The virus. PPE. Part 1

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Jelster said:
I didn't see anything vague (although the go to work Monday - now Wednesday was a cock up). The country were asking for a roll out plan, he provided rough outlines, then everybody jumps on the "not enough detail" bandwagon.

All the media do is stoke the fire, they have no interest in actually reporting any "news". Just look at the twaddle the BBC have come out about German cases sky rocketing, which just isn't true, verified by friends in Germany....
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He has asked people to return to work, now you agree that there was a mix-up over Monday or Wednesday but at the time of announcing it they hadn't even issued guidance for employers to help them get their businesses back up and running and workplaces operating safely, I hear that they have now issued that guidance so sometime after the matter was raised by Keir Starmer this afternoon, so that gives businesses less than 48hrs to implement whatever measures that are required. So he is still working backwards on what should have been a major part of how to slowly emerge from this lockdown. I'm still waiting to hear if he has issued the required guidance to public transport operators.

As most of my family live in Germany I must be getting different info from you, they were worried just after the easing of the lockdown as there was a small but significant rise in both the number of new cases and the number of deaths but thankfully they seem to have got a handle on that but it's still touch and go in some areas.
 
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Jelster said:
All the media do is stoke the fire, they have no interest in actually reporting any "news". Just look at the twaddle the BBC have come out about German cases sky rocketing, which just isn't true, verified by friends in Germany....
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All I've seen is the BBC accurately reporting the Robert Koch Institute's estimate that the reproduction number of the virus, R, is now above 1. See p6 of the RKI's report here:

https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ...chte/2020-05-10-en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

The RKI is the government body responsible for monitoring public health in Germany.
 
Yep, the message was so clear in lastnight's C-19 broadcast, the prime minister has decided to have another crack at getting it over tonight.
 
tarric said:
He has asked people to return to work, now you agree that there was a mix-up over Monday or Wednesday but at the time of announcing it they hadn't even issued guidance for employers to help them get their businesses back up and running and workplaces operating safely, I hear that they have now issued that guidance so sometime after the matter was raised by Keir Starmer this afternoon, so that gives businesses less than 48hrs to implement whatever measures that are required. So he is still working backwards on what should have been a major part of how to slowly emerge from this lockdown. I'm still waiting to hear if he has issued the required guidance to public transport operators.

As most of my family live in Germany I must be getting different info from you, they were worried just after the easing of the lockdown as there was a small but significant rise in both the number of new cases and the number of deaths but thankfully they seem to have got a handle on that but it's still touch and go in some areas.
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You'd think businesses would have already been taking steps to make things safer, ready for their employees
return.
 
Just my opinion, but HMG seems to me to be returning to their “wait-and-see” policy (being polite to call it a policy) of February/March.

We don’t seem to have extensive testing in place and as far as I can see no contact tracing — I’m as keen on apps as anyone but I don’t think they are a substitute for boots on the ground and I think we’ve done away with most of the local public health inspectors that I guess would be the framework for that.

So they are back to lifting the lockdown and waiting-and-seeing if a lot more people get infected, but that will be too late again, just like before :(.

Edited to add; And HMG say these new instructions are not coming from the science advisors.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...tay-alert-coronavirus-message-whitty-vallance
 
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The new rules will be a relief to W Rees-Mogg as his nanny can now come in to look after him :).
 
The thing is that although we talk about a vaccine, there is no guarantees we will get one - on the BBC it said there is still not one for SARS, so we MUST continue to lift restrictions, or we will be in a similar position 2 or 3 years from now!
 
jakeblu said:
Heres a point, valid I think. If someone catches covid-19 from returning back to an unsafe workplace, will they be able to claim industrial injury?
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How would you prove you caught it at work ? in all seriousness its a reason one of our options is to close the business and make 7 people redundant. We are following our HR/H&S companies guidelines, but if people start playing silly buggers then we don't need the agro. We have already had to convince people that it is not illegal to come to work !
 
cambsno said:
The thing is that although we talk about a vaccine, there is no guarantees we will get one - on the BBC it said there is still not one for SARS, so we MUST continue to lift restrictions, or we will be in a similar position 2 or 3 years from now!
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No one's really looking for one for SARS though.

