Coronavirus COVID-19 Thread

NaffNaffBobFace

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The passport isnt about keeping people safe from a virus, its about getting people back to normality and easing restrictions sooner though
I think I see... please correct me if I have misunderstood, I've taken it to mean you are saying there should be no passport system (I agree it'll be too easily ignored) and that restrictions should remain in place until everyone has been fully vaccinated because that's the only way to keep everyone away from the contagion (I also agree)?

There are two ways of being kept from the virus:
1) restrictions keeping people away from each other breaking the chains of transmission.
b) Vaccination meaning if you do come into contact with the virus you are protected from its effects and are 60% to 80% less likely to incubate and pass it on to others.

Given the above two tactics are all we have to reduce the spread, I think I get your angle that a pass system to green-light people as able to go about their business before the entire population has been vaccinated is to allow just that and open the economy faster, yes that's correct, but it is still very much a public health issue rather than an equality one. A woman can't stop being a woman just to get around that glass ceiling. A black person can't stop being black to stop the police from stopping him more often than they stop his white friends. Someone refusing the vaccine can accept the vaccine. Where is the inequality in someone refusing to take their medicine? We may as well say the sign outside a roller-coaster that says "cannot ride unless X tall" is promoting inequality whereas it's actually keeping riders safe.

But the passport thing is still not going to work, I'm still in agreement :)

As previously stated for people who have no choice for health or allergy reasons, they can't go out before the country hits a certain number of the population vaccinated anyway, but even at that point where an assumed herd immunity is present, we still need to make precautions, allowances and protective measures to make sure they are as safe as anyone else is, or in those cases there will be an inequality issue.
 
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PeppaPigKilla

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I think I see... please correct me if I have misunderstood, I've taken it to mean you are saying there should be no passport system (I agree it'll be too easily ignored) and that restrictions should remain in place until everyone has been fully vaccinated because that's the only way to keep everyone away from the contagion (I also agree)?
correct
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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Ace, many thanks. Can't say I disagree at all, after a year of this tomfoolery I'd rather we all be overcautious for a few more months rather than risk all the advancement just because some guy couldn't resist the lure of the bar-top and covered it in a new variant that cooked up in his asymptomatic lungs which bypasses that year of work. :like:
 
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NaffNaffBobFace

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COVID Catharsis Corner - reports from around the world from today, Sunday 4th of April:

- World: John Hopkins University Data page responds with "Request cannot be served." No current up to date data to report as a result.

- UK: Following yesterdays peaceful socially distanced protests on police retaining COVID era police powers on demonstrations post-COVID, 7 are arrested in Bristol unrest and 100 are arrested in London. Reports that two separate instances of police using Terrorism powers and anti-terrorist raid tactics on student housing which didn't eventually contain the target of their intentions, emerge.

- UK: Reports indicate some schools are not allowing teachers time off their shifts to go get vaccinated. The General Secretary of one teaching union said of the issue: "It has been pretty widespread."

- UK: Nine Vaccination Passport trials to run in mid-April.

- Portugal: Extends restrictions on traveling in to and out of Spain by road or sea, which had been due to end this weekend.

- Bangladesh: To close all non-essential retail and transport in a week long Lockdown. In an official statement the government says "The coronavirus infections are spreading fast. The infection and death rates are jumping,”

- Greece: Sees highest number of COVID deaths so far in 2021 (not including 2020).
 
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Bambooza

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Ace, many thanks. Can't say I disagree at all, after a year of this tomfoolery I'd rather we all be overcautious for a few more months rather than risk all the advancement just because some guy couldn't resist the lure of the bar-top and covered it in a new variant that cooked up in his asymptomatic lungs which bypasses that year of work. :like:
Ah if only this was the biggest concern. In truth while virus do mutate in a specific species they typically do not get more lethal but often get less lethal but more infectious. Its typically not until a virus makes jumps between species that bad things happen like become more lethal. In the case of SARS and SARS-Cov-2 it already has a huge animal reservoir so its not like a vaccine is going to make this virus go away (every vertebrate has a form of Coronavirus infection). The best we can hope for is to reduce our immune over active response to it and instead treat it much like influenza. While still killing millions a year influenza is for the most part an inconvenience to most. Other children in the Covid family are far more lethal like MERS (jumped from camels) and SARS (jumped from cats)

