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Coronavirus - the new strain XVIII

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So from what I can gather the Indian variant (which we do not know enough about yet) is spreading rapidly in parts of the UK and we are still up for opening everything back up on Monday.... you can't make this stuff up really can you? Surely better to put the re-opening on hold while we find what we are dealing with. Just proves the old government adage that they write at the end of every public inquiry/report about how lessons will be learned is simply not true! Not exactly a surprise I know, but frustrating nonetheless.
 
Rates in schools are back to pre-Easter levels having doubled last week - seems sensible then to ditch masks :mad:

"Overall outbreaks in education settings made up a third of the total number reported last week. In comparison, there were 15 incidents in workplaces and 10 in care homes."

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/covid-outbreaks-in-schools-double-in-a-week/

You' be forgiven for thinking the government don't want to let the virus go... it's beyond stupid some of the things that are happening.
 
Rates in schools are back to pre-Easter levels having doubled last week - seems sensible then to ditch masks :mad:

"Overall outbreaks in education settings made up a third of the total number reported last week. In comparison, there were 15 incidents in workplaces and 10 in care homes."

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/covid-outbreaks-in-schools-double-in-a-week/

The local school referred to in the link above found about 150 positives in one of their twice weekly tests. Given a population of less than 1000 it gives some idea of how fast and wide infection can spread among the largely unvaccinated that are currently only mildly changing their behaviour to combat the epidemic and will soon be reducing even that. The infection rate in the town is still rising but seems to be slowing. We will have to wait a few days for the weekly moving average to include the initial school infection and the subsequent growth in the surrounding area but the rate for the town (excluding the uninfected neighbouring town and surrounding villages in the district) looks to be substantially higher than the previous two waves. Initial reports suggest it is not the Indian variant which had been found previously a few miles away.

I suspect pretty much every school and surrounding district in the country is similarly vulnerable. Vaccinating the local population in an outbreak may be good local PR but it seems unlikely to do anything to combat the spread. What would better combat it is a functioning test and trace system or a local lockdown. The former seems to be a politically problematic long gone option whereas the latter seems more possible if the number of heavily infected towns/areas jumps from the current 3 or 4 to 30 or 40. It looks as if these hotspots are expected to grow in strength and number as lockdown eases so it will be a question of numbers.
 
So from what I can gather the Indian variant (which we do not know enough about yet) is spreading rapidly in parts of the UK and we are still up for opening everything back up on Monday.... you can't make this stuff up really can you? Surely better to put the re-opening on hold while we find what we are dealing with. Just proves the old government adage that they write at the end of every public inquiry/report about how lessons will be learned is simply not true! Not exactly a surprise I know, but frustrating nonetheless.

With respect, your answer to everything seems to be lockdown and repeatedly has been throughout this crisis. At every step of this roadmap there have been some who have opposed further re-openings, citing reasons of concerns about a spike or simply because they appear to quite like lockdowns (yes honestly), and they’ve proven to be wrong. With surge testing and vaccinations, we now have other ways of tackling the virus, alternative tools in our armoury. Why downplay them and undermine them and how well vaccinations in particular are working? That’s just damaging to the vaccine programme and people’s faith in wanting to come forward and get a jab.

I still think the four tests for May 17 easing have been met nationally with hospitalisations and deaths remaining low (11 deaths in each of the past two days) and cases relatively stable as a whole, while more and more people continue to get vaccinated. Clearly there have been some local spikes, with the Indian variant largely driving them, but surely targeted local action which we’re already seeing (not local lockdowns in areas which have already been hit the hardest and have been shown not to work) is the best way forward here.
 
Now being denied and not going to happen after all.

Blackburn with Darwen's public health director has questioned why he was stopped from extending coronavirus vaccinations to all adults in the area. On Thursday, the authority briefly announced vaccines would be available for all over-18s in certain postcodes - before a swift U-turn.

Professor Dominic Harrison tells Breakfast on BBC Radio Lancashire: "I am furious. I cannot understand why [the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation] or Department of Health and Social Care are stopping local directors of public health from taking the action they know will halt this surge of the Indian variant."


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-...9e295b70ea3b02f0125319&pinned_post_type=share
 
Blackburn with Darwen's public health director has questioned why he was stopped from extending coronavirus vaccinations to all adults in the area. On Thursday, the authority briefly announced vaccines would be available for all over-18s in certain postcodes - before a swift U-turn.

