London figures are massively skewed….case rates 2 or 3 or more times higher than most of the rest of the country, vaccination rates way lower………you can filter by area on the daily update site. It’s quite staggering.
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Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread
- Thread starter GingerBeerMan
- Start date
London figures are massively skewed….case rates 2 or 3 or more times higher than most of the rest of the country, vaccination rates way lower………you can filter by area on the daily update site. It’s quite staggering.
Randy McNob
> > > > > > Cardiff > > > > >
- Jun 13, 2020
- 4,724
[tweet]1473369651920916487[/tweet]
DT…..
I'm fed up with the unvaccinated rump who risk pushing us back into lockdown
Many of our difficulties are down to the failures of our nationalised health service, but the unjabbed don’t help
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/21/fed-unvaccinated-rump-risk-pushing-us-back-lockdown/
If the country is experiencing a distinct sense of Yuletide déjà vu, it is hardly surprising. In the run-up to last Christmas the Government issued a warning that a new variant of Covid-19 was “out of control” and that people should stay at home and not mix over the festive period. Dozens of countries banned flights from the UK and began imposing lockdowns. It is astonishing to think that 12 months later, with millions of people vaccinated, many three times, we are back almost to where we started.
The variant on the rampage last December was the Kent strain; now it is omicron. Precisely the same debate is being had now as a year ago, with the same participants making the same forecasts and demanding the same restrictions.
Scientific advisers take to the airwaves in “a personal capacity” to pile pressure on ministers to order an immediate lockdown because of the rapid spread of the mutation. This time, they have been blocked by a Cabinet unwilling to plunge the country into further restrictions without more information about the trajectory of omicron – but for how much longer?
In any case, we are in a lockdown in all but name. Here I am once again sitting at home, communicating remotely with colleagues and wondering when this madness will ever end. After almost two years, three jabs, a dose of Covid and a test that showed high levels of antibodies, the idea that I, along with millions of others, have to undergo a form of house arrest is depressing beyond words.
But I am more than downhearted. I am getting very fed up with a group of people who appear to be disproportionately responsible for this state of affairs. They are the elephant in the Covid room, about whom we talk in hushed tones or ignore entirely: the unvaccinated.
We hear them mentioned but with little in the way of follow-up. Ministers and medics urge them to get the jab but not many are listening, even if some are now coming forward and should do so without fear of being stigmatised.
We face another lockdown because of the threat to the NHS posed by the rapid spread of omicron. Already businesses have been trashed by self-imposed restraints, requiring yet more help from a depleted Treasury. The knock-on effects have been calamitous for pubs, cafes and restaurants that rely on pre-Christmas trade to bolster their cash flow into the new year.
The panacea, we are told, is to get boosted. Yet by definition the refuseniks will not get a third jab when they have not been vaccinated in the first place. I understand if someone does not want to get jabbed. It is their body and they are entitled to say they do not want to be medicated. We cannot force them to. But if the consequence of that decision is to place others at risk then it cannot be allowed to pass by default. We all understand, too, that some people for a variety of medical reasons cannot have the vaccine.
In order to persuade a greater take-up of jabs, the Government wanted to bring in vaccine passports for certain settings but watered these down to include proof of a negative test, which rather defeats the object. Scores of Tory MPs voted against even this on the grounds that such a measure was illiberal.
But the Conservative Party has never been a libertarian movement. It is supposed to believe that with rights come responsibilities. Opponents of heavy-handed state action against the citizen often quote J S Mill’s famous dictum: “The only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilised society, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” I agree with that. I don’t see why I should have restrictions placed on me when I am unlikely to cause harm to others.
But that is not necessarily true of the unvaccinated. According to Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, nine in 10 Covid patients needing the most care are unjabbed. A similar point was made by Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, who said the “vast, vast majority” of seriously ill people were unjabbed, identifying “black Londoners, Muslim Londoners, Jewish Londoners and eastern European Londoners” as groups that are proving particularly resistant. Why is this?
