So, coronavirus...

[SaintK]

The High Street is carnage!!! Thousands of kids, parents and grand parents all milling around chatting, clearly with a lot of pent-up retail/social energy to release today! Barbers and hairdressers all have queues of 15+ outside and their waiting sofas inside are rammed with people. Social distancing is just an illusion.

No wonder Chile, Spain and Portugal had a big jump in cases after lockdown ended.

Why aren't kids back at school? Easter hols finished at the weekend!!!

[Raggs]

The High Street is carnage!!! Thousands of kids, parents and grand parents all milling around chatting, clearly with a lot of pent-up retail/social energy to release today! Barbers and hairdressers all have queues of 15+ outside and their waiting sofas inside are rammed with people. Social distancing is just an illusion.

No wonder Chile, Spain and Portugal had a big jump in cases after lockdown ended.

Why aren't kids back at school? Easter hols finished at the weekend!!!

Maybe youngsters? Some schools also use the first/last days of term as teacher training days, so as to not have them in the middle of the school term.

[Saint]

The High Street is carnage!!! Thousands of kids, parents and grand parents all milling around chatting, clearly with a lot of pent-up retail/social energy to release today! Barbers and hairdressers all have queues of 15+ outside and their waiting sofas inside are rammed with people. Social distancing is just an illusion.

No wonder Chile, Spain and Portugal had a big jump in cases after lockdown ended.

Why aren't kids back at school? Easter hols finished at the weekend!!!

Round here term didn't finish till Good Friday, so Summer isn't starting till 19/04

[Openside]

Pubs: Come on down, the beer garden is lovely!

Weather: No.

Stunning day up here!

No pubs.

Biggest snowflakes I have seen in my life this morning whilst walking the dog on Wimbledon Common.

Yes extraordinary when I saw the first couple I assumed they were feathers...

[Openside]

Stunning day up here!

No pubs.

Biggest snowflakes I have seen in my life this morning whilst walking the dog on Wimbledon Common.

Sir is quite tall.

Snowflake?? That is a first!!

[SaintK]

The High Street is carnage!!! Thousands of kids, parents and grand parents all milling around chatting, clearly with a lot of pent-up retail/social energy to release today! Barbers and hairdressers all have queues of 15+ outside and their waiting sofas inside are rammed with people. Social distancing is just an illusion.

No wonder Chile, Spain and Portugal had a big jump in cases after lockdown ended.

Why aren't kids back at school? Easter hols finished at the weekend!!!

Round here term didn't finish till Good Friday, so Summer isn't starting till 19/04

Ahh, of course!

[sturginho]

The High Street is carnage!!! Thousands of kids, parents and grand parents all milling around chatting, clearly with a lot of pent-up retail/social energy to release today! Barbers and hairdressers all have queues of 15+ outside and their waiting sofas inside are rammed with people. Social distancing is just an illusion.

No wonder Chile, Spain and Portugal had a big jump in cases after lockdown ended.

Why aren't kids back at school? Easter hols finished at the weekend!!!

Teacher training day innit

[Biffer]

Pubs: Come on down, the beer garden is lovely!

Weather: No.

Stunning day up here!

No pubs.

Yeah, gorgeous in Edinburgh. Public holiday so I was up in the Pentland Hills walking, no jacket. Would've loved the Spylaw or Colinton to be open when I came off the hill.

[Paddington Bear]

Pubs all looked busy walking past them yesterday, pleased for them. Does look like 'pent up demand' is a thing and people won't just be pocketing their savings.

[Sandstorm]

Pubs all looked busy walking past them yesterday, pleased for them. Does look like 'pent up demand' is a thing and people won't just be pocketing their savings.

One of my favourite locals was serving drinks in their garden yesterday......in plastic cups. Fugg. That.

[Paddington Bear]

Pubs all looked busy walking past them yesterday, pleased for them. Does look like 'pent up demand' is a thing and people won't just be pocketing their savings.

One of my favourite locals was serving drinks in their garden yesterday......in plastic cups. Fugg. That.

That's a travesty

[Sandstorm]

Pubs all looked busy walking past them yesterday, pleased for them. Does look like 'pent up demand' is a thing and people won't just be pocketing their savings.

One of my favourite locals was serving drinks in their garden yesterday......in plastic cups. Fugg. That.

That's a travesty

I can only assume that Brit barmaids have never carried a tray before and all the proper wine glasses were smashed during the lunch shift.

