Coronavirus

[OLD BOY]

Mor evidence of the futility of zero-Covid policies and the effectiveness of lockdowns. Shanghai has only just survived another lockdown, and now it’s Beijing.

The world cannot continue to sustain disruption on this scale. They need to get their population vaccinated as a matter of urgency.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-...r-bar-12632929

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Mor evidence of the futility of zero-Covid policies and the effectiveness of lockdowns. Shanghai has only just survived another lockdown, and now it’s Beijing.

The world cannot continue to sustain disruption on this scale. They need to get their population vaccinated as a matter of urgency.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-...r-bar-12632929

Not sure which is funnier....

1. thinking we can dictate to a sovereign state how they should choose to act

2. As well you know, It's not all of Beijing, it's an element. From the article you linked 'Beijing is rushing to contain a COVID-19 outbreak traced to a 24-hour bar known for its cheap alcohol and large crowds - with millions facing mandatory testing and thousands under targeted lockdowns.'

Sensationalising to suit your own narrative? Unlike you OB......

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Mor evidence of the futility of zero-Covid policies and the effectiveness of lockdowns. Shanghai has only just survived another lockdown, and now it’s Beijing.

The world cannot continue to sustain disruption on this scale. They need to get their population vaccinated as a matter of urgency.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-...r-bar-12632929

I think that one issue that China faces is the quality of its vaccinations. It is declining to licence Western vaccines to support its home-grown vaccines but these are not as effective.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-...r-bar-12632929

All very sensational, and over the top.
200 cases - wow, its the end of the world.

A 'ferocious' outbreak ? Seriously ..
Its not some wild animal, or an axe weilding maniac.

Zero covid is never going to happen, and completely unnecessary, its like aiming for zero colds/flu, or zero measles.

[nffc]

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

Not sure which is funnier....

1. thinking we can dictate to a sovereign state how they should choose to act

2. As well you know, It's not all of Beijing, it's an element. From the article you linked 'Beijing is rushing to contain a COVID-19 outbreak traced to a 24-hour bar known for its cheap alcohol and large crowds - with millions facing mandatory testing and thousands under targeted lockdowns.'

Sensationalising to suit your own narrative? Unlike you OB......

What he said is right though. Also, I didn't see him dictating anything - just a (correct) suggestion they need to be more effective with their vaccinations.


In any case, a packed bar wherever it is, is going to have potential to cause super spreading events, especially with something as infectious as omicron. But given that the people who had been in the packed bar and had presumably brought covid in had their own close contacts when infected, and could infect others in other places, as well as their households and colleagues - due to the incubation period and presymptomatic phases/milder illness it could have caused a significant outbreak even before this was traced.



Which is where isolation / contact tracing doesn't really work at all as the people wouldn't necessarily know anywhere near all of the people they had been in close contact with and by the time you get symptoms or test positive it's too late to stop it spreading anyway.


The funniest thing I've seen is that some people seem to have the idea they can stop a virus spreading - you can slow it down to buy more time but still need an exit strategy for this.

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

I think that one issue that China faces is the quality of its vaccinations. It is declining to licence Western vaccines to support its home-grown vaccines but these are not as effective.

Even ours aren't really that good now so I'd hate to see what theirs are like.


Though there's an obvious blunting as opposed to them being ineffective, 1 shot was largely enough against original virus and alpha, it was only with delta we needed 2 though this was more down to the transmissibility than the slight escape the variant had. It was only when we got into Omicron that the third shot seemed to be needed... But then if you look at the ONS data, there was still an evident waning of antibody levels after longer than it has been now, so it may be that the 3rd shot was already going to be needed (given that this happened in younger groups too who had already been given mRNA doses).


Even though the vaccines aren't there to prevent people getting the virus totally, I still think even we need ones more specific to omicron, given how much it differs from the original, and that mutations are more likely to make this more so than less.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by nffc

What he said is right though. Also, I didn't see him dictating anything - just a (correct) suggestion they need to be more effective with their vaccinations.


In any case, a packed bar wherever it is, is going to have potential to cause super spreading events, especially with something as infectious as omicron. But given that the people who had been in the packed bar and had presumably brought covid in had their own close contacts when infected, and could infect others in other places, as well as their households and colleagues - due to the incubation period and presymptomatic phases/milder illness it could have caused a significant outbreak even before this was traced.



Which is where isolation / contact tracing doesn't really work at all as the people wouldn't necessarily know anywhere near all of the people they had been in close contact with and by the time you get symptoms or test positive it's too late to stop it spreading anyway.


The funniest thing I've seen is that some people seem to have the idea they can stop a virus spreading - you can slow it down to buy more time but still need an exit strategy for this.


Even ours aren't really that good now so I'd hate to see what theirs are like.


Though there's an obvious blunting as opposed to them being ineffective, 1 shot was largely enough against original virus and alpha, it was only with delta we needed 2 though this was more down to the transmissibility than the slight escape the variant had. It was only when we got into Omicron that the third shot seemed to be needed... But then if you look at the ONS data, there was still an evident waning of antibody levels after longer than it has been now, so it may be that the 3rd shot was already going to be needed (given that this happened in younger groups too who had already been given mRNA doses).


