How COVID-19 is affecting society

[Sid]

There is no plan to vaccinate more people because there isn't enough vaccine produced yet.
As far as I understand it, they won't even get to that million a day in the first weeks/months.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Your comments were very condescending. It should be obvious.

May I respectfully suggest that you get to know the natives here a bit better before you go passing judgment like that? I've known Beebo for quite a while, and have never known her to be condescending unless she had really good reason to be.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Seemed kinda obvious to me, but then again I walk around in life oblivious to other things so...

In case I was going to see my sister next major city over is what I’d have done leading up, then a long drive straight to, no overnight stops outside road emergency.

We idly considered a trip to an in province spa as well, and would have done the same lead up. Then we gave our heads a soak and stayed the hell home.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Sooo..that sister of mine that I love has lost her damn mind. She is going to visit my niece, her daughher and family for the holiday. I spoke to my niece and asked that her entire family be tested. My sister has COPD. I'm not big on losing her even if it is because she has been stupid and/or brainwashed. Besides she actually asked me if I thought that Biden was going to sell us out to China. I couldn't even with that. .She voted for HRC in 2106. I don't get it.

I , and other family members were invited. I said.,"Nope, love ya, but let's do this next year."

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Shopping impression from London last week:

 

[Innula Zenovka]

England’s Covid test and trace relying on inexperienced and poorly trained staff

Exclusive: contact tracers say ‘target-driven’ culture puts them under huge pressure to achieve results

www.theguardian.com

One reason why test and trace is such a fiasco in the UK -- it's contracted out to Serco, who have in turn subcontracted the bulk of it to call centres who are treating it like a telesales job.

 

[Sid]

The idea is good, but there is a small chance they start a little too late. The incubation time is from 5 to 12 days.

 

[Archer]

Should we have a new thread just for vaccine stuff?

From what I've read, the vaccine was designed by researchers within the first few weeks after the gene sequencing was done, as soon as China released the info back in January. The rest of the time has been spent in testing and trials. The advent of gene sequencing has greatly reduced the overall time frame for vaccine development itself, so that part was NOT rushed, it has just become much more efficient.

 

[Sid]

NL should follow suit in this IMHO. The climbing numbers become worrisome.

Yup, it is official, NL will go into a lockdown for 5 weeks like Germany. Schools close again, non essential shops as well. Only supermarkets, chemists, butchers, bakeries etc can stay open. Horeca was closed already. Theaters (who were limited to 30 visitors) museums, theme parks and zoos will have to close their business. Just as barbers and sex workers. Visitors at home will be limited to 2 per household, during the Christmas days 3. No fireworks with Silvester. Winter vacations and traveling discouraged.
Facemasks stay mandatory in public indoor spaces. Social distancing 1.5 meters, working from home (if possible) and hand extra sanitizing strongly advised.

It is what it is.
I'm kinda glad with this serious effort to slow down the virus.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Shopping impression from London last week:

Oi!

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Pressure grows on No 10 to prevent Christmas Covid surge

Downing Street says there are no plans to review guidance on household mixing or schools

www.theguardian.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Matt Hancock doesn't seem thrilled with the Christmas gift from Boris | John Crace

The health secretary, once so Tiggerish, thumped the dispatch box in frustration

www.theguardian.com

The Lib Dem Munira Wilson and the Conservative Tobias Ellwood were rather more forthright. It was clearly insane to risk the health of so many people, so soon after the government had imposed restrictions to mitigate both the load on the NHS and the number of deaths. Here Door Matt sounded genuinely conflicted: his voice became more brittle and he thumped the dispatch box in frustration. You got the feeling that if it was up to him he’d cancel Christmas right here and now.

But because Boris had promised the country the treat of allowing everyone the possibility of killing members of their family, the prime minister was determined not to let anyone down. Typical. You wait years for Johnson to keep a promise and he ends up keeping the one you wish he wouldn’t.

 

[Luisa Land]

Yup, it is official, NL will go into a lockdown for 5 weeks like Germany. Schools close again, non essential shops as well. Only supermarkets, chemists, butchers, bakeries etc can stay open. Horeca was closed already. Theaters (who were limited to 30 visitors) museums, theme parks and zoos will have to close their business. Just as barbers and sex workers. Visitors at home will be limited to 2 per household, during the Christmas days 3. No fireworks with Silvester. Winter vacations and traveling discouraged.
Facemasks stay mandatory in public indoor spaces. Social distancing 1.5 meters, working from home (if possible) and hand extra sanitizing strongly advised.

It is what it is.
I'm kinda glad with this serious effort to slow down the virus.

ah, that's too bad...
I thought that when the strict lockdown begins now here in Germany, we could just cross the border and do some extensive shopping.

No, I'm kidding, of course it's very sensible...

 

[Ashiri]

ah, that's too bad...
I thought that when the strict lockdown begins now here in Germany, we could just cross the border and do some extensive shopping.

No, I'm kidding, of course it's very sensible...

I won't be surprised if there are regular patrols on the roads by police just making sure people behave and stay at home.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Of course there will be patrols in Germany. As always though the devil is in the details.

The problem is that there are in total 16 states, and this type of police work is defined by every state and its police law. Every state has an own definition of "public space/area."

For example in Stuttgart during the dusk-till-dawn-curfew some car drivers were fined for being on the street. They put this before the court, and won their case. Why? Because when you are driving a car only your car is on the public space, but yourself are sitting in the car which is a private space, because not everybody can enter, and the curfew does not apply to private spaces.

 

[Sid]

I won't be surprised if there are regular patrols on the roads by police just making sure people behave and stay at home.

Up until now enforcement of the rules was not really strict over here. Government relies a lot on the common sense of people.

But by closing non essential shops, schools, theaters, theme parks, events, barbers, fitness centers, bars, cafes and restaurants the number of movements and contact moments will go down a lot. And the hope is that it will decrease the number of new infections and relax the pressure on hospitals as much as possible, to keep regular (non emergency) care up and running as much as possible.

And it seems to work, today there is a lot less traffic on the normally busy roads were I live next to.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

UK medical journals call for Christmas Covid rules to be reversed

Call echoed by head of hospital doctors’ union and in a letter from Keir Starmer to the PM

www.theguardian.com

Plans to relax Covid restrictions at Christmas must be reversed or many lives risk being lost, according to a rare joint editorial from two of the UK’s most eminent medical journals.

The government can no longer claim to be protecting the NHS if it goes ahead with “rash” plans to allow households to mix indoors over Christmas, the British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal have said.

“We believe the government is about to blunder into another major error that will cost many lives,” it says.

It warns that if current trends continue, there will be 19,000 Covid patients in English hospitals by New Year’s Eve – the same as at the peak of the first wave on 12 April. Those numbers do not factor in the impact of Christmas mixing between households and the freedom to travel to see family.

 

[Arkady Arkright]

Now this is true love... Man who rode jet ski from Scotland to Isle of Man to see girlfriend jailed for four weeks for breaking Covid-19 restrictions.