Re: Coronavirus
 

The nightingales are going to be staffed via reservists and military nursing personnel from northern hospitals. The hospitals will act in a step down capacity.

Quite simply there’s not enough nurses or specialist icu nurses to use the nightingales as the primary care facility for COVID sufferers. Whose fault that is, is something that’s up for debate. Some will blame the government (present or past) some the NHS. I think the truth is somewhere between the two.

Re: Coronavirus
 

We could vaccinate more people if the NHS didn't have ludicrous hoops for potential vaccinators to jum through :rolleyes:

Recognising and managing anaphylaxis

Resuscitation, level 2

Safeguarding adults, level 2

Safeguarding children, level 2

Vaccine administration

Vaccine storage

Health, Safety and Welfare, level 1

Infection Prevention and control, level 2

Introduction to Anaphylaxis

Legal aspects of vaccination

Moving and Handling, level 1

Preventing radicalisation, level 1

Conflict resolution, level 1

Core knowledge for Covid-19 vaccinators

Covid mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 (Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine)

Data security awareness, level 1

Equality, Diversity and Human rights, level 1

Fire safety, level 1

LINKY

Re: Coronavirus
 

My bet would be the ones highlighted would be online e-learning and probably an hour each max. While the right wing press are running this (Telegraph and the Mail I think) I suspect they’ve been tipped off the 2 million doses a week pipe dream will not be met in January.

If not, I doubt it’s because potential vaccinators didn’t opt to sit for a half day on a laptop and decide not to engage in lifesaving treatment. It’ll be supply and logistics of physical distribution to vaccination sites.

If we miss by 200,000 injections (10%, or one half of a working day) I’ll be first to credit the success of the roll out.

Re: Coronavirus
 

The only one I can see an issue with is the radicalisation one
The equality, diversity one is a legal requirement AFAIK
Conflict resolution makes sense.

Actually, safeguarding children? Not many of them getting the vaccine.

Agree also, they’ll be e-learning and doable in ten mins flat

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

The radicalisation one is interesting. While the stereotype is Islamic radicalisation - it’s not the only type. Some of the anti-vax/5G crowd are most definitely radical.

I don’t know what would be in any module but if it covers behaviours that are red flags they could be important from a personal safety perspective. It’s almost certain that mass vaccination sites, and those administering the vaccine, could become targets for intimidation, threatening behaviour or worse.

Not necessarily here, but I’d be surprised if across the world there isn’t at least one linked shooting/bombing or other terrorist incident.

Re: Coronavirus
 

How is there any fault? To fully staff the nightingales with fully qualified medical staff would require them to have commenced training years ago and would have represented a commitment to grossly over staffing the NHS for no justifiable reason. You can’t just keep those numbers of people sitting around, not least because they need to continue to practice to maintain skills.

These facilities were built for crisis management purposes. If things get so bad that they’re full, that’s when they start moving staff around to match skills and requirements as best they can. And once they’ve done that we get into civil contingencies territory. We trained 2 million to fight in uniform in the last world war; if need be we can operate a civilian enlistment programme to fill basic hospital functions, or else train existing uniformed civilians (fire, police) and use the army to provide policing and fire/rescue service. It won’t be pretty but that’s what civil contingencies are about, and you can bet all these ideas and more have been thoroughly considered in Whitehall. The draft legislation to enable whatever is the preferred solution will already have been written.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Would it necessarily mean “grossly” over staffing the NHS?

There’s waiting lists and NHS treatments being carried out by the private sector. There can be a middle ground of greater funding the NHS - I’m sure someone somewhere made a case for an extra £350m a week recently.

Re: Coronavirus
 

The pandemic deniers were out in force Thursday night outside St Thomas's Hospital in London.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/lond...l-b633377.html

Re: Coronavirus
 

The NHS doesn’t have tens of thousands of current vacancies for staff that would have been deployable to help staff the nightingales ?

