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.

oh well then it is england that you dont need to show any sort of vaccine passport

London boroughs are variable.
It seems that immunity due to prior infection likely a factor as those areas which had bad infection rates last wave AND have some of lowest vaccination rates in the country are low for covid right now.

I have had to show vaccine status for theatre in London pretty consistently and for a dog show yesterday (!). My teens had to show uploaded lateral flows for both (they have had 1 dose of Pfizer but aren’t allowed anything else yet). Cinema no need but theatre in London IME you have to show proof and concerts etc. Maybe it happens more in London?

not to me in london
i was told by the lady on the door yes they were meant to but there was no time!

[quote clarkkentsglasses]@LobsterNapkin

Banning alcohol would just make it go underground.

Alcohol is the devils work mind you. Banning it will just create prohibition [/quote]
Indeed it would. From a public health perspective, a ban is a terrible idea. The combined effects of forced detox and desperate consumption of unsafe alternatives by the chemically dependent population would all by themselves probably paralyse the NHS in the first week.

I was at the theatre in central London last month and noticed there were no coughs! Didn't have to show anything at that point though we had. It all downloaded.

No need to ban alcohol to reduce alcohol dependency

www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-teach-us-about-addiction

Proper investment in people - in communities, in housing, in the arts, in play spaces, in food supply - would reduce drug and alcohol addictions, and have the by product of reducing obesity and mental illness across the population. And consequently the impact of covid and other diseases on that population.

But then we'd need politicians to admit that there's no such thing as free choice for the poor, that addiction is mostly a response, that things are shockingly unequal and unfair and that they can and should change that. ¯\(ツ)/¯

@DameFanny

No need to ban alcohol to reduce alcohol dependency

www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-teach-us-about-addiction

Proper investment in people - in communities, in housing, in the arts, in play spaces, in food supply - would reduce drug and alcohol addictions, and have the by product of reducing obesity and mental illness across the population. And consequently the impact of covid and other diseases on that population.

But then we'd need politicians to admit that there's no such thing as free choice for the poor, that addiction is mostly a response, that things are shockingly unequal and unfair and that they can and should change that. ¯\(ツ)/¯

Mmm, without tackling any of the underlying problems, all you do with a ban is kill off some of the chemically dependent population and start a black market.

Having a minimum alcohol price in England (already exists in Scotland) would be a great start but there are plenty of excuses as to why that wouldn't work / isn't feasible etc.

in Scotland we have legal requirement to wear face masks, including in secondary
And we still have high case numbers, overstretched hospitals and queues of ambulances outside A&E!

But we aren’t seeing the large numbers of cases in schools which are taking masking seriously. One case in my daughter’s fully masked class and it hasn’t spread. We have had isolated cases throughout the school but no outbreaks. None of the schools in our area have reported any major issues with it spreading in schools.

Where it is spreading is, in households, and in settings where masking isn’t mandatory.

A&E admissions are higher than they were in 2020, but are at the same level as seen in 2015, and lower than in 2019. The “queues of ambulances” in Scotland rhetoric isn’t borne out by actual data. There have been isolated issues at various hospitals over the last few months, but these are the same stories which have been told over the years. The system can’t cope with winter.

To use it as a “masks don’t work” conclusion ignores an awful lot of other information.

@KristaK

I have had to show vaccine status for theatre in London pretty consistently and for a dog show yesterday (!). My teens had to show uploaded lateral flows for both (they have had 1 dose of Pfizer but aren’t allowed anything else yet). Cinema no need but theatre in London IME you have to show proof and concerts etc. Maybe it happens more in London?

I had to show one at a theatre in London recently but I’d printed it off a couple of weeks previously so could have had symptoms or a test since then - they didn’t scan it - and it could have belonged to anyone as it wasn’t checked against tickets. So it didn’t feel worth the paper it was printed on tbh.

[quote clarkkentsglasses]@LobsterNapkin

Banning alcohol would just make it go underground.

Alcohol is the devils work mind you. Banning it will just create prohibition [/quote]
I'm not really suggesting that's a good plan. But it might be worth considering that just mandating what you want people to do is not so simple, for many reasons.

Mainly because the EU leaders showed little confidence in the vaccine in the first place, mainly due to petulance. By the time they realised how wrong they'd been, it was too late to change the minds of many EU nationals, who continue to refuse the vaccine.

@Puppalicious

Are their records of what hospitalisations are like in Europe? I’m a bit confused about all this talk about vaccinating the eldest first - that’s what we did in Ireland and we’re one of the most vaccinated populations in the world (more than the UK) but it’s not enough 😬 I honestly think there’s just much more acceptance of death in the UK.

Yes. Here in Italy we are told every day how many new cases, how many tests (generally between 300,000 and 500,000 a day, none of which are self-administered) and positivity rate as a result. We are also shown how many +/- in hospital and ICU on the previous day. The old trope that nobody is testing apart from the UK and all hospitals are full unlike the UK is getting boring now tbh.

@StargazerAli

Mainly because the EU leaders showed little confidence in the vaccine in the first place, mainly due to petulance. By the time they realised how wrong they'd been, it was