Good News Part 10 - the picnic blanket of hope and good company

[InterfectoremVulpes]

Welcome to the new thread! I will copy over links from the previous thread soon.

Please note, this is a thread to share good news and for wobblers to be reassured. Doomploppers will be met with scorn and derision!

I find most of the concerns about variants are easily fixed by just ignoring everything about them for a week or two at which point there are more facts to fill in the blanks to replace the best efforts of dystopic author wannabes. I see cases in Bristol are on the black run.

Thank you @FourTeaFallOut See, I knoe that logically and have even given that advice to others but I just see all the panic and doom and it all seems to go to pot. Plus it's the timing with the 22nd so close. I can't help but thing it's very convenient for 'them' but I have no idea who 'them' are.

The other thing is that I keep seeing speculation relating to case numbers but that makes no sense if the vaccine makes all those cases mild. I'm sure the government know that too though. I'm just being a control freak. It's like when I get on a plane and I wish I could watch the pilot so I know he's doing it right even though I have no idea how to fly a plane. Not knowing is so hard but I can see why they won't tell us anything for sure when it ends up changing. And it might still change for the better.

Good news about Bristol though. Friends who live fairly nearby have been called in the 60+ age group so hopefully their vaccination campaign helps even more with the numbers too.

It is frustrating that the rhetoric has shifted wildly from concerns around illness to concerns around cases. It's like the neverending target.

But we a dropping at almost 30%/ week and there's no reason to think that's the upper limit. Almost half the people (more?) who have been immunised have been done in the last three weeks, so from here on in, millions will be beginning to benefit from that first jab every single week that passes.

against the spirit of this thread but "Ct values in cases determined only a small proportion of the variability in Ct values in contacts
259 (unadjusted linear regression coefficient 0.15 [95%CI 0.14-0.16, p

We’ve picked up a few asymptomatic cases- test twice weekly.
Like the Charlie Chocolate meme 🤣

@alreadytaken it was a PCR test, DP started symptoms Monday then I woke up aching, temp yesterday. There has been a mini-outbreak at his work so his contracting it was likely tues - fri last week which was when his shifts were.

I forgot - if we could actually get everyone to take vitamin D supplements maybe there would be fewer hospital admissions anyway, that could be part of the reason the virus was less of a problem in summer.

@louisejxxx if your test was negative I'd leave it a couple of days and test again.

I don't think that new variants should affect the roadmap , which should always have been created with an eye on variants. If you have a vaccination programme you absolutely need to get cases low to prevent mutation when the program would become invalid , or you are wasting your time

The active existence of vaccine evading variants around the world just makes it easier to explain this to people , as we all want this to be the last lockdown

Hello! I cannot believe it has taken me 10 threads to find you! I so badly need a good news outlet, as I live with a doomplopper who will brook no argument!

We live in an area where rates are still comparatively high - high enough to have triggered level 3 restrictions still - but they are 1/5 of where they were in January. So I remain hopeful I might be released from homeschool/full time working hell sometime soon.

Hello quantum. This is a good and sane place to hang out.

I'm getting both excited and nervous for my vaccine on Saturday. ( Fully expecting side effects as I have a stupid immune system) but still feeling YAY!
On our daily walk yesterday we saw some (ex?) friends who seemed very jealous of our vaccinations ( and not in a nice way.." why are you getting yours, you're not on a list?). Total lack of understanding of chronic conditions then. You know what? I just DON'T CARE!

Went last night with DH who had his first Pfizer vaccination, no spares for me. They asked if I was over 65, which I’m not, so a little more waiting for me.

There were quite a few people outside when we arrived, don’t know if they were hoping to get leftovers in that age group.

DH woke me up in the night to say his arm hurt. I said do you want some painkillers, he said no it’s not that bad, so I thanked him for waking me up and he went back to sleep.

FuzzyPuffling Sorry about your friends, I'm delighted for anyone that gets a jab, don't care what group they are in or if it's an error or a mate doing you a favour, all jabs are great news. I work for a GP, nurse went round for home visit to give vaccination, cheeky decorator asked if she had any spare so she did him there and then....