In 2019 there were according to the nursing times 43,000 nursing vacancies

That’s pre pandemic

Re: Coronavirus
 

As many of us said at the time, it was a short-sighted idea to introduce loans for student nurses.

---------- Post added at 23:21 ---------- Previous post was at 23:14 ----------

Brexit has not helped matters:

More than 22,000 EU nationals have left NHS since Brexit referendum, figures show

Large drop in the number of new nurses coming from the EU to work in the UK

EU nurses no longer feel welcome in Britain

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

The point being made is there is an alternative to a total lockdown that would ruin the economy. Why isolate everyone when most people will escape the impact of this virus unscathed?

You are just running with this scaremongering mantra.

Hey, do you realise that if infections are running at 500 per hundred thousand, that works out as 5 per thousand? And per hundred, that’s 0.5!

Go figure and start thinking for yourself.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Population of London is around 9 million.
If infections are running at 500 per 100,000, my rough calculation gives 45,000 infected people in London.
Apparently only 10 to 15 percent of those infected will need to be hospitalised . . meaning 4,500 people need a hospital bed for Covid alone, never mind all the other illnesses and injuries that also require hospital treatment.

My math could be wrong . . I still have a couple of bottles to finish off ;)

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes, whilst the figure is important in terms of the NHS, the point I was making was that people should not be scared witless about this pandemic!

Re: Coronavirus
 

You should know by now that l am not a expert...:p::p:

Re: Coronavirus
 

A discredited alternative that nobody, anywhere in the world, continues to pursue. Nor is there any evidence the economy will perform any better as millions of people are shielding and less economically active.

You’re starting to sound like a Covid denier Old Boy.

---------- Post added at 09:15 ---------- Previous post was at 09:14 ----------

Nor should they bury their heads in the sand that it doesn’t exist.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Agreed.

If it's any consolation, the profession should now become relatively more attractive given the decline in other sectors like high street retail and leisure and hospitality.

---------- Post added at 10:05 ---------- Previous post was at 09:57 ----------

Old Boy this is simply not the case. There is no hospital capacity to handle extra patients as things stand.

Re: Coronavirus
 

He simply has to be trolling. On one hand the vaccine will sort it by Spring but in the meantime let’s take the greatest risks - risks we’ve avoided to date - for a fraction of a percentage point in GDP.

To support my view he’s trolling I think we should note from his return the new signature on every single post - another area where regardless of facts Old Boy has decided to repeat the same flawed mantra ad infinitum/nauseam (delate as applicable).

Re: Coronavirus
 

That's right anyone with a different point of view is trolling :rolleyes:

Re: Coronavirus
 

Far from it, but the one constant throughout OBs posts is to be consistently wrong and to push an idea that nobody - anywhere - continues to pursue.

I’d previously thought he held a sincere belief that it wouldn’t be that bad or that it would magic away the economic problems. However, against all the evidence, he still disagrees.

Even with a vaccine - that could be rolled out to our most vulnerable by spring - he still holds the same view. If you hold the same view on something regardless of evidence (from anywhere in the world) or changes in circumstances I can only conclude it’s to simply be provocative.

Telling people to “go away and think for themselves” and come up with a conclusion no rational Government anywhere in the world has come up with is the stuff of internet conspiracy nutjobs.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Got a link for that figure, please?

---------- Post added at 10:50 ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 ----------

The "500 per 100k" is a ongoing amount, not a static figure.

For instance, my Mother in law has been in hospital with covid for nearly 4 weeks...

So, every day/week (depending on where those figures came from), it could be another 4.5k needing another hospital bed.

Just looked up the stats for General/Acute hospital beds in London - in November (latest figures on the website), they had around 19k beds in total.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistic...nal-DE5WC.xlsx

Re: Coronavirus
 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55521747

Maybe it's simpler and more enforceable to go to a new national lockdown?