In the absence of comprehensive official data, we are having to rely on anecdotal evidence, but I know several hospital consultants who tell of seriously ill patients being transferred to critical care units who are still unvaccinated, taking up emergency beds needed for other patients.
One told me that so far he had not seen anyone in intensive care who had been jabbed, suggesting that even if vaccinated people are getting sick, they’re not getting as sick. This should be good news, even with the onset of omicron, and yet here we are again facing a lockdown to preserve the NHS from collapse.
Are we going to do something about this? Some other countries have imposed restrictions on the movements of the unvaccinated in an effort to get them to take up the offer. Singapore is charging unjabbed patients for treatment because they “make up a sizeable majority of those who require intensive in-patient care and disproportionately contribute to the strain on our healthcare resources”. Imagine trying to do that here, where we tiptoe around the subject even though it has become the key issue that needs to be addressed.
The Government needs to pitch its information campaign directly at these people, not entreat them just in passing. GPs should identify who they are and warn them of the consequences and distribute antiviral medicines, assuming they will take them.
Special pop-up Covid wards could be established for seriously ill patients, although there is the problem of staffing, especially with the absurdly long isolation period required for anyone testing positive.
The truth is that a good deal of our difficulties are down to the inability of a nationalised health system to adapt, plan and cope, but that is not going to change overnight. Moreover, we were never going to get 100 per cent vaccination because the disease is not scary enough – unlike, say, smallpox, which was a death sentence for many. We could live with Covid without worrying about a collapsing health care system if more people were inoculated.
If something isn’t done to improve take-up dramatically, next Christmas it could be déjà vu all over again.
I'm fed up with the unvaccinated rump who risk pushing us back into lockdown
Many of our difficulties are down to the failures of our nationalised health service, but the unjabbed don’t help
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/21/fed-unvaccinated-rump-risk-pushing-us-back-lockdown/
If the country is experiencing a distinct sense of Yuletide déjà vu, it is hardly surprising. In the run-up to last Christmas the Government issued a warning that a new variant of Covid-19 was “out of control” and that people should stay at home and not mix over the festive period. Dozens of countries banned flights from the UK and began imposing lockdowns. It is astonishing to think that 12 months later, with millions of people vaccinated, many three times, we are back almost to where we started.
The variant on the rampage last December was the Kent strain; now it is omicron. Precisely the same debate is being had now as a year ago, with the same participants making the same forecasts and demanding the same restrictions.
Scientific advisers take to the airwaves in “a personal capacity” to pile pressure on ministers to order an immediate lockdown because of the rapid spread of the mutation. This time, they have been blocked by a Cabinet unwilling to plunge the country into further restrictions without more information about the trajectory of omicron – but for how much longer?
In any case, we are in a lockdown in all but name. Here I am once again sitting at home, communicating remotely with colleagues and wondering when this madness will ever end. After almost two years, three jabs, a dose of Covid and a test that showed high levels of antibodies, the idea that I, along with millions of others, have to undergo a form of house arrest is depressing beyond words.
But I am more than downhearted. I am getting very fed up with a group of people who appear to be disproportionately responsible for this state of affairs. They are the elephant in the Covid room, about whom we talk in hushed tones or ignore entirely: the unvaccinated.
We hear them mentioned but with little in the way of follow-up. Ministers and medics urge them to get the jab but not many are listening, even if some are now coming forward and should do so without fear of being stigmatised.
We face another lockdown because of the threat to the NHS posed by the rapid spread of omicron. Already businesses have been trashed by self-imposed restraints, requiring yet more help from a depleted Treasury. The knock-on effects have been calamitous for pubs, cafes and restaurants that rely on pre-Christmas trade to bolster their cash flow into the new year.
The panacea, we are told, is to get boosted. Yet by definition the refuseniks will not get a third jab when they have not been vaccinated in the first place. I understand if someone does not want to get jabbed. It is their body and they are entitled to say they do not want to be medicated. We cannot force them to. But if the consequence of that decision is to place others at risk then it cannot be allowed to pass by default. We all understand, too, that some people for a variety of medical reasons cannot have the vaccine.
