Coronabollocks..

[Pontius Navigator]

PHXP, friend of mine near Wilmington has had his first Moderna jab, as has his wife, next booked 4 weeks hence. I think he is more my age.

[PHXPhlyer]

Mine is booked for the end of next month at a football stadium converted to a 24/7 mass vaccination site.
They are squirting the Pfizer vaccine.
I really wouldn't be surprised if I were to get an email saying "Sorry, we've run out. Good luck".
Fingers crossed!

PP

[Boac]

JH's post #3774 and others.

Well then how do you suppose the disease is spreading if everyone if observing the rules regarding isolation

The answer to that is that they are not. Witness the 400 'Wedding Party guests' yesterday in the Jewish Church in London (amongst many others). Quote JM - "You cannot be serious!"

It is patently obvious to all with at least 1 brain cell that it is spreading because people are still 'mixing'. A true lockdown - if honoured and properly administered - will work, and it has in the UK, Australia, Taiwan, Japan............................

[Dushan]

Mine is booked for the end of next month at a football stadium converted to a 24/7 mass vaccination site.
They are squirting the Pfizer vaccine.
I really wouldn't be surprised if I were to get an email saying "Sorry, we've run out. Good luck".
Fingers crossed!

PP

I think you should complain to your president. He said he is going to fix the mess. How's it working out so far? How many dead on his watch in the last 48 hour?

[PHXPhlyer]

The same pricks who host these superspreader events will be the same @ssholes who will try to jump the vaccine line.
As I said before, they should all be locked-in together for three weeks or so, and at the end, let the survivors out.

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Surprise, surprise!

Last-minute vaccine cancelations in New York City catches some off-guard
Thousands of people had their Covid-19 vaccine appointments canceled at the last minute in New York City -- starting Thursday -- when the city announced it was experiencing a supply shortage.

Chris Bastian — who was scheduled to have his first dose on Thursday — only found out that appointments were being postponed while scrolling through Facebook on Wednesday night.

“I was never contacted directly by the city,” Bastian, 61, said. “I went by the vaccine center [Thursday] afternoon just to make sure and to get whatever information I could, and while I was there another couple arrived and they had an appointment and they had not been notified either.”

The New York City Health Department said in a statement online over 22,000 appointments for the first dose of the vaccine that were made for Jan. 21 — Jan. 24 will be rescheduled to next week, and that those affected should have received an email or phone call to be alerted of the change.

However, Bastian says he received neither.

"I'm not afraid," Bastian said of having his Brooklyn appointment postponed, "my wife and I have been taking very responsible isolating policies — but it's annoying."

PP

[Boac]

boing - re your #3780 (b) - I find it difficult to believe this graph is being caused by the virus weakening!

[Pontius Navigator]

I think you should complain to your president. He said he is going to fix the mess. How's it working out so far? How many dead on his watch in the last 48 hour?

In answer to your irrelevant question, about 9,000.
As you well know you take about a week to fall ill and perhaps a month before you die. Ask the same question next month.

[boing]

BOAC

b) As has been confirmed by several posters here there is no direct and reliable proof that lock downs actually work. They are worth trying on the basis that we have no better ideas but there are disturbing examples that disease spread is not greatly effected by lock downs. JH's post #3774 and others.

You correctly show an example that suggests lock downs do work, we would expect or hope, that they do. However, I will give you a counter example. Take the Japanese who are as we know a disciplined society. Unfortunately I can't find a way to copy the graph but on November 1st. Japan had 7256 active cases, on January 19th. they had 78,521 active cases after a dramatic rise in numbers. (Total patients that are still currently testing positive for COVID-19. (Total confirmed cases minus total recovered cases)). How do you explain the dramatic rise in cases in a society that is renowned for its social responsibility and active participation in lock downs?