Liverpool is now asking for a national lockdown.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...yside-55520939

Re: Coronavirus
 

As ever Boris knows what's required and accepts it's inevitable yet delays. Action now - especially on schools - combines with the existing closure for the Christmas holidays. To allow them to reopen for 3-4 weeks, for the virus to spread exponentially, only means starting from scratch again.

Unless he's seriously trying to delay it until the numbers of those vaccinated has an impact on hospitalisations/deaths. Feels like last year when they tried to hold of on lockdown to Easter.

Re: Coronavirus
 

If Liverpool council want to lock down Liverpool that’s their prerogative, crack on. But leave the rest of the country to do what’s best for them.

Re: Coronavirus
 

We had ‘the talk’ to decide whether to send our kids into school from Wednesday. In the end, the wife and I were not 100% comfortable to send them in but comfortable enough to let the kids decide themselves what they would like to do.

They both recalled what remote learning and the isolation was like earlier in the year and jumped at the chance to go in. We have completed the online forms and are putting together the ‘key worker’ evidence now so they can bring in the required paperwork (the joys of us both working for a company nobody has heard of!)

Re: Coronavirus
 

He’s not closing schools, the kids go back tomorrow. He can’t at the 11th hour mandate that. He’s have to give at least a weeks notice so parents could make arrangements.

Will close them from next week? Who knows, would seem pretty pointless by then to just shut them for a week.

No I’m afraid that ship looks to have sailed now.

Re: Coronavirus
 

This is the thing though - decision making around school closures and what tier areas go into isn't left to the local authorities themselves.

It'd be quite interesting to see who would do what if it was - assuming of course they are all entitled to London furlough and not Manchester furlough.

---------- Post added at 11:29 ---------- Previous post was at 11:27 ----------

You can be "afraid that ship looks to have sailed now" as much as you please however one thing I find reassuring is that when Boris says something, or Hancock or anyone else, it's no guarantee that there won't be a U-turn. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, but it's absolutely inevitable. And when they close it will be for longer.

The good news is he can't hide behind "following the science". When huge swathes of the country are in Tier 4 until Easter it's because the Government put schools at all costs above everything else.

Re: Coronavirus
 

England is highly-centralised and a council can't close down schools at its own will.

If you remember back in mid-December:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...yside-55520939

Re: Coronavirus
 

The good news is with schools closures in Tier 4 London but not in the rest of England when the data confirms that school closures have a significant impact on transmission the North can once again ask why they were abandoned by the Government who are managing the pandemic to suit London.

London gets 80% furlough, (often) national restrictions, left in Tier 2 despite having figures above Manchester going into Tier 3 and now school closures.

If London returns to Tier 2/3 while the North are left to Tier 4 I'm sure that'll go down well.

Re: Coronavirus
 

BoJo is stuck between trying to please the misnamed Covid Recovery Group in his own party and taking the hard but necessary measures the public is happy for him to take. That's why such measures inevitably happen too late.

It's not playing out well for him with the public though:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-tory-majority

Re: Coronavirus
 

A friend at work lost one of their neighbours to covid recently. He and his wife were very careful and had been isolating as much as they could since March as they looked after grandchildren before & after school. Anyway a couple of days after the school year group bubble was sent home because of an outbreak at the school he became unwell, followed a few days later by a ride in an ambulance, followed a couple of weeks later by a ride in a hearse. Apparently, one of the grandchildren was very upset just before Christmas - some of the other children in the class were telling him how he'd killed his grandfather.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Unfortunately statistically a school age child is the most likely person to bring Covid into a household which is why there was significant concern around closing schools early prior to household mixing on Christmas Day.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Andrew, you must have blisters the size of dinner plates, please stop digging* before the UK runs out of shovels. ;)

Can you fly a kite or something? :D



* not just applicable to this thread

Re: Coronavirus
 

Which is why BoJo was very careful with his words this morning on the Andrew Marr show.

But no mention of the risk to those around the children...

