Coronavirus

[buctootim]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

That’s just not true. Poole is in tier 4 and last week there were 3 Covid patients in ICU. Unless there’s only 4 Covid beds that’s hardly “bursting at the seams”. I bet it’s the same in vast swathes of the country. Maybe they are locking down to stop it happening, but it’s not happening at the moment. 

Doh. Poole has 11 ICU beds to meet all the intensive care needs for a population of c280,000 - every heart attack, stroke, cancer case, road traffic accident and head injury.  "Only three" taken up by covid means nearly 30% of capacity is taken up with a new additional workload. Given most ICUs work at c85% capacity on average and extra 30% means they are probably having to turn people away - literally life and death choices. Your missus may work for the NHS but it doesn't seem like she understands demand and capacity.   

Edited 4 January, 2021 by buctootim

[View From The Top]

Note to self.

Don't leave marking until you get back.

[ecuk268]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

That’s just not true. Poole is in tier 4 and last week there were 3 Covid patients in ICU. Unless there’s only 4 Covid beds that’s hardly “bursting at the seams”. I bet it’s the same in vast swathes of the country. Maybe they are locking down to stop it happening, but it’s not happening at the moment. 

So you're basing your opinion on one hospital. How many not in ICU but taking up beds?  What evidence have you got that "it's the same in vast swathes of the country"?

How about seeing what the NHS has to say?

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/covid-patients-piling-up-at-the-door-as-hospitals-risk-getting-overwhelmed/

[buctootim]

9 minutes ago, ecuk268 said:

So you're basing your opinion on one hospital. How many not in ICU but taking up beds?  What evidence have you got that "it's the same in vast swathes of the country"?

How about seeing what the NHS has to say?

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/covid-patients-piling-up-at-the-door-as-hospitals-risk-getting-overwhelmed/

Even his local paper is saying it today . 

 

SEVEN further hospital deaths and more than 1,100 more cases of coronavirus have been recorded in Dorset over the weekend. The shocking statistics have been revealed as the death toll and number of positive cases soar across the UK.

All seven deaths were recorded in University Hospitals Dorset, which covers the former Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals Trust and Poole Hospital. The total within the newly-formed trust now stands at 284. Two of the deaths were reported yesterday with five on Saturday. An additional five were reported on New Year’s Day.

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/18983586.seven-coronavirus-deaths-1-100-cases-dorset-weekend/

 

[CB Fry]

8pm address to the nation. Not a press conference so assume the worst.

Peston says he's going to say the schools will close, he's usually well briefed. One day into the new term and after days and weeks of saying how safe they were and how the schools must open.

Daughter going in for one day just for them to close maybe tomorrow or Wednesday. Utterly pointless when a full lockdown was easily forseen and here we are. 

Just breathtaking incompetence and exactly the same pattern of behaviour from our Prime Minister over and over again.

[Lighthouse]

17 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

8pm address to the nation. Not a press conference so assume the worst.

Peston says he's going to say the schools will close, he's usually well briefed. One day into the new term and after days and weeks of saying how safe they were and how the schools must open.

Daughter going in for one day just for them to close maybe tomorrow or Wednesday. Utterly pointless when a full lockdown was easily forseen and here we are. 

Just breathtaking incompetence and exactly the same pattern of behaviour from our Prime Minister over and over again.

A two week nationwide lockdown in the run up to Xmas and we’d have been in a much better position but instead they did nothing. We might even have gotten away with that 5 day Covid holiday they were on about. Instead Boris was too scared of being the Scrooge who cancelled Christmas and now we’re sat here with this stupid regional tier system. As if the new strain was ever going to stay in London and Kent and the rest of the country would be fine.

 

Now it’ll be March at least before we see the back end of whatever he’s got planned for this evening.

[badgerx16]

To quote Gene Kranz, ( Ed Harris ), in Apollo 13 ; " Tell me this isn't a Government operation".

[View From The Top]

Well, who could have seen this coming?

[LGTL]

I taught 120 children today, all of whom were no doubt mixing over Christmas. Just unnecessary for one poxy day. Cheers Johnson.

Why oh why could this not be announced over the weekend? It’s breathtaking. 

[Weston Super Saint]

3 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Was AIDS really killing 500+ per day in the UK alone? Wow.

A 'threat' doesn't need to kill 500+ people per day to be classified a 'threat'.

[CB Fry]

8 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

A 'threat' doesn't need to kill 500+ people per day to be classified a 'threat'.

How many businesses did AIDS shut down? How many millions went on Furlough because of "seasonal flu"?