In order to persuade a greater take-up of jabs, the Government wanted to bring in vaccine passports for certain settings but watered these down to include proof of a negative test, which rather defeats the object. Scores of Tory MPs voted against even this on the grounds that such a measure was illiberal.
But the Conservative Party has never been a libertarian movement. It is supposed to believe that with rights come responsibilities. Opponents of heavy-handed state action against the citizen often quote J S Mill’s famous dictum: “The only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilised society, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” I agree with that. I don’t see why I should have restrictions placed on me when I am unlikely to cause harm to others.
But that is not necessarily true of the unvaccinated. According to Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, nine in 10 Covid patients needing the most care are unjabbed. A similar point was made by Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, who said the “vast, vast majority” of seriously ill people were unjabbed, identifying “black Londoners, Muslim Londoners, Jewish Londoners and eastern European Londoners” as groups that are proving particularly resistant. Why is this?
In the absence of comprehensive official data, we are having to rely on anecdotal evidence, but I know several hospital consultants who tell of seriously ill patients being transferred to critical care units who are still unvaccinated, taking up emergency beds needed for other patients.
One told me that so far he had not seen anyone in intensive care who had been jabbed, suggesting that even if vaccinated people are getting sick, they’re not getting as sick. This should be good news, even with the onset of omicron, and yet here we are again facing a lockdown to preserve the NHS from collapse.
Are we going to do something about this? Some other countries have imposed restrictions on the movements of the unvaccinated in an effort to get them to take up the offer. Singapore is charging unjabbed patients for treatment because they “make up a sizeable majority of those who require intensive in-patient care and disproportionately contribute to the strain on our healthcare resources”. Imagine trying to do that here, where we tiptoe around the subject even though it has become the key issue that needs to be addressed.
The Government needs to pitch its information campaign directly at these people, not entreat them just in passing. GPs should identify who they are and warn them of the consequences and distribute antiviral medicines, assuming they will take them.
Special pop-up Covid wards could be established for seriously ill patients, although there is the problem of staffing, especially with the absurdly long isolation period required for anyone testing positive.
The truth is that a good deal of our difficulties are down to the inability of a nationalised health system to adapt, plan and cope, but that is not going to change overnight. Moreover, we were never going to get 100 per cent vaccination because the disease is not scary enough – unlike, say, smallpox, which was a death sentence for many. We could live with Covid without worrying about a collapsing health care system if more people were inoculated.
If something isn’t done to improve take-up dramatically, next Christmas it could be déjà vu all over again.
Posting this here to avoid cluttering up the Good News thread, but isn't this a false comparison given the lag between infection and hospitalisation which has long since been established? So we wouldn't expect to see these infection numbers properly mapping onto hospitalisations until the new year?
jordanseagull
Well-known member
- Feb 11, 2009
- 4,151
Yes, these give the necessary perspective.
As mentioned elsewhere, the ‘hospitalisation’ rate in London is skewed. It’d be far more accurate to describe it as ‘people in hospital with a current Covid infection’…’hospitalised’ makes it sound as though they’ve all been hospitalised by their covid infection.
As of last weekend, 111 of the recent 167 Covid+ patients in hospital were admitted to hospital for other reasons, incidentally tested positive either on arrival or during their stay, and are not being primarily treated for Covid. Seriously important perspective needed.
Is it PotG?
Thrifty non-licker
There is, but infection case numbers in Denmark have been rising steadily since early October...............https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/denmark/#graph-cases-daily
Weststander
Well-known member
Omicron was reported as the dominant strain in London on 15 Dec, in Scotland on 17 Dec, it’s been mentioned as likely to be the dominant strain in England by mid Dec (now!).
With an average 5 day lag between infection and a positive test, we should already be seeing widespread hospitalisations across England and Scotland, not waiting until the New Year. Unless, in the main, Omicron results in far less severe illness in a triple jabbed vulnerable population.
