Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

On the subject of learning to live with it, Hong Kong just reduced the quarantine period for close contacts from 21 to 14 days.

This means that if you test positive, your work colleagues, household members, friends and people who just happened to be dining in a restaurant at the same time as you only get sent to the quarantine camp to stay in a one room isolation portacabin for two weeks.

This is progress.

No you are completely wrong!

https://twitter.com/MichaelPSenger/status/1476249496736522246?s=20

For all those who think it would have been a complete disaster without the vaccines please explain what happened with the first wave when there were no vaccines available?

For all those who think it would have been a complete disaster without the vaccines please explain what happened with the first wave when there were no vaccines available?

didn't a buttload of people die?

please explain what happened with the first wave when there were no vaccines available?

We went into lockdown - no ?

Not all dead is a bit of a shit achievement?

I think its worth looking at the highest death rates vs vaccination rates, and also considering which lowest vaccinated countries have severe lockdowns and low international and regional travel anyway.

For example:

Peru - 65% vaccinated - 6030 deaths per 1m population
Bulgaria - 28% vaccinated - 4594 deaths per 1m population
Hungary - 63% vaccinated - 4151 deaths
Montenegro - 44% vaccinated - 4151 deaths
North Macedonia - 39% vaccinated - 3856 deaths
Georgia - 29% vaccinated - 3575 deaths
Czech - 62% - 3410 deaths
Croatia - 53% - 3177 deaths
Slovakia - 48% - 3109 deaths
Romania - 41% - 3100 deaths

In comparison -
UK - 70% - 2194 deaths
US - 62% - 2573 deaths
France - 74% - 1915 deaths
Italy - 75% - 2305 deaths
Germany - 71% - 1363 deaths

On the whole, European countries that have had a strong vaccine uptake, have had a lower death rate.
Lower vaccinated countries tend to have higher death rates (unless very remote, central Africa etc)

Other countries for comparison:

Hong Kong - 62% vaccinated - 28 deaths per 1m population, but very robust and rather extreme close contact quarantine policy
New Zealand - 76% vaccinated - 10 deaths per 1m population, very strict travel restrictions
Australia - 77% vaccinated - 92 deaths per 1m population, very strict travel restrictions
South Korea - 84% vaccinated - 118 deaths per 1m population, strict travel restrictions, limited international ports/airports, world leading contact tracing prior to vaccine roleout.

Yeah i think you are probably correct in some sense but in order to get opinon and ppl onboard they sold it to the public in a different manor. Hard to get invinceble 20 n 30 year olds on board with vaccination if the risk of getting serious side effects or death from covid is as low as it is for these groups but i also think they thought and hoped that the transmission reduction would be much greater (and it also was before this new variant) or the need to get these groups onboard would have been more or less pointless from a wider perspective as they are no load on the healthcare / hospitals.

For all those who think it would have been a complete disaster without the vaccines please explain what happened with the first wave when there were no vaccines available?

We had a draconian lockdown. Then we came out of lockdown and a wave of deaths came again the following winter. Then we got a vaccine and the link between infection and deaths was broken, so we didn't have to have more lockdowns.

Do you prefer lockdowns or vaccines? Because that is the only real choice.

I’d not waste your time. Given they couldn’t read a simple table.
I was very patient the other day and they didn’t even have the decency to respond.

I did think that, but it was quite interesting to see the cumulative figures now that we have about 2 years worth of information.

One of the takeaways is that Covid doesn't like central europe, and central europe doesn't like vaccines.

I think you are right in this. Vaccines were (initially) sold with a very simple 'they will save us' message. Cuts in transmission were initially good, but with omicron not so much and having to change the messaging (or add more nuance to it) is grist to the anti-vax mill.

Not sure what I'm supposed to take from that, it's just some cherry-picked clips of US talking heads. It doesn't change the fact that the primary purpose of a vaccine is (pretty much always?) to protect the individual.

What do you think the purpose of the vaccines is?

PS: OP of that video is a deranged nut who sells "apocalypse survival training" on his website.

Why not include Canada and Japan for the full G7?
Clearly there is far more involved than vaccines or Peru's figures would be less that the US not over double?

I think one of the problems with preventing transmission is that the method of doing so is through herd immunity. Since the vaccines have been rolled out it's likely that a combination of people not wanting to get vaccinated, kids not being able to be vaccinated, some countries not being able to vaccinate much of their population and the vaccines being not as good as initially hoped against transmission and less so with new variants, especially with reinfection with omicron after having a previous variant.

If I may be so bold, £15 here please

https://injuredjockeys.co.uk/contact-us/

Reicher summing it up in a tweet..

1 Attachment

Tiny fucking horse botherers can get to fuck.

“Do you prefer lockdowns or vaccines? Because that is the only real choice.”

the irony of this statement being the fact that the anti-vax/anti mask/anti restrictions brigade are the most effective lockdown enablers.

thick as mince.

“Yeah i think you are probably correct in some sense but in order to get opinon and ppl onboard they sold it to the public in a different manor. Hard to get invinceble 20 n 30 year olds on board with vaccination if the risk of getting serious side effects or death from covid is as low as it is for these groups but i also think they thought and hoped that the transmission reduction would be much greater ”

no. the vaccines exceeded any expectations, anything over 60% efficacy was going to get approval once trials had been completed.
the flu jab isn’t expected to achieve that unless they guess the strains correctly.

A screenshot of a summary of... something... utterly devoid of context? Useful

How?

Because I didn’t think about it like that!
I’ll have a look later.

Absolutely there is more going on than vaccines only, countries with higher co-morbidities, high levels of obesity, timing of lockdowns and vaccine delivery, travel restrictions and so on.
Peru is an odd one out compared to the others.
I read this: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/11/27/1057387896/peru-has-the-worlds-highest-covid-death-rate-heres-why?t=1641852143863

Their healthcare system was overwhelmed, far too few ICU beds, and they ran out of oxygen. Horrendous situation, basically what would happen if the NHS for overwhelmed.

To be fair to him, according to the transcript, he was given 20 minutes to provide evidence of his covid exemption at 4am.
Not a chance that he could get in touch with Australian Tennis federation, or even his lawyers to do anything useful at that time and timeframe.

He’s still a complete dickhead, going about and mingling after a supposed positive PCR test though.

Their healthcare system was overwhelmed, far too few ICU beds, and they ran out of oxygen.

This is true. My brother-in-law lost nine members of his family. My wife’s cousin had to ask for money from friends and family so that he could afford oxygen when he was ill. Dreadful times, with pretty much the highest (recorded) excess death figures in the world, thankfully over now that they’ve had a successful vaccination rollout.

I saw he appealed but ffs just gives more antivax fuel.

This is just horrid.
I remember being shocked and devastated by the stories from Italy at the start of it all, Peru got it way worse.