Coronavirus: Discussion and Information

[Oniya]

Oh, very much agreed.  I'm surprised that paramedics over here aren't required to get it - between risk of exposure and risk of carrying it.

[Annaamarth]

I should think that having vaccinated, safe personnel would be a requirement for licensure.

But then, I also think that anyone who can't wear a mask for medical reasons should not be going to indoors public places until herd immunity is achieved, so ... kind of a tyrant.

[Andol]

I know this won't happen, but we should require a COVID-19 vaccination for any child to attend school, or for any American to hold a job. Once there's a financial penalty for not having a vaccination a bunch of the folks who are objecting to it will suddenly find they don't object to it quite as much. And those who still object are not the people we want in our workforce anyway.

I think the first part of that is just asking for a bunch of people getting hurt because some people are very very serious when it comes to their personal freedom of choice. So trying to force them in such an extreme manner would mean quite a few tragic incidents.

As for the financial penalty people will just find a way around that. Such as homeschooling their children, or sending them to private school... or working at places where the owner isn't going to require the vaccine such as small businesses were that owner is running things on their own thing.   

You will get more people with sugar than with vinegar in many areas of life. Like my motivation after my first shot changed from being a meh selfish reasons... to actually taking care of my friends when one of them thanked for me because of her medical issues I had never heard about. It is also why opinion of the vaccine changed. 

[RedRose]

Oh, very much agreed.  I'm surprised that paramedics over here aren't required to get it - between risk of exposure and risk of carrying it.

They still haven't vaxed all nurses in France...

[Haibane]

The continuing ability of the virus to evolve.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57431420

This is why the needs and rights of the many far, far, far outweigh the rights of the individual.

[Haibane]

A new treatment trialled and successful in the UK. It is applicable only to those patients who have not produced their own anti-bodies (so not for those vaccinated) and is very expensive, but it does have a significant success rate.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57488150

[Haibane]

An interesting development in the UK. Bloomsbury Publishing best known for J K Rowling's books has announced it will require all its staff to be vaccinated before they are allowed to return to work. Another company Pimlico Plumbing has said the same. The UK Government has also announced that all elderly care home front line staff must be vaccinated as well - care home deaths were especially high during the early days of the pandemic in March-April 2020 and over the winter of 2020-2021. There are noises also that this will be extended to "other care workers".

It seems that the lack of take up of the vaccine is sufficiently large to allow the virus to continue to infect people at unacceptable rates and therefore mandatory vaccinations are beginning to gain traction in the UK. I am not aware of what the situation is in other European states.

In March, a poll of 2,000 workers, conducted by employee review website Glassdoor, found more than half thought there should be a requirement for staff to have had a Covid vaccination before they go back to the office.

Of the workers polled, one in seven said they would hand in their notice if they were required to return before all employees had been vaccinated.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57481895

[Beorning]

Over here, there are still many people not interested in being vaccinated. There's a powiat (county) where, after all these months, the percentage of vaccinated people is... 6%  >:(

Speaking of vaccines: do you guys happen to know what are the current test results regarding AstraZeneca? When I was taking my first shot, I was assigned the second shot on July 20th. But now the government allows people to take the second AZ shots sooner. What's the current medical information, though? Last I checked, I read it that a longer delay between AZ doses resulted in better immunity. Any new developments on that?

[Oniya]

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/02/new-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-data-ease-worries-over-2nd-dose-delay

There is some evidence that a longer gap increases immunity, but I'm not seeing anything that suggests that a shorter gap necessarily decreases immunity.  One of the concerns in the earlier roll-out was making sure there was enough supply to get people their first dose - which greatly improves the overall chances of preventing transmission in a popultion

[Mechelle]

We had something similar in Britain where the recommended gap between doses was reduced from 12 to 8 weeks, on the grounds that it had little negative effect and would get more people fully vaccinated more quickly, even though people already had appointments based on a 12 week gap.

I had my second vaccination 10 days ago. A week before that I had an offer to rearrange that for an earlier appointment, but only if I cancelled the existing one first. I just stuck with the original appointment then.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

Oh, very much agreed.  I'm surprised that paramedics over here aren't required to get it - between risk of exposure and risk of carrying it.

There's a lot of legality with this along with logistics. Paramedics and medical personnel are encouraged to get the vaccine, but no company wants to "require" the vaccine in case there are side effects or dangers unknown just yet. As the vaccine settles into the more comfortable territory of being accepted there will be actual requirements, which I think some places are starting to do. There is also the problem of off-handedly dismissing or not using medical staff during a pandemic. There simply are not enough of them under optimal conditions much less at this time. This is especially true for specialized fields and such, like paramedics and intensive care nurses. So long as the personnel are willing to continue wearing approved PPE then the hospital business can get by with that...for now.

[Haibane]

The UK infection rate has climbed from 1 in 160 people last week to 1 in 95 this week yet our idiot government won't backtrack on its 19th July decision to end ALL safety rules.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57863343

I absolutely guarantee that the UK is going to suffer an enormous third wave during the end of July and through August. I am a completely uneducated layperson on this subject and I can see it happening so those aware of the medical science must be very concerned. Our idiot citizens think that just because the government says stop wearing face masks and stop keeping >2m from others and you can now get together indoors in large crowds then it must be safe. Well its not. There has been a big rise in infection numbers towards the end of and after the Euro 2020 football tournament caused, most probably, from tens of thousands of fans gathering together.

[Haibane]

This is a powerful report that focuses on people who were vaccine deniers and were hospitalised by COVID. They were humbled by the level of care they received in hospital even though they were there through their own error. One of them is a doctor. It talks about a hospital in Bradford, Yorkshire, UK where last month COVID patient numbers were down to single figures. This week there are 50, half of then unvaccinated. The report mentions that staff and workers have stopped asking patients why they didn't take the vaccine as the question is embarrassing to them.