The other thing to keep in mind is while we are concerned about the number of deaths and as the the CDC statistics show its trending around the third largest cause of death.
  • In 2017 there were 56 million reported deaths globally. Nearly half of those (49%) where 70 or older.
  • To date covid 19 has only killed 2.85 million (more then likely under reported). This is only 5% of the total yearly deaths which has pushed the total deaths to a slightly elevated over expected its not a significant bump.
  • As a pandemic this virus has been meek. The Spanish flu killed an estimated 50 million which was 2.5% of the world population. While Covid19 has killed (to date) 0.003% of the world population. While its hard to compare the two as world travel today is far quicker and easier then it was in 1918 the population density makes it far easier for a virus to spread today then it does back in 1918. In both times social isolation was attempted while we today have better medical treatments and understanding of virus transmissions it is not as much of a factor given how long and wide spread the virus was in the wild before we started acting on it. IE if the Covid19 was as lethal as the Spanish flu we would be looking at deaths in the 100's of millions instead of 2 million.
All of this is to say that we need to learn to live with this virus as its not going anywhere anytime soon. Vaccines while not 100% effective will help reduce the lethality and severity of getting infected and I hope it will be added to the yearly flu shot.

My biggest hope is that this is a wake up call to the world that we had a gentle reminder that life is fleeting and this "Pandemic" was at most a baby pandemic and meek at that. That we should be working on actionable plans for a real pandemic.


.
 

Vavrik

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My biggest hope is that this is a wake up call to the world that we had a gentle reminder that life is fleeting and this "Pandemic" was at most a baby pandemic and meek at that. That we should be working on actionable plans for a real pandemic.
This! ^^ This is exactly what the outcome of this pandemic should be.

btw, the coronavirus is not new to humans, there are 2 variants of alpha and two variants of beta coronavirus that have been responsible for a lot of cold and cold like symptoms in humans and other primates for millions of years. SARS, MERS and COVID-2 are all beta corona virus infections that we have limited or no exposure to - hence the infectious nature. So in the last 20 years, we were warned that something like this could happen. We were unprepared for this - and we should not have been.
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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COVID Catharsis Corner - Reports from around the world from today, Monday 5th of April:

- World: John Hopkins University Data page responds with "Request cannot be served." No current up to date data to report as a result.

- World: Data taken from Google - 131M total cases and 2.85M total deaths.

- UK: Whole population offered 2 Lateral Flow tests a week for free to detect no-symptom infections.

- Philippines: Man who broke curfew to buy water was caught by police breaking the rules and forced to do 300 squats by police as punishment for the transgression. The next day he collapsed and died. His partner said: "That whole day, he struggled to walk, he was just crawling..."

- India: Sees record high new daily cases at 103,558.

- Italy: Shortens Quarentine from 14 days to 5 days for 30 countries with favorable vaccine programs and restrictions.

- Saudi Arabia: Confirms only people with immunity to COVID will be permitted to attend and perform the umrah pilgrimage for Ramadan. This includes people who have been fully vaccinated, people who have had their first dose more than 2 weeks prior, and people who have already had the infection and recovered.

- Spain: Cases are increasing but deaths declining: “What is clearly decreasing is the number of deaths, which has a lot to do with the immunisation of the elderly and the most vulnerable,”
 
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Vavrik

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- World: John Hopkins University Data page responds with "Request cannot be served." No current up to date data to report as a result.
They may have changed the layout of the website a bit, I'm not sure...
Try https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
if that doesn't work try this

If there's still no joy... you can also try ... it's a bit more in-depth, and (I think) by one of the professors involved. He gets a little bogged down sometimes so it tends to be a day behind.

There are a few other sources, and some seem to be having access problems due to whatever is going on at John Hopkins.

EDIT: OR just continue to use Google... it seems to be just a few hours behind the data at John Hopkins.
 
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NaffNaffBobFace

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They may have changed the layout of the website a bit, I'm not sure...
Try https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
if that doesn't work try this

If there's still no joy... you can also try ... it's a bit more in-depth, and (I think) by one of the professors involved. He gets a little bogged down sometimes so it tends to be a day behind.

There are a few other sources, and some seem to be having access problems due to whatever is going on at John Hopkins.

EDIT: OR just continue to use Google... it seems to be just a few hours behind the data at John Hopkins.
Thanks for the kind advice, I've been using coronavirus.jhu.edu/ but it looks like either they no longer support the browser/s I'm using or I've visited the site every day for a year and they are no longer willing to host me :D The Map page is also banjaxed, won't load correctly so I'm thinking it's more Browser Support has been redacted.

I got the following yesterday and today so thought it was the site having issues over the Public Holiday:

1617654504960.png


If you are still seeing it correctly I might have to change my IP address if I've been excluded or might even have to download Google Chrome if they have dropped support for FireFox.

