Why are things ' kicking off ' in Europe ?

[genuinequestion21]

Please excuse my ignorance. But why is Germany for example stressing so much about covid right now ?

I think we have more cases per 100 k than them and have been having high cases for months and we are still open and not ' that much ' talk about lockdown etc. It seems we are kind of just about ' OK '. Well at least we aren't going to plan B yet.

However in Germany there have been few cases and cases are now exploding and there's talk of lock downs etc.

Hospitals also seem to be full again. Whereas in the UK, they don't seem to be on the brink.

Why these differences ? Germany and UK have a very similar proportion of the population vaccinated. Is it because cases are seeming to go up very rapidly, whereas ours have been high but flat for ages ?

Why are their hospitals full again and ours are not ?

Please correct any factual information which is incorrect.

My experience is similar @alborana
It's going to be interesting to see how our case numbers evolve in the weeks ahead. I'd love to see it flatline but I'm not keeping my hopes up in case they take off.

@HarrietPierce

MarshaBradyo

"Ah this old chestnut."

If the cap fits ....

Why do you get so irate about U.K.?

I feel badly for anyone who is undergoing restrictions or high incidence of Covid where ever they are - NYC, Italy, Melbourne, India it goes on

We all know it’s awful but on these threads they are filled with insults and jibes.

Really is startling to see how much dislike there is.

@CuteOrangeElephant

In the Netherlands it was in the news recently that ambulances had to wait up to an hour to unload their patients into A+E. In the UK this is not a cause for concern because it's more usual.

Exactly.

It is shocking in The Netherlands as it is unusual.

Here in the UK, it's just meh.

MarshaBradyo

"Why do you get so irate about U.K.?"

I'm irate about our incompetent government and the way the liar Johnson describes everything as" world beating". Not about the UK in general.

@shrodingersvaccine

Which is more likely - European countries have collectively fucked their coronavirus response, including those who also dropped restrictions and have similar vaccination rates to England, but somehow they are uniquely heavily impacted by corona while the UK revels in safety, or Boris is saying it's fine despite evidence to the contrary because they don't want to admit the same?

In the inimitable words of previous posters, virus gonna virus and perhaps 'living with it' doesn't mean pretending it's not there.

Health boards in Scotland are on code black - basically no beds, open only to emergencies/trauma. Lanarkshire, Fife and Grampian I think at least, Borders is on red.

With the stories of people having strokes and heart attacks waiting 8-16 hours for ambulances I'd say English/Welsh/NI hospitals are in the same position.

I'm in the EU, and I don't know anyone who doesn't lateral flow 2x per week, but those aren't recorded as official tests. We don't even necessarily get them from the health service, we get them from work (who buy them privately) and we don't record them anywhere. Students (both high school and uni) also lateral flowing 2x per week minimum and before any event. So the argument that more tests makes numbers look artificially higher in the UK is a ropey one I reckon - I don't think all countries are tracking the at home lateral flow tests in the same way as PCR tests, unlike the UK where you obtain your lateral flows from the healthcare system.

UK is 69% fully vaccinated, Germany is 68%, Netherlands 73%, Austria 63%. Natural immunity is less predictable than vaccine derived, plus we need to consider the vaccine rates per age group. So in the UK for example, over 80s - over 85% fully vaccinated but it drops to below 60% in the early 30s and those are the people out and about (and ending up in hospital). So it's not as simple as overall vaccination rate.

If you hear hooves, think horses - not zebras.

Time and time again you see on these boards people making posts about waiting 12-14 hours in A&E and/or how impossible it is to be seen in a reasonable time frame -1 week - when there is suspecting cancer.

Your NHS is on the verge of collapse and most people still don't get it. With an increase of Covid cases hospitals, ambulances and doctors will push back on any patients that are not struggling to breathe. It's the reason why is important to control this fucking virus ....but hey, the UK is different and everything is fine.

UK is 69% fully vaccinated, Germany is 68%, Netherlands 73%, Austria 63%. Natural immunity is less predictable than vaccine derived, plus we need to consider the vaccine rates per age group. So in the UK for example, over 80s - over 85% fully vaccinated but it drops to below 60% in the early 30s and those are the people out and about (and ending up in hospital). So it's not as simple as overall vaccination rate.

