As not all of us live in the UK, might be interesting to hear how COVID is going in your home country.
I’m in Ireland where despite the EU medical big wigs declaring the AZ vaccine safe, the government is claiming it still needs more time to weigh up whether or not to approve the drug or not.
In December last year, our R rate was pretty much the lowest in Europe. Then came the government’s craven capitulation to the “We have to save Xmas” lobby and the rate shot up faster than Piers Morgan’s blood pressure after a Megan Markle TV interview.
Having brought the rate back down with another lockdown only to see infections start to rise again, the government now seems to be considering extending restrictions until June – and possibly even July. All of which is not proving terribly popular.
Given that there are many more cars on the roads than there were during Lockdown !.0 and shops that are anything but vital are trading quite openly, flouting of the rules now seems to be worryingly widespread. This does not bode terribly well.
How are things shaping up where you live?
Things are pretty good here in Brisbane. A single community transmission case is frontline news across Australia and god knows when our last fatality was. Almost all the active cases here are returned overseas travellers in quarantine. Almost all of Australia’s recorded fatalities (900ish) were in the outbreak in Victoria last year. I think Queensland has only had 5 or 6 fatalities in total during the entire event.
We have only had the initial lockdown for a couple of weeks and then a two-day lockdown in January. Apart from the odd tracking code in a restaurant, it’s been pretty much life as normal for most of the last year. The population is pretty upbeat, and in all, I’m proud and a little surprised with how compliant and sensible the population has been. I also think that a lot of businesses have learned the positive benefits of letting people work from home for at least part of the week, and I think this had been transformational for many of us.
I look with horror, sympathy and sadness at what others have had to go through across the globe, and can only think, assuming we keep on our current path, that history will show Australia to have been one of the best places to have weathered out this event.
Exactly this. Nothing to add.
Yep. I spoke to my best man last weekend. 55 days without a Covid case in NSW. It’s like another world!
@podicle
But HOW did Australia do it so well? Did you stop people coming in, I don’t remember reading about that at the time. Just interested!
We quickly set up extreme restriction and quarantining of arrivals to Australia. If you look at our COVID stats, almost all our active cases are international arrivals. Each of those could have triggered a hotspot.
We also had state and federal governments of all political persuasions actually listen to the scientific advice and hold steady, even in the face of media and community criticism at some stages. We aren’t without our deniers and libertarians, of course, but they are thankfully seen as kooks by most of the population.
Phil Rudd drums were the basis of the compliance
Well played then Oz.
My wife and I were posted here late last year.
The amount of paperwork just to get on the plane from DC to San Fran, the first leg, was ridiculous.
Arrive in Sydney, and whisked straight to quarantine for 14 days. The only real humans I saw were the nurses who tested me.
Luckily for Sharon, once released (she arrived earlier than I) she could go straight to our new home. Had she arrived a week earlier, she would have had to do another 14 days quarantine on base.
The Australians, at Federal and State level, did not fuck about and it paid dividends. I go to work in an office. At rugby the referees have our own changing room where we can hang out and have a drink. Like normal people do.
Here in Singapore we are doing okay with a very low infection level – we probably get up to 10 or so cases a day (out of 5-6 million population) and those are predominantly imported cases, with community transmissions being 1 or 2 every few weeks.
We are not in what’s called “phase 3” which basically means that pretty much everything is open (shops, restaurants, sports facilities etc) but we have to wear a mask in public, have to check in to places and there are still limits of 8 persons for a meal in a restaurant. The main thing is that the borders are still pretty much closed to all but essential travel and so no tourists and no vacations. I also believe that nightclubs are still officially closed and no alcohol in bars / restaurants after 10.30pm.
Its pretty much life goes on as normal and, the lack of vacations aside, folks have pretty much adapted to it. We even have a limited level of concerts (we went to see a string quartet doing the Four Seasons recently). We only really had a full lockdown for a month or so last April.
We are not in the process of rolling out the vaccines. Due to the low level of community cases, they targeted the front line workers first rather than the elderly. Now pretty much all over seventy have had there first jab and now on to the 60-69 group. Being in the 50-59 group, I expect we will be sometime towards the end of April. So far we have the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines with the China one being brought in, but not approved yet. Not sure on whether they plan to approve the AZ one.