Obviously no guarantee we will get a COVID one, but when the SARS outbreak wasn't as bad as predicted the vaccine efforts were scaled right back. So can't directly draw any conclusions.
 
sphexx said:
So they are back to lifting the lockdown and waiting-and-seeing if a lot more people get infected, but that will be too late again, just like before :(.
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They're only easing lockdown.

Baking foil on aisle 12
Toilet rolls on aisle 14
 
sphexx said:
Just my opinion, but HMG seems to me to be returning to their “wait-and-see” policy (being polite to call it a policy) of February/March.

We don’t seem to have extensive testing in place and as far as I can see no contact tracing — I’m as keen on apps as anyone but I don’t think they are a substitute for boots on the ground and I think we’ve done away with most of the local public health inspectors that I guess would be the framework for that.

So they are back to lifting the lockdown and waiting-and-seeing if a lot more people get infected, but that will be too late again, just like before :(.

Edited to add; And HMG say these new instructions are not coming from the science advisors.
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I give it 2-4 weeks before the hits the fan and it's back to lockdown or a lot of bluff and bluster and following medical and scientific advice.

You do know that the Guardian is a left wing liberal rag and not to be trusted in it's condemnation of the government.
 
cambsno said:
The thing is that although we talk about a vaccine, there is no guarantees we will get one - on the BBC it said there is still not one for SARS, so we MUST continue to lift restrictions, or we will be in a similar position 2 or 3 years from now!
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Yes, and another factor is that there is no such thing as a vaccine that is 100% effective and/or 100% safe. Annual flu vaccinations are around 70% effective (as far as I can find out).
People who are currently within the "shielded" group are confined to staying at home. If their medical condition is such that they must have close to zero risk of exposure to coronavirus I have to wonder if a vaccine will actually provide sufficient protection to enable their shielded confinement to relaxed.
 
arclight said:
Yes, and another factor is that there is no such thing as a vaccine that is 100% effective and/or 100% safe. Annual flu vaccinations are around 70% effective (as far as I can find out).
People who are currently within the "shielded" group are confined to staying at home. If their medical condition is such that they must have close to zero risk of exposure to coronavirus I have to wonder if a vaccine will actually provide sufficient protection to enable their shielded confinement to relaxed.
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Far too early to guess have effective any vaccine might be in this case, of course. But influenza is an especially difficult target. To produce enough vaccine for a flu season, they have to make an educated guess about which strains will be circulating that winter. When they guess wrong, protection can be way below 70%. With SARS-CoV-2 there is only one strain to worry about at the moment (despite what some news reports suggest) and this virus lacks the 'reassortment' mechanism that lets flu viruses shuffle the deck to make a new variety so easily.
 
'If we follow Boris Johnson's advice, coronavirus will spread'

'For over two months now, Britain’s public health specialists have been asking why the government abandoned the basic infection-control practice of “test, trace, isolate”. Most of us have suggested that a system to do this was a precondition of easing the lockdown. The key words in Boris Johnson’s speech on Sunday were “you should go to work if you can’t work from home”. He made no mention of preparations for tracing and testing contacts of people who test positive for Covid-19. In the plan published today, a newly appointed test and trace taskforce will begin to develop such a system.'
...
'Those defending the government’s Covid-19 response have reasonably pointed out that policy mistakes are always clearer in retrospect. So let me make a prediction. If we take the prime minister’s advice and return to work in large numbers now – and without the ability to test, trace and isolate – then virus spread will increase, there will be super-spreader events and local or regional lockdowns will have to be reconsidered. The prime minister implied in his speech that relapse will somehow be our fault – we were not sufficiently “alert”. The responsibility will lie, however, with a government that has encouraged a premature return to work before the epidemiologic conditions and interventions were in place to make it safe to do so.'