I don't think these percentages tell us that much at this stage. We have no idea of antibody levels/degree of immunity in these individuals currently or how long ago people were vaccinated. This also doesn't tell us how many people have had a booster or the levels of natural immunity in the population. I can't remember what gap was left between first and second vaccinations in Europe either, which may have an impact on subsequent immunity.

It’s because the NHS has been overwhelmed every winter for years. We’ve often had to wait 5+ hours in A&E. Fling Covid in to the mix and what do you think would happen? Of course other countries have better healthcare systems. Does that mean we keep restrictions indefinitely to ‘protect the NHS’?

Time and time again you see on these boards people making posts about waiting 12-14 hours in A&E and/or how impossible it is to be seen in a reasonable time frame -1 week - when there is suspecting cancer

but that's nothing to do with covid, it was the case back in 2019 too. On MN a lot of people don't care because they have private medical insurance.

It is all about the rate of growth. And Germany/Austria etc are growing at an exponential rate at the moment and it is where that could go that was the issue.

Lockdowns always work by suppressing and pushing it down so where restrictions loosen it is going to go up.

Rightly or wrongly the UK approach was to let loose back in the early summer and hope for an undulating wave of up and down at a manageable level - this is where we are and what we are doing. The positives are we can do on without lockdown the negatives are the number of serious cases and deaths that involves - both of which have remained fairly steady. It is a dangerous game to play because it is literally being on the brink always of it ready to tip over.

You look at cases 2 weeks ago here and the numbers are fairly stable and have been since July knocking around the 30-50k mark consistently. Germany went from low numbers to high and it is that which is causing the concern

while the UK don't give a fuck about numbers anymore.

That isn't true - the government never cared about the numbers of cases, only how those cases would impact hospitals. That's why they used "protect the NHS" as one of their key slogans. As long as the cases don't cause another shut down of non-emergency healthcare the government (and much of the population) are prepared to accept the current numbers of cases and deaths. They / we do care about numbers - but it is number of hospitalisations which they focus on.

The mix of vaccination between age groups is important. You could have 100% of 12-18 year olds vaccinated but if you don’t have a very, very high proportion of the older and therefore more at-risk age groups vaccinated then you’ll still be screwed on the metrics of hospitalisations and deaths. So it’s not necessarily that meaningful to see the total vaccination rate across the population if that masks big differences between comparable age groups.

There’s also now a lot of natural immunity around because the UK opened up fully earlier and had the initial big increase in cases during the summer.

[quote BunsyGirl]@Alondra
The current case rate in Austria is more than double the U.K. Ireland, Netherlands and Belgium all have much higher rates than the U.K.[/quote]
www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

As of yesrteday, Austria is 15,000 plus against 46,000 plus UK, Netherlands is 23, 000 plus, Germany is 64,000 plus.

The UK is still one the countries with more new cases in Europe. I honestly don't get what's your problem acknowlegding it. It's a fact

@Delatron

Interesting that Sweden is right at the bottom of that table. It’s as though coming in and out of lockdown created these massive peaks and troughs.

We have a fully vaccinated rate of almost 82% and people are required to isolate and test for ANY new respiratory illness. No brushing stuff off as just a sniffle here in Sweden.

@Alondra actual numbers like you've quoted are irrelevant unless you consider the total population. Austria has a population of only 8 million so 15,000 cases is extremely high. The exponential growth curve is the main cause for concern because that hasn't been seen in the UK.

Alondra

"The UK is still one the countries with more new cases in Europe. I honestly don't get what's your problem acknowlegding it. It's a fact "

Facts don't matter . The UK press will report whatever the Tory government narrative is.

[quote MapleMay11]**@Alondra actual numbers like you've quoted are irrelevant unless you consider the total population. Austria has a population of only 8 million so 15,000 cases is extremely high. The exponential growth curve is the main cause for concern because that hasn't been seen in the UK.[/quote]
True. But I don't believe the cases reported in the UK are factual.

