I'm epileptic; I alson have had COPD, and gout. I'm only 50, living in the UK, and would appreciate the vaccine. My surgery is egregiously slow in rolling out, alas, as my elderly parents belong to the same surgery, and they haven't been called. I've always had my doubts about the surgery in question, and am thinking of transferring to another one.

Three out of hundred people in London are now infected with Covid-19, the Dutch radio revealed last evening. That's devastating.

It's 19% of the population in the parish (county) I live in. I directly know 4 people that have had it, 3 of which got it here. I know of 3 others, one of which is where I live, that have had it. Only a couple of them had rough experiences to my knowledge.

I know about two people where I live that died from it.

Seems that the rise in numbers is related to Christmas and New Years and the rolling fallout from that.

I went to the grocery last night - through my fogged up glasses I saw three other people that were masked up. WTF? What could it take to get it through to people? Is society at a place where if you're only murdered 99% it's somehow not convincing - it HAS TO BE 100% for it to be true?

Or, as reported on BBC tv news 2 days ago, 1 in 30 people in London are now infected with COVID-19, similar figures here in Kent, I’m about 30 miles south of London.

Frankly, it’s absolutely terrifying. It’s everywhere, all around us and closing in. I can stand at my gate and don’t have far to look far for 30 neighbours. I dread picking up the phone even, every time it’s more bad news of local people, friends, friends of friends. Sometimes someone has died, or waited in an ambulance queue for several hours to be admitted to hospital. We are told our hospitals could be overwhelmed within 2 weeks.

I consider myself very lucky. I lead what I call a ‘click-click’ existence. Since last March I have been in a shop 4 times, that’s it. Food ordered online is delivered twice weekly, all our other needs, we click-click and it’s usually next day delivery.

Temperature not gone above freezing today. So stoked the fires up and will finish another book.

Like I said, I’m very lucky. And the vaccines will save us ?!? I know three friends over 80 who have all been jabbed twice by our wonderful NHS

I don’t post often
Stay safe everyone!

I have been watching several videos on YouTube from anti lockdown protests in London.Morons roaming the streets shouting covid is a hoax and claiming the government is attempting to control them by forcing them to wear masks which of course is an astoundingly stupid claim as London is a city with a very high number of cctv cameras.
I believe when Mr Johnson was mayor of London he ordered some very big mobile water canons the type used by cops to fight off football hooligans,it might be time to bring them out.

Nate

Keep in mind the numbers of 1 in 5 or 5 of 10 - it doesn't mean if you're in a room with 5 people one of you has it etc.

More on the vaccine rollout in Florida and other places. Sadly, but not surprisingly, better access for the wealthy sometimes.

‘It Became Sort of Lawless’: Florida Vaccine Rollout Turns Into a Free-for-All
[www.nytimes.com]

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Nate
I have been watching several videos on YouTube from anti lockdown protests in London.Morons roaming the streets shouting covid is a hoax and claiming the government is attempting to control them by forcing them to wear masks which of course is an astoundingly stupid claim as London is a city with a very high number of cctv cameras.
I believe when Mr Johnson was mayor of London he ordered some very big mobile water canons the type used by cops to fight off football hooligans,it might be time to bring them out.

Nate

Unfortunately they were sold for just £11k scrap value 2 years ago, having never once been used.

Mr Johnson did indeed order them whilst Mayor of London, at a cost of £320k. Delivered in 2014 but banned by then Home Secretary Theresa May the following year.

[www.google.com]

it looks like they will extend the lock down period in the Netherlands with 3 more weeks (till feb 9 if im right).

Life's just a cocktail party on the street

Fact check: Does COVID-19 have a mortality rate of 1%-2%?

What a 1% mortality rate means

The figures cited on social media aren’t far off from mainstream projections. They may even be pessimistic about how likely someone is to survive a bout of COVID-19.

"Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified to Congress in March that the mortality rate may be as low as 1% when accounting for people who are infected but don’t develop symptoms severe enough to be tested. To Fauci, given how infectious the new coronavirus has proven to be, that is a very dire figure."