I know you are pitifully thick but have a fucking day off.

[View From The Top]

27 minutes ago, LGTL said:

I taught 120 children today, all of whom were no doubt mixing over Christmas. Just unnecessary for one poxy day. Cheers Johnson.

Why oh why could this not be announced over the weekend? It’s breathtaking. 

Luckily mine were all remote today.

[Colinjb]

For the love of everything holy at least let teachers use the school buildings as bases for our remote lessons. Going back to trying to co-ordinate this from a small home with a 2 year old running around...... No, doesn't work.

Spent today getting back into the rhythm of this and debugging teams so it cannot be f**ked around with by those you are trying to teach. Hope it isn't a wasted effort.

Edited 4 January, 2021 by Colinjb

[benjii]

2 hours ago, CB Fry said:

8pm address to the nation. Not a press conference so assume the worst.

Peston says he's going to say the schools will close, he's usually well briefed. One day into the new term and after days and weeks of saying how safe they were and how the schools must open.

Daughter going in for one day just for them to close maybe tomorrow or Wednesday. Utterly pointless when a full lockdown was easily forseen and here we are. 

Just breathtaking incompetence and exactly the same pattern of behaviour from our Prime Minister over and over again.

Yep, this is incompetence on a grand scale and has been since the start.

They are afraid to do anything difficult until there's not really any choice, by which time the best time to do the thing in question has long passed.

Weak messaging, lax enforcement, contradictions and hypocrisy. 

[badgerx16]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-55537974

Scottish MP Margaret Ferrier has been arrested by police after she admitted using public transport while infected with Covid-19.

[View From The Top]

1 hour ago, Colinjb said:

For the love of everything holy at least let teachers use the school buildings as bases for our remote lessons. Going back to trying to co-ordinate this from a small home with a 2 year old running around...... No, doesn't work.

Spent today getting back into the rhythm of this and debugging teams so it cannot be f**ked around with by those you are trying to teach. Hope it isn't a wasted effort.

I'm going in as the place will be open anyway.

I can't be at home trying to deliver a lesson with my wife doing the same and Y13, Y10 & Y9 having lessons.

[Weston Super Saint]

1 hour ago, CB Fry said:

How many businesses did AIDS shut down? How many millions went on Furlough because of "seasonal flu"?

I know you are pitifully thick but have a fucking day off.

I've never claimed they did, have I?

Does a threat need to shut down businesses or put people on furlough to still be a threat - it's a rhetorical question you fuckwit, no need to answer.

The point is - which once again you've managed to miss, quite spectacularly - that there have been other 'threats' and Covid isn't the 'biggest threat' since WW2 as Soggy claimed.

Guess what though, those other 'threats' had either a preventative measure or a treatment that stopped them from killing thousands of people, but left unchecked / untreated they COULD have caused as many, if not more, deaths than Covid.  That's how 'threats' are defined.

[aintforever]

38 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

I've never claimed they did, have I?

Does a threat need to shut down businesses or put people on furlough to still be a threat - it's a rhetorical question you fuckwit, no need to answer.

The point is - which once again you've managed to miss, quite spectacularly - that there have been other 'threats' and Covid isn't the 'biggest threat' since WW2 as Soggy claimed.

Guess what though, those other 'threats' had either a preventative measure or a treatment that stopped them from killing thousands of people, but left unchecked / untreated they COULD have caused as many, if not more, deaths than Covid.  That's how 'threats' are defined.

If you think Aids was a bigger threat than Covid you are a fucking idiot.

[aintforever]

Boris is all over the place as usual, yesterday I sat and watched the mop-haired twat say “schools are safe”, now after I just sent my daughter in after two weeks of mixing with no one, they are a vector for spreading it.

[View From The Top]

"Not all exams can go ahead as planned".

He fails to mention which ones which is rather important as there are exams going on, or supposed to be, this week.

 

Edit - DfE just confirmed the 135,000 BTEC exams are going ahead this week. 

