Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[beorhthelm]

What's the issue with the army here? Surely they have all the required paperwork. There must be hundreds of medics knocking about the country that can be trained quite easily?

Or am I just being silly?

not silly at all. need to get DBS checked and complete all the admin training first, its almost as if some dont want them involved.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

not silly at all. need to get DBS checked and complete all the admin training first, its almost as if some dont want them involved.

https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1345875804987813888?s=20

Hancock refused to start with

 

[A1X]

Apologies if fixtures

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[elwheelio]

Apologies if fixtures

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That makes very grim reading. As does the suggestion that the vaccines may not be effective against the "South African" variant. Stay safe everyone.

 

[Notters]

Lots of talk of tier 5 etc but looking at the figures on the Guardian map they do seem to be falling in Kent and London where tier 4 has been in place for a while?

 

[Rugrat]

Lots of talk of tier 5 etc but looking at the figures on the Guardian map they do seem to be falling in Kent and London where tier 4 has been in place for a while?

They should really stop fukkin around with these tiers and chuck the works at vaccine

 

[Nobby]

But Hancock isn't supposed to run the department. Hancock said "get volunteers to do the vaccinations", and it's the civil service head of department (whose job it is to run the place) who has decided that it can't be done because not enough of the volunteers have got their radicalisation certificate.

If a Labour politician had said we want a volunteer vaccination service, would it have worked?

PHE has 5,000 workers, and as the state of preparedness in March shows, not many of them were working on pandemics up to then. That gives them plenty of staff now that other projects are on the back burner. I can't imagine the "child obesity team" is doing much in schools, for example. All is subordinate to coronavirus at the moment, including - one hopes - PHE.

I’m sorry I’m not trying to be objectionable

If he doesn’t have overall responsibility and he is not supposed to run the department, what does he actually do, (apart from blubbing a bit and lying a bit obviously).

 

[Nobby]

That makes very grim reading. As does the suggestion that the vaccines may not be effective against the "South African" variant. Stay safe everyone.

Who is saying that the vaccines are not effective against the South African variant?
Haven’t seen that anywhere yet

 

[A1X]

Who is saying that the vaccines are not effective against the South African variant?
Haven’t seen that anywhere yet

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[dsr-burnley]

I’m sorry I’m not trying to be objectionable

If he doesn’t have overall responsibility and he is not supposed to run the department, what does he actually do, (apart from blubbing a bit and lying a bit obviously).

"Running the department" is the responsibility of the senior civil servant - the Humphrey Appleby. The minister sets policy, the civil service carries it out. Hancock (Hacker) could perhaps have seen earlier that the civil service was putting obstacles in the way of volunteer vaccinators, but the person or system who actually put the obstacles there was the responsibility of the Humphrey Appleby character.

Hancock (Hacker) sets the policy, and Appleby (or whoever it si in real life) sees that it is done or explains that it can't be done. It's when Appleby tells Hancock that it will be done but then doesn't do it, that Hancock looks a proper Charlie. Which is happening quite a lot. I don't believe Hancock is talking to the press and saying what will be done, and lying because he knows it won't be done; there's no benefit to him or anyone else in doing that. I reckon he is being misled by his civil service that it making promises it can't keep.

Hancock has responsibility for seeing that the department runs OK, and I suspect that Humphrey Appleby is heading for early retirement because (no matter how incompetent Hancock is) so is Appleby. But I reckon it's deeper than that - the Home Office has been showing for years that it is incompetent - and I reckon there is a malaise in the Civil Service that needs rooting out. Though who among these current politicians can do it, I have no idea.

 

[BBassic]

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Happy f**king New Year everybody!

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

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Couple of SA I work with with family back in SA seem to be saying they are not worried about it and think its just Hancock trying to make SA mutation trend instead of UK

 

[Poojah]

Happy f**king New Year everybody!

The scientific consensus seems to be that if the South African variant (or any other emerging variant for that matter) is not receptive to existing vaccines, that it is more a case of spending weeks refining them rather than another year developing something from scratch.

My worry however is that if we have a situation whereby the virus is spreading incredibly rapidly, what happens if we end up with four or five or six variants which each require a tailored approach. I've no idea how likely that is, but it's not a pleasant thought.

