Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak

[Dr. Gonzo]

5 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

Hope it's not too bad 

Thanks pal.

It's not so bad, I can still taste (so far) - I just had a cough and a sore throat, so did my wife, our friend had some tests so he came around to leave them on our doorstep and we took our covid tests.

A bit gutted to have gone this long without infection and to finally get infected.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

7 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I tested positive just now 

Hope all is well with you. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

26 minutes ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Hope all is well with you. 

Thanks mate, I'm actually feeling a lot better compared to how I felt a few hours ago. Honestly, it just feels like a mild cold - if I had to compare it to anything. I think I'll be fine long-term.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

14 hours ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Well this must be on par with the non essential bollocks Drakeford spouted out last year.

If you don't work from home in Wales where possible from Monday, you'll be fined £60, with employers fined £1,000 as well.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59741680

Really can't make this up, but no doubt the sheep (pun intended) will lap this up like they always do with anything Drakeford does, especially the likes of Walesonline.

Forgot to mention that you can still go to the pub as well.

So earning a living and going to work can get you fined, but you can happily get pissed (for now at least) at a pub. Gotta love the backwards thinking of our lot.

[Ploughendplonker]

18 hours ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Well this must be on par with the non essential bollocks Drakeford spouted out last year.

If you don't work from home in Wales where possible from Monday, you'll be fined £60, with employers fined £1,000 as well.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59741680

Really can't make this up, but no doubt the sheep (pun intended) will lap this up like they always do with anything Drakeford does, especially the likes of Walesonline.

Why should the employee get fined anything at all? Also would be interesting to see what happened if someone was stopped in the street and fined and they just chucked it in the bin and walked off. 

[The Artful Dodger]

Several sources reporting that in fact, yes, Omicron is as inherently mild as we first thought. You wouldn’t know it in the UK though. The fear machine is in full overdrive. 

Edited December 22, 2021 by The Artful Dodger

[Toinho]

Well, announced today I will need my booster early next year to keep my job. After being told double vaxxed is the way to go… we have another mandate… not really sure how I feel about this right now. 

[MUFC]

Welsh pubs.

[LFCMike]

Had to get a PCR test today, woke up with a bit of a cough and sore throat. Headache this afternoon as well. Lateral flow was negative, hopefully PCR is as well

[Bluebird Hewitt]

2 hours ago, Ploughendplonker said:

Why should the employee get fined anything at all? Also would be interesting to see what happened if someone was stopped in the street and fined and they just chucked it in the bin and walked off. 

They shouldn't, but our lot apparently follow the science and 'have a plan, unlike England' (the customary jab to wank themselves off to).

When Drakeford was asked why individuals would be penalised for going to work at a time where money is tight, he completely dodged the question Boris style by saying that it was in place earlier in the pandemic (it wasn't) and mentioned about how employers would be fined if workplaces weren't safe and that it wasn't about penalising individuals (despite.....making.....the......fine.....legal?).

1 hour ago, Toinho said:

Well, announced today I will need my booster early next year to keep my job. After being told double vaxxed is the way to go… we have another mandate… not really sure how I feel about this right now. 

Starting to question this as well now. Like most, I've had three jabs in the space of 8 months and yet we're being told that this isn't enough. 

Do we have another booster in 3 months and will continue to do so (only have to see the fear and panic induced by the UK Governments over Omicron to see that)?

If we don't continue to have booster after booster after booster, are we immediately red flagged and people make it as difficult as possible?

A lot of questions for the future.

50 minutes ago, MUFC said:

Welsh pubs.

Any pics?

[Bluebird Hewitt]

4 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

Had to get a PCR test today, woke up with a bit of a cough and sore throat. Headache this afternoon as well. Lateral flow was negative, hopefully PCR is as well

That sucks to hear. Hope all is ok. 

[LFCMike]

3 minutes ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

That sucks to hear. Hope all is ok. 

Cheers

[Harry]

1 hour ago, Toinho said:

Well, announced today I will need my booster early next year to keep my job. After being told double vaxxed is the way to go… we have another mandate… not really sure how I feel about this right now. 