- 'David Hunter is a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the University of Oxford'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/11/boris-johnson-advice-coronavirus-spread-work
 
tarric said:
I give it 2-4 weeks before the hits the fan and it's back to lockdown or a lot of bluff and bluster and following medical and scientific advice.
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Lockdown hasn't gone away, just certain parts are being eased.
Less than 1/5 of the UK's workforce has been furloughed, that suggests there is a high proportion of the workforce able to work from home. Just 17% (approximately 5.4m) of the whole of the UK workforce, use public transport for their commute. Scotland and Wales aren't relaxing their lockdowns, so how many of that 5.4 million, that use public transport, have actually returned to work after removing the home workers and the Welsh and Scottish workers?

I am intrigued to know who all the people were that returned to work yesterday? The return was mentioned after 7PM on a Sunday, surely they would need their employers instruction to return to work.
 
nilagin said:
I am intrigued to know who all the people were that returned to work yesterday? The return was mentioned after 7PM on a Sunday, surely they would need their employers instruction to return to work.
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I wondered that.
Our employer sent out a communication on Friday telling us that regardless of what the government said on Sunday, our situation would not change on Monday, or any day this week until the directors etc had studied the governments report and considered the implications regarding keeping employees safe etc before deciding what changes they would make.
They said they were taking this response to avoid unnecessary stress or confusion etc to our employees.
 
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arclight said:
People who are currently within the "shielded" group are confined to staying at home. If their medical condition is such that they must have close to zero risk of exposure to coronavirus I have to wonder if a vaccine will actually provide sufficient protection to enable their shielded confinement to relaxed.
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Yes it would, as in the case of an actual vaccine, this is how herd immunity would work and has worked for many years in measles mumps and rubella, ie if 90% of population has the vaccine and are immune then those that don't have it are protected due to the herd being immune.

Of course we've seen a rise in these in recent years due to the idiot antivaxxers and the uneducated after the mmr scare a decade or so ago. But that's another story.
 
Donnie said:
Yes it would, as in the case of an actual vaccine, this is how herd immunity would work and has worked for many years in measles mumps and rubella, ie if 90% of population has the vaccine and are immune then those that don't have it are protected due to the herd being immune.

Of course we've seen a rise in these in recent years due to the idiot antivaxxers and the uneducated after the mmr scare a decade or so ago. But that's another story.
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Did you have a young child when the MMR/Autism scare began?
 
tijuana taxi said:
Did you have a young child when the MMR/Autism scare began?
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I think that question is pretty irrelevent Rich. Whilst you could understand some parents reluctance after Wakefields fraudulent research was published in, I think 1998, that really shouldn't still be the case.
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
I wondered that.
Our employer sent out a communication on Friday telling us that regardless of what the government said on Sunday, our situation would not change on Monday, or any day this week until the directors etc had studied the governments report and considered the implications regarding keeping employees safe etc before deciding what changes they would make.
They said they were taking this response to avoid unnecessary stress or confusion etc to our employees.
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My employer started taking measures in February and early March before the lockdown. Alot more has been put in place since the end of March. Some of my workmates returned a few weeks ago, some more returned last week, my return has been delayed until tomorrow (fingers crossed that isn't postponed again) some have a few more weeks before they return, when they return, I will be furloughed again for a further 3 weeks and that rota will continue until restrictions can be reduced further. Hopefully it won't come to it as I hate working nights, but we could end up on 3 shift instead of our current 2 shift work pattern.
 
Donnie said:
Yes it would, as in the case of an actual vaccine, this is how herd immunity would work and has worked for many years in measles mumps and rubella, ie if 90% of population has the vaccine and are immune then those that don't have it are protected due to the herd being immune.