They are now talking about starting to open up travel bubbles with various countries – there is talk f Australia and Taiwan from July. Whilst the vaccine is not compulsory here, the ability to travel will most definitely depend of you being vaccinated.
In the UK I suspect we’re destined to make exactly the same mistakes that were made after the previous lockdowns.
Personally, I’ll restrict my activity to the private library where you have to book in advance, the cinema (faultless throughout all this), and the cricket field (ditto).
All in all, though, I think the best bet is to avoid “men.”
If there was a meeting in the local hall and there were going to be 10 men, 4 women in attendance, I wouldn’t go… 10 women, 4 men, I might.
I actually think the UK is doing very well after an appalling 2020. I was in London on Wednesday and there was not one person not wearing a mask on the tube.
I think the negative doomsayers are still out there but thankfully I can largely ignore them.
I have holidays booked in September and November, a weekend break at end of May and concerts/festivals in June/September. I fully expect social distancing/mask wearing but have no problem with that.
If any events are cancelled I will just re-book – no biggie.
What is worrying is Brazil – more than 20 percent of Worldwide daily deaths are in Brazil – vaccine priority must be looked at for countries with high infection rates.
Brazil appear to have an even bigger arsehole than Trump in charge.
I suspect he doesn’t much care about the death rate or rolling out vaccines.
There is testing being carried out in N10 as a case of the Brazilian variant has been detected there.
https://www.haringey.gov.uk/news/enhanced-testing-be-carried-out-n10-following-detection-case-brazilian-variant-covid-19
Here in Auckland we have had two short lockdowns to control community outbreaks – things are pretty much normal now. Huge crowds for the Americas Cup. Death toll for NZ is 26 in all, which is extraordinary – given there are 5m people. The opposition think it’s all a catastrophic disaster though.
Auckland is a big city – it would be the UK’s third biggest city (if it was in the UK). I only mention this because people think NZ doesn’t have population density.
I agree NZ has had remarkable success.
However your claim about population density doesn’t hold water.
Auckland population density is 1200 per sq.metre
Birmingham population density is 3649 per sq.metre – 3 times as many.
Per square meter? You poor bastards!
Sure – but it’s still a proper big city with lots of commuters, a large CBD and waterfront and suburbs and 1.7m people in it.
Those figures must be per square kilometre shurely? 3649 people per square metre in Birmingham sounds cosy.
I live in France and the vaccine rollout is a shambles. Just before Christmas, Macron said “unless we get daily cases under 10000 I’ll lock you all in”. Twice this week already it’s been above THIRTY thousand so way too late we have a lockdown. Except this time it’s confined to 12 departments (including Paris) and unlike previously you can go up to 10k from home and if you stay socially distanced you can stay outside all the day long. And when, god knows when this will actually be, the vaccines are readily available it is estimated that up to 40% of the population will refuse because they hate Big Pharma, don’t trust Science etc etc etbloodycetera.
I had to read that twice 10,000 / 30,000
We go into lockdown for less than 10.
Am i the only one confused by the EU’s stance on the AZ vaccine – we don’t really want it but we demand you send us more doses anyway?!
And not suitable for older people seems now to have been replaced, where it’s being used at all, by only suitable for older people.
They’ve certainly done a great job sowing the seeds of doubt for an already seemingly sceptical and reluctant populace.
Johnson’s insistence that the vaccines are British, which they aren’t, probably hasn’t helped. Your average Frenchman probably now thinks that a Covid jab will immediately give him a craving for Kraft cheese slices and therefore ruin his life.
Funny you should mention that.. Since my first vax dose I’m getting cravings for brown ale, chips with everything and fishpaste sandwiches.
As a few people have pointed out, it’s like the old Jewish joke.
Two women at a Bar Mitzvah
First woman : This food is awful.
Second woman: I know, and such small portions!
Viv borrowed that for his postprandial remark by Sir Henry Rawlinson:
“That was inedible muck, and there wasn’t enough of it”
Back in red zone in Ottawa since 12.01am today after a recent increase in cases since full lockdown was eased a month ago. Stores/restaurants/gyms still open, but less people allowed in. No team sports and cinemas are closed.
