3rd wave in Europe - do you think we've done enough?

[Laytwir024]

The EU are so far behind on their vaccine programme and there is a bigger anti-vax belief system there. Do you think we've done enough to avoid a third wave?

@sadlittleisland

No, because a significant proportion of the infections in Europe are the South African variant, not the Kent variant (up to 10% according to the news article below).

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/19/south-african-covid-variant-uk-neil-ferguson

Our borders are pretty wide open to admit the SA variant from Europe and the government doesn't seem to care.

We have survived a couple of months with drastically reduced travel and could continue and amplify these restrictions if the government was inclined to do so.

The government is is IMO out of touch with what the public want. Yes, most want an end to internal restrictions but would be happy to have even more external restrictions if that meant that life within the UK could return to come normality.

Where does it say the dominant variant in Europe is not the Kent one?

“ France is entering a new four-week lockdown as it faces a third wave of the virus, driven in large part by the Kent variant.”

Ah got it.

Their wavenis from Kent variant so likely we've already had it.

@FourTeaFallOut, yes, YOU have to have it too. Not just for you, but for your parents and aunts and grandparents. You are probably a bit young to remember TB and polio as a problem in the UK, but DM was a young nursing student in 1955, and worked on those wards in Birmingham. Vaccinations and antibiotics did the business then, but most people have forgotten the fear of epidemic disease that existed before. We need to remember it, and take it seriously. It's not gone away, just kept in check. A new version is an eternal live threat.

We will have another wave but we’ve done and are continuing to do a fantastic job with our vaccinations so it won’t be a severe one.

i also believe this was the 3rd wave.

i think winter will be a telling time

ive had enough

@FourTeaFallOut

Honestly, I do. France is up to something like 36k new cases per day and in the midst of a variant regime change, whereas we are still, even with ramping up testing to well over 1m per day and the schoolchildren returning en masse, on a downward trend, unbelievably.

We have immunised 50% of the adult population, the risky half no less, and our move out of lockdown is painfully slow.

I think we'll be fine on that front

Here too

Touching wood ain't going to prevent viral transmission. Getting a jab, any jab, might be better.

@XingMing

Touching wood ain't going to prevent viral transmission. Getting a jab, any jab, might be better.

Oh how novel.

Hadn’t thought of that. Awaits appointment

Scratchy, @MarshaBradyo. You must be younger than me, and presumably fitter and thinner, and therefore at much lower risk.

@XingMing

Touching wood ain't going to prevent viral transmission. Getting a jab, any jab, might be better.

Yes, except that I haven't been offered one yet as I'm 30. Not much I can do about that.

I’d love a vaccine appointment

I’m 46 and just got bumped after feeling pretty close

Can’t do much but wait!

If I am pissing you off by posting, please feel free to object to me, personally and directly. I want to see everyone immunised as fast as possible. If vaccination is a problem personally for health reasons, I want you to be protected by the herd's immunity. It's never going to be perfect or final because there will be endless new variants from now until forever. So take the jab.

I think we all need to take on board that popping over to Prague or Barcelona or anywhere else for a long weekend is not a sensible or viable option any more. I'm sorry for all the cabin crew and everyone else in the mass travel industry who will be out of work. I'm sorry for all the people who have family overseas who they can't see unless they organise a lot of self isolation and pre testing and post testing. But this is a pile of shit that has to be dealt with pragmatically, not with squawking.

Its hard to know how things will pan out.They have a total lock down in France again, well PARIS I think, just when they thought all was getting better.

Poo why isn't there an edit option...? I reckon it's going to take about two years for vaccination to get comprehensively down through to the youngest generations - anyway, I'm hoping to revisit Barcelona for the Spanish GP in 2022.

As much as I love going on holiday I would rather they just said no foreign holidays this year to minimise the risk of things going tits up again.

Such fear mongering. Time to get back to normality.

@MarshaBradyo, I understand the anxiety.

@Waxonwaxoff0, your turn will come. Console yourself with the knowledge that if you catch CV19, you are unlikely to suffer worse than my DS, who caught it during his first week at uni, and felt under the weather for 48 hours. Unless you have health problems, in which case I apologise in advance for being dismissive.

I've had my jab XingMing.

So in that regard it seems I have met the precondition to tell you to piss off with your patronising posts.

@XingMing

Do none of you lot read the serious papers, or do you rely on Facebook? The vaccines we are using in the UK are working big time. The main variant across Europe is the Kent version we identified in late Nov/December. The AZ vaccine appears to be effective against the Brazilian variant. Look at the UK statistics. Since December when DM86 had her first jab and mid-Jan when she had the second, the UK has vaccinated almost everyone over 55 who has accepted immunisation, and infection rates and death rates have plummeted. Now call up the same set of stats for France, Germany and Italy... and compare the two side by side. It should tell you what you need to know, factually and numerically, and it's pretty conclusive evidence.

I'm no immunologist, and know FA about virus mutation, but a population that is almost 50% (and rising) vaccinated is much better placed to fight off the fourth/fifth and further waves. Just take the vaccine when you are called for it. Herd immunity works and protects the people who are too weak as well by limiting the transmission vectors.

Well said. Unfortunately, there are a small number of selfish pricks who just don't understand that we all need each other to get the jab for everyone to be protected. I'm fed up with hearing the 'I'm allright Jack' MotherF**kers. Herd them up and put them on an Island by themselves.

Vaccination is the way out of this. Political point scoring is not.

@Doomsdayiscoming

“ France is entering a new four-week lockdown as it faces a third wave of the virus, driven in large part by the Kent variant.”

Ah got it.

Sorry my post was not worded well. What I meant was the variant that was concerning in Europe was the South African variant (not the Kent one, as pps have said, we've had that one already).

If up to 10% of European cases (or even just French cases) are the SA variant at the moment, that will continue to rise exponentially now for a couple of weeks before the effects of the partial lockdown in France are felt. In that time the percentage could grow far higher.

AFAIK we are not making arrivals from France quarantine in the secure hotels, and home quarantine is basically meaningless. So unless we stop all incoming travel or make all incoming travellers do quarantine in a secure hotel (I actually think this is feasible in a Canadian-style manner at a restricted number of incoming airports), then we are not doing nearly enough.

The Guardian article I linked to above (published today) references a Feb study that says the AZ vaccine is not effective against the SA variant (I know any jab is better than no jab, but studies do trump it all in terms of science).

I think so yes