I thought vaccines were our way out??

[user2021]

Why are we introducing travel restrictions now? And why are we being told things won't be back to normal by the summer/not to book any holidays abroad?

I thought the vaccines were our way out of this mess?

What needs to happen to get us back to normal? I thought once hospitalisation numbers are greatly reduce and the NHS can cope then that's that?!! We were never perusing a zero transmission policy, we were pursuing a don't-overwhelm-the-NHS-policy, or am I missing something?

Control
There will always be a new variant
Did you not realise this was an opportunity for the government to remove civil liberties and freedoms??

@WineInTheWillows

We're quite a whiny nation, aren't we?

My god, I hope you don’t have kids. And if you do I feel desperately sorry for them. What a cold insulting, barren thing to say

@Beaniecats

Control There will always be a new variant Did you not realise this was an opportunity for the government to remove civil liberties and freedoms??

The timing of the progression of this last year certainly seems like this and j can see why many people are thinking this. Every hope is crushed, just at the right moment. They bring you up, they crush you back down. Time and time again. For such a ‘random’ virus it sure is predictable now

@SpringtimeBluebells

To someone up thread doubting the Oxford AZ vaccine the World Health Organisation today announces they recommend it..... I rather take their word than Joe blogs from MN or Pete the gardener from social media who has done his own 'research....

The word of the WHO ??? The WHO who spent months declaring that there was no community transmission? The WHO who is happy to accept the Chinese version of the virus coming into China on frozen food? Excuse me if I don’t take everything they say as gospel because most things they have said over the course of this pandemic have either been very late or plain wrong! I have no time at all for Donald Trump but he wasn’t far wrong where the. WHO was concerned.

And if the government say that the SA strain is unlikely to be the dominant strain.... guess what?? They are usually wrong too

We're not immortal. We're all going to die at some point.

Well, as long as you don't mind losing loved ones before they're time because too many people got ill at once. Does this attitude apply to Ebola also or just illnesses that disproportionately affect the elderly, clinically vulnerable and BAME communities?

And of course, normality would be hard to maintain with essential treatments halted due to overflowing Covid wards. But who cares about the patient waiting even longer for a hip replacement or the suicidal ICU nurse, their normality is clearly not as important as your normality... Which will only last until you need one of these services yourself.

Vaccines are a way out, but sadly it’s not a case of one jab and 100% immunity. This will become a rolling programme, much like the annual flu vaccine.

The virus will continue to mutate, like flu. However, the vaccines, now developed and tested can be simply tweaked rather than completely redeveloped. Again, much like with flu and the flu vaccine. According to the Guardian the Pfizer vaccine is simple to tweak, the AZ one takes a bit longer, although they already have plans to incorporate the new strains into second vaccines due to be given later this year.

Coronavirus mutates at a much higher rate than large and complex viruses like chickenpox (which has in the region of 125,000 base pairs in its genome), but slower than flu (around 13,000 base pairs). According to a google search the SARS-CoV-2’s genome has around 30,000 base pairs and is thought to accumulate approximately one to two mutations a month. So it will probably be a bit like the annual flu vaccine, where it get tweaked to protect against the variants expected each winter. Remember, the flu vaccine typically only achieves around 50% effectiveness but because enough people have it, flu is kept to manageable levels.

There are two other ways of managing the virus, outside of lockdowns and social restrictions: treatments and public health capacity.

Sadly, I don’t hold out much hope for a sudden and massive increase in public health capacity.

However, a number of drugs are being tested to help people recover from covid better and quicker. BBC article here

Yes, it’s spectacularly shit at the moment - much more for some than others - but there IS light at the end of the tunnel.

@myfriendsgivebadadvice

It's perfectly possible!

If people aren't complete eejits.

Oh no, the numbers will come down but the track and trace system is crap.

What’s the big deal about variants coming in from other countries if they’re not causing additional deaths/hospitalisations. In days gone by we wouldn’t have even known about them as long as they weren’t causing more severe illness.

@bumbleymummy

What’s the big deal about variants coming in from other countries if they’re not causing additional deaths/hospitalisations. In days gone by we wouldn’t have even known about them as long as they weren’t causing more severe illness.

Are you actually serious @bumbleymummy? Have you been reading the papers/listening to/watching the news?!

Yes. I've also read the full articles and the science behind them rather than just reading the scaremongering headlines. Have you?

the track and trace system is crap.

It was, but the numbers were very quickly too high for it to have worked. They've had time to work on it.

bumbly

This isn't going to work out, this line you're taking. In days gone by we didn't have Covid so I'm not sure why you're suggesting there's a similar precedent.

They're changing the goalposts. If this is how they behave

Who are the "they"? Our fight is against the virus - it cannot hear our grumbles and is just following the urge to survive - as indeed we must.

Which means we must do what is necessary for as long as it takes. It is survival of the fittest - and the virus is very fit at present, and will continue to be so until we starve it of hosts through isolation and vaccines.

@bumbleymummy

Yes. I've also read the full articles and the science behind them rather than just reading the scaremongering headlines. Have you?

So has any of that reading told you what the issue with mutations is? Mutations that may be more resistant to the vaccines that have been produced and what that means to us getting out of this mess. It's already partly true of one variant and one vaccine. Do you not see vaccines as one of the ways out of this? I would love to know your answers to these questions.

