I would like to see them continue this till we sub 1k cases. Wont happen like, We will reopen with 10k+ and wonder why in april we are back at 30-40k
It's not just "covidiots" to blame, this is a highly transmissible virus. If lockdown is lifted when there more than zero covid cases then the case rate will go up. If we're sent back to work in offices or other enclosed spaces the case rate will go up. The only way of maintaining a state of no lock down is to have an effective test, trace and isolate program, which I'm not sure we have. The government is banking on the vaccination program to ease the burden at hospitals so that it won't matter (and hoping vaccine resistant strains don't arise).
People refuse to Isolate is a major problem. UK government will have to pay people to isolate is a feeling
Who wouldn't want to pick up a side of 'Rona when getting 51% off at Nando's followed by lots of hugging at the old folks home? Don't worry: Both the government and people learned from their mistakes, thats why this time round it'll be 51% off instead of 50%
Meanwhile on another planet ehh in Western Australia: https://www.theguardian.com/austral...-as-covid-reality-hits-western-australia-hard
Don't know if we can blame people doing their own 'common sense' thing during various mockdowns (nothing stupid like parties), yet also blame those blindly following government advice and assurances when out of it.
The government has refused to reduce the 12-week gap between vaccination doses, instead of the actually-tested three-week gap, because "humpty million injections given" sounds a lot better than "(humpty million/2) vaccinations completed" to people who aren't paying attention (which is to say, the majority of the electorate). Elsewhere, Public Health England has confirmed cases of the more-contagious 501Y mutation that gave us the B117 "UK variant" having been found with the E484K "South African" mutation - the one that virologists and immunologists are concerned might be resistant to vaccination (dropping, in current understanding, from 89 percent efficacy to 60 percent - no evidence yet it's completely resistant.) Combine those two snippets, and... well, I'm no immunologist, but that sounds like a recipe for a Bad Time. EDIT: And at least one of the members of SAGE is pretty clear on keeping the schools closed.
Add in the third snippet of some places in Europe like Austria and Italy loosening restrictions so it can happily spread and mutate further...
Was just reading that on the BBC https//www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55910964 Getting those first doses out there has to be the priority.
I took my wife out for dinner two weeks ago. I like those small independent restaurants where the owner is the chef, most of these places are dying they're never gonna make it thru this, still I try (as many others do) to do what I can to help them out. Anway. We were served by Hannibal Lecter, with a Hannibal Lecter hostess, and a Hannibal Lecter waiter wearing latex gloves, and we couldn't' get a salt and pepper shaker, instead we got those disposable things in little cups. Because we're apparently supposed to be concerned that somebody else might have touched the salt & pepper shaker, in which case death would be imminent.
Terror and fear makes people compliant, it also makes them authoritarian. Always been this way. Now it's not a national enemy that has "everyone" terrified and angry, it's the C-virus, which means each other. Perhaps we will return to normal again with national enemies being the focus for people. Perhaps they will recycle Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia or North Korea. It's for government to decide.
Nature is highlighting that infection through shared surfaces is rare, though possible, and calling for more focus on aerosol transmission. In other words: wear a mask, everyone.
I was looking at the numbers again and saw that the US is averaging over 1.5m shots of vaccine a day. Getting away from whether that's more or less than somewhere else or should be higher etc.......it's a heck of a lot of jabs. The scale of the worldwide effort is just so vast. Data: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html (access free with signup)
I think the thing to bear in mind is that there are an awful lot of people in the world. 1.5m shots a day seems like a lot until you realise that that still means it will take a year and a half to fully vaccinate the entirety of the US population (this isn't a criticism at the US vaccination rate BTW). Now imagine how much disposable coffee cups the US uses every year... But maybe that's more an indication of the scale of the task than anything else. I keep track of it here, mainly because they're a pretty nice site for all kinds of interesting data https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations Also, RE surface transmission, it's my understanding that the whole hand-wiping/sanitising stuff is a legacy from an earlier understanding of the virus. It certainly doesn't hurt (and will have all kinds of other benefits), but it should probably be de-emphasised from the govt messaging (in favour of the more important stuff).