[Insane_Homer]

Just booked my 1st Jab for tomorrow, follow up on 1 July.

[Sandstorm]

Just booked my 1st Jab for tomorrow, follow up on 1 July.

[Saint]

Now officially open to 45 and over, so Group 10 has been split in half

[SaintK]

Pubs all looked busy walking past them yesterday, pleased for them. Does look like 'pent up demand' is a thing and people won't just be pocketing their savings.

One of my favourite locals was serving drinks in their garden yesterday......in plastic cups. Fugg. That.

If the bar team at my club try to do that to me with my first pint of Guinness on Saturday I shall resign my membership!!!!

[Insane_Homer]

Now officially open to 45 and over, so Group 10 has been split in half

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavir ... ccination/

Site is struggling under load but continued in the same place when refreshed.

I put my work post code in, got an appointment for tomorrow @ Guy's hospital vaccination centre - 10 minute walk from the office

[Slick]

Pubs all looked busy walking past them yesterday, pleased for them. Does look like 'pent up demand' is a thing and people won't just be pocketing their savings.

Yes, judging by the photos I've seen we will soon see how effective this all is!

[Slick]

Now officially open to 45 and over, so Group 10 has been split in half

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavir ... ccination/

Site is struggling under load but continued in the same place when refreshed.

I put my work post code in, got an appointment for tomorrow @ Guy's hospital vaccination centre - 10 minute walk from the office

Very good. Any idea where we are in Scotland Biffer, dpedin? Anxiously waiting for my letter before we head down south in a couple of weeks.

[dpedin]

Now officially open to 45 and over, so Group 10 has been split in half

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavir ... ccination/

Site is struggling under load but continued in the same place when refreshed.

I put my work post code in, got an appointment for tomorrow @ Guy's hospital vaccination centre - 10 minute walk from the office

Very good. Any idea where we are in Scotland Biffer, dpedin? Anxiously waiting for my letter before we head down south in a couple of weeks.

Travelling Tabby website gives you a detailed age breakdown ...

https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotlan ... s-tracker/

However it will very considerably by area/health board given very different demographics.83% of 50-54 year olds have been done and rest will be picked up in next few days, already onto next category in many areas. Many of those already done in under 50s will be those with underlying conditions or health and care staff. Past 7 days numbers - tab at top of graph - are a good indicator of current progress though.

PS watch out - the age categories change from 5 to 10 years in the graph ie 50-54 to 40-49.

[Sandstorm]

Covid19 is most dangerous to over 50s in UK who have (almost) all been vaccinated.

So some questions rattling around in my (empty) head:

1) Is it better for a healthy 22 year old to get Covid naturally with minimal symptoms and develop their own immunity or get a couple of jabs?

2) Would it be sensible to do a PCR test on all 18-40 year olds now to see how many have had Covid and developed their own resistance already?

3) Anyone know if the jab or actually surviving Covid makes you more resistant to it next time?

It appears that the UK Govt strategy is to keep jabbing people until everyone over 18 has had one

4) Is this because the AZ jab costs £3.50 a pair vs (probably) a lot more for each PCR test?

5) Anyone now what the cost price of a PCR test is to the Govt?

Thank-you

[SaintK]

ONS reporting that we have hit 150,000+deaths. I thought that the figure was actually higher?

A total of 151,313 deaths have now occurred in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, the ONS said. I thought that figure had been hit some weeks back?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/202 ... is-shows

[Raggs]

Covid19 is most dangerous to over 50s in UK who have (almost) all been vaccinated.

So some questions rattling around in my (empty) head:

1) Is it better for a healthy 22 year old to get Covid naturally with minimal symptoms and develop their own immunity or get a couple of jabs?

2) Would it be sensible to do a PCR test on all 18-40 year olds now to see how many have had Covid and developed their own resistance already?

3) Anyone know if the jab or actually surviving Covid makes you more resistant to it next time?

It appears that the UK Govt strategy is to keep jabbing people until everyone over 18 has had one

4) Is this because the AZ jab costs £3.50 a pair vs (probably) a lot more for each PCR test?

5) Anyone now what the cost price of a PCR test is to the Govt?

Thank-you

1. You don't know if they're going to get minimal symptoms. Healthy young people have died, or developed long term issues from Covid, seemingly at a "better" rate than risks from the jabs.