GTA (Greater Toronto Area) has been the worst affected area in Ontario and there are more restrictions there.
Ottawa has only 6 people currently in intensive care with Covid, has a total death count in the last year of 450 (out of 1 million population). 2 hrs to the south of us is Kingston, population 140,000 and they have had only 1 death! Incredible.
Vaccination roll out has been slow, now available to book for all over 75s. Plan is for everyone to have first shot by end of June.
Hull? I daren’t look. We’re top of the pops again, I hear.
I don’t know if we have an unusual number of people in jobs where they literally can’t afford to be off work to isolate, but we certainly have plenty.
Yep, you’re in the doodoo.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map
Oooh, I love a good map, with plenty of pretty colours.
Take-up of the vaccine is good, but it’d better had be when adherence to the rules by people of all ages is absolutely shite and has been all the way through this. Lockdown is just something on the news.
Down here in leafy Sussex I heard a sound in the night that I’d almost forgotten about. It was drunk people talking noisily under our window at midnight. They could only have been walking back from a neighbour’s house.
We’re going to fuck this up again, aren’t we? English exceptionalism will once again convince us we’ve won some grand battle when most of us are still queued up on the beaches at Dunkirk. I can already see the smugness creeping in as other European countries’ death numbers creep up towards ours.
It won’t be working-class Rangers fans gathering in the city centre or middle-class social justice warriors shouting ‘All Cops Are Bastards” at statues – it will be every single one of us who has a couple of mates over to sit in the garden, and after a beer or two, if it rains or gets chilly, we go inside. Which will be the Government’s fault, of course, not ours. And round we go again.
@chiz I fear you are right. Chris Whitty was hammered again recently for raising concerns. First jab gives you 75% cover at best. There are millions of potential carriers that haven’t had the jab. Shops open in 2 weeks. Lots of us just dont care about the rules anymore. Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas…. I really, really hope we’re wrong
@chiz
@Dave-Amitri
Depressingly, I fear you are both right.
Far too many of those of us lucky enough to be born and live in richer countries are simply too selfish and ultimately stupid for words.
Even more depressingly, I fear that the problems that are starting to rear their heads in poorer, autocratically-ruled places like Brazil (hospitals at their limit) and the Philippines (a vicious circle of rumored food shortages followed by panic buying and actual shortages) are going to have repercussions that go far beyond their borders.
Going past the primary school around the corner from my gaff I noticed the kids getting collected by parents around 3pm and from what I’ve seen the parents are masking up and keeping apart while collecting the kids. They get pretty quickly whisked away home (a lot of them in cars but that’s another story).
A completely different story with the local secondary schools. They might be made to practice social distancing inside the schools, but as soon as they’re out on the street they hang out together in un-masked groups like the virus never happened. I forsee problems ahead.
Our local new infection rate in Watford is currently down to 30-odd per 100,000 population and that’s good. The vaccination rate for over-55s is 73%, which is a bit low compared to other local authority areas in the region.
Out of the Beds, Bucks, Cambs, Herts and Northants region, Herts has had the highest number of deaths from Covid by a large margin. Of all the local authorities in that group of counties, Watford is now in the lowest quarter for new infections. The two regional hotspots are currently Corby and Luton. Corby has a very worrying rate of 191 new infections per 100,000 head of population. Luton’s rate is 130 and Luton is also one of the worst for percentage of over-55s vaccinated.
State of the comments here..
Nuremberg Code!
Geneva Convention!
The average Sun reader is going to think the paper’s moved its European football coverage to the front pages
All of us here should consider ourselves very, very lucky we
don’t live – or have loved ones living – in Brazil.
What everyone says about Australia.
Yay the Australian government!
Who happen to be a bunch of ignorant sexist unaware male-dominated fuckwits who have managed to do what the health professionals told them and get all the credit for it.
Also, Australia is an island nation (like New Zealand, who did it better) without the open borders of the EU. Which is absolutely not a condemnation of the EU.
State Governments did the heavy lifting. Feds had Int’l quarantine and aged care and fucked it up.