A 1% mortality rate “means it is 10-times more lethal than the seasonal flu,” Fauci said. “I think that’s something people can get their arms around and understand.”

A 99% survival rate might sound promising. But when it’s scaled out to the rest of the country – all 329 million residents – a 1% survival rate takes on a different meaning.

The attending physician for Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court predicted early in the pandemic that 70 million to 150 million U.S. residents would contract COVID-19. A 1% mortality rate at that scale of infection is between 700,000 and 1.5 million dead – roughly the population of Washington, D.C., on the low end or the entire population of Hawaii on the high end.

"You really need to look at this by age, because there is an enormous age gradient for risk of death per infected case,” said Dr. Theo Vos in an interview with USA TODAY. He is a professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations at the University of Washington and one of the developers of a highly cited model on the potential spread of COVID-19.

Reports of deaths from the disease by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a clear correlation to age. Older people are far more likely to die of the disease.
[www.usatoday.com]

Maybe more good news on the way:

J&J Vaccine Trials

Received my second vaccination yesterday (January 11th) no issues, the Pfizer vaccine. Sure hope everyone can get some form of vaccination as soon as possible if they want one. Stay safe.

Speaking of Fauci:

[www.iheartradio.ca]

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MononoM
it looks like they will extend the lock down period in the Netherlands with 3 more weeks (till feb 9 if im right).

Same in Germany. Maybe an extended lockdown till the end of March.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-01-12 17:59 by MAF.

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Topi
Speaking of Fauci:

[www.iheartradio.ca]

First of all, it will take longer to get to the 70% - 85% vaccination level.

Secondly, wearing a mask is a big problem for many people.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI SAYS CONCERTS COULD BE BACK IN FALL

The top infectious disease expert in the U.S. said Saturday he is confident music fans will be able to attend indoor concerts again “some time in the fall of 2021.”

During the Association of Performing Arts Professionals virtual conference, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci said a return to live shows will depend on vaccinations levels of 70 to 85 percent of the population.

“If everything goes right, this will occur some time in the fall of 2021,” said Fauci, “so that by the time we get to the early to mid-fall, you can have people feeling safe performing onstage as well as people in the audience.”

Fauci said fans will likely still have to wear face masks.

Bjornulf

Familiar places The Rolling Stones have been performing at, now used for vaccination.

Covid-19 Live Updates: California Ramps Up Vaccinations as It Struggles With Caseload (New York Times)

The approach includes transforming Dodger Stadium from one of the nation’s biggest and most visible Covid-19 testing sites into a mass vaccination center. Petco Park, where the San Diego Padres play, and the state fairgrounds in Sacramento are also being set up as vaccination sites, the governor said.

Bjornulf

One of the best things about a show is seeing the joy on people’s faces.
I do not want to be at a show where people have their faces covered up and everyone is forced to sit 2 metres from the next person with no possibility of a pit section at the front of stage.

I’ve got zero interest in this and will wait until normal service is resumed.

Nate

Wearing a mask at a show makes absolutely no sense to me. Also, we are all loud, we sing, shout and make noise, sharing the air we breath. I am not ready to attend a show until the virus is gone.

Bjornulf

I think live events are not a priority with all of the positive infections and deaths on such a huge scale world wide and then the virus is mutating . To each there own I guess as we have choices and my comfort level is not there , no matter if you have to mask up or not . This to me is completely and utterly absurd to even consider for a second . To confine one self in a space with many others during a pandemic is not happening , when it is not safe to eat out at a restaurant or drink in a bar and socialize in a normal environment , which of course we have lost all normalcy . It's all about priorities such as work, earn a living, and pay the bills, and have essentials and that's it .

As been said before...............a huge part of a live gig is seeing everyone's faces enjoying themselves.

Singing, dancing , cheering and not having to social distance is all part of being at a live performance.

Count me out if you're not allowed to do that.