2. PCR test wouldn't tell you that, you'd need an antibody test. We can get a fairly good idea of that number from the studies that have been ongoing, and it's unlikely to be a significant proportion of them. Getting a vaccine won't be an issue anyway, as reinfection has been seen.

3. Typically vaccines give better protection than getting the illness itself, I don't think there's been time to be sure of that with Covid, but we can confirm that people have caught covid more than once, and I believe in some cases have suffered more in the later times.

4. It's because someone being in hospital is expensive, and everyone is at risk of that. There's also immunocompromised people who cannot be protected except by the rest of the herd. Getting sick is expensive, the PCR test won't be the larger consideration.

5. No idea, but considering they're running hundreds of thousands of them a day, it's not going to be enormous, and clearly it's worth while. Someone taking up a hospital bed, on oxygen etc, is likely far more expensive.

[Saint]

Covid19 is most dangerous to over 50s in UK who have (almost) all been vaccinated.

So some questions rattling around in my (empty) head:

1) Is it better for a healthy 22 year old to get Covid naturally with minimal symptoms and develop their own immunity or get a couple of jabs?

2) Would it be sensible to do a PCR test on all 18-40 year olds now to see how many have had Covid and developed their own resistance already?

3) Anyone know if the jab or actually surviving Covid makes you more resistant to it next time?

It appears that the UK Govt strategy is to keep jabbing people until everyone over 18 has had one

4) Is this because the AZ jab costs £3.50 a pair vs (probably) a lot more for each PCR test?

5) Anyone now what the cost price of a PCR test is the Govt?

Thank-you

1 - In general, immunity from vaccination is longer lasting. It also tends to be more predictable
2 - Little value as many will have had Covid early on but will no longer be expressing antibodies. However they could still have some level of T-cell response
3 - The jab shows significant resistance to Covid; either you fight it off very rapidly, you contract it asymptomatically bet deal with it, your become symptomatic but don;t require hospitalisation, or finally you require hospitalisation but you survive. The vaccines are effectively 100% for preventing death by Covid. There are cases of people contract the same variant twice, and in some cases dying, but they are extremely rare
4 - The reason to keep jabbing everyone is really to develop herd immunity and reduce the amount of Covid spreading. Once we reach a certain level of immunity in the population, r drops below 0 regardless of social interaction levels and the virus dies out. Bear in mind nearly have of the jabs we're dispensing are the very expensive kind
5 - There's a few articles floating around the web, including a published article in The Lancet, suggesting that at scale PCR tests should only cost approx $5 per test. It's very clear that there's significant profiteering going on for the private testing programmes

[Sandstorm]

Cheers Chappos, most useful!

[Sandstorm]

Seems the anti-body test isn't much cop:

Getting an antibody test
Antibody tests are not widely available yet.

Free antibody tests are currently only available for certain people who work in primary care, social care or education.

These tests are to help the NHS and scientists learn more about who has already had the virus and how it has spread in the UK.

It's not known if having antibodies stops you getting the virus again.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavir ... ronavirus/

[Saint]

ONS reporting that we have hit 150,000+deaths. I thought that the figure was actually higher?

A total of 151,313 deaths have now occurred in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, the ONS said. I thought that figure had been hit some weeks back?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/202 ... is-shows

There's now three measures of deaths kicking around

1 - Deaths within 28 days of a positive test - 127,100 yesterday
2 - Deaths with Covid on the death cert (ONS MeEasurement) - 149,968 yesterday
3 - Excess deaths during the pandemic. No idea on the current number but could easily believe we passed 150K a while back

The ONS public measurement runs quite a few weeks behind. So what the Guardian was doing was fairly crude, taking the ONS measurement at the time then adding on other sources that had been published since the ONS date. What's published now is the official ONS measurement

[Saint]

Seems the anti-body test isn't much cop:

Getting an antibody test
Antibody tests are not widely available yet.

Free antibody tests are currently only available for certain people who work in primary care, social care or education.

These tests are to help the NHS and scientists learn more about who has already had the virus and how it has spread in the UK.

It's not known if having antibodies stops you getting the virus again.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavir ... ronavirus/

What were you expecting them to show? We already know you can be immune without having detectable antibodies. We can't say for sure that having antibodies means you can't be infected (especially if your antibodies are as a result of infection rather than vaccination).