Hello QuantumWeatherButterfly, good to have another friendly face on the thread.

Looks like there are some ambitious testing plans afoot going by the front page of The Times.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-56092563

This could be good, right? If you can capture 90% of the transmitters with the lateral flow test and you start handing them out in their hundred of thousands (and up to millions) that's got to be a good thing, right?

Should have said, I AM on a list. Group 6 and looking at the new shielding list, highly likely to be on that now.
Problem ( for everyone else) is that my conditions are invisible, so no one else believes in them!

I spend a lot of time on the internet at the moment. I have a Science background, but I'm no Tracey.

All about variants

N501Y makes coronavirus more infectious. This is the mutation on the Kent strain that is most prevalent here.

E484K is the mutation in several concerning variants inc. the South African one and the new ones found here. This changes the spike which means vaccines are likely to be less effective. From what I've read my (wellish informed) opinion is that vaccines will do a reasonably good job of preventing serious illness and a so-so job of preventing infection in viruses with this variant. So not something to have a big panic about, but definitely worth keeping an eye on and looking to tweak jabs for this variant. Since this mutation has been seen in several separate strains it looks to be an advantageous mutation and I can imagine long term coronavirus will evolve towards having this mutation.

However, in the short term, we are lucky (!) our dominant variant is a highly infectious one so it's less likely to be outcompeted by other variants.

Does anyone else look at the variant names like car number plates and try and make words out of them? In my head they are the noisy and beak variants, much catchier IMHO.

On the good side, I'm getting really good at doing swab tests now, with the ONS study ( still on weekly ones) and it's reassuring to get the ( all negative) results regularly.

Oh please, I'm group 4. I look perfectly bloody healthy and when I can't breathe, I'm at home or hospital, I'm particular like that. I felt like a right twat wedged between the Nanas waiting for my jab.

rugs I love "noisy" and *beak". I am definitely calling them that from now on.

I did read somewhere that the marvellous scientists ( love em) are working on a vaccine that targets the central part of the virus rather than the spike proteins, so will be far less sensitive to mutations. Sounds good to me. Should I come across the article again I'll post a link.

‘Does anyone else look at the variant names like car number plates and try and make words out of them? In my head they are the noisy and beak variants, much catchier IMHO.’

Brilliant. I am definitely doing that from now on.

Ignore them @FuzzyPuffling!
I feel guilty because I've got an appointment tomorrow and there's no reason for it. The gp was going to look into why I'd been booked in but I'm guessing he's decided I should still have it.

I'm not nervous about the vaccine or side effects but am still worried I shouldn't be having it while feeling unwell (headaches, sinus pain etc)
The doctor had said it was fine so who knows.

Welcome @QuantumWeatherButterfly

"Inoculation could turn coronavirus into “the sniffles” even if it cannot stop variants causing illness, according to a vaccine expert.

Professor Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, which conducts studies of new and improved vaccines, told MPs that he believed vaccines would have a “huge impact on transmission” of the variants that had been identified in Britain.

Although he accepted that the spread of new variants resistant to vaccines was “going to be the future”, he said that this might not matter if the jabs still stopped people needing hospital care."

He definitely belongs on this thread!

@FourTeaFallOut I felt the same, my booking number was checked by 5 different people as I look younger than my 40 years and perfectly healthy, they thought I’d snuck in (They’d had a few try it apparently). I’ve had a lot of people surprised I’m cev because I’m not ill, but I can get very ill very quickly in the wrong circumstances.

@fuzzypuffling was this the article you were thinking of?

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-new-vaccine-in-development-has-insurance-against-virus-mutations-12217119

@FuzzyPuffling

Hello quantum. This is a good and sane place to hang out.

I'm getting both excited and nervous for my vaccine on Saturday. ( Fully expecting side effects as I have a stupid immune system) but still feeling YAY!
On our daily walk yesterday we saw some (ex?) friends who seemed very jealous of our vaccinations ( and not in a nice way.." why are you getting yours, you're not on a list?). Total lack of understanding of chronic conditions then. You know what? I just DON'T CARE!

Oh yes, lucky you having a health condition that puts you at elevated risk