Coronavirus - how is it/has it affected you?

[Deleted member 21258]

Some details on vaccines and variants here(hopefully direct link works?) :-

Eric Topol (@EricTopol) / Twitter

If you have 15 minutes a day and fancy a read, I would recommend reading these three peoples twitter accounts, some great stuff posted and knowledge about the viruses and vaccines(some political/USA stuff which I ignore) but the knowledge and depth of knowledge they give freely to twitter, I am grateful for :-

Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) / Twitter
Eric Topol (@EricTopol) / Twitter
Florian Krammer (@florian_krammer) / Twitter

 

[User62651]

Hypothetic question, or at least I hope it is, what do you think the reaction would be amongst the population if the SA variant (or an as yet unknown one) was found to be resistant to the vaccine? I'm thinking about the reaction to a reset in terms of timelines of lockdowns etc if it were the worst case and we had to get a working vaccine. I know we wouldn't necessarily be back at square one as I assume we could use the present vaccine and adapt it however would also assume we'd need to go through the testing phase again etc. We are already at a point where fatigue is setting in and if the Government announced that the present restrictions might now be in place for another 4,5 or 6 months whilst the vaccine was redeveloped would people actually be able to buy in?

Again, everything I've read so far suggests that the present vaccine is effective so hopefully we don't have to worry too much at the moment.

I think 75% would do what they're aksed and comply, 15% would generally comply with minor lapses and 10% would ignore completely and try to circumvent. In other words where we are now. We're getting conditioned to restrictions now, after a year how many are still optimistic it's going to play out as we hope or are led to believe? Constant moving goalposts.
The recently introduced airport/quarantine restrictions on international arrivals are only for red zone countries I believe, should be all countries.
For UK Authorities to be actively hunting carriers of the SA variant rather than just talking about doing it, is of concern.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Anyone else at the point now where they're just completely done and bored? I feel like as we move into a new month without the post-Christmas vibes it's just another reminder of how much time we're all losing. Feel so sorry for my kids.

We often hear that we should embrace the wartime 'Blitz Spirit' through this time. But as that was more to do with trying to keep positive and firm in our resolve as we 'Keep on Carrying On', I think a rather better thing to embrace is the pragmatism of Tommy Atkins in the WW1 trenches.

Tommy was bored, wet, miserable and fearful of what might happen - of dying - and generally just cheesed off with crouching about in the mud of the trenches - penned in on both sides by trench walls only feet apart and unable to see any further ahead than a handful of short yards to the next bend in the trench.

But Tommy knew that if he just said 'aw sod it - I am completely fed up with this - I am bored of this life - of what I am ordered to do' and if he stuck his head above the parapet - then he knew that it was quite possible that he would take a bullet through the head.

And so with miserable pragmatism he focussed on doing what he knew he had to do - what he was being told to do - to see the day through - and when things were tough he focussed on just seeing the next hour through. And his hope was that he knew that eventually it would end - and all being well he'd be there are the end - able to climb out of the trench - stand on a hill and look far into the distance for as long as he wished - to watch the sun rise and set on the day. As we all can - if we keep our head down.

 

[clubchamp98]

My frustration is that we are in lockdown, the country was open to travel, and now its here. And thats putting it nicely. ?

Exactly were an island and could have prevented this if we wanted to!

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Pal of my daughter has been in South Africa with her b/friend (both 25yrs old) since well before Christmas - her dad lives in Cape Town - they are British. She is planning to return to UK in coming week or so - and tells my daughter that she intends to isolate (with her b/f) in their flat in London - a flat they share with another three friends. Hmmm...knowing daughter's friend as I do, I suspect that their definition of 'isolating' will be flexible - and will include going out to buy essentials...

 

[clubchamp98]

Pal of my daughter has been in South Africa with her b/friend (both 25yrs old) since well before Christmas - her dad lives in Cape Town - they are British. She is planning to return to UK in coming week or so - and tells my daughter that she intends to isolate (with her b/f) in their flat in London - a flat they share with another three friends. Hmmm...knowing daughter's friend as I do, I suspect that their definition of 'isolating' will be flexible - and will include going out to buy essentials...