Today 11:26 HelloThereMeHearties

Thewiseoneincognito
Please do not take this the wrong way but why did you believe them when they said vaccines were a way out? As soon as schools reopen and retail starts up again the numbers will rise and we’ll be back in lockdown. The vaccines are like a bunch of 🥕 dangling to keep you moving forward that’s all, they don’t stop you getting covid and they don’t stop lockdowns or restrictions.

“Please do not take this the wrong way, but you're talking bollox.”

Hear, hear. No, they don’t prevent you from picking up the virus, they prevent serious illness, hospitalisation and death in most recipients. Isn’t that good enough? It is for me/us.

Happy to be corrected but I believe that the smallpox vaccination is the only one ever to have been 100% effective.

A lot of people are expecting way too much.

@myfriendsgivebadadvice

the track and trace system is crap.

It was, but the numbers were very quickly too high for it to have worked. They've had time to work on it.

It wasn't helped by people who gave false details upon entry to bars/restaurants, etc., nor the people who won't answer the phone to unknown numbers "in case it's test and trace" telling them to isolate! It will only work if people co-operate with it.

@SpringtimeBluebells

To someone up thread doubting the Oxford AZ vaccine the World Health Organisation today announces they recommend it..... I rather take their word than Joe blogs from MN or Pete the gardener from social media who has done his own 'research....

@TheSockMonster

Vaccines are a way out, but sadly it’s not a case of one jab and 100% immunity. This will become a rolling programme, much like the annual flu vaccine.

The virus will continue to mutate, like flu. However, the vaccines, now developed and tested can be simply tweaked rather than completely redeveloped. Again, much like with flu and the flu vaccine. According to the Guardian the Pfizer vaccine is simple to tweak, the AZ one takes a bit longer, although they already have plans to incorporate the new strains into second vaccines due to be given later this year.

Coronavirus mutates at a much higher rate than large and complex viruses like chickenpox (which has in the region of 125,000 base pairs in its genome), but slower than flu (around 13,000 base pairs). According to a google search the SARS-CoV-2’s genome has around 30,000 base pairs and is thought to accumulate approximately one to two mutations a month. So it will probably be a bit like the annual flu vaccine, where it get tweaked to protect against the variants expected each winter. Remember, the flu vaccine typically only achieves around 50% effectiveness but because enough people have it, flu is kept to manageable levels.

There are two other ways of managing the virus, outside of lockdowns and social restrictions: treatments and public health capacity.

Sadly, I don’t hold out much hope for a sudden and massive increase in public health capacity.

However, a number of drugs are being tested to help people recover from covid better and quicker. BBC article here

Yes, it’s spectacularly shit at the moment - much more for some than others - but there IS light at the end of the tunnel.

❤

@knittingaddict I know what the issue can be but we don’t have that issue. A vaccine not being as effective against mild infection is not really a cause for concern. My point is that if we’re not seeing evidence of more serious infections from the variants in the other countries then why freak out about those variants coming here?

@myfriendsgivebadadvice We’ve had other virus that also mutate.

@myfriendsgivebadadvice

Yep but let's all live in fear

People who say yep are usually being disingenuous.

I'm not living in fear at all.

I'm really looking forward to numbers being low enough for test and trace to be effective at stamping out local outbreaks, and for the vaccine to get a decent headstart against the virus to minimise the risk of further mutations that could well lower it's efficiency.

I'm perfectly calm.

I'm also dealing with the drop in salary and having to work out fronted adverbials while squeezing in my work in the early hours of the morning. I'm not scared of it. I don't like any of it but there is no point saying my head is about to drop off because I can't dander around TK Max and I miss having childcare.

Are you this much of a hard faced and bitchy in real life or do you just save it for people on the internet who can't give you a slap? I've seen your comments on multiple posts and each one is more facetious, bitchy and pompous than the last.

Fear is not people waking up in a sweat every night over Covid but they are reading the scare mongering headlines, restricting their daily movements, getting anxiety over catching this virus when most will get mild symptoms.

It seems like anyone who has a different opinion to you must be an idiot. If someone questions statistics and consider lockdowns are disproportionate response to this virus, they must be dense and a Covid denier and conspiracy theorist.

Seriously, give your head a wobble.

duchess

I think the terms you're using would be more accurately applied to the poster who would give people a slap if she could. You seem to have really poor impulse control and now you're assuming people who don't agree with you are mean and nasty. When you're challenged for throwing a hissy fit, you feel patronised and you wonder what part of this isn't behaving like a teenager.

If you've seen my posts, you'll have seen we have a young friend in ICU. Terrified. Perhaps if you would like to restrict your movements while the vaccination programme rolls out, something that I doubt is making you scared since you're sitting on Mumsnet talking like a gangster, we would all be able to have a bit of normality sooner, and save further Covid patients the terror of an agonising death, not to mention the panic and fear experienced by those caring for them.

I haven't used the term conspiracy theorist at all, and wouldn't. Are you thinking of someone else?

It would be more interesting to challenge your post if you had an data or a decent argument but you don't. You're just peeved no one has waved a magic wand.

Just...follow the rules. We all want the same thing and there is no easy way to get there.

bumbleymummy

Which ones were you thinking of?