Saying that, before lockdown, I have seen two small gigs in a pub garden, with only two or three performers ,about 40 music fans, and plenty of room outside to social distance and enjoy the gig.

The dream of a live show with a large crowd is there, but there are so many other things I would like to see happening first:

1. Meeting children and grandchildren without having to keep a large distance
2. Talking to friends without having to keep the same big big distance
3. Walking trips from home without curving around all other people
4. Shopping at normal hours without a mask
5. Meeting my brothers and sisters at normal family gatherings
6. Celebrating 17. Mai and Midsummer day St Hans as usual
7. Having a meal and a drink at a restaurant or a bar without the virus hassle
8. Going to the big city of Oslo
9. Going to London
10. Going to Italy

Then way down on the list going to a Stones show, but I know most other things in life have to be in place before that will happen.

Bjornulf

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bv

Wearing a mask at a show makes absolutely no sense to me.

In Germany there was in August 2020 a scientific study how to perform a concert during Covid-19 practically - [www.MDR.de] - (in German).

The conclusions were the same: wearing masks the whole time, only seating, 1.5m distancing each, max. 1,700 spectators instead of the 8,600 venue-capacity, multiple in-/out-queues, permanent ventilation of the venue, etc.

Many fans would consider such a concert as no fun.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-01-12 18:10 by Irix.

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Irix

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bv

Wearing a mask at a show makes absolutely no sense to me.

In Germany there was in August 2020 a scientific study how to perform a concert during Covid-19 practically - [www.MDR.de] - (in German).

The conclusions were the same: wearing masks the whole time, only seating, max. 1,700 spectators instead of the 8,600 venue-capacity, multiple in-/out-queues, permanent ventilation of the venue, etc.

Many fans would consider such a concert as no fun.

In the US many people refuse to wear a mask. At outdoor football games that allow fans you repreated see people with masks down and hi fiving between groups.

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Beast

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georgie48

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yorkshirestone

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georgie48
I've been following both the worldometers.info link and the New York Times corona map (global) link for many months now.
Today's eye catcher was .... the grafics of infections over the past 10 months of the U.K. In fact the U.K. entered the third wave and the grafic line is sky rocketing! The first wave was merely a "small" bump compared to the second wave, which in turn looks moderate compared to today's grafic line level. I can't help but say ... SHOCKING!
Luckily (although that still has to turn out that way) considerable progress is made with vaccination.
In the Netherlands they started vaccination yesterday instead of tomorrow. Wow (kidding). I am afraid the Dutch grafics may also show similar shapes in a few weeks time ...

Uk case and death numbers are amongst the worst in the world - late lockdowns, open borders etc, slow set up of efficient test and trace all well documented. However take the first peak ‘cases’ with a pinch of salt. Likely more in line with 100k a day but testing infrastructure wasn’t in place at that point

You could be and are probably right there. It would be interesting (to say the least) to get the U.K. 2020 "overkill" figures. They could say a lot. In the Netherlands the overkill (more deaths than on average over decades) for 2020 was around 13.000, while there were "only" 12.000 corona deaths. So 25.000 corona- plus unaccounted deaths.

Information on excess deaths in England only (so far almost 70,000 since March) can be found here:

[fingertips.phe.org.uk]

Our statistics are indeed shocking. We are told that 1 in 50 people has the virus and that in London it's 1 in 30. It took until today for the government to decide that a negative test is required to enter the country.

I don't know how other countries record coronavirus deaths, but in the UK the figure is based on the number who died within 28 days of a positive test, which makes it difficult to know how many deaths were actually attributable to COVID-19. More often that not, a person is said to have died "with" coronavirus, not "of" coronavirus. It's a subtle but important difference, especially when you hear stories of people with serious conditions (e.g., terminal cancer) whose death certificates record the virus as the cause of death - even, in some cases, if they were never tested for the virus. Funeral directors have said anecdotally that this tended to happen in the very beginning and that they are starting to see the same thing happen again now.

So it's hard to know what the true number of COVID-19 deaths is, but even though the figures are most likely inaccurate, they presumably still give a fair indication of the trajectory.