I honestly think mandates are fucked, especially now the vaccine seems to do so little to prevent infection for Omicron (but still plenty to prevent severe covid). This means a vaccinated person can get it almost as easily as an unvaccinated. So not so much the "community protection net" that we thought it was when we made the original mandates

But what to make of those at my work who haven't got the jab? They're professional engineers. If they look at the kookery and see a legitimate cause to refuse vaccination I can hardly trust their critical thinking skills or decision making on any more important matter.

[The Artful Dodger]

Vaccination clearly helps, and I’d recommend it to anyone. However, there’s become a hysteria that somehow unvaccinated people are a great danger, not only to themselves but everyone else. It’s a ludicrous state of affairs, especially given how large parts of the world remain unvaccinated through no fault of their own.

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

47 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

Had to get a PCR test today, woke up with a bit of a cough and sore throat. Headache this afternoon as well. Lateral flow was negative, hopefully PCR is as well

Fingers crossed pal

[Devil]

3 last week, 6 this week have tested positive for Covid at my workplace. 

People are dropping like flies. The main reason is transport, our lads travel round the country in welfare units and there is usually 6 to a van.

The Christmas holidays couldn't have come at a better time. Thankfully I travel alone so my only contact has come on sites.

[Inverted]

Got my booster this morning. Woke up early and walked to the centre for my 8:30 appointment, and ended up joining a queue stretching halfway round the building. 

I'm a big believer in the boosters being worthwhile and even I questioned for a moment if I really wanted to stand in the dark, in the 1c cold, wait, and be late for work to get my jab. Especially when we are likely going straight into lockdown anyway.

And if I wasn't lucky enough to have a job where I can start late and just compensate at the end of the day, I wouldn't have stayed. 

[The Artful Dodger]

2 minutes ago, Inverted said:

 

And if I wasn't lucky enough to have a job where I can start late and just compensate at the end of the day, I wouldn't have stayed. 

That’s not lucky, your work should be giving you the time off as medical. Get on to your Trade Union.

[RandoEFC+]

59 minutes ago, The Artful Dodger said:

Vaccination clearly helps, and I’d recommend it to anyone. However, there’s become a hysteria that somehow unvaccinated people are a great danger, not only to themselves but everyone else. It’s a ludicrous state of affairs, especially given how large parts of the world remain unvaccinated through no fault of their own.

 

The unvaccinated are a danger to the NHS in the event of another wave. The picture that's emerging as far as I'm concerned is getting jabs in these people's arms. I'm currently cautiously optimistic on the Omicron situation but as long as we have so many unvaccinated, the risk of another big wave or another new variant/complication hangs over us. I wouldn't condone making vaccination compulsory at the moment but as recent developments have shown us, these people are risking more than their own health. Restrictions have returned not to protect the vaccinated but to protect the NHS. It looks as if Omicron will not lead to as many cases becoming hospitalisations even in the unvaccinated but at the rate we're seeing new mutations, the picture could change again in a few months. It could even change next week.

The next plan the government has to come up with is getting unvaccinated people to change their minds. They've had most of a year to decide for themselves. I hate to say it because it goes against what I believe and how much I think government should have a say in our lives but it looks to me that there's a choice on the table. Either continue with the status quo and periodically have to impose advice or restrictions on the whole population every so often to protect the NHS, even those who get boosters as often as they're asked. Or they begin to impose restrictions on unvaccinated people only. I don't like the sound of either but from where I'm sitting, the second option or at least starting to move down that route is becoming unavoidable.

[Inverted]

I think we were briefly on a decent track with rolling out the boosters, keeping some mild restrictions and masks/distancing in place, and beginning to introduce vaccine passports. 

The restrictions were easy enough to live with that people couldn't complain too much, and they were much better than nothing. The vaccine passports were slowly bringing us toward a stage where we could set aside spaces where people could crowd together without worrying about the unvaccinated. Pretty much everyone except dedicated anti-vaxxers in turn felt that getting the boosters was worth it to keep us on that track.

Whatever consensus existed now seems to be coming apart. Most people are still in favour of some restrictions and support the booster drive, but a very large segment of the population, if not a majority, is also opposed to closing down any further. There's a very big and uneasy overlap, I feel.