Professor Dominic Harrison tells Breakfast on BBC Radio Lancashire: "I am furious. I cannot understand why [the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation] or Department of Health and Social Care are stopping local directors of public health from taking the action they know will halt this surge of the Indian variant."


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57112296?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=609e295b70ea3b02f0125319&Blackburn public health director's fury over surge jabs U-turn&2021-05-14T08:45:49.296Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:10dbfec1-f045-411f-8d6c-b8ffaac57489&pinned_post_asset_id=609e295b70ea3b02f0125319&pinned_post_type=share

He’s right to be furious. As we’ve seen throughout this pandemic, local public health directors and councils and NHS teams know best. To give an example, the centralised and outsourced test, track and trace system has been a disaster.
 
The local school referred to in the link above found about 150 positives in one of their twice weekly tests. Given a population of less than 1000 it gives some idea of how fast and wide infection can spread among the largely unvaccinated that are currently only mildly changing their behaviour to combat the epidemic and will soon be reducing even that. The infection rate in the town is still rising but seems to be slowing. We will have to wait a few days for the weekly moving average to include the initial school infection and the subsequent growth in the surrounding area but the rate for the town (excluding the uninfected neighbouring town and surrounding villages in the district) looks to be substantially higher than the previous two waves. Initial reports suggest it is not the Indian variant which had been found previously a few miles away.

I suspect pretty much every school and surrounding district in the country is similarly vulnerable. Vaccinating the local population in an outbreak may be good local PR but it seems unlikely to do anything to combat the spread. What would better combat it is a functioning test and trace system or a local lockdown. The former seems to be a politically problematic long gone option whereas the latter seems more possible if the number of heavily infected towns/areas jumps from the current 3 or 4 to 30 or 40. It looks as if these hotspots are expected to grow in strength and number as lockdown eases so it will be a question of numbers.

I gather from my daughter that mask exemption badges that the school accepts are available on Amazon.
 
The general consensus seems to be the Indian variant, whilst readily moving around, isn't as severe as some of the other variants. (BBC, Sky, other outlets)

I think the shift again will be once all adults have had two jabs. I'm very interested in what form and content the autumn booster jabs will take...
 
The general consensus seems to be the Indian variant, whilst readily moving around, isn't as severe as some of the other variants. (BBC, Sky, other outlets)

I think the shift again will be once all adults have had two jabs. I'm very interested in what form and content the autumn booster jabs will take...

I think that's the spin rather than the consensus at this point.
 
Boris holding a press conference with Chris Whitty at 5pm today.

My heart has literally just sank. Never good.
 
This is a slightly hopeful sign, maybe, if accurate reporting.

In London clusters of this mutation have been located in care homes. One care home in particular saw 15 cases of the variant, despite residents having their second dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in the week prior.

Four of the cases were hospitalised with non-severe illness, and there were no deaths.

Outbreaks of Indian variant found in London care homes amid warning it 'could be dominant' by June - MyLondon
 
With respect, your answer to everything seems to be lockdown and repeatedly has been throughout this crisis. At every step of this roadmap there have been some who have opposed further re-openings, citing reasons of concerns about a spike or simply because they appear to quite like lockdowns (yes honestly), and they’ve proven to be wrong. With surge testing and vaccinations, we now have other ways of tackling the virus, alternative tools in our armoury. Why downplay them and undermine them and how well vaccinations in particular are working? That’s just damaging to the vaccine programme and people’s faith in wanting to come forward and get a jab.

I still think the four tests for May 17 easing have been met nationally with hospitalisations and deaths remaining low (11 deaths in each of the past two days) and cases relatively stable as a whole, while more and more people continue to get vaccinated. Clearly there have been some local spikes, with the Indian variant largely driving them, but surely targeted local action which we’re already seeing (not local lockdowns in areas which have already been hit the hardest and have been shown not to work) is the best way forward here.

With respect you obviously don't read many of my posts. My 'answer' in this case is to delay by a few weeks until we find out if this new variant will be an issue precisely so we can avoid further more stringent lockdowns. Then again of course if we had proper quarantining or a ban on superfluous foreign travel we may not have the variant in the first place. We need to decide what level of freedom we can have without the need for any further lockdowns and leave things there for a while. As I have said several times before (not that you read them obviously) in my opinion if we could have pubs, restaurants and shops open, the ability to visit friends indoors, people back in the office, holidays in the UK etc. while not allowing foreign travel, large indoor audiences and keeping some social distancing I think that would be a good compromise and should prevent us needing to lockdown again. Review this in 2022 when we know more about variants, the vaccine developers will be better equipped and the rest of the world will hopefully be catching up vaccine wise.
 