Re: Coronavirus
 

And they don't live in the middle of a town/city, this all happened in one of the small communities in the Pennines between Halifax & Burnley - hardly a covid hotspot.

Re: Coronavirus
 

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...-december-2020

Of course he can't ignore published data on it. Which as you say is why he is selective.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Today's story in my redtop is very illustrative:

Re: Coronavirus
 

That’s why we are inoculating the vulnerable first. Do that, and the hospitals will no longer be creaking at the seams.

Re: Coronavirus
 

That logic holds true so long as you are vaccinating considerably more people than those contracting the disease.

Well, that and the fact that to my knowledge it’s still not known if the vaccines prevent transmission in the first place.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I know that, the point I was making is that Liverpool, as much as I love my home town, cannot force their will onto the nation, and shouldn’t try.

Re: Coronavirus
 

At what point does it reach the threshold that it's what the nation wants and those against lockdown "shouldn't force their will upon the nation"? A majority of local authorities? A majority of the population by local authority?

Re: Coronavirus
 

If the leadership in Liverpool feel a national lockdown is in the best interests of their city, then surely it makes sense for them to advocate for it?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Slightly different this time around, as the unions are actively involved.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Agreed. But if we implemented the policy you advocate tomorrow, the hospitals would be creaking at the seams.

Only once we have had sufficient people vaccinated can we happily say goodbye to restrictions...which is why everyone is agreed to vaccinate as quickly as possible.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Is it confirmed yet that either of the vaccines prevent transmission? (Last I had seen it was still an unknown)

Re: Coronavirus
 

As pointed out by mrmistoffelees, up to now the vaccine is only known to reduce the severity of the symptoms, not prevent you from catching it or spreading it.


edit: must type faster :D

Re: Coronavirus
 

My understanding is that it's unknown, hence why I've said a sufficient number. We don't know what that sufficient number is yet.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Boris? Is that you? ;)

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's a hard life being an impartial observer, people don't know which direction to call me. :D:D:D

Re: Coronavirus
 

Not if you protected the vulnerable, we wouldn’t.

Re: Coronavirus
 

The great Swedish success story as it's known. Dead Swedes and a recession to boot.

Re: Coronavirus
 

How do you protect the vulnerable against a disease that is in most cases asymptomatic and using vaccines that we don’t currently know prevent transmission ?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

How do you "protect" 17 million people?

What about their families - how do we prevent them from infecting the vulnerable?

Re: Coronavirus
 

The obvious answer, to everyone else, is you simply can’t.

What Old Boy is calculating (as he has been consistent with throughout in fairness) is that only a percentage will die and that will be a price worth paying because he falsely believes it will help the economy.

Re: Coronavirus
 

l wonder if Old Boy can give us a figure on what he thinks is acceptable in terms of Covid deaths and a price worth paying according to him to help the economy.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I'd be more curious if he could quantify what economic growth he expects to see as 17 million plus people are either shielded, being risk adverse and continue working from home.

The nature of capitalist enterprise isn't to have thousands of businesses running up huge profits able to tolerate such a drop in demand. These businesses close - employees end up on benefits and Government picks up the tab with long term unemployment. The aim of furlough is to plug the gap for these viable businesses and their employees. Yet I'm the anarchist here for trying to protect small business!

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

You have no way of quantifying that, so it’s mute point.

---------- Post added at 15:24 ---------- Previous post was at 15:22 ----------

If they’re so worried the can shut the M58, M62 and both tunnels.


Anyway, just got an email from my school advising they will be open tomorrow, so no worries for now.

Re: Coronavirus
 

There is one funny thing about coronavirus.


Who would have thought that you could walk into a bank asking for money and not have the police hunting you down.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Still I’d be keen to hear your thoughts on it.

Unless of course it brings us to the crux if the matter...

Which is you don’t want to home school your own kids, regardless of the situation with the pandemic.