[The Artful Dodger]

24 minutes ago, RondónEFC said:

The unvaccinated are a danger to the NHS in the event of another wave. The picture that's emerging as far as I'm concerned is getting jabs in these people's arms. I'm currently cautiously optimistic on the Omicron situation but as long as we have so many unvaccinated, the risk of another big wave or another new variant/complication hangs over us. I wouldn't condone making vaccination compulsory at the moment but as recent developments have shown us, these people are risking more than their own health. Restrictions have returned not to protect the vaccinated but to protect the NHS. It looks as if Omicron will not lead to as many cases becoming hospitalisations even in the unvaccinated but at the rate we're seeing new mutations, the picture could change again in a few months. It could even change next week.

The next plan the government has to come up with is getting unvaccinated people to change their minds. They've had most of a year to decide for themselves. I hate to say it because it goes against what I believe and how much I think government should have a say in our lives but it looks to me that there's a choice on the table. Either continue with the status quo and periodically have to impose advice or restrictions on the whole population every so often to protect the NHS, even those who get boosters as often as they're asked. Or they begin to impose restrictions on unvaccinated people only. I don't like the sound of either but from where I'm sitting, the second option or at least starting to move down that route is becoming unavoidable.

This is only true if you view COVID entirely through the eyes of the UK. I would say, rather than prioritising boosters for healthy young people here, we should be getting them out to large parts of the world with poor access to them and to people at far greater risk of being very ill. This prioritising of ourselves is party of the problem.

Edited December 22, 2021 by The Artful Dodger

[Danny]

4 hours ago, The Artful Dodger said:

Several sources reporting that in fact, yes, Omicron is as inherently mild as we first thought. You wouldn’t know it in the UK though. The fear machine is in full overdrive. 

It is still a threat to the NHS though, as the early leaks have suggested that whilst it maybe milder it isn't mild enough to prevent large numbers of hospitalizations due to the large amount of people in the UK who will get the virus. And those who do become seriously ill are at high risk of death.

https://nypost.com/2021/12/22/omicron-is-milder-than-delta-uk-study-finds/

 

 

[Stan]

8 minutes ago, Danny said:

It is still a threat to the NHS though, as the early leaks have suggested that whilst it maybe milder it isn't mild enough to prevent large numbers of hospitalizations due to the large amount of people in the UK who will get the virus. And those who do become seriously ill are at high risk of death.

 

Having said that, the hospitalisation rates currently don't seem to tally up (with the data we have so far) with it being a disease that can cause severe illness and strain on NHS.

I heard (and haven't verified it, don't shoot me) that only 5% of NHS beds are currently taken up with COVID patients (and I'm willing to bet a lot of these are unvaccinated...?). 

While it might be a threat to NHS, the optimist in me sees that if it's less severe or impacting than Delta, then it correlates to there being less of a chance that it does make people severely ill? 

[Danny]

14 minutes ago, Stan said:

Having said that, the hospitalisation rates currently don't seem to tally up (with the data we have so far) with it being a disease that can cause severe illness and strain on NHS.

I heard (and haven't verified it, don't shoot me) that only 5% of NHS beds are currently taken up with COVID patients (and I'm willing to bet a lot of these are unvaccinated...?). 

While it might be a threat to NHS, the optimist in me sees that if it's less severe or impacting than Delta, then it correlates to there being less of a chance that it does make people severely ill? 

The issue seems to be (just what I’ve read, not my opinion) that it being less likely to cause severe illness doesn’t negate the fact that the large amount of people who will contract it in this country could cause a pile up in hospitals.

I think the main issue is that no one really knows what the impact will be, but that there isn’t any data to suggest hospitalisations will definitely stay low, so whilst the data we have suggests hospitalisations increasing is a worst case scenario, it’s one we should be prepared for based on the sheer volume of people who will get the new variant.

[nudge]

7 minutes ago, Stan said:

I heard (and haven't verified it, don't shoot me) that only 5% of NHS beds are currently taken up with COVID patients (and I'm willing to bet a lot of these are unvaccinated...?). 

According to today's data, 7080 beds in total (including 745 mechanical ventilation beds) in England are taken up by confirmed COVID patients.

I couldn't find daily data for total bed occupancy, but here are the numbers from the latest monthly report:

So the 5% figure looks about right (but about 20% occupancy for mechanical ventilation beds).