What freedoms are we really giving up if it keeps people safe though? It's just a vaccine to help everyone and then as long as you've had it, hopefully, you'll be able to do as you please regarding travelling, hospitality, events etc.

 

I don't get the big deal, unless I'm missing something??

Well I don't really know a great deal about it and I'm not trying to whip up a great conspiracy debate but from what I've read there's a cohort who believe the vaccine is in fact a nefarious tool which will cause more harm than good (at least to those who aren't realistically vulnerable to the virus itself). So by stripping people of their liberties they will be forced to take the vaccine to get them back. This is seen as a vehicle for a complete authoritarian government whereby they can do whatever they like in the future without public backlash.

If people can't sit at home for 2 weeks at a time without going anywhere, as the March-July lockdowns have shown, then we don't deserve any f***ing liberties.

 

We are f***ed either way but I'd prefer to be able to go to a club while waiting for my eventual demise from the vaccine complications, or whatever the trendiest conspiracy theory is at the moment.

Well I don't really know a great deal about it and I'm not trying to whip up a great conspiracy debate but from what I've read there's a cohort who believe the vaccine is in fact a nefarious tool which will cause more harm than good (at least to those who aren't realistically vulnerable to the virus itself). So by stripping people of their liberties they will be forced to take the vaccine to get them back. This is seen as a vehicle for a complete authoritarian government whereby they can do whatever they like in the future without public backlash.

 

Or you can look at it from a different angle, this will go one of two ways 1) A global mass vaccination programme creates a"firebreaker" which kills the covid or 2) it mutates in to something like the season flu, potentially with a higher mortality rate.

 

For everyone in their 20s and 30s that don't take the vaccine, you're lessening the chance of herd immunity. I'll gladly take it as I'd rather not take my chances (even though I suspect I have had it and been asymptomatic). Don't forget this is a virus which has caused the whole world to shut down at some point, countries will be shit scared of it outbreaking. For international travel to happen in the short-medium term I suspect there will be a global alliance of covid sharing.

 

Let's not forget that the vaccine is 90% effective. Older people will still catch covid even though they have been vaccinated and some will die.

You’re saying that now but did you ever think you would be in a lockdown for close to a year? That you’d be banned from seeing friends and family for so long? When the media start slowly introducing ideas in to our heads and get us familiar with new restrictions before they happen, it causes less public backlash when they’re finally introduced.

 

There’s already people on Twitter celebrating this idea and suggesting all workplaces should make sure their staff have this passport as well. It encourages more and more people to take the vaccine, then there’ll be another ‘new strain’ introduced which means we’ll need a new version of the vaccine and everyone will take it without questioning and that’s when the problems start.

 

Ban me, block me, laugh at me...whatever. It’s incredibly obvious that these conspiracy theorists were right and once we give up certain freedoms we will never get them back.

 

So do you believe all the people dying of COVID are t dying from it and it’s all bulls it??

The vaccine is pretty much the only route out of this nightmare, I'm not really in favour of a 'Covid passport' but can see it being introduced for international travel and would support this. To be honest, I'm fairly sure that the government aren't really either and recognise that such a thing would be near impossible to implement - it may be just a way of increasing compliance, although from what I've been able to deduce (and I haven't been in the anti-vaxxer echo chambers) the general public are generally pretty happy to have the vaccine.

 

 

The new variant potentially having an R of 5 means that you'd need >80% (1–1/R0) vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.. so we are probably going to need to vaccinate most of the population.

The vaccine is pretty much the only route out of this nightmare, I'm not really in favour of a 'Covid passport' but can see it being introduced for international travel and would support this. To be honest, I'm fairly sure that the government aren't really either and recognise that such a thing would be near impossible to implement - it may be just a way of increasing compliance, although from what I've been able to deduce (and I haven't been in the anti-vaxxer echo chambers) the general public are generally pretty happy to have the vaccine.

 

 

The new variant potentially having an R of 5 means that you'd need >80% (1–1/R0) vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.. so we are probably going to need to vaccinate most of the population.

Surely the proportion of the population that needs to be vaccinated is also a function of its level of effectiveness. Whatever the figure required, it is the case that it isn't necessary for 100% of the population to be vaccinated. As long as enough of us are, it will be acceptable for some people not to be.

 

It is, though, important that the take-up is high. Until recently, the UK was considered to be free of measles due to the high number of people who had been vaccinated. Thanks to Dr Wakefield and the people who believed his lies, take-up gradually fell and the UK lost its measles-free status.

 

I posted this back at the beginning of this madness but it is worth posting again. For a brilliant simulation of the spread of a virus and the effectiveness of a vaccine, watch an extract from Hannah Fry's Royal Institution lecture broadcast, coincidentally, just as this was starting to blow up in China.

 

 

The relevant bit starts about 22 minutes in.

If people can't sit at home for 2 weeks at a time without going anywhere, as the March-July lockdowns have shown, then we don't deserve any f***ing liberties.