Whether one local authority wants to close, or they all do, you’ll simply move from argument to argument against lockdown/further restrictions. It’s got nothing to do with one council imposing it’s will on the country at large, and got even less to do with your concern for vulnerable children.

Breaking: Sir Keir has fell off the fence and called for new national restrictions in the next 24 hours.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

You’ve omitted a fundamental part of the joke!

Re: Coronavirus
 

If we get two feet of snow to cover the whole country for a few weeks that'll keep everyone in, and a lot of people very happy, and banish this nasty disease.:D

Re: Coronavirus
 

They believe so, as the vaccines produces antibodies against many regions in the spike protein, and it is unlikely a single change would make the vaccines less effective, but can’t confirm it until the vaccine is rolled out.

Re: Coronavirus
 

You’d need some kind of referendum to get an answer of what the population think but the Bottom line is the local authorities and government will do what they want, and whatever that is I’ll/ we’ll have to live with it and comply with it, even if we don’t like it.

Let’s face it, you’re not even allowed to protest against it! We’ve even lost that right, even if only temporarily........I sincerely would hope.

it’s not a question of wanting. Mrs Pierre and I were not/have not or been not furloughed. We have both works full time through the pandemic.

This is not a complaint, we have been very lucky that our earnings haven’t suffered and we still have our jobs, But you cannot work full time and home school. Not possible,anyone that says they can are lying....IMO.

I will yes, because I don’t believe they are the answer, and I have been consistent with that point since the start.

On the contrary, as a parent I have concern for any vulnerable child.

Re: Coronavirus
 

That’s true, but once the vulnerable are inoculated, we don’t have to worry about transmission in terms of overwhelming the NHS.

---------- Post added at 16:53 ---------- Previous post was at 16:50 ----------

By vaccinating the vulnerable, of course.

Re: Coronavirus
 

So are we waiting on vaccines Old Boy or just letting it rip? I keep losing track.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Sweden has proved that with or without a lockdown, the virus is still out there. New Zealand is sitting pretty at present, but unless it gets people vaccinated pretty darned quick, it will get to them too.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Sweden not tackling the problem has resulted in Sweden still having the virus out there :confused:

Well of course it did. Out there killing their elderly, harming their economy.

New Zealand is indeed sitting pretty, the whole economy open except international travel. Christmas Parties, household mixing, full sports stadiums, the lot.

They also have a vaccine strategy. Superb stuff.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...onomy-rebounds

Re: Coronavirus
 

First of all, the care homes should have processes in place to isolate residents from the virus. About half of all deaths during the first wave were care home residents.

Those vulnerable people in the community should be advised on how to keep safe, and those living with them should as well.

Re: Coronavirus
 

BREAKING: Labour Leader Keir Starmer, calls on Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to enact another national lockdown within the next 24 hours because Covid-19 is out of control.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Any detail on what should be in this advice to 17 million people and their families? What financial support do you propose for those unable to work?

Re: Coronavirus
 

You are in great danger of believing jfman’s twisted interpretation of posts made by others. I have never said that any number of deaths are acceptable.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I read it as Old Boy has now accepted we need to wait for the vaccines, and his shift in position occurred some time today.

Re: Coronavirus
 

My wife gets her Covid jab this Wednesday, she works for the NHS.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yet as far as I can tell you propose to offer those who are vulnerable an advice pamphlet.

What if someone lives with someone vulnerable and has no choice but to take public transport to work? Are you proposing to furlough this person to "shield the vulnerable"? For how long?

Re: Coronavirus
 

They do now (mostly) - that’s about 500k of the 17 million.

Your solution for the rest (and their families) seems a bit general and non-specific - if it were that easy, don’t you think that advice would be out there already?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Excellent news.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Hmmm no OB that is my interpretation and one you seem disinclined to answer..