EDIT - Just checked my cache, it was 1gb, cleared that but still no joy.
 
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Vavrik

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Thanks for the kind advice, I've been using coronavirus.jhu.edu/ but it looks like either they no longer support the browser/s I'm using or I've visited the site every day for a year and they are no longer willing to host me :D The Map page is also banjaxed, won't load correctly so I'm thinking it's more Browser Support has been redacted.

I got the following yesterday and today so thought it was the site having issues over the Public Holiday:

View attachment 20573

If you are still seeing it correctly I might have to change my IP address if I've been excluded or might even have to download Google Chrome if they have dropped support for FireFox.

EDIT - Just checked my cache, it was 1gb, cleared that but still no joy.
I don't think it's the browser, I have Chrome on my PC, but I have another ... uh not PC... but made in the UK (yes, a Raspberry PI 4B)... that uses Firefox and it works.
I'm a geek, what can I say. Other sites that I think also use the data from John Hopkins are also currently posting "not available" messages so it's not just you.
 

Vavrik

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Fear not citizens, for I am fully vaccinated. I don't know where we go from here though. 6 month boosters? Multiple vaccines for multiple strains? Weekly suppositories?
It could be anywhere, we'll find out I suppose. Weekly suppositories... I had to have one of those once. I'd take a shot in the ass before that. You know your ass conspires against you when you get one... At first it says what the hell is that? Then it sucks it in despite whatever you think about it.
 

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It could be anywhere, we'll find out I suppose. Weekly suppositories... I had to have one of those once. I'd take a shot in the ass before that. You know your ass conspires against you when you get one... At first it says what the hell is that? Then it sucks it in despite whatever you think about it.
Why does this make me think of a newbies first experience in the prison game play loop?
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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Fear not citizens, for I am fully vaccinated. I don't know where we go from here though. 6 month boosters? Multiple vaccines for multiple strains? Weekly suppositories?
Thanks for keeping us informed, great to hear :glorious:

The suppositories would explain why some countries kept giving people anal swabs at the boarders...
 

Vavrik

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The suppositories would explain why some countries kept giving people anal swabs at the boarders...
Anal swabs are a lot easier to take than a suppository, let me tell ya. It only goes in a couple inches, and it's smaller than your left index finger. It is also capable of detecting the virus far earlier and more accurately than a nose swab, and it sure as hell doesn't make you feel like they're tickling your brain.
 
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NaffNaffBobFace

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COVID Catharsis Corner - Reports from around the world from today, Tuesday 6th of April:

- World: John Hopkins university page back up and running, total confirmed cases 132,023,888, total confirmed deaths 2,864,509.

- World: Passes 132 million cases, we passed 130 million cases on Saturday, data was inconsistent until today, however this means another 2 million cases in 3/4 days.

- World: International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts a stronger recovery for the world economy this year.

- Video Games: E3 to be streamed live online only for 2021, and will be free for anyone to attend digitally.

- Turkey: Sees record high new daily cases at 49,584.

- Indonesia: Announces they have located a new variant which contains similar mutations to the Brazilian and South African variants.

- Canada: President states in a press conference the country is now seeing a third wave: “Around the world, countries are facing a very serious third wave of this pandemic, and right now, so is Canada.”

- EU: The Union misses Vaccination target. Commisioner for Vaccine rollout says: “If we had received the 100% of AstraZeneca’s vaccines that were contracted to us, the European Union would be at the same level today as Great Britain in terms of vaccines, so I can say that the turbulence we have experienced is solely due to AstraZeneca’s failure to deliver."

- European Medicines Agency: Senior Official of the regulator states in a newspaper that his opinion is: “we can say it now, it is clear there is a link with the vaccine … But we still do not know what causes this reaction.” however the regulator releases advice saying: “[they have] not yet reached a conclusion and the review is currently ongoing,” and that at the moment there is no evidence of a causal link.

- UK: Report indicates vaccine supply in UK could slow down to 2.7 million doses a week until the end of July, just enough to keep up with administering second doses for the 30 million people already given a first dose. It is worth noting 2.7 million doses is the UK's estimated domestic production.

- UK: Oxford/AstraZeneca trial on children paused as a precaution as regulator probes reports of Blood Clot side effect in wider world. No children in the test have reported any signs of clotting.

- UK: Despite strong results from vaccination drive so far, uncertainty is still causing delays or cancellations to public events, this time Southport Flower Show, which attracts up to 55,000 visitors, has been cancelled for the second year running.