Edited 4 January, 2021 by View From The Top

[Jimmy_D]

On 03/01/2021 at 12:59, Turkish said:

Well I must admit that like many people I had started not to take things too seriously. Never broke the rules wore a mask, but sighed at another lot of restrictions were announced. Mainly I guess because I though the only people who it effects seriously are really old. Everyone I knew up until now said worst case was like a flu and seemed to be okay within a week. Events of the last week or so have totally changed that. 
 

i mentioned my mate of 25 years had got Covid on here a few days ago. he got taken into hospital on Monday and is now in a coma on a ventilator, after spending a few days in ICU struggling to breath without an oxygen mask. He’s the same age as me and although being a bit overweight has no other health problems. He caught it from his 17 year old son who went and met up with some friends just before his areas went into tier 4. Shortly after the boys met up 3 of the group tested positive including my mates son. He has now infected the whole family and his friend has also infected all of his family, so from that one meet up of 5 teenage boys 13 people have been infected that we know about, whilst for the youngsters is has just been light flu the parents have been worse, but still not too bad however my mate has been in an ICU for 4 days now and they reckon he’ll be asleep for a week. Worrying times. You just dont know how it’s going to effect you until it’s too late. Most will get away with it, but some won’t.

Sorry to hear that Turkish, hope he pulls through ok.

[Lighthouse]

4 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

I've never claimed they did, have I?

Does a threat need to shut down businesses or put people on furlough to still be a threat - it's a rhetorical question you fuckwit, no need to answer.

The point is - which once again you've managed to miss, quite spectacularly - that there have been other 'threats' and Covid isn't the 'biggest threat' since WW2 as Soggy claimed.

Guess what though, those other 'threats' had either a preventative measure or a treatment that stopped them from killing thousands of people, but left unchecked / untreated they COULD have caused as many, if not more, deaths than Covid.  That's how 'threats' are defined.

I'm not sure you'd pass many verbal reasoning tests at a job interview. At the risk of sounding a bit MLG; soggy said it was the biggest threat since WW2, you responded, "if you discount AIDS etc." You're implying that it was a bigger/equal threat but it wasn't/isn't even close.

 

The BIB smells a bit of 'keep digging'. No it couldn't. I could go to Tesco, even in 1985 pre-ART drugs, with 1,000 AIDS ridden people, shake hands, give them a hug, stand next to them for an hour and not catch anything. Even during the Rwandan genocide, when AIDS infected rape was used as a deliberate weapon of war, we never saw anything close to this.

[CB Fry]

11 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

I've never claimed they did, have I?

Does a threat need to shut down businesses or put people on furlough to still be a threat - it's a rhetorical question you fuckwit, no need to answer.

The point is - which once again you've managed to miss, quite spectacularly - that there have been other 'threats' and Covid isn't the 'biggest threat' since WW2 as Soggy claimed.

Guess what though, those other 'threats' had either a preventative measure or a treatment that stopped them from killing thousands of people, but left unchecked / untreated they COULD have caused as many, if not more, deaths than Covid.  That's how 'threats' are defined.

Did Boris's TV statement announcing a third national lockdown closing schools and most businesses nationally for six weeks remind you of the similar measures taken by the national government during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s? 

Because the huge national AIDS threat was just as big as weeny-teeny Covid wasn't it?

I know your modus operandi is to say something spectacularly and demonstrably pigshit thick and then just double down on it anyway so I won't repeatedly engage but Covid has plainly been and remains the biggest threat to national life since WW2. Clear, obvious.

You wittering absolute horseshit on AIDS is never going to change that unarguable fact.

[Weston Super Saint]

1 minute ago, CB Fry said:

Did Boris's TV statement announcing a third national lockdown closing schools and most businesses nationally for six weeks remind you of the similar measures taken by the national government during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s? 

Because the huge national AIDS threat was just as big as weeny-teeny Covid wasn't it?

I know your modus operandi is to say something spectacularly and demonstrably pigshit thick and then just double down on it anyway so I won't repeatedly engage but Covid has plainly been and remains the biggest threat to national life since WW2. Clear, obvious.

You wittering absolute horseshit on AIDS is never going to change that unarguable fact.

Define 'threat'.

I'd suggest a virus that has killed over 30 million people had the 'potential' to kill many more.

[CB Fry]

1 minute ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Define 'threat'.

I'd suggest a virus that has killed over 30 million people had the 'potential' to kill many more.

If we're dealing with definitions lets return to the statement you objected to:

 dealing with the biggest national threat since WW2

Just tell us how those other threats you mention we as big or bigger than Covid.

You see i understand the word threat but you're really struggling with the word "biggest".

[Weston Super Saint]

8 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

If we're dealing with definitions lets return to the statement you objected to:

 dealing with the biggest national threat since WW2

Just tell us how those other threats you mention we as big or bigger than Covid.

You see i understand the word threat but you're really struggling with the word "biggest".

Define 'threat'.

[Weston Super Saint]

Another complete fuck up around implementation!

Looks like they have copied and pasted tier 4 regulations but not bothered to check if they are right or they really have no clue what they want to implement.