Of course we've seen a rise in these in recent years due to the idiot antivaxxers and the uneducated after the mmr scare a decade or so ago. But that's another story.
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Hopefully the virus is one that is controllable by means of a one time vaccination as opposed to flu where yearly vaccinations (based on the viruses that were active in the east that year) are necessary, but not always sufficiently effective.
If a one time vaccination is developed we can be sure of one thing ............... some of usual suspects will form a pressure group to oppose vaccination :banghead:
 
jakeblu said:
I think that question is pretty irrelevent Rich. Whilst you could understand some parents reluctance after Wakefields fraudulent research was published in, I think 1998, that really shouldn't still be the case.
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But would you rush to get vaccinated against Covid? Sure, we are putting amazing resource into this, but we will not have any idea of longer term implications will be? Could the vaccine be worse than getting for many people (i.e. younger, healthy people?) ?
 
arclight said:
Hopefully the virus is one that is controllable by means of a one time vaccination as opposed to flu where yearly vaccinations (based on the viruses that were active in the east that year) are necessary, but not always sufficiently effective.
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I saw a program (news item?) recently that said across the globe they have identified (I think they said) 6 variants of Covid19.

It is too early to say which of those variants is more infectious than the other and as such why some may be more lethal than others when it comes to ethnicity and/or age.

But one thing for sure the vaccine will need international collaboration and I surmise a bit like the seasonal flu vaccine will be a multi variant one to protect(?) against as many as possible!
 
KitsuneAndy said:
Utterly irrelevant being that Wakefield was Pro Vaccine. So even if you believed him, he wasn't anti vaccine. Just anti combined vaccine because he'd patented individual ones.
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Whats even worse about the Wakefield research is that it never even showed a causal link between MMR and Autism. It was only his press briefings where he was claiming such a link and we all know why that was now.
 
cambsno said:
But would you rush to get vaccinated against Covid?
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Yes.

cambsno said:
Sure, we are putting amazing resource into this, but we will not have any idea of longer term implications will be? Could the vaccine be worse than getting for many people (i.e. younger, healthy people?) ?
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Vaccines in general are some of the safest of all medical products. Why do you imagine that the long-term effects of a new vaccine are likely to be worse than the long-term effects of a new disease? Some patients who recovered from SARS were left with kidney or lung damage, or developed bone damage linked to their treatment with steroids. The recently described serious inflammatory condition in children may in at least some cases be a post-viral syndrome (some patients have antibodies to the new coronavirus, indicating they were previously infected, but not an active infection).
 
Box Brownie said:
I saw a program (news item?) recently that said across the globe they have identified (I think they said) 6 variants of Covid19.

It is too early to say which of those variants is more infectious than the other and as such why some may be more lethal than others when it comes to ethnicity and/or age.
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People keep coming out with these papers about 'new strains', which are then excitedly picked up by the press, but they haven't been convincing up to now.
View: https://BANNED/profvrr/status/1258507342561202176
 
Can anyone explain formula to me?

View: https://BANNED/BorisJohnson/status/1259572964447653892


As we have been told there are five Covid Alert Levels which range from 1 to 5, this formula clearly cannot mean what the mathematical symbols indicate.

Would it not have been better to just say the Covid Alert Level will be based on the infection rate and the number of infections?

The cynic in me makes me think the formula was used to try and may it look more authoritative.

Dave
 
Tringa said:
Can anyone explain formula to me?

View: https://BANNED/BorisJohnson/status/1259572964447653892


As we have been told there are five Covid Alert Levels which range from 1 to 5, this formula clearly cannot mean what the mathematical symbols indicate.

Would it not have been better to just say the Covid Alert Level will be based on the infection rate and the number of infections?

The cynic in me makes me think the formula was used to try and may it look more authoritative.

Dave
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See my posts:

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/the-virus-ppe.706383/post-8700544

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/the-virus-ppe.706383/post-8700638

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/the-virus-ppe.706383/post-8700916
 
To be fair, even the experts are taking the mickey out of the way this was presented.

View: https://BANNED/EvolveDotZoo/status/1259584453191573504
 
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