Quote:
Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees
You have no idea if c,d,e and whatever else are in planning stages.
Surely it makes sense to governments to have options in place for differing future potential scenarios? Unless you would rather they just make stuff up as they go along.
Oh, hang on….
Boosters are only going to be unfortunately a part of the solution, vaccines whilst highly effective are not the silver bullet that was promised.
The biggest issue we have is we have possibly the worst ever government in charge at the worst possible time.
|
Not sure Labour would have been much better. At least Boris is doing his best to keep things open and keep supporting people where this can't be permitted. We may well have been locked down for longer and with no furlough scheme under others.
Admittedly the ideal vaccines now would be more than just producers of original spike proteins, but there's evidence now, that the 3rd mRNA vaccine does make a huge difference on symptomatic infection, and even without does reduce hospital admissions.
And yes they do need a plan, but it's unhelpful for the media to speculate what this may involve. Most of it is rehashing stuff which they have introduced before, such as QR codes/taking details of people going to pubs (but why not shops), banning indoor mixing, table/outdoor service only. They can't really go much further with masks because anywhere else it's silly to put one on (for example the previous rule in pubs), they can't ask anyone else to WFH because doing that would then shut businesses. Banning or limiting indoor socialising is logical from the virus perspective but is difficult to police or enforce, and may now get little compliance.
I think it's quite bad that everyone is being treated as though they have the virus. Yes you can infect others whilst being asymptomatic, but that's not as common as having symptoms. Encouraging asymptomatic people to do LFTs before higher risk activities or things where you're in a crowded place and can't distance is probably more useful than masks or vaccine passports, if you don't have the virus on a (properly done) LFT then you're not going to infect others, and if you have had 3 doses, you're not as likely to have the virus anyway. Most people here have some immunity, whether that's from a vaccine or having covid, or both, and how much use that is against Omicron is open to debate, but it will help.
On a positive note, it does appear the outbreak in Gauteng is at or past the peak...
---------- Post added at 13:57 ---------- Previous post was at 13:55 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees
They’ve reported exactly what the vaccine minister said on sky news this morning.
Now….
Should they have tried to get more details prior to publishing? Probably
Should the vaccine minister opened his mouth without providing clarification? Probably
Would the vaccine minister know how the media would take his statement? Absolutely
|
He's not the vaccine minister any more, he took over education from Williamson.
Without context, it isn't a particularly useful statement.
Did these people contract Omicron in the community, get covid, symptoms severe enough for them to go to hospital? (That's what most people would assume).
Did they get Omicron but aren't ill with it and went into hospital for something non Covid related and then test positive as part of the admissions checks?
Did they get admitted whilst not positive for Covid and get Omicron off someone else (if not another patient, a staff member or visitor for example)?
All of these count as a "hospital admission" on the stats and as a "person in hospital with covid".