 

[BBassic]

The scientific consensus seems to be that if the South African variant (or any other emerging variant for that matter) is not receptive to existing vaccines, that it is more a case of spending weeks refining them rather than another year developing something from scratch.

My worry however is that if we have a situation whereby the virus is spreading incredibly rapidly, what happens if we end up with four or five or six variants which each require a tailored approach. I've no idea how likely that is, but it's not a pleasant thought.

That's encouraging, thanks

I'm actually less doom and gloom than my post would imply but I am nervous about it all collapsing when we're within farting distance of happier times.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

The scientific consensus seems to be that if the South African variant (or any other emerging variant for that matter) is not receptive to existing vaccines, that it is more a case of spending weeks refining them rather than another year developing something from scratch.

My worry however is that if we have a situation whereby the virus is spreading incredibly rapidly, what happens if we end up with four or five or six variants which each require a tailored approach. I've no idea how likely that is, but it's not a pleasant thought.

Just had a quick look over the news channels in South Africa and none seem to mention it other than the story from the UK, Do you think if that if they were that worried it would be front page news like it is here?

 

[crodonilson]

The scientific consensus seems to be that if the South African variant (or any other emerging variant for that matter) is not receptive to existing vaccines, that it is more a case of spending weeks refining them rather than another year developing something from scratch.

My worry however is that if we have a situation whereby the virus is spreading incredibly rapidly, what happens if we end up with four or five or six variants which each require a tailored approach. I've no idea how likely that is, but it's not a pleasant thought.

Which is all the more reason why we need a couple of months of incredibly strict measures whereby everyone stays at home in their houses unless absolutely necessary. We are potentially a few months away from possibly all but eliminating the deaths it causes, at least down to very manageable levels lower than flu or we could be right back to square one and living with this and constant lockdowns and small releases of lockdowns for many years to come.

 

[Nobby]

"Running the department" is the responsibility of the senior civil servant - the Humphrey Appleby. The minister sets policy, the civil service carries it out. Hancock (Hacker) could perhaps have seen earlier that the civil service was putting obstacles in the way of volunteer vaccinators, but the person or system who actually put the obstacles there was the responsibility of the Humphrey Appleby character.

Hancock (Hacker) sets the policy, and Appleby (or whoever it si in real life) sees that it is done or explains that it can't be done. It's when Appleby tells Hancock that it will be done but then doesn't do it, that Hancock looks a proper Charlie. Which is happening quite a lot. I don't believe Hancock is talking to the press and saying what will be done, and lying because he knows it won't be done; there's no benefit to him or anyone else in doing that. I reckon he is being misled by his civil service that it making promises it can't keep.

Hancock has responsibility for seeing that the department runs OK, and I suspect that Humphrey Appleby is heading for early retirement because (no matter how incompetent Hancock is) so is Appleby. But I reckon it's deeper than that - the Home Office has been showing for years that it is incompetent - and I reckon there is a malaise in the Civil Service that needs rooting out. Though who among these current politicians can do it, I have no idea.

You’re Dominic Cummings - come on out with it!
[emoji106]

 

[A1X]

Couple of SA I work with with family back in SA seem to be saying they are not worried about it and think its just Hancock trying to make SA mutation trend instead of UK

I'd like to think he's not that petty, but I have a horrible feeling this might not be far from the truth

 

[Billy the Fish]

Couple of SA I work with with family back in SA seem to be saying they are not worried about it and think its just Hancock trying to make SA mutation trend instead of UK

I assume Hancock is just repeating what the scientists are saying.

Sir John Bell, regius professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, said his "gut feeling" was that the vaccines already on stream would be effective against the new UK strain, which was first identified in Kent.

But he added: "I don't know about the South African strain – I think that's a big question mark

The problem with this situation is that Scientists are evidence based so will never commit until something is proved. Journalists love to use this non-committal as licence to throw out some scary headlines.

 

[Billy the Fish]

I'd like to think he's not that petty, but I have a horrible feeling this might not be far from the truth

See above. If Hancock was putting out these statements off his own back he'd be called out by the science community within seconds.