If there is the remotest chance the SA variant is immune to the vaccine.
Nobody who has been in SA should be allowed into the country.
That should have happened as soon as it was identified.
For the reasons you said.

 

[drdel]

Exactly were an island and could have prevented this if we wanted to!

Unrealistic for the UK as an international hub to close borders completely. Virus was already here in beginning of 2020 before any thought's of lockdown etc. were mooted.

Its a pandemic.

 

[SaintHacker]

Pal of my daughter has been in South Africa with her b/friend (both 25yrs old) since well before Christmas - her dad lives in Cape Town - they are British. She is planning to return to UK in coming week or so - and tells my daughter that she intends to isolate (with her b/f) in their flat in London - a flat they share with another three friends. Hmmm...knowing daughter's friend as I do, I suspect that their definition of 'isolating' will be flexible - and will include going out to buy essentials...

Think they migjt have a shock then, isnt SA on the hotel quarantine list?

 

[clubchamp98]

Unrealistic for the UK as an international hub to close borders completely. Virus was already here in beginning of 2020 before any thought's of lockdown etc. were mooted.

Its a pandemic.

It’s not unrealistic!
That’s the problem imo it hasn’t been treated as a global pandemic .
Let everyone come here or pass through.
That’s why our death rate is so high.
It could have been stopped ,but the will wasn’t there.
It’s one of the biggest mistakes we have made.

 

[drdel]

It’s not unrealistic!
That’s the problem imo it hasn’t been treated as a global pandemic .
Let everyone come here or pass through.
That’s why our death rate is so high.
It could have been stopped ,but the will wasn’t there.
It’s one of the biggest mistakes we have made.

You are mixing timings and employing hindsight clarity.

 

[Ethan]

Hypothetic question, or at least I hope it is, what do you think the reaction would be amongst the population if the SA variant (or an as yet unknown one) was found to be resistant to the vaccine? I'm thinking about the reaction to a reset in terms of timelines of lockdowns etc if it were the worst case and we had to get a working vaccine. I know we wouldn't necessarily be back at square one as I assume we could use the present vaccine and adapt it however would also assume we'd need to go through the testing phase again etc. We are already at a point where fatigue is setting in and if the Government announced that the present restrictions might now be in place for another 4,5 or 6 months whilst the vaccine was redeveloped would people actually be able to buy in?

Again, everything I've read so far suggests that the present vaccine is effective so hopefully we don't have to worry too much at the moment.

It is possible that the SA variant is partly resistant to the vaccine. But it is probably still effective in preventing Covid in some, probably most people, and it is also possible/likely that there is an effect on severity on some or all of the rest. So maybe the effect is more that some people don't escape entirely but get away with a milder disease. If so, that is still a result and we bang on with vaccinating as many people as we can as fast as we can.

The longer term plan depends on whether we can amend the genetic code placed inside the vaccine so that a more effective response is offered and roll that out as second vaccs or boosters. This is likely to be the way this goes, like firmware updates which build on existing features and add some more stuff. Technically, updating the code is easy and fast, so this should work, but you have to figure out what you want to mount an immune response against and deal with any evolutionary tricks the virus is using.

Over time, as with the flu, we will probably build up a cumulative immune response to Covid, so that although your immune system hasn't seen every strain, it begins to get its eye in for a wrong 'un when it sees one. That is part of the reason that most of us don't get flu every season even if we haven't had the vacc.

 

[clubchamp98]

You are mixing timings and employing hindsight clarity.

I was talking about the SA variant .
We have had plenty of time to sort it out.
No hindsight at all.

 

[User62651]

Unrealistic for the UK as an international hub to close borders completely. Virus was already here in beginning of 2020 before any thought's of lockdown etc. were mooted.

Its a pandemic.