Re: Coronavirus
 

Thanks...:)

Re: Coronavirus
 

:tu:

Re: Coronavirus
 

Excellent news

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes, I thought you were having difficulty keeping up. :D

---------- Post added at 17:21 ---------- Previous post was at 17:15 ----------

The point I was making, of course, was with or without lockdowns, deaths from the virus are inevitable.

We’ve had a lockdown plus months of emergency measures, and we’ve still had 75,000 deaths. The only problem we have successfully tackled up until just recently has been to slow down the virus to ensure the NHS is not overwhelmed.

Fortunately, the vaccines are now available which is the only option we have to reduce the death toll.

---------- Post added at 17:23 ---------- Previous post was at 17:21 ----------

There is already advice out there. Financial support is already available.

---------- Post added at 17:27 ---------- Previous post was at 17:23 ----------

Now that we have vaccines, that certainly changes the position. Just weeks ago, such a solution was not guaranteed.

My frustration up until that point was that this perpetual talk of lockdowns was being seen by some as a way of killing off the virus. That was never going to happen.

---------- Post added at 17:29 ---------- Previous post was at 17:27 ----------

Oh dear....:hugs:

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

No one said that - it was always about slowing the spread, avoiding overwhelming the NHS, and preventing vulnerable people dying prematurely

Re: Coronavirus
 

The execution will be handled by the NHS through the trusts GP surgery's etc.

As to the questionnaire.

There's also 150 army mobile vaccination units on standby.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Difficult question! Some parts of the spike will give a better immune response than others. But, some parts of the spike differ by more than other parts. As an example, this paper - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7166309/ compares the spike of SARS-COV-2 (COVID) and SARS-COV (SARS) Super techie paper but check out figure 1(a) which shows different parts of the spike and how similar they are to each other. It varies between being 100% identical and 51%.

We really want to raise antibodies against the receptor binding domain (RBD) as this will not only get the immune system to recognise and destroy the virus but also, as a bonus, stop the virus from binding and entering cells. The RBD is only 74% similar so there’s a chance the COVID vaccine might not protect against SARS.

One huge advantage of the new vaccine types such as the mRNA vaccines and the Oxford/AZ vaccine is that they are ‘platform’ vaccines where you can very easily drop in a new RNA or DNA sequence to create a new vaccine. We are talking a couple of days here plus efficacy testing.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Leak from secret Wuhan lab most ‘credible’ theory behind Covid outbreak, claims US official
Matthew Pottinger told politicians from around the world that even China’s leaders now openly admit their previous claims that the virus originated in a Wuhan market are false

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-new...heory-23254784

Re: Coronavirus
 

You mean Trump actually has a respected Deputy National Security Adviser???

Re: Coronavirus
 

Same story was said in May, with "conclusive evidence" promised then...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...han-laboratory

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/u...rus-china.html

Re: Coronavirus
 

Apparently American Intelligence are on the case . . .

Is that approaching Oxymoron staus?

:D:D

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

An interesting article from Japan.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...ins-normality/

Re: Coronavirus
 

It is a very good paper and probably published in too low a journal though the Journal of Molecular Biology is nothing to be sniffed at.

One of the big take homes is that the amino acid sequences are quite different in the important parts but they seem to have the same function. In relation to your question and conclusion, you are right that it is fairly unlikely that a COVID vaccine would protect against SARS at least.

One thing to look out for are areas that differ little (conserved). If a part of a protein is well conserved across multiple virus (or any other living thing) then it means that they are important and any changes to them will kill of the virus. I worked in a bacterial protein that was 89% similar to a human one. It was involved in DNA repair which is hugely important. If they are so important that they are conserved, then they are a drug target as resistance is tough to develop through mutations.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Kate McCann has been posting on Twitter a number of schools sending out emails this evening saying the school will not be opening tomorrow. Some even not for vulnerable or key workers children.

This is going to be a sh*tstorm tomorrow, gives parents no to very little time to make alt arrangements.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Local people making local decisions tailored to their situation. A libertarian, small government supporter's wet dream.