COVID-19 And it’s effect on everyone and everything

[Duvel 1,041]

8 hours ago, wilsoncgp said:

I mean, I reckon if you give people a reason to do Christmas as per, to give people a sense of normality, a lot of people will snap that opportunity off your fingers and just do it like nothing is going on. The majority of people in this country will be wanting to celebrate it and households from all over the country/world will want to meet up to do it properly and I think there has to be some continued lockdown procedure to prevent that level of household mixing.

But I also don't expect to see no household mixing regardless of restrictions, which is where it gets hard. Me and my wife are 95% sure we're doing Christmas in our own house this year without seeing any other family, we're both upset about that... but it could be worse, my brother lives alone and my Granddad is a widower and I'm pretty sure not doing Christmas will kill them inside.

I don't expect they'll avoid going round my Mam's as per the norm regardless what the official instructions are. They're all Boro based so the risk is kind of reduced but it is still a risk nonetheless, it makes me feel a little uneasy, though certainly not as uneasy as thinking about them on their own on Christmas Day.

There's a hypocrisy in there and I know it... but it's Christmas. And that's what I mean about giving people just a single bit of hope, I sincerely wonder whether for many households it is really on a knife's edge as to whether they do it as per or they do it in a less risky way. Approaching it on a stricter front could be a life saver.

I honestly think the majority of people will break it over Xmas regardless of government advice. 

Its hard for a family like yours where you have an elderly grandparent on his own, obviously the risks to him are high but you don't want to leave someone on their own either. 

If I was an elderly man on my own I think I'd probably take the risk, it must be so hard being on your own at the best of times never mind Xmas. Its obviously a personal choice how much risk people want to put themselves in and we're all different. 

The other option for families is do try and move in together and do some sort of isolation in the lead up to Xmas, not sure how realistic that is though. 

[Will 846]

The Government should've gone hard on this current lockdown being with the express aim of being able to give people as normal of a Christmas as possible. Giving people a target to aim towards is a positive public health message that people are far more likely to agree with and conform to that just an open ended lockdown again.

[Ash 166]

It's been reported that the three tier system is going to be in place until Easter at least. Not really surprising if it is because a lot of us thought there was something amiss when they extended furlough.

[Brunners 2,197]

Vaccine approved and starting to roll out as early as next week 🙂 Fingers crossed we may be back to some sense of normality sooner rather than later!

[Borodane 1,488]

Good to hear that you are ready to roll out the vaccines.

[boro-unger 969]

1 hour ago, Brunners said:

Vaccine approved and starting to roll out as early as next week 🙂 Fingers crossed we may be back to some sense of normality sooner rather than later!

Good news certainly. Although I don't think there are any of the approved vaccines in the country yet. Hope they get a shift on with the delivery. 

Hopefully the Oxford vaccine gets approval soon. That's the one we've ordered loads of and will start to make a real dent in the spread of the virus. Think they still need to get the dose correct/optimised though by the sounds of it

[Uwe 1,382]

3 minutes ago, boro-unger said:

Good news certainly. Although I don't think there are any of the approved vaccines in the country yet. Hope they get a shift on with the delivery. 

Hopefully the Oxford vaccine gets approval soon. That's the one we've ordered loads of and will start to make a real dent in the spread of the virus. Think they still need to get the dose correct/optimised though by the sounds of it

Listening to the health Secretary this morning we are expecting 800,000 (of the 10,000,000) to be delivered in the next week. Due to manufacture and delivery 
The Oxford vaccine won’t be ready to go until March/April time

[Brunners 2,197]

I wonder whether after we've prioritised the elderly and vulnerable, whether life gets back to a bit of normality before the younger and not-so-vulnerable members of society get vaccinated, or do people think we stay in some form of lockdown until the vast majority of people are vaccinated?

[Humpty 187]

23 minutes ago, Uwe said:

Listening to the health Secretary this morning we are expecting 800,000 (of the 10,000,000) to be delivered in the next week. Due to manufacture and delivery 
The Oxford vaccine won’t be ready to go until March/April time

We have over 60 million doses of the Oxford vaccine already manufactured for the UK. They will be rolled out as soon as they've received approval. 

Edited December 2, 2020 by Humpty

[boro-unger 969]

10 minutes ago, Brunners said:

I wonder whether after we've prioritised the elderly and vulnerable, whether life gets back to a bit of normality before the younger and not-so-vulnerable members of society get vaccinated, or do people think we stay in some form of lockdown until the vast majority of people are vaccinated?

Suppose it depends what the case and death numbers look like once the at risk people have been vaccinated (and given a month or two for the effects of the vaccine to kick in)

 

[Borodane 1,488]

2 hours ago, boro-unger said:

Suppose it depends what the case and death numbers look like once the at risk people have been vaccinated (and given a month or two for the effects of the vaccine to kick in)

 

You have to be vaccinated twice within 28 days or so, isn't that the deal? It'll take a very long time, but I suppose you only have to vaccinate a certain percentage to reach heard immunity which is reached when 60-80% has become immune. I have no idea if that's the right assumption to make though. There is bound to be plenty of resistance though, as would you rather get infected and be sick for a week if you are otherwise young and healthy, or will you take a vaccine the no-one really knows the long term side effects of. You already have anti-vaccine movement against deadly well known deseases.