With surge testing and vaccinations, we now have other ways of tackling the virus, alternative tools in our armoury

no you are wrong - surge testing only tells us who has the virus, and nothing else. I am sure I told you this once before. Once we know who has the virus we are reliant on those people isolating for a period of time so it doesn't spread any further. Vaccination offers a possible medium to long term means of lowering the impact and perhaps reducing transmission (depending on variant).

If you are positive (undiagnosed or asymptomatic) and are vaccinated today, it will take two to three weeks before the impact of the first vaccination is apparent. So you can be on your merry way, huffing and puffing with your merry friends spreading virus.....possibly killing people....

Guess what the only way to prevent this happening is to restrict movement and lockdown..... yes lockdowns are effective for stopping the community spread. Opening up is a good way to kill people.....
 
Vaccination offers a possible medium to long term means of lowering the impact and perhaps reducing transmission (depending on variant).

If you are positive (undiagnosed or asymptomatic) and are vaccinated today, it will take two to three weeks before the impact of the first vaccination is apparent. So you can be on your merry way, huffing and puffing with your merry friends spreading virus.....possibly killing people....

Guess what the only way to prevent this happening is to restrict movement and lockdown..... yes lockdowns are effective for stopping the community spread. Opening up is a good way to kill people.....

On June 21 at the earliest, the plan is to have all legal limits on social contact removed and the final closed sectors of the economy re-opened. Surely therefore the plan is for vaccines to be our main tool against this virus and hopefully no more lockdowns? If the vaccines do their job then why would there be a need for lockdowns? This is what we’re being told. That June 21 date is little more than a month away now.

And barring a lethal vaccine busting variant, why would opening up kill people? All the most vulnerable are now vaccinated, many of whom have second doses. Deaths and hospitalisations have continued to decline as we’ve gone through the roadmap, which is after all what we have been told the vaccines will do and very effectively. You wouldn’t know it though as all the obsessing is about variants and cases and R numbers!
 
With respect you obviously don't read many of my posts. My 'answer' in this case is to delay by a few weeks until we find out if this new variant will be an issue precisely so we can avoid further more stringent lockdowns. Then again of course if we had proper quarantining or a ban on superfluous foreign travel we may not have the variant in the first place. We need to decide what level of freedom we can have without the need for any further lockdowns and leave things there for a while. As I have said several times before (not that you read them obviously) in my opinion if we could have pubs, restaurants and shops open, the ability to visit friends indoors, people back in the office, holidays in the UK etc. while not allowing foreign travel, large indoor audiences and keeping some social distancing I think that would be a good compromise and should prevent us needing to lockdown again. Review this in 2022 when we know more about variants, the vaccine developers will be better equipped and the rest of the world will hopefully be catching up vaccine wise.

Tiggers, I don’t agree with most of that but I respect your right to an opinion.

With the vaccines and the clear evidence of how well they work, barring a killer, vaccine-busting variant, I’m absolutely of the view that June 21 normality is what we should be aiming for and no looking back then, but I accept that some people (I seem to remember one or two on here being against the April 12 opening as well and school pupils going back all at once after March 8) are more cautious.
 
On June 21 at the earliest, the plan is to have all legal limits on social contact removed and the final closed sectors of the economy re-opened

yes that is the plan

urely therefore the plan is for vaccines to be our main tool against this virus and hopefully no more lockdowns?

no one does not necessarily lead to the other!! huge assumption about the efficacy of vaccines.

If the vaccines do their job then why would there be a need for lockdowns?

because they may not do the job very well against variants

This is what we’re being told. That June 21 date is little more than a month away now.
yes that is true

there is some uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines and newer variants. We are seeing a rise in cases of one variant, and until we have sufficient vaccine data we will not know whether the roadmap to June 21st is still open. If the new variant leads to more hospitalisations and inevitable deaths than that roadmap could change nationally or locally. There is a level of uncertainty and risk to all of this and we need to react accordingly to protect the populations.
 
And barring a lethal vaccine busting variant, why would opening up kill people?
With the vaccines and the clear evidence of how well they work, barring a killer, vaccine-busting variant,

you keep stating this - but it isnt a binary matter that is way too simplistic, there are all sorts of values and levels of risk and uncertainty in between.

Actually the India variant might be that, it might mutate again. And it is clear the only guaranteed way of arresting infection and spread is to minimize beyond household contact (lockdowns, social distancing.......)
 
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