Subject to the usual two provisos:
1. Hospitalisations from a very large and growing infected number, may be a significant number.
2. Infected NHS staff absences will hurt.
dsr-burnley
Well-known member
- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,615
Average daily cases in Denmark was 500 up to mid-October, reached 2,000 on 7th November, 4,000 on 26th November, 6,000 on 11th December, 8,000 on 17th December, 10,000 (all but) on 21st December.
Average daily deaths was consistently about 3 until 7th November, rose to 10 by 29th November, and has stuck on 10 ever since.
The number of people in hospital has risen by a factor of 5 since November, but remember that if the number of people with covid rises, then so does the number in hospital rise by the same factor simply by law of averages. For example, if 1% of the population has a tattoo then you would expect 1% of patients in hospital to have tattoos. If tattoos become fashionable and 10% of the population has them, the number of patients in hospital with tattoos will rise to 10%, but it's not because they have tattoos.
If the proportion of hospitalisations to cases falls, then it's a sign that the new cases are less serious than the old ones.
Seasider78
Well-known member
- Nov 14, 2004
- 6,011
I think we will see the tide turning on those individuals who have chosen to remain unvaccinated in 2022. In France they are already moving in January to ‘vaccination passes’ which will no longer be able to be obtained from just lateral flow test certification.
pb21
Well-known member
- Apr 23, 2010
- 6,681
There does seem to be a lot of anecdotal 'evidence' coming out (TBF, some empirical evidence too) that this Omicron variant is just a 'flash in the pan', or possibly better.
I would love to know what the likes of Whitty and Valence think about this at the moment.
I would love to know what the likes of Whitty and Valence think about this at the moment.
I think the change of isolation / LFT rules + Boris not announcing any measures before Christmas probably tell us.
macbeth
Dismembered
UKHSA finds that omicron IS causing milder disease than Delta (though not yet clear if it is intrinsically so)[tweet]1473556411946717184[/tweet]
I think so.......someone has already started....
[tweet]1473613727127814147[/tweet]
God it's refreshing to hear someone with some sort of authority saying it rather than pussyfooting around it like so many of them do.
Totally agree with Tony Blair and the piece in the Telegraph. Someone I know works in health - refuses to get vaccinated. So does her husband. Both caught covid. Husband ends up in hospital with pneumonia. That chap has taken up a bed, that if he was vaccinated chances are he wouldnt need. That bed could be used by someone else.
Its these people that are holding the country to ransom. I really wish the Govt would bring in covid passports for pubs, nightclubs, football etc. No LFT (some form of digital exemption for those that medically cant be vaccinated). Spot fines for individuals and even bigger fines for organisations that dont bother to check - much in the same way that the ban on smoking was initially administered.
If airports can manage checking of covid status before people get on planes, then I really do not see why nightclubs, theatres cant do the same.
Once people find out that they cant accept the benefits of a free society without showing responsibility to others, then that will be the point they get vaccinated.
Its these people that are holding the country to ransom. I really wish the Govt would bring in covid passports for pubs, nightclubs, football etc. No LFT (some form of digital exemption for those that medically cant be vaccinated). Spot fines for individuals and even bigger fines for organisations that dont bother to check - much in the same way that the ban on smoking was initially administered.
If airports can manage checking of covid status before people get on planes, then I really do not see why nightclubs, theatres cant do the same.
Once people find out that they cant accept the benefits of a free society without showing responsibility to others, then that will be the point they get vaccinated.
Independent SAGE are saying that the Vaccine doesn’t stop you catching omicrom. So what difference are the unvaxxed making exactly?
“Omicron is extremely transmissible. If anyone in a moderately-sized social gathering indoors (e.g., ten people meeting up in a house for Christmas dinner) has Omicron, most people are likely to become infected, regardless of vaccine status. “
https://www.independentsage.org/making-a-plan-for-household-mixing-december-2021/
(Avoidably) filling up hospital beds and dying as far as reports indicate.
Taking up 90% of ICU beds used for Covid?
This is like saying seatbelts don't prevent you having car crashes so why make it illegal to not wear them. The point being if you have a crash you're considerably less likely to be seriously injured / die.