[RiseAgainst 893]

42 minutes ago, Borodane said:

You have to be vaccinated twice within 28 days or so, isn't that the deal? It'll take a very long time, but I suppose you only have to vaccinate a certain percentage to reach heard immunity which is reached when 60-80% has become immune. I have no idea if that's the right assumption to make though. There is bound to be plenty of resistance though, as would you rather get infected and be sick for a week if you are otherwise young and healthy, or will you take a vaccine the no-one really knows the long term side effects of. You already have anti-vaccine movement against deadly well known deseases.

The UK head of Pfizer was on BBC News at lunchtime, saying people are protected seven days after the second dose of their BioNTech jab, which is administered 21 days after the first dose. So 28 days from the start of the process. However, other vaccines only need one shot and provide far faster immunity, so although they might take longer to be manufactured in bulk, they could end up being used in the majority of UK vaccinations.

3 hours ago, Brunners said:

I wonder whether after we've prioritised the elderly and vulnerable, whether life gets back to a bit of normality before the younger and not-so-vulnerable members of society get vaccinated, or do people think we stay in some form of lockdown until the vast majority of people are vaccinated?

I'm hardly ITK about this, but given the catastrophic damage lockdown is doing to businesses, I think they'll start rolling back restrictions once they've vaccinated NHS staff, care home residents and staff, the over 70s and anyone with significant underlying health conditions like bronchiectasis. There's no reason to wait for the rest of the population to be inoculated before they let swimming pools and libraries reopen, because the vast majority of the population won't suffer COVID-19 any more severely than a bad cold or mild flu, and there's no risk of us spreading it to vulnerable people once they're jabbed.

In Scotland, they're talking about having a million people vaccinated by the end of January. I'd expect some form of tier-based restrictions to be retained into the spring, but diminishing down to lower levels where maybe only places like nightclubs and concert venues have to stay closed. 

[boro-unger 969]

1 hour ago, Borodane said:

You have to be vaccinated twice within 28 days or so, isn't that the deal? It'll take a very long time, but I suppose you only have to vaccinate a certain percentage to reach heard immunity which is reached when 60-80% has become immune. I have no idea if that's the right assumption to make though. There is bound to be plenty of resistance though, as would you rather get infected and be sick for a week if you are otherwise young and healthy, or will you take a vaccine the no-one really knows the long term side effects of. You already have anti-vaccine movement against deadly well known deseases.

Indeed. Hence the comback of measles etc. 

I think one of the troubles is some people think there are two outcomes of having covid: death or perfect health... they seem to forget that about 5% of people who get covid are suffering long term due to the infection. Even though the death rate isn't super high, it still negatively impacts a lot of people (I've had long term post viral effects from a virus before - not fun). 

 

Personally I'd rather take the vaccine and help protect myself and those around me (who aren't necessarily young and healthy).

[Will 846]

On 12/2/2020 at 10:51 AM, Brunners said:

I wonder whether after we've prioritised the elderly and vulnerable, whether life gets back to a bit of normality before the younger and not-so-vulnerable members of society get vaccinated, or do people think we stay in some form of lockdown until the vast majority of people are vaccinated?

20 hours ago, RiseAgainst said:

I'm hardly ITK about this, but given the catastrophic damage lockdown is doing to businesses, I think they'll start rolling back restrictions once they've vaccinated NHS staff, care home residents and staff, the over 70s and anyone with significant underlying health conditions like bronchiectasis. There's no reason to wait for the rest of the population to be inoculated before they let swimming pools and libraries reopen, because the vast majority of the population won't suffer COVID-19 any more severely than a bad cold or mild flu, and there's no risk of us spreading it to vulnerable people once they're jabbed.

 

Not an expert on this, but vaccines aren't perfect, they still rely on a large % of the population being inoculated to be fully effective. 

The extension of the furlough scheme through to March next year says to me that that's when they're expecting things to begin returning to normal.

[DanFromDownSouth 904]

16 minutes ago, Will said:

 

Not an expert on this, but vaccines aren't perfect, they still rely on a large % of the population being inoculated to be fully effective. 

The extension of the furlough scheme through to March next year says to me that that's when they're expecting things to begin returning to normal.

Yeah you are needing a minimum of about 60% of people vaccinated to start to see the signs of herd immunity. The higher the % the better it becomes. Each disease has different thresholds for this though, from what I've read and seen recently, they think that they'll need roughly 75%-85% vaccinated to achieve herd immunity for COVID. Just for a comparison but for herd immunity for Measles you need about 95% vaccinated.