What’s the overall view in Oz about deporting 500 or so criminals with NZ citizenship? I think one of them was 15 and left NZ when he was a baby.
I didn’t much like the media’s approach to this story. Approaching people as they are boarding the plane saying things to provoke a reaction.
Peter Dutton also came across badly I think. “We’re taking out the trash” , he said, trying to sound hard. For that moment his supporters will give him a pat on the back but that’s a beast will need a constant diet of this kind of crap.
Sadly, it’s barely registered in Australian consciousness, unsurprising since crime and punishment is very much a national blind spot.
Even the state governments which are (notionally) Labor have passed bail legislation which has increased the prison population by significant levels, with Indigenous women the fastest growing cohort.
Passing the buck through deportation has long been policy, stereotyping and ignorance continue to ensure its popularity.
Incidentally it’s not just Kiwis. An individual I worked with was due to be deported to the UK after being released from jail on a sexual assault charge. He was in his early 50’s had left Shropshire as a 4 year old and had no family or support structure there.
I remember contacting the local MP who claimed to be ‘broadly sympathetic’ but was honest enough to infer that any show of public support would be political suicide.
There is something of the night about Peter Dutton. Every time I reflect on what a useless waste of space Scotty from Marketing is, I console myself with the thought that at least he’s not Peter Dutton.
“Ye cannae change the laws of marketing, Cap’n!”
Island nation…male leadership…access to health professionals
Is this the UK or Australia?
The ABC website is giving good airplay to the Dutton stooshie.
Except, in the UK it’s a woman of colour who’s doing the sweeping-out.
The Dutton Stooshie -TMFTL
I’d be interested to hear from the Swedish contingent @kaisfatdad @locust @ducool if they care to contribute. Sweden was the poster boy for people in the UK who were opposed to lockdown, and though the Covid figures rose later forcing stricter measures my impression is that the casualties never got anything like as bad as Britain (or Italy, or Germany and so on).
It was never as bad as the UK. I remember the spokesman for the folkhälsomyndigheten Anders Tygnell early on giving consideration to following the British approach because they were the best at this, meaning epidemiology. He was talking about waiting with restrictions and, yes, herd immunity, or flock immunity as they call it here. Thete was and is a lockdown, but a softer, targeted form, on the basis that a tougher approach would be unsustainable. In the end it’s hard to compare countries, There are complex reasons why some were worse affected than others. Sweden has a small population given it’s size. I think they could have done better, more of a lockdown early on, better protection for residents of old people’s homes. Now we are seeing a surge in cases because of the UK mutation, more in intensive care again, like other european countries. Vaccination is slow, but it feels like life is going on, it doesn’t feel too bad.
Vaccination is slow, due to not receiving enough doses to hand out quicker, but both of my parents have had their first jabs and received a date and time for the second, and were both very impressed with how well it was run, so that’s a plus. Neither one had any reaction to their jabs, not even sore arms.
What I see around me is that people are for the most part behaving very well, although newspapers of course prefer writing about the few who doesn’t (like the schmucks gathering for anti-vaccin/covid conspiracy theories demonstrations these past couple of weekends).
Working in a supermarket means that my life during these past twelve months has been exactly the same as always, apart from that first weird month or so when everyone got spooked into prepping for the world’s end (which they apparently was going to face on the loo), and having to act as a private librarian to my mum when she couldn’t go to her regular public library any more; hauling bags of books from my own bookshelves back and forth every other week. It’s a good thing she’ll be able to visit the library again soon, because I’m running out of hardback books in Swedish – with large enough print for her to read and subjects that interest her…unfortunately her favourite genre is crime, which is more or less the only genre I don’t read! I’ve had to make some charity shop visits just to find her some juicy murders to lighten her mood.
Having diabetes I’ll be in the next phase of the vaccinations, but not sure when that will happen. A few of my coworkers had covid, but mild versions, and I seem to have dodged it successfully so far.
Why not get your mum a cheap tablet or kindle?