 

We are f***ed either way but I'd prefer to be able to go to a club while waiting for my eventual demise from the vaccine complications, or whatever the trendiest conspiracy theory is at the moment.

It’s......been ten months. And counting. Where are you pulling ‘two weeks’ from?

I mean even if you had two doses of the vaccine though it is still unwise to go and have parties with others who have been vaccinated, who knows yet how far the South African variant that is believed to possibly be resistant to the vaccine will spread in the UK from those two cases that were discovered in the UK (and probably other undiscovered cases).

 

Are you just expecting people to give up fun for the rest of eternity?

Sky News saying that police are clamping down harder on Britons breaking lockdown. Fines issued included £60 for a Welsh couple who travelled 12 miles to visit her mum in an elderly persons home and just spoke through a window with the staff's permission. A woman who drove 100 miles across three counties to find a McDonalds open as she was craving a burger. :rolleyes:

 

I've sympathy with the former and don't think they should be fined but not the latter. Couldn't she make a burger at home? The Welsh couple are appealing as visits to care homes are allowed "for compassionate reasons" and they want the law clarifying.

 

Also a man and woman were fined £200 each after travelling from Essex to Ashford, Kent, to pick up a toy remote-controlled car they'd bought on Ebay. Wife's bought something but you wait for it to come in the post.

 

Another man was fined after travelling over 110 miles from York to Leicester, via Birmingham, just to visit a friend "for a few cans of beer" When asked if he knew we were in lockdown he said "of course I do"

 

Anyone know why some are fined £60 and some £200 then?

Edited January 13, 20214 yr by common sense

Different countries with different laws.

All three devolved parliaments have set the fines lower i believe. I understand that in Scotland it relates to differences between Scots Law and Common Law in operation in E&W in terms of how fixed penalties and that are regulated

It’s......been ten months. And counting. Where are you pulling ‘two weeks’ from?

I just mean self-isolation periods of two weeks after the contact or if you're testing positive.

Am not sure if my wife going down to our late daughter's niche, where her ashes ar,e at the undertakers, with flowers, as she's done every week without fail since she died, is considered necessary. Yes they're open to arrange funerals and they say "oh you're alright, just wear a mask" That's not the point if she gets a fine though. They won't pay it!! Arranging a funeral is fine but not sure about just visiting a where ashes are. She's going tomorrow again with a friend.

Edited January 13, 20214 yr by common sense

Over 200,000 people in the UK received their 1st vaccine dose yesterday, up from around 150k the day before. Good that the numbers are going up, but would need to get closer to 300k a day to get everyone high risk started by mid February.

The confusion over the care homes needs clearing up as the policewoman said she could fine them but they say it's allowed for compassionate reasons. They want to go again this weekend but without getting fined. Is just wanting to see her a compassionate reason?

Edited January 13, 20214 yr by common sense

Surely the proportion of the population that needs to be vaccinated is also a function of its level of effectiveness. Whatever the figure required, it is the case that it isn't necessary for 100% of the population to be vaccinated. As long as enough of us are, it will be acceptable for some people not to be.

 

It is, though, important that the take-up is high. Until recently, the UK was considered to be free of measles due to the high number of people who had been vaccinated. Thanks to Dr Wakefield and the people who believed his lies, take-up gradually fell and the UK lost its measles-free status.

 

I posted this back at the beginning of this madness but it is worth posting again. For a brilliant simulation of the spread of a virus and the effectiveness of a vaccine, watch an extract from Hannah Fry's Royal Institution lecture broadcast, coincidentally, just as this was starting to blow up in China.

 

 

The relevant bit starts about 22 minutes in.

 

Yes, that's true - EDIT - obviously the efficacy needs to be > than the required level for herd immunity which if R really is as high as 5 is quite worrying for the Oxford vaccine.

 

I remember watching that lecture at the time and thinking it was an excellent way of demonstrating vaccines and herd immunity - little did I realise how apposite it would turn out to be !

Another daily record of 1,564 deaths. Hope we never get 2,000 in just one day as it would be horrendous. Not that the current figures aren't of course.

Another daily record of 1,564 deaths. Hope we never get 2,000 in just one day as it would be horrendous. Not that the current figures aren't of course.

 

The good news is that new cases are −7% week-on-week (with sustained falls in the SE where cases previously were growing at an alarming rate) so we should begin to see deaths begin to drop off soon, but utterly dreadful figures all the same. : (

Over 200,000 people in the UK received their 1st vaccine dose yesterday, up from around 150k the day before. Good that the numbers are going up, but would need to get closer to 300k a day to get everyone high risk started by mid February.

 

We will scale up pretty quickly, this is the one thing I am confident of. If we miss the mid-Feb target it won't be too far away. More mass vaccination centres are due to be announced at the end of the week.

 

Pretty sure I have read earlier that the scientists now reckon the "UK variant" isn't 70% more transmissable and is more like 30-40% which is something. Cases are coming down, but I suspect we will have a day of 2,000 deaths over the next couple of weeks.