These kinds of reports need to be read and digested by the anti-vax community who are now, in many places, the main driver of the continuing virus.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-57866661

[Haibane]

8 members of the GB Olympic team are self isolating; 6 athletes and 2 technicians. Two South-African footballers and a member of the technical crew have tested positive.

I just do not get why all this money was spent when it seems to me that the games are being held far too soon and may well end in farce and chaos with many athletes ill or isolating.

I suppose money, as usual, is at the root of it all.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/57844406

[Lilias]

Excellent read here. Long and involved, so save it for when you have both time and spoons.

[Mechelle]

Today saw the end of nearly all Covid restrictions in England. People are still expected to be cautious and to consider wearing masks in certain circumstances (some public transport operators and some shops require it), but the legal force has gone. Nightclubs can now open, and pubs, restaurants and theatres can operate at full capacity.

However, cases have been rising rapidly due to the delta (alias Indian or Johnson variant), although this has slowed down in the north west, which was the first area to be badly affected and hospitalisations and deaths have remained  low and very low respactively. The so-called NHS Track and Trace app has been going mad telling people who have been vaccinated, or who have already been isolating, that they need to isolate.  Even Boris Johnson has had to isolate, although he tried to get out of it, by being on an unlikely trial scheme.  A number of businesses which were hoping to open or revert to normal have been unable to do so, because of so many of their staff have to isolate, even though they have not tested positive. As hospitality businesses etc. no longer need to take customers' details or use the app for track and trace purposes, people will delete the app and this problem should resolve itself.

The main point of my writing, though, is to say that today, on "Freedom Day," some anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination campaigners staged a violent protest  to demand the end of lockdown!




https://www.itv.com/news/london/2021-07-19/bottles-thrown-at-police-in-anti-lockdown-and-anti-vaccination-protest

[Haibane]

There's always idiots. My reply #336 above highlights that I predict an awful mess in the UK by August/September.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

Five year old with no comorbidities just died in Georgia. Just sad to see his smiling picture.

[Haibane]

An L.A. man who mocked COVID vaccines and loudly proclaimed he was anti-vax on his social media accounts dies of the virus.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57958358

To the very end he said he would never have the vaccine.

[Azuresun]

I did a survey recently on health problems that people developed within 4 weeks of eating strawberries. Clearly, every death or serious health effect suffered is down entirely to eating the strawberries. This proves that strawberries are pure poison and should be banned.

If that sentence did not cause your ears to start bleeding from the rampant stupidity, then you are fully ready to talk about how VAERS, MHRA and similar reporting systems "prove" the vaccine is unsafe.

In the real world, no link to the vaccine needs to be proven, likely or even possible for a report to be accepted (hence why some of the reports include genital herpes and skull fractures). The data is used to see if anything is happening more often than the average (or indeed, less often, indicating a secondary benefit) for people who have had a certain medication or treatment.

[Mechelle]

Very good post, AzureSun.

Meanwhile, there was an anti-vaxxer rally in Trafalgar Square in London yesterday, where former nurse Kate Shemirani compared doctors and nurses giving the vaccine to  Nazi "doctors," and said that the latter were hung (sic) after the Nuremberg trials. Words fail me, sometimes.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/anti-vaxx-nhs-nazis-covid-b1890039.html

[Haibane]

What a stupid thing to say. Everyone is offered the vaccine and chooses to have it. I am pretty sure that a comparison with Nazi experimental doctors cannot be made there at all.

These people must know they are lying. They must have intense commitment to or belief in some cause to do this. I'd love to see a psychologists analysis of this mental process. There's got to be a medical name for it.

[Hawkwood]

What a stupid thing to say. Everyone is offered the vaccine and chooses to have it. I am pretty sure that a comparison with Nazi experimental doctors cannot be made there at all.

Even the comparison with Nazi experimentation and modern clinical trials is stupid / offensive / so bad it's not even wrong. As someone who has worked in both war-crimes AND biotech research (not at the same time), the influence of what the Nazis did looms large on everything that happens in clinical trials. If you haven't read it, I commend to anyone interested to read the Doctors' Trial and also about the work of Mengele and Unit 731. There are times that I'm simply ashamed to be a scientist / human.

On the topic of Shemirani, it was interesting to read her disciplinary case here.

[Mechelle]

Even the comparison with Nazi experimentation and modern clinical trials is stupid / offensive / so bad it's not even wrong. As someone who has worked in both war-crimes AND biotech research (not at the same time), the influence of what the Nazis did looms large on everything that happens in clinical trials. If you haven't read it, I commend to anyone interested to read the Doctors' Trial and also about the work of Mengele and Unit 731. There are times that I'm simply ashamed to be a scientist / human.

On the topic of Shemirani, it was interesting to read her disciplinary case here.

Thanks for the details of the Shemirani disciplinary case. I have just speed read through that, but it's very useful evidence for other forums where the subject comes up.

[Haibane]

I found this both interesting and disturbing. Several social media influencers were offered money to promote material suggesting that the Pfizer vaccine has a significantly higher death rate than Astra Zeneca. The offer to promote this material came from a company called Fazze. Several of the influencers checked the information, its source and Fazze and chose to back out of the deal. A couple of them went ahead with it.

Very quickly Fazze's material was pulled from websites.

It was clearly disinformation and the influencers should be thanked for exposing Fazze.

It turns out they are Russians. I just... am getting so sick of the crimes that keep on pouring out of Putin's Russia.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-57928647