Even though the vaccines aren't there to prevent people getting the virus totally, I still think even we need ones more specific to omicron, given how much it differs from the original, and that mutations are more likely to make this more so than less.

I'm not going to argue semantics with you. The simple fact is that China is within its rights to react as it sees fit, it doesn't 'need' to do anything.

We might wish or 'need' China to act in a certain way due to our dependencies

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

Not sure which is funnier....

1. thinking we can dictate to a sovereign state how they should choose to act

2. As well you know, It's not all of Beijing, it's an element. From the article you linked 'Beijing is rushing to contain a COVID-19 outbreak traced to a 24-hour bar known for its cheap alcohol and large crowds - with millions facing mandatory testing and thousands under targeted lockdowns.'

Sensationalising to suit your own narrative? Unlike you OB......

Some people just can't wait to pile into OB.

He's not dictating anything, he passing his opinion and if anything is sensationalised it's the sky report.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Some people just can't wait to pile into OB.

He's not dictating anything, he passing his opinion and if anything is sensationalised it's the sky report.

Again, semantics

The report quite clearly states that Bejing lockdowns are targeted something which OB clearly avoids by attempting to insinuate that the shanghai and Beijing lockdowns as being the same or very similar in nature.

If you can’t grasp the above I have neither the time nor the crayons to continue the discussion with you.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

Again, semantics

No, having an opinion of a subject is much different than trying to force that opinion on somebody by way of an action.

The report quite clearly states that Bejing lockdowns are targeted something which OB clearly avoids by attempting to insinuate that the shanghai and Beijing lockdowns as being the same or very similar in nature.

Lockdowns of any scale are counter productive - you just wanted to jump on him for whatever reason.

If you can't grasp that, I have some crayolas for you.

[Mad Max]

Originally Posted by Pierre

No, having an opinion of a subject is much different than trying to force that opinion on somebody by way of an action.



Lockdowns of any scale are counter productive - you just wanted to jump on him for whatever reason.

If you can't grasp that, I have some crayolas for you.

Brilliant.....:

[nffc]

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

I'm not going to argue semantics with you. The simple fact is that China is within its rights to react as it sees fit, it doesn't 'need' to do anything.

We might wish or 'need' China to act in a certain way due to our dependencies

Nobody is telling China how to act.


They can do what they like, as you rightly point out.


They could quite easily raze Shanghai to the ground or wherever to burn covid away with the people inside it. It would be unethical to do so. But if they wanted to they would be within their rights to react as they see fit - or would they?


It's not really a question of semantics.


It is really a statement of fact that lockdowns don't work.


We even have the zero-covid zealots from March 2020 like Jeremy Hunt now retconning their stances to say they wouldn't have locked down.

You appear to have accidentally missed out his reasoning…

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...er-test-trace/

Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, has said Britain could have avoided Covid lockdowns if the country had been much quicker in setting up a test and trace system.

Mr Hunt said wide ranging restrictions might have been rendered unnecessary if the UK had followed the Korean and Taiwanese example of tough test and trace regimes to monitor infected individuals.

He told GB News: "I actually thought we could have avoided all lockdowns if we had been much quicker and set up test and trace as they did in South Korea and Taiwan.

"Those two places actually didn’t have any lockdowns at all in 2020 so that would have been my preferred route."

[nffc]

Originally Posted by Hugh

You appear to have accidentally missed out his reasoning…

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...er-test-trace/

He is still being wise after the event though, and saying different things.


The fact that Mad Nads was able (though she was a health minister at the time) to shoot down his rewritten hindsight a couple of weeks back shows a lot about the transparency of his argument.


OK, so what he said there is totally true. By test and trace you can (provided you don't start when the outbreak is already out of control) minimise infections by testing people promptly and isolating them and their contacts until they are negative testing.



What he is failing to remember successfully, is that back in March 2020 when covid cases were low enough to do this, we didn't have anywhere near the testing capacity to do mass testing on the population, so only hospital admissions were being tested. For sure, we could do it now, but that is because 2 years down the line we have proper supply lines and manufacture of LFTs and PCR testing kits is scaled up to ensure that the world in general can test who they choose to.


But i'm pretty sure Johnson, Hancock etc would have setup test and trace in 2020 - in its later form - had they access.


I seem to remember even in late 2020 we didn't have testing readily available. Liverpool were trialing going into a car park or whatever and this was used to help them get from tier 3 to 2 at one stage. Notts asked for the same and didn't get it, it was hard to get a PCR test then, that only really came later on.


Not sure how you could run an effective test and trace without the testing part.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Pierre

No, having an opinion of a subject is much different than trying to force that opinion on somebody by way of an action.



Lockdowns of any scale are counter productive - you just wanted to jump on him for whatever reason.

If you can't grasp that, I have some crayolas for you.

We've been over this before, lockdowns were a requirement to stop the NHS being overwhelmed with cases whilst a vaccine was being designed, tested and deployed.

Unless there is a new variant that escapes all vaccines and has a very high transmission and mortality rate. there is no need for lockdowns now that we have the vaccines.

Perhaps i was being a tad optimistic about crayons....

[GrimUpNorth]

Well it's finally caught up with us, we both started feeling crap on Saturday and have tested positive this evening.