The 70.000 excess deaths you mentioned are pretty much in line with what I read on BBC news today.
Over the year 2020 some 675.000 people died in the U.K., which apparently is 14% higher than average (this average is corrected for very hot summers we had in the past couple of years). Those 14 percent count for 95.000 excess deaths.
Compared with the 80.000 reported, this looks very much like the results in the Netherlands (13.000 excess against 12.000 reported). If this line can be found in other countries too (and it very, very likely will) it would mean well over twice as many people died corona related than officially reported. For western Europa alone that would be around three quarter of a million. Worldwide the nearly 2 million corona related deaths so far would really be well over 4 million and possibly even much higher. This is no chicken soup!

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daspyknows

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Irix

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bv

Wearing a mask at a show makes absolutely no sense to me.

In Germany there was in August 2020 a scientific study how to perform a concert during Covid-19 practically - [www.MDR.de] - (in German).

The conclusions were the same: wearing masks the whole time, only seating, max. 1,700 spectators instead of the 8,600 venue-capacity, multiple in-/out-queues, permanent ventilation of the venue, etc.

Many fans would consider such a concert as no fun.

In the US many people refuse to wear a mask. At outdoor football games that allow fans you repreated see people with masks down and hi fiving between groups.

Last weekend 137 fans tested positive before the Buffalo Bills game.

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bv

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI SAYS CONCERTS COULD BE BACK IN FALL

11-Jan-2021: The World Health Organization’s chief scientist has warned that even as numerous countries start rolling out vaccination programs to stop COVID-19, herd immunity is highly unlikely in 2021 - [ABCNews.go.com] .

So probably no concerts in Fall 2021 due to missing herd immunity ....

Grades K-12 in the school district where I live is hoping to have kids back in classes by Fall, 2021, but that's just a goal and obviously nothing is etched in stone.
My wife teaches college level courses (all currently online), and has been told there probably won't any students on campus until Spring 2022 at the earliest.
Lots of mixed messages without any absolute answers...it's going to be a waiting game with lots of detours, ups, and downs.
Can't imagine large concerts (indoor or outdoor) happening this year with or without masks...

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

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bv
Wearing a mask at a show makes absolutely no sense to me. Also, we are all loud, we sing, shout and make noise, sharing the air we breath. I am not ready to attend a show until the virus is gone.

agree.

it's lame....

but, more importantly, it's not logical...at all.

anybody who thinks a mask-mandate for 60,000+ people is likely to be adhered to at a concert (or is remotely enforceable).....has never been to a concert.

Schools were closed for six weeks in Norway, from March 12 until late April. After that schools have been open during the entire pandemic, except for the summer holiday. I hear some countries have had schools closed for ten - 10 - months now. That is the human cost among children, when the rules among the adults are too liberal. It is a shame.

Bjornulf

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bv
Schools were closed for six weeks in Norway, from March 12 until late April. After that schools have been open during the entire pandemic, except for the summer holiday. I hear some countries have had schools closed for ten - 10 - months now. That is the human cost among children, when the rules among the adults are too liberal. It is a shame.

what do you mean by "closed?" Like CLOSED-closed? Or Virtually open?

I'm a teacher - we were in Virtual School from March-June (which was soul-crushingly horrible)

then Hybrid school from Sept. to Dec. (also soul-crushing, but 22.8734% less)

....now we are back in Virtual School thanks to the surge (and it is even more soul-crushing the 2nd time around)

I dunno what you mean by "too liberal"....but, IMO people have been "too liberal" in their own homes and that has been the driving factor from November to now....

[www.6sqft.com]

we're simply too pampered and weak, IMO...people can't spend 1 Thanksgiving or Xmas or Hanukkah or Kwanza away from their families???

not in my country (the US) apparently...at least not what I've seen.

...we're like the Eloi....and the virus is the Morlocks.

("Time Machine"....read it...and everything else from HG Wells...dude was waaaaay ahead of his time)