Coronavirus - the new strain XV
- Thread starter Seeker_UK
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I am not saying they have handled it well but I just don’t see as part of a grand political game. They are incompetent, I think a Labour govt would also have made many mistakes but probably different ones. I think the vaccination program is going well so far but that is all.
Sorry I was making an absurd observation to prove a point, killing lots of people is never good politically. It is incompetence ultimately but also the result of not having politicians who are fit for purpose.
I would like to see a commission set up to understand everything that went wrong & put measures in place that are beyond politics to make us ready for the next one. The one thing about this pandemic is that it has shown we have excellent scientists who can deal with this.
We have all been impacted by this to varying degrees, I don’t 100% blame the Govt but they take the lions share. As citizens we need to ask hard questions about what kind of society we want to live in & elect accordingly.
droodzilla
pfm Member
Basic estimate of saving = (value of state pension x number of dead pensioners) per year
£9K p.a. per pension x 80000 (assume deaths skew heavily to pensioners) = £0.7 billion per year, approx.
That doesn't take into account other costs associated with an elderly population (healthcare and social care, especially) so maybe double it to get £1.5 billions per year?
A rough guess, obviously. In the grand scheme of the total UK budget, it's relatively small beer. Not worth killing people for.
Seanm
pfm Member
It's just weird how they keep fcking things up in ways that suit them and their sponsors.
Fair play on the vaccine but I don't think they had to risk pissing anyone off to do it properly. I guarantee that if people working from home didn't terrify real estate owners we wouldn't have had the back to work drive in the summer; if private interests hadn't demanded a piece of the action we wouldn't have had the test and trace fiasco; if employers weren't terrified of obligations to their workers, and of workers becoming less dependent on them, we'd have had no trouble with the isolate bit either. You can trace every serious error to someone not wanting to see a particular thing change, or wanting to claw back some money, or spotting an opportunity. It's pretty transparent.
They can get it right when they want to. Their failures are an expression of their interests and their priorities as much as - more than - their incompetence. I mean they are also idiots, I think, but it's quite selective, the things they don't understand.
Fair play on the vaccine but I don't think they had to risk pissing anyone off to do it properly. I guarantee that if people working from home didn't terrify real estate owners we wouldn't have had the back to work drive in the summer; if private interests hadn't demanded a piece of the action we wouldn't have had the test and trace fiasco; if employers weren't terrified of obligations to their workers, and of workers becoming less dependent on them, we'd have had no trouble with the isolate bit either. You can trace every serious error to someone not wanting to see a particular thing change, or wanting to claw back some money, or spotting an opportunity. It's pretty transparent.
They can get it right when they want to. Their failures are an expression of their interests and their priorities as much as - more than - their incompetence. I mean they are also idiots, I think, but it's quite selective, the things they don't understand.
Tony L
Administrator
Agreed. This was obviously a global pandemic with no easy answers, though the fact remains that popularist-right countries seem to have faired the worst. The UK had the same advantage as NZ in being an island nation, border control here was exponentially easier than say the EU, yet we failed catastrophically. I’ve made the point many times before but if I could see exactly what this was and act accordingly way back in February the government has absolutely zero excuse. The scientific/medical evidence existed right at the start of 2020. It was clear, unambiguous and other countries were way, way ahead of us on the transmission curve. We all saw it coming, we understood how it was transmitted, we knew who it killed, and how it overloaded hospital provision. Yet we had Britain Trump and a shower of grifters...
gavreid
Pretty Words...
The big story from Israel seems to be that a single dose isn't as effective as hoped, or indeed claimed to be by Pfizer.
"Questions over the effectiveness of the vaccine were raised amid reports that thousands of Israelis were still becoming sick after receiving the vaccine, although the public health services head, Sharon Alroy-Preis, said that in most cases this was because the individuals had not built up sufficient antibodies after being inoculated before being exposed to the virus."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...e-dose-in-israel-less-effective-than-we-hoped
"Questions over the effectiveness of the vaccine were raised amid reports that thousands of Israelis were still becoming sick after receiving the vaccine, although the public health services head, Sharon Alroy-Preis, said that in most cases this was because the individuals had not built up sufficient antibodies after being inoculated before being exposed to the virus."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...e-dose-in-israel-less-effective-than-we-hoped
Seanm
pfm Member
It's not really surprising, given that they've vaccinated millions - they're onto the under-40s now I believe - and that they only started, what, 3 weeks ago? The effectiveness of the vaccine develops over weeks, AIUI.
gavreid
Pretty Words...
Here's a shocking piece on disability and covid
"Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that in England and Wales, disabled people account for almost six in 10 (59%) of all deaths involving Covid-19."
https://www.theguardian.com/society...eople-have-been-shut-away-during-the-pandemic
"Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that in England and Wales, disabled people account for almost six in 10 (59%) of all deaths involving Covid-19."
https://www.theguardian.com/society...eople-have-been-shut-away-during-the-pandemic
The government really needs to get the message across that the vaccine takes at least 3 - 4 weeks before any protection and the 2nd dose is required to be on the safe side . As mentioned alot of people do think they have immediate full protection due to the hype of it being rolled out . At my sisters care home they did actually receive the first dose for everyone today but all the residents were convinced they now had no chance of catching covid and staff had a difficult job of explaining this was NOT the case
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
I wonder how much of the 'underlying health issues' is also classed as 'disability'?
'Trial' rather than 'enquiry', which is is a bit Neville Chamberlainy. Also, it doesn't explain why countries in SE Asia are so much better at coping even with the third wave than the murderers here. I mean, I don't know the comparative figures, but I'm guessing governments in Europe have killed more people than those who died in WWII with their arrogance during the current, and likely to be ongoing, pandemic.
Thanks for this.
Tony L
Administrator
Cerrie Burnell’s program on the history of disability in Britain is on BBC2 right now, essential viewing.
NZ had other advantages, it is very far away & just doesn’t have the international connections of London or the population density. They handled it well & you can’t really argue with that. I have a friend who emigrated to Australia & then moved to NZ & he wasn’t that impressed with the restrictions but they acted early & well.
I see the next big challenge as the vaccination roll out in Europe, if they don’t get a move on it could be disastrous. Unfortunately we cannot turn the clock back so I am trying to focus on the future.
mandryka
pfm Member
Here’s more on it, seems a bit too early to draw any conclusions.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israe...-less-effective-than-pfizer-indicated-report/
Seeker_UK
Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
Mental health issues, poor education and future life chances for children / students, increases in domestic violence, more people in poverty...
Of course, there are some things that can be done to mitigate them but unless there's a huge change of attitude at the top, lockdowns will almost certainly reach a point where their societal and health effects outweigh the benefit of protecting from the virus.
Pfizer did not state the efficacy of first shot within elderly people. Here in Israel It's mostly people over 70 who got the jabs weeks ago, and who are expected to develop immunity, and it's known that immune-system-learning deteriorates with age. In addituon, Pfizer has included over-60 y.o. in their experiments, but hasn't stated the exact distribution over 60.
As of today it seems percentages of positive test after one shot (up to 3 weeks which is the norma here to get 2nd shot) was similar to the un-jabbed population, but after 2 jabs preliminary data was 2.6% positives vs the 9-10 % in general population.
Omer.
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