Germany scrapped free LFTs last month, so we can probably assume their case rate is MUCH higher than what is being recorded. Our figures include a shit ton of asymptomatic cases, theirs focus more on properly ill people.

Not sure what the situation is with Austria specifically, but I think most countries that only do PCR testing are massively under reporting cases. Or we are over reporting in comparison, whichever way you want to look at it.

Realistically the best way of comparing like for like figures across the world, would be to compare hospitalisations per capita, not just cases.

@HarrietPierce

Alondra

"The UK is still one the countries with more new cases in Europe. I honestly don't get what's your problem acknowlegding it. It's a fact "

Facts don't matter . The UK press will report whatever the Tory government narrative is.

Harriet people are explaining why with data on exponential growth. You don’t need to be led by the media the figures are there.

You can say why you interpret them differently but at least look at them.

But I don't believe the cases reported in the UK are factual.

In what way are they not factual? Can you explain what is being missed compared to other countries

We have higher testing rates here

@Alondra

True. But I don't believe the cases reported in the UK are factual.

Why don't you believe the cases reported in the U.K. are factual? If anything, the UK's significantly increased rate of testing is likely to be picking up more cases. For instance, had my daughter not taken a LFT before a planned visit to grandparents, we would likely never have known she ever had it as it was barely symptomatic.

@MarshaBradyo

But I don't believe the cases reported in the UK are factual.

In what way are they not factual? Can you explain what is being missed compared to other countries

We have higher testing rates here

Why would cases reported in the UK be any less accurate than other countries?

If anything the U.K. cases are MORE accurate than those countries who don’t LFT on a regular basis.

[quote Warhertisuff]@Alondra

True. But I don't believe the cases reported in the UK are factual.

Why don't you believe the cases reported in the U.K. are factual? If anything, the UK's significantly increased rate of testing is likely to be picking up more cases. For instance, had my daughter not taken a LFT before a planned visit to grandparents, we would likely never have known she ever had it as it was barely symptomatic.[/quote]
Because your government lies and keeps lying about anything that doesn't fall with its narrative. They did it last year when they denied going for herd immunity during the first UK wave without taking basic measures, and they keep doing it now.

Look, it's your problem after all. I'm out.

I want to know what Austria means by “mandatory” vaccination. Western democracies cannot enforce mandatory vaccinations. Yes you could lose your job, pay a fine in theory, even have your benefits cut but surely they are not going to lock people up in prison and jab them forcibly being restrained at the same time. So what tools do they actually have for mandatory vaccination?

I have said it on another thread. If a government wants to up vaccination then they need to use incentives. Free meals out/theatre tickets etc etc 2 weeks after 2nd jab - support the industries that need it or garden centres etc. There is so much which could be done. Why not do something positive rather than negative. It just creates more hatred and distrust amongst groups who are already sceptical of the government for whatever reason. Identify the relevant groups and incentivise them accordingly (for example, ski passes for youngsters in Austria).Governments need to talk to the relevant groups in their own language as they are fighting against social media algorithms.

@Incognito22333

I want to know what Austria means by “mandatory” vaccination. Western democracies cannot enforce mandatory vaccinations. Yes you could lose your job, pay a fine in theory, even have your benefits cut but surely they are not going to lock people up in prison and jab them forcibly being restrained at the same time. So what tools do they actually have for mandatory vaccination?

I have said it on another thread. If a government wants to up vaccination then they need to use incentives. Free meals out/theatre tickets etc etc 2 weeks after 2nd jab - support the industries that need it or garden centres etc. There is so much which could be done. Why not do something positive rather than negative. It just creates more hatred and distrust amongst groups who are already sceptical of the government for whatever reason. Identify the relevant groups and incentivise them accordingly (for example, ski passes for youngsters in Austria).Governments need to talk to the relevant groups in their own language as they are fighting against social media algorithms.

Agree with this totally.

I don't know a huge amount about Austria and it's general attitude to vaccination, or if they've tried offering incentives which have failed.

They do need to get their numbers up but this isn't the way to do it.