I am trying to apply logic to this question and raise subjects for discussion so don't put words in my mouth. The best we can say is that it appears that in general lock downs are preferred to non-lock downs. However, there are enough outlying examples of where lock downs, apparently strictly enforced, have not been as effective as we had hoped (see above). Certainly some of the problem in some areas is due to illicit social mixing but that is a simplistic explanation that might be masking some factors we do not yet understand.

One example that ruins our plans could be a variant of the bug such as we have seen. The lock down is not effective since we are defending against the old bug not the new one.
On the other hand, say there was a moderately effective, easily available, palliative against Covid that was not presently approved or acknowledged by testing agencies. Covid cases begin to increase, the population thinks that any protection they can get is better than none so they buy the palliative like crazy and, miraculously, it helps to a mild extent and there are nowhere near as many cases as expected so .gov claims the lock down worked really well.

I repeat my claim. "there is no direct and reliable proof that lock downs actually work." only non-verifiable correlation. Apply lock downs, great, comply with them, great, but don't passively consider that they are the guaranteed solution to our problems.

.

[G-CPTN]

WRT the above, and having watched/listened to Boris's briefing at 17:00 today - 'we' just don't know.
For all the waffle that was broadcast I perceived no reassurance that 'they' know what they are doing.

[Pontius Navigator]

Boing, there are also the invisibles. The postman, the Amazon driver, your helpful neighbour, the man at the next gas pump, the empty space (where someone was there before you).

Then there are the errors. You miss a hand wash, your hand wash misses a bit, you touch something.

40,000 infections in a day in a population of millions is minimal.

[John Hill]

Some stupid thoughts for the day...

Seat belts do not save lives..
Speed limits encourage dangerous driving..
Guns will keep you safe..
Testing causes Covid..
Lock down don't work..

[OFSO]

The first Spanish lockdown in 2020 lasted seven weeks. People had to stay indoors, including children (no schools open). One couldn't go in one's garden. Husbands and wives could not sit in the same car. Police patrolled the streets sending pedestrians home. . Only one person could go shopping and then only to the nearest shop.

It achieved nothing.

[Wodrick]

Only one person could go shopping

That was a brilliant idea

[OFSO]

Actually it was a GOOD idea. A BRILLIANT idea would have been closing Ikea.

[John Hill]

We had periods of lock down in NZ last year but none nowadays.

NZ has a small number of cases in managed isolation and those are mostly recent arrivals to NZ As far as we know there is no present risk of community transmission.

[OFSO]

Have you banned French tourists?

[Boac]

boing

The lock down is not effective since we are defending against the old bug not the new one.

For that to be meaningful, the new virus's/virii would need to spread by means other than mixing.

I repeat my claim. "there is no direct and reliable proof that lock downs actually work." only non-verifiable correlation. Apply lock downs, great, comply with them, great, but don't passively consider that they are the guaranteed solution to our problems.

Agreed, but what do you (actively) suggest as such?

[boing]

A new variant of the virus could spread by other means. As has often been pointed out the virus (or any other living thing for that matter) redesigns itself to improve its chances of reproducing, perhaps a new variant is transmitted more efficiently through items such as credit cards which swap hands probably billions of times a day. The transfer of a credit card is not normally considered mixing and we are told that the old variant does not transfer well by hand --- but that is why we get new variants. We must not adopt the policy that if we see an increase in cases we lock down and if we see the cases continue to increase we lock down harder. We must keep checking our 6 and accept that the bug will evolve but when we see the change we need to properly evaluate its effects.

The first practical aid we need is an accurate, rapid, test for the bug. We have made such great gains in a year in vaccination but in that time we have not seen an improvement in test effectiveness, we are still using 1980's technology. Once we can positively identify the active bug it opens up more precise applications of quarantine leading to less social, economic and family disruption. We need a test that identifies active infection not the left over evidence from two months ago. Until we can see where the bug is actively working lock downs will only be partially successful and test and trace will not work.

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[Bob]

My gut says another 2 years of getting really hammered by this ............it might even beat us