In terms of shopping, you can only leave the house for 'essential' shopping and all 'non-essential' shops MUST close.  However, non-essential shops can offer a click and collect service.  So you can order a pair of slippers online and then head off to your local 'Next' to go and fetch them!  How is that 'essential'?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/949536/NationalLockdownGuidance.pdf

Quote

Businesses and venues which must close

To reduce social contact, the regulations require some businesses to close and impose restrictions on how some businesses provide goods and services. The full list of businesses required to close can be found in the guidance on closing certain businesses and venues in England, but includes:

● non-essential retail, such as clothing and homeware stores, vehicle showrooms (other than for rental), betting shops, tailors, tobacco and vape shops, electronic goods and mobile phone shops, auction houses (except for auctions of livestock or agricultural equipment) and market stalls selling non-essential goods. These venues can continue to be able to operate click-and-collect (where goods are pre-ordered and collected off the premises) and delivery services.

I'm assuming the 'click and collect' bit is left in from tier 4 and they just haven't bothered to update it.

[CB Fry]

21 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Define 'threat'.

Here:

I know your modus operandi is to say something spectacularly and demonstrably pigshit thick and then just double down on it anyway so I won't repeatedly engage

Edited 5 January, 2021 by CB Fry

[View From The Top]

https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-teacher-covid-rates-333-above-average

Limited data points obvs but B'ham is important as it's the biggest LEA in the country.

[Sheaf Saint]

1 hour ago, View From The Top said:

https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-teacher-covid-rates-333-above-average

Limited data points obvs but B'ham is important as it's the biggest LEA in the country.

Yeah I've just seen this. The horrifying thing is that the data used for Leeds are from the period ending 20 November, meaning this information has been available for over 6 weeks now. Yet we still get Matt Wanksock going on TV and insisting there is "no evidence" that the risk to teachers is any higher than to anyone else. Well there clearly is, so either he's not bothering to look for that evidence, or he's saying something he knows to be untrue. Either way, it paints him in a very bad light.

[buctootim]

Seems like there is concern that the current vaccines aren't effective against the emerging South African variant. Hancock has said he has 'robustly' stopped flights from South Africa to deal pretty smartly and competently with that problem. Except of course we aren't stopping arrivals from South Africa or from recent visitors to South Africa. Anybody can do what Johnson's dad did and simply get an indirect flight and change planes in a third country. Surely just by law of averages there should be some aspects of this pandemic they don't mess up?      

[Jimmy_D]

18 minutes ago, buctootim said:

Seems like there is concern that the current vaccines aren't effective against the emerging South African variant. Hancock has said he has 'robustly' stopped flights from South Africa to deal pretty smartly and competently with that problem. Except of course we aren't stopping arrivals from South Africa or from recent visitors to South Africa. Anybody can do what Johnson's dad did and simply get an indirect flight and change planes in a third country. Surely just by law of averages there should be some aspects of this pandemic they don't mess up?      

Vaccine development and procurement, we've done well with, at least so far.

Also identification of variants of COVID, we've at least given everywhere else a chance of stopping the UK variant before it becomes established.

[View From The Top]

GCSEs and A levels scrapped. How CAGs are to be done is TBC'd.

[View From The Top]

My sister, BiL, niece and nephew have tested +.

My sister has asthma and is struggling.

She's also the main career for our mum.

Not good. 

[Jimmy_D]

6 minutes ago, View From The Top said:

My sister, BiL, niece and nephew have tested +.

My sister has asthma and is struggling.

She's also the main career for our mum.

Not good. 

Oh no, sorry to hear that

Hope they all come through ok.

[View From The Top]

My sister, BiL, niece and nephew have tested +.

My sister has asthma and is struggling.

She's also the main career for our mum.

Not good. 

[View From The Top]

My sister, BiL, niece and nephew have tested +.

My sister has asthma and is struggling.

She's also the main career for our mum.

Not good. 

[Turkish]

Genuine question here. When you get a test does it not just give a positive or negative result? How do they know which strain it is?

[ecuk268]

30 minutes ago, View From The Top said:

GCSEs and A levels scrapped. How CAGs are to be done is TBC'd.

That can't be right. Just before Christmas the schoolboy who runs the Education department gave a "cast-iron guarantee" that exams would go ahead.

[ecuk268]

5 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Genuine question here. When you get a test does it not just give a positive or negative result? How do they know which strain it is?

I'm only surmising but, if the test itself doesn't tell you then they may pick a selection of samples for more in-depth testing.