- UK: Lincoln, and reports emerge of a brawl on Sunday night featuring at least 15 people in the cities Arboretum, one of whom was armed with a machete. Police said "We had to lockdown the arboretum to protect people, so that innocent members of the public weren't injured," and a dispersal order has been put in place meaning no one is allowed to congregate in groups in the area. The Rule Of 6 is currently still the maximum group allowed.

- US: President Biden shaves 2 weeks off May target to have every adult offered a COVID vaccine.

- Italy: Small business owners clash with police as their protest attempts to gain access to Parliament Square.

- Olympics: North Korea announces it will not be sending athletes to the Postponed Japan Games due to Pandemic concerns.

- Isle Of Man: Building Sites and Garden Centres reopen amid restriction easing.
 
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Radegast74

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This is interesting, it is a study looking at the long-term neurologic and psychiatric effects of having had COVID-19:
< https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00084-5/fulltext >

Specifically, for each COVID patient they matched a patient who had influenza and a patient who had any (other) respiratory illness.

Despite some potential for nasty longer-term effects there was some good news, as pointed out in a CNN article:
However, Covid-19 didn't necessarily increase the risk for the full spectrum of neurological illness.
"Two important negative findings were related to parkinsonism and Guillain-Barré syndrome," Taquet said. "Both of those conditions are neurological conditions that we know are sometimes associated with viral infection. We did not find that they were more more common after Covid-19 and after the other respiratory tract infections that we looked at."
However, the statement in the article left those questions more hanging in the air:
Whether COVID-19 is associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome remains unclear; our data were also equivocal, with HRs increased with COVID-19 compared with other respiratory tract infections but not with influenza (table 3), and increased compared with three of the four other index health events (appendix p 34). Concerns have also been raised about post-COVID-19 parkinsonian syndromes, driven by the encephalitis lethargica epidemic that followed the 1918 influenza pandemic. Our data provide some support for this possibility, although the incidence was low and not all HRs were significant. Parkinsonism might be a delayed outcome, in which case a clearer signal might emerge with a longer follow-up.

Stay tuned for more studies...and go get a shot!
 
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NaffNaffBobFace

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COVID Catharsis Corner - Reports from around the world from today, Wednesday 7th of April:

- World: John Hopkins page not working again, Google stands in to indicate we are still at 132 million confirmed cases and 2.87 million confirmed deaths.

- World: International Monetary Fund suggests a wealth tax to help pay for the COVID impact.

- Brazil: Sees record high new daily deaths, as the number passes 4,000 deaths in a single day for the first time.

- Brazil: Logs first case of South African variant.

- Turkey: Sees record high new daily cases at 54,740.

- UK: Research Study on half a million electronic US medical records suggests that one third of people who suffered from serious COVID infection went on to develop one of 14 specific neurological or psychological disorders within 6 months.

- Vaccines: (Oxford/AstraZeneca update)
In the UK the Medical Regulator finds 79 of the 18 million people who had been given the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine had suffered from a rare blood clot with 19 dying as a result. They indicated this wasn't proof that the vaccine caused them, however they did say that this strengthened the link. People under 30 years of age will now be offered an alternative to the AZ vaccine as the risks are more finely balanced in this age group.
In Europe the Medical Regulator states that blood clotting should be listed as an "Extremely rare" side effect on this medicine, but that the benefits of the treatment still outweight any potential personal risk.

- UK: Moderna vaccine first doses given in Wales and Scotland taking the total number of active vaccines being used in the country to 3.

- Australia: Prime Minister places blame on delays to vaccination program on the EU having blocked shipments. The EU said it only ever blocked one shipment of 250,000 doses however Australian prime minister indicated: "3.1 million out of 3.8 million doses did not come to Australia. That obviously had a very significant impact on the early rollout of the vaccination programme," and called it simple maths. The EU then stated theirs were not the only plants on the planet producing the AZ vaccine. It is not yet clear which plants the Australians contract says their doses should be coming from, which is a sticking point with the EU/AstraZeneca row which continues to rumble on.

- South Africa: Court rules doctors can administer new animal anti-parasite treatment Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 following concerns that trials so far have been inconclusive.

- Canada: Ontario will enter into a month long Lockdown starting tomorrow.

- US: Faces Ketchup shortage as Heinz sees demand for take-out sachets of Tomato Sauce skyrocket following changes in food shopping habits due Pandemic restrictions.

- Isle Of Man: Number of active cases falls to 88.
 
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