Amazon offers about 200 crime novels and thrillers a month for 99p each which will. probably work out a lot easier, cheaper and probably safer than going down to the local charity shop.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?bbn=3017941031&rh=n%3A341677031%2Cn%3A%21425595031%2Cn%3A%21425597031%2Cn%3A3017941031%2Cn%3A341689031%2Cn%3A362247031&pf_rd_i=3017941031&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_p=eb02e145-7646-4f3e-8c80-384ba53ea59e&pf_rd_r=T3H92D57PPK4GWMTQKSG&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-13&pf_rd_t=101&ref=s9_acsd_hps_bw_c2_x_c2cl
Not an option…she’s 90 and tech phobic, she’s been known to pay a local TV repairman generously to visit her at home to set up the channels on her (modern flat screen) TV (pretty much only a couple of buttons on the remote to press doing that job…)
Your experience is similar to mine Locust. Working with försörjningsstöd means being in the office every other day at least. Early on, last year, 3 or 4 had covid at another building and at least 2 were sick at least dix weeks. After that there hasn’t been any cases where I work. The in-laws got jabs when the vårdcentral rang them because 9 hadn’t turned up to their appointed times. They got lucky there and are over the moon.
The impression I get is that infections have been kept down because people have been sensible about it without having to be told to. A sense of collective responsibility can be relied upon. Simple, stupid example: I lived there and in a town where absolutely everyone seemed to have a dog there was absolutely no dog shit on the streets – ever.
Back in Good Old England we do what the fuck we want. People die? Fuck ’em, they’re not us.
Thatcher would be proud.
“There is no such thing as people” – M Thatcher.
People are the enemy within.
No great lover of the appalling Thatcher or the ism that bears her name but if you’re going to do the woman down at least quote her correctly.
What she actually said was “There is no such thing as society.”
I suspect mikethep may have meant to press the tongue-in-cheek emoji on his keyboard.
Probably would have helped
Listen to @thecheshirecat. He speaks truth.
Sorry to take so long to reply @Gatz,
Moose is so right about the dog shit in Sweden. Picking up your pooch’s poo is just obvious. There is a greater degree of solidarity and common sense here.
One thing that they really got wrong in Sweden was not taking steps to protect elderly people in homes. If the government had seen the danger and taken steps many lives would have been taken.
But they have done a lot of things right and much of it has been about not stressing people out when it wasn’t necessary.
Schools have stayed open. Upper-secondary schools have mostly had distance learning. Kids have been able to have a fairly normal life, meet their friends and get one good meal a day.
There are limits to how many people can be in a shop but almost all shops are open.
No curfews or orders to stay at home. We can go out and walk as much as we like as long as we keep a distance.
Living in a large country with a small law-abiding population has its advantages.
It sure does KFD, but I still wonder whether you would have been better off following Norways example. 650 dead in total and life has gone on pretty much as normal over here as well.
The youngest children have been mostly in school apart from the first couple of months, even in the Oslo area which has been hardest hit, where they´ve had restrictions on class sizes etc.
They locked down early over here and have been reasonably consistent with the messaging throughout which helps, wish they´d get their finger out with the vaccine though.
Actually, in fairness I should mention that Oslo has been quite restricted, especially the last few months, but not on the level of the UK. Over here on the west coast it’s all good.
Covid can’t survive all those crinkly edges.
Hang on a minute, all this Covid-19 news is interesting, but no-one is addressing the outrageous insinuation in the OP: Piers Morgan has blood in his veins????
Sadly it’s someone else’s.
I suspect a lot of people will read this and say, “Oh fuck off!”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56475807
I would much rather take advice from a scientist than a politician, I really would, but there are times when it feels like their objective is zero transmission of anything….. ever.
It’s the Hippopotamus oath. Preservation of life (or, in this case, existence) at all costs. The rest of us are like – we’re not living like this forever. I think anybody in the arts is going to scoff at the idea that they can live with social distancing indefinitely.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups (to fuck things up for everyone else).
There is no plausible reason to have restrictions once everyone has had a vaccine.
if people want to wear masks or be ultra cautious of course go for it, but don’t make it mandatory as there’s bugger all reason for it
Not unless there is a sufficient influx of new variants, or even “just” the Brazil, that vaccination seems to offer only limited protection against. O, and affects younger people and fitter people. And that the booster vaccinations we will all need ad infinitum aren’t yet up to speed with.
You’re welcome.
