Coronavirus - UK
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Quite a scary article and background to why the changes weee made so quickly.
Tier 4 'may not be enough to contain Covid mutations: Record of scientists' Meeting with PM on Friday reveal dire warnings that prompted sudden lockdown
"Tier 4 'stay at home' orders may not be enough to prevent the new strain – which grew “exponentially” during the November lockdown – from spreading
Cases of the new mutation of Covid grew “exponentially” during the November lockdown, minutes from the Government’s Nervtag committee reveal, in papers which suggest Tier 4 measures may not be able to stop its march.
Records of their meeting last Friday detail the scientific findings which led the Prime Minister to order sweeping restrictions.
As well as suggesting that the new variant is 71 per cent more transmissible than the previous strain, the analysis suggests that the infectiousness could push up the R by as much as 0.93.
Overall, scientists from the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) concluded that the new variant could mean “an absolute increase in the R-value of between 0.39 to 0.93”.
But they warned that any estimates of the frequency of the variant – VUI-202012/01 – “may be underestimates” as the strain is difficult to sequence.
The paper warned: “It was noted that VUI-202012/01 has demonstrated exponential growth during a period when national lockdown measures were in place.”
Concerns about the threat posed by the new variant, which has fuelled soaring cases of Covid in London and the South East, led the Prime Minister to introduce a new “Tier 4” for such parts of the country, complete with orders to “stay home”.
But the documents suggest that such restrictions may not be able to hold back the spread of the virus, nor further mutations, given that the national lockdown did not hold them at bay.
Scientists said on Sunday that it will take at least two weeks to be able to show that the vaccine protects against the new strain, but said there was every reason to think it will.
The paper also warns that “work is ongoing to evaluate the ability of Lateral Flow Devices” to detect the variant.
Such tests are being widely rolled out across the country, especially in virus hotspots, but there has already been concern about their accuracy rates.
The paper also said “few cases” of the new variant had been reported internationally, but noted that other countries have lower sequencing capability than the UK.
Dr Susan Hopkins, from Public Health England, said the Government was alerted to the findings on Friday, prompting the Prime Minister’s announcement on Saturday.
She said the research also showed that those with the variant had a “higher viral strain” though this did not so appear to suggest it made them more ill, simply more contagious – reiterating calls for the public to “adhere to the new restrictions.”
Dr Hopkins said the strain had now been detected in every part of the country, so far with “very small numbers” as well as in Scotland and Wales.
And she urged those who fled areas shortly before they became Tier 4 to now stay home for 10 days to stop the spread of the new variant across the country.
“I hope that when they go to wherever they're moving to that they reduce their social contacts and don't contact anyone outside their household for the next 10 days as that will help minimise the risk of transmission to other parts of the country. We know that what we're trying to do is prevent more spread and rapid increases across the rest of the country,” she said.
“This virus will not transmit unless we're in contact with each other. And really close contact indoor spaces, reduce ventilation all helped drive the transmission of this virus, no matter what variant it is, and it becomes even more important that we all follow the rules to reduce the transmission of this variant,” Dr Hopkins added."
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How did it grow exponentially during Lockdown?
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Fucking idiots just don’t learn
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@Frank said in Coronavirus - UK:
Will the vaccines will be effective against this new strain of Covid in the U.K.?
The talk is that there is no reason why they shouldn’t. FWIW
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@Frank said in Coronavirus - UK:
Will the vaccines be effective against this new strain of Covid in the U.K.?
Virologist on BBC Radio explained vaccines will still be effective but may need to be tweaked. Apparently that's quite easy to do and happens all the time with 'flu vaccines.
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I think I've finally worked it out.
Back in my PhD days I attended the 1st International Congress on Skiing & Science in St Christoph, Austria.
The main speaker for the week long event was the Danish researcher Bengt Saltin.
He was instrumental in lots of the high performance sports physiology research and of advancing the field of study.
He was in his 40s at the time and over a couple of drinks later in the week I asked him what he was working on now/next.
His reply, pediatric nutrition and wellbeing.
Why I asked? Because I have young children.
And when I'm done with that, I'll move on to combating aging with science. Because my parents are close to 70 and I'm heading that way.
Long story short, the politicians and/or their parents, friends, supporters are either in or approaching the age of vulnerability from COVID-19 so they're shutting this country down until a vaccine can be rolled out effectively.
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@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - UK:
Sky news reporting complete and utter fear inducing fabrications this morning.
They should face charges.
It was funny watching BBC this morning and someone came on for an interview they obviously thought was going to be distraught and scathing. She was awesome, optimistic and upbeat. The interview got cut short.
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@Bones Not surprised.
I came home from the supermarket & my wife was pretty distraught. She' just seen on sky news that the government was very worried about the vaccine getting through to the UK from Belgium, France was stopping everything indefinitely & supermarkets were like to run out of food.
30 seconds of research showed the vaccine comes in by container, which is not changed at all, France making it clear they are working to figure out the best way to get things moving & various places sources saying that there is potential for broccoli and cauliflower shortage only from France.
So Sky just fabricated stuff from "government sources" to create fear and keep people watching. They need to face charges. Jail time.
BTW - Supermarkets ... it seems 4 lads on my street all got sent to go shopping this morning, so we did a compare and contrast as we were all going different places.
Sainsburies - No q's, everything stocked, no problems (where I went, fortunately)
Waitrose - long queue, lots of old people. Vege's thin on the ground, but otherwise fine
Tesco - no queues but very busy, some shelves a bit empty but basically fine
Costco - 90 min queue to get in, but once in loads of suppliesso all in all ... nothing too unusual a week out from the big fat red man.
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Don't read the Daily Mail, mate.
They were reporting that Pfizer vaccine stocks had run out and no new deliveries were due until March. Complete lies and Pfizer were forced to release a rebuttal.
Big headline that Pfizer vaccine stocks had been ruined. Turned out that only 200 doses were lost when a fridge failed. That's out of 2 million doses...
So Sky just fabricated stuff from "government sources" to create fear and keep people watching. They need to face charges. Jail time.
I'm starting to come round to the view that there really does need to be some sanction on the press spreading what are basically lies and causing panic in what is a national emergency.
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@MajorRage we did ours in Tesco about half 9 this morning. It's a superstore so plenty of room but was pretty busy. No shortage of anything we wanted. Big queues (cars and people) when we left though. Sainsbury's is opening 6am tomorrow and offering double points so my bro is going then but normal hours it'd be shit as the aisles are too small. Morrison's would be similar but is smaller again.
BBC were trying to suggest food shortages eh, and that it might be catastrophic but basically got laughed at by anyone they interviewed.
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@Bones said in Coronavirus - UK:
@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - UK:
Sky news reporting complete and utter fear inducing fabrications this morning.
They should face charges.
It was funny watching BBC this morning and someone came on for an interview they obviously thought was going to be distraught and scathing. She was awesome, optimistic and upbeat. The interview got cut short.
I watched Boris on the BBC. Nothing new really but he did reiterate that it’s only 20% of France traffic only and nothing will run out.
Of course in the wrap up the journalist said “well some of that 20% will be extremely important”.
It’s just straight bullshit.
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New Lockdown measures instituted across the UK on Saturday 19 December 2020 are already a success.
541 total deaths reported on 20 and 21 December compared with the projected 2,143 deaths if no measures had been taken.
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@MiketheSnow Winner winner, chicken dinner 😁
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@Catogrande said in Coronavirus - UK:
@MiketheSnow Winner winner, chicken dinner 😁
I was taking the piss