Stop excusing 1000's of needless deaths.
Didn't need to close completely - just enact quarantining and have a working NHS (not £22 billion to private sector) test and trace system. Did neither. Was clear back in Feb/Mar 2020 govt intentions now trying to redact/gaslight through complicit media and some good success with vaccines rollout.
Japan, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand all islands and have very low numbers of deaths due to acting early and setting controls we ignored. Loads of other countries that are not islands did/doing way better than UK too.
If we are to learn from this we need to accept where we went badly wrong where others got it right.

 

[Ethan]

Unrealistic for the UK as an international hub to close borders completely. Virus was already here in beginning of 2020 before any thought's of lockdown etc. were mooted.

Its a pandemic.

I think it is unlikely to be very effective now. The virus is endemic in the UK and the real problem is virus circulating around the UK rather than coming in.

It was possible back last Feb/early March, though, to pull up the drawbridge, and although it would have been painful, it would very likely have significantly reduced the magnitude of the problems that followed. And it seems likely the UK re-exported some virus elsewhere and fed the whole bonfire, so it might have reduced problems elsewhere too, some of which recirculated back to us.

I think I said some time ago that public health 101 for pandemics is 1. Stop it getting in, 2. Stop it moving around. Unfortunately these operate in sequence, and if you get 1 right, 2 is much easier, as NZ has shown. However, if you miss 1 when it matters, too late to do it later with much effect. Horses, stable doors.

 

[Ethan]

Just to expand briefly on this issue of virus evolution. The virus is not a sentient organism, it is basically a bot with a genetic factory. It replicates fast, and errors occur in that creating slight variations in the virus. This is all random, but the variants that do better, i.e. have an evolutionary advantage, for example bind to receptors in hosts better, survive better and in contrast those that have a variant which reduces their ability to bind or replicate die out. Therefore the virus tends to get "better" as the variants which improve its ability to spread are preferentially selected. On the other hand, it needs to spread, so variants that kill people fast stop spread and tend to die out.

The emergence of new variants is dependent therefore on at the amount of virus is around, since it is a random process and the more replication that is taking place, the more likely new variants will emerge. Stopping the virus everywhere is important to stop new variants, so it isn't just in those postcodes that Matt Hancock listed that we need to be careful. The next variant will arise someplace else. Nowhere is to "blame" for new variants except insofar as they had too much virus circulating and they were thereof allowing the virus to roll the evolution dice too many times.

 

[road2ruin]

Think they migjt have a shock then, isnt SA on the hotel quarantine list?

The hotel quarantine doesn't start until the 15th February, I can only assume that the powers that be have got an agreement with the virus to keep things calm with no infections until that point.

 

[clubchamp98]

The hotel quarantine doesn't start until the 15th February, I can only assume that the powers that be have got an agreement with the virus to keep things calm with no infections until that point.

Yes everything is far to slow ,that’s why we’re playing catch up all the time.
Nobody should come in from SA until these hotels are ready.

 

[Tashyboy]

Unrealistic for the UK as an international hub to close borders completely. Virus was already here in beginning of 2020 before any thought's of lockdown etc. were mooted.

Its a pandemic.

I don’t think they need to be closed entirely, there has to be certain exemptions re transport of medicines etc. What did me the other day was a women who had arrived from Brazil via stuggart. She was asked her thoughts about doing isolation. She said “ I would sooner not, it would be an inconvenience“. I don’t even know where to start for a rant. It has worked elsewhere, so why not here. If Sage have advised the Uk to do it,Why have we not.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

The hotel quarantine doesn't start until the 15th February, I can only assume that the powers that be have got an agreement with the virus to keep things calm with no infections until that point.

I am pretty certain that they'll be home by the 15th Feb...and quite possibly bringing more virus and/or variants with them...They don't need to come back to the UK - my daughter tells me that they could continue do their job from Cape Town - as they have been doing through January. They just want to come home - as they've been away for quite a while now.

 

[Tashyboy]

Yes everything is far to slow ,that’s why we’re playing catch up all the time.
Nobody should come in from SA until these hotels are ready.

In hindsight we are putting people in hotels for isolation in 2 weeks time ?? way To slow again.