have received only a fraction of the total distribution of first-wave vaccines.

“The share of the vaccines they’ve received so far is terrible,” Dr. McLellan said.

To that end, the University of Texas set up a licensing arrangement for HexaPro that allows companies and labs in 80 low- and middle-income countries to use the protein in their vaccines without paying royalties.

Meanwhile, Dr. Innis and his colleagues at PATH were looking for a way to increase the production of Covid-19 vaccines. They wanted a vaccine that less wealthy nations could make on their own.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 06 Apr 21 - 09:23 AM

Like you, I believe that all of us should take personal responsibility for our behaviour and safety. Like you I did not wear a mask until it was made compulsory to do so. The reason that I am happy enough to keep wearing a mask now is for the safety of others,primarily the staff, not myself. I only spend a short time on the premises, unlike the staff who are there for the length of their shift.

Do masks lessen the chances of catching or passing on the virus? I think that they do. Do you think NHS staff working on covid wards don't need to wear their masks? During your recent visits to hospital, did you think the staff treating you should be wearing masks?

It is easy for me to make my own decisions but it is a lot harder to make those decisions for others.

Yesterday after the briefing, someone asked a question about going on holiday. It seems to happen after all the briefings. Some seem to think that the future can be predicted rather than waiting to see what the evidence tells us. Of course you can understand all those working in the travel industry worrying about the future. The government has already spent an unprecedented amount of money helping out various businesses. How much longer can they do that for?

I do think they should be wary of relaxing travel restrictions. Of course variants can, and most probably will, arise here in the UK. The link to the Guardian article that I posted was very informative about that.

As to the passport/certificate they are talking about, we cannot be sure what is going to happen. Yesterday Boris said they would not be required from either the 12th April or the 17th May, but we all know how quickly he changes his mind. It would not surprise me if some businesses insist on customers having them in order to get in,especially if they want to get more in at one time. I would not like to see that but can understand why they might do it.

Damned if you do and dammed if you don't. I don't envy those who have to make those decisions, either advisers or politicians.