As it says, it's of use to detect the spread of the virus across a population, not at an individual level to prove immunity

[GogLais]

There was an interesting article in the New Scientist a couple of weeks ago about immune systems - well interesting in as far as I understood it. Basically about innate and adaptive immunity to viruses. Isn’t there something about things like flu and shingles jabs boosting the innate immune system? One research team found significantly less Covid in flu vaccinated people. If anything good has come out of this it’s the increased knowledge that’s been acquired.

[tabascoboy]

45's and over can now book in my area - but the nearest vaccination centre is more than 12 miles away at the moment. Hopefully the local vaccination centre and the secondary one both in town that I was able to use re-opens soon.

[SaintK]

ONS reporting that we have hit 150,000+deaths. I thought that the figure was actually higher?

A total of 151,313 deaths have now occurred in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, the ONS said. I thought that figure had been hit some weeks back?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/202 ... is-shows

There's now three measures of deaths kicking around

1 - Deaths within 28 days of a positive test - 127,100 yesterday
2 - Deaths with Covid on the death cert (ONS MeEasurement) - 149,968 yesterday
3 - Excess deaths during the pandemic. No idea on the current number but could easily believe we passed 150K a while back

The ONS public measurement runs quite a few weeks behind. So what the Guardian was doing was fairly crude, taking the ONS measurement at the time then adding on other sources that had been published since the ONS date. What's published now is the official ONS measurement

Thanks for clarifying

[tc27]

US pausing J&J vaccine rollout over bloodclot concerns.

Interestingly J&J is another adenovirus vaccine.

[Sandstorm]

US pausing J&J vaccine rollout over bloodclot concerns.

Interestingly J&J is another adenovirus vaccine.

Issue 2 x Aspirins with each jab. Unless there's no money in Aspirin any more?

[TheNatalShark]

Edit: ^^^see above!^^^^

Sigh. US fear mongering now as well and ignoring the evidence, potentially giving into Biden's anti-Flemish/Walloonian rhetoric

Hopefully sharpishly conclude much ado about nothing, or little, and continue their fantastic rollout unabated. Or the article is entirely incorrect and FDA rolls on.

Few factual errors in the article, eg EMA did not conclude causal link. Pretty bad error I think we can agree. Also thought FDA agreed with Pfizer review that it's vaccine could be distributed in -20C chains rather than -70C, though not sure if that followed through into the actual distribution channels yet.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/p ... NkjtHukwHQ

[Sandstorm]

Edit: ^^^see above!^^^^

Sigh. US fear mongering now as well and ignoring the evidence, potentially giving into Biden's anti-Flemish/Walloonian rhetoric

Hopefully sharpishly conclude much ado about nothing, or little, and continue their fantastic rollout unabated. Or the article is entirely incorrect and FDA rolls on.

Few factual errors in the article, eg EMA did not conclude causal link. Pretty bad error I think we can agree. Also thought FDA agreed with Pfizer review that it's vaccine could be distributed in -20C chains rather than -70C, though not sure if that followed through into the actual distribution channels yet.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/p ... NkjtHukwHQ

All six recipients were women between the ages of 18 and 48.

I called it weeks ago! Stop giving adenovirus jabs to chicks!

[Calculon]

US pausing J&J vaccine rollout over bloodclot concerns.

Interestingly J&J is another adenovirus vaccine.

Got a link? I read that some sites temporarily paused vaccination but resumed after they realised that the adverse reactions were just normal side effects of the vaccine

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opin ... owns-68655

[tabascoboy]

The only thing I see is that there are "calls for a pause" - unless events have overtaken the article

US health authorities are calling for a pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, after reports of extremely rare blood clotting cases.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it was acting "out of an abundance of caution".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56733715

[Calculon]

hopefully only a temporary pause if they do go ahead with it

[eldanielfire]

Bad (if unsurprising) news - the director of the Chinese CDC publicly admitted today that the Chinese vaccines "aren't very good". A recent study of Sinovac vaccine as delivered in Chile shows just 3% efficacy after a single dose, and 56% after a second dose. There's no similar stufy yet on Sinopharm - China are claiming 76% after two doses but that now seems unlikely

Later, the poor man tried to walk back his remarks (doubtless after at least one arm had been broken)

For reference, Sinovac accounts for almost 90% of all vaccine delivered in Chile, and while 56% is definitely better than nothing, we need to get volumes of the higher efficacy vaccines up rapidly

That probably explains why Chile's vaccination rate, which is second only to Israel, appears to be having a negligible effect on its case and death rates.

Indeed.

[tabascoboy]

Bit confusing as this tweet states that there is a pause so maybe that happened overnight.