[Jimmy_D]

11 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Genuine question here. When you get a test does it not just give a positive or negative result? How do they know which strain it is?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-strain-variant-vaccine-uk-cases-b1777708.html

[View From The Top]

12 minutes ago, ecuk268 said:

That can't be right. Just before Christmas the schoolboy who runs the Education department gave a "cast-iron guarantee" that exams would go ahead.

It was just so predictable.

Thankfully we've been grabbing data from September but many will now just mentally switch off and we'll not get them back so to speak.

[Lighthouse]

2 hours ago, buctootim said:

Seems like there is concern that the current vaccines aren't effective against the emerging South African variant. Hancock has said he has 'robustly' stopped flights from South Africa to deal pretty smartly and competently with that problem. Except of course we aren't stopping arrivals from South Africa or from recent visitors to South Africa. Anybody can do what Johnson's dad did and simply get an indirect flight and change planes in a third country. Surely just by law of averages there should be some aspects of this pandemic they don't mess up?      

Which is why it’s imperative for everyone to get vaccinated when they can and why the, "if I don’t want to get vaccinated it’s my choice, I’m not harming anyone else," argument is complete bo**ocks.

Fingers crossed these vaccines can be adapted and distributed quicker than the virus strains can mutate.

[Whitey Grandad]

23 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Which is why it’s imperative for everyone to get vaccinated when they can and why the, "if I don’t want to get vaccinated it’s my choice, I’m not harming anyone else," argument is complete bo**ocks.

Fingers crossed these vaccines can be adapted and distributed quicker than the virus strains can mutate.

That's my concern about the delay to the second booster jab. If the first is only about 65% effective then there is a period of a couple of months during which the recipients can catch and spread the virus and possibly even be developing another mutation.

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, Jimmy_D said:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-strain-variant-vaccine-uk-cases-b1777708.html

the thing that i struggle with about all this is that in September, October time when things were spiking again, Universities were reporting, in some cases, over 1000 infections each. We had a lad start in our office who had just graduated from Leeds and lived in his student housing, it is rife there with the students wondering around like nothing is happening, none of them badly effected by it, no talk of a new variant then. 

Surely, the reason that this "new strain" is so much more contagious in young people is because up until yesterday young people are mixing in schools and universities, between March and early September they weren't so funnily enough much, much fewer kids were being infected. I'm not saying a new strain doesnt exist, but  cant help but feel this is being blamed for the huge spike when in reality with 1000s of kids mixing every day in education it was pretty inevitable that more were going to be infected, more of a get out card for keeping them open. 
 

Chris witty just said in his briefing there may be signs of a levelling during the school holidays but too early to say for sure  

Edited 5 January, 2021 by Turkish

[buctootim]

1 hour ago, Whitey Grandad said:

That's my concern about the delay to the second booster jab. If the first is only about 65% effective then there is a period of a couple of months during which the recipients can catch and spread the virus and possibly even be developing another mutation.

Presumably the argument is that if you have the vaccines / capacity to deliver say 10 million shots its better to have 10 million people 65% safe than 5 million at 90%. 

Edited 5 January, 2021 by buctootim

[Whitey Grandad]

3 hours ago, buctootim said:

Presumably the argument is that if you have the vaccines / capacity to deliver say 10 million shots its better to have 10 million people 65% safe than 5 million at 90%. 

Yes, I guess so but it’s all guesswork at the moment. Of course the programme for new patients will be running in parallel with the programme for booster jabs after a couple of months. What a logistical nightmare.

Edited 5 January, 2021 by Whitey Grandad

[Whitey Grandad]

another way of looking at it,

https://www.dumpert.nl/?selectedId=8040397_1c4cbcf2

[View From The Top]

So despite having nearly 12 months to come up with a series of plans to fit every contingency regarding what to replace cancelled GCSE and A levels with, and how it will be implemented, they haven't.

Tomorrow the inept Williamson will set out the process of how they are going to come up with the replacements. 

One suggestion I've seen trailed is that everything bar English and maths be CAG'd where as they'd have just 1 paper instead of 2 and 3 respectively.

In other words, all the exams are cancelled, except they're not.

With BTECs, of which there are exams this week and next, colleges and schools have been told to make their own minds up as to whether they run or not!

The level of incompetence is off the scale.

[buctootim]

1 hour ago, Whitey Grandad said:

another way of looking at it,

https://www.dumpert.nl/?selectedId=8040397_1c4cbcf2

Haha. This story about bikes was interesting story too