(To be fair, in the end you are right. Once we get over the high hurdle of accepting whatever number of deaths is “normal” and “routine” for covid in the general population. The younger, fitter general population, that is, rather than the old codgers who, in years previous, caught the flu and died “but they were old/had had a good innings/poorly anyway” Who wants to be the politician or scientist to go down as the one who decreed quite where the cut-off comes.)
All the vaccines haven’t been shown to not work against any variant, including AZ. Even the ones that don’t protect completely offer good protection against hospitalisation and death. And that’s all that matters.
For context, the BCG vaccine for TB has just 50% efficacy. The main malaria vaccine 45%. All the Covid vaccines are way way better.
No vaccine is 100% foolproof. But the majority of people will be fine
Not saying this is your view but the mad risk averse publicity about “oh the variants” being a justification for not relaxing anything are just speculation. If you followed that logic we’d literally never relax lockdowns or anything, in the fear of something not proven lurking round the corner. Maybe there is a lethal vaccine escaping variant on the way and if so we’ll have to change plans and deal with it, but there’s simply no evidence this is likely to happen.
Well, I hope your generalisations and poor comparisons work out well. I hope enormously so. But we’ll have to wait and see. I am all for the current slo-mo approach and gradual unwind, data not dates, as the clown said and everyone promptly forgot.
I sense you’re in the look for every reason not to open up camp.
Which is fine, you can choose to stay indoors, if you can’t see the entirely logical roadmap and low risk outcome staring you in the face.
He doesn’t half have a lot of gigs and festivals he has tickets for and wants to go to, for someone looking for reasons not to open up.
Arf, and thanks, bud! And my “camp” has been open (for business) every day since 27/3/20. Hence my caution, not despite.
For context: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25757905/
And malaria has a physical vector you can see and hear.
Here in Bonn, it’s Groundhog Week, as the same 7 days roll round, again and again, with little or no variation. I haven’t seen friends in months, and only see colleagues on video calls. Same meals, with a lot more takeaways. Our kids are on a one-day-at-school, one-day-at-home rota, with classmates split in 2 groups. As my partner and I both work, I’ve had to give up half my mornings to homework supervision with the one child who will let me, and lunchtime meal preparation, while I finish the work shift late into the night. We’re getting very tired of this ‘new normal’, which shows no sign of changing after the Easter 2 week school holiday, and of each other. Vaccinations are progressing slowly down through the generations, as I notice in the building opposite my office (I go in once a week to water my plants), but I’m told the infection numbers are climbing regardless of precautionary masks worn inside and out of buildings in the centre of town.
Frankly, going through all your recommended albums from last year is almost the only thing keeping me going. Thank goodness for music in all its forms.
Looks like we are at the start of another wave in Ireland. They’ve made a total bollocks of the vaccine rollout but he we are under full restrictions and it’s still not under control. I believe once we are at some sort of herd immunity we need to get back to normal. We need to live with this. I’ll be OK with a zero death strategy when they ban smoking too.
@dkhbrit
Interesting to see the huge changes in Ireland this last year.
From almost winning power in last Feb’s election, Sinn Fein has totally vanished
From being hailed as a genius for his early handling of the pandemic, former Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar has fallen so far and so fast that he’s now under investigation for sharing confidential government papers with his mates and the Garda are now considering putting him under their protection.
With the R-rate creeping back up again, going to be interesting to see if the govt can assuage people’s frustration by easing some of the more onerous lockdown restrictions in early April.
The third wave in Europe looks terrible at the moment, all the more irresponsible it makes their faffing about with the vaccine, casting doubts which has resulted in low take up and unused doses.
Fortunately it seems the government here are actually doing something right for once. I’m no fan of the blond buffoon but the current roadmap speed is sensible and low risk baring in mind the high vaccine level. We’ve rock bottom levels now and yet are still in a very restrictive lockdown. It makes sense to do it slowly though whilst we churn out vaccinations. Once that’s done there’s no reason to restrict anything.
It also helps unfortunately that their cock up in opening up in December fully resulted in us already having our third wave. But I hate to think how worse the mental health of many would be if we’d locked down for 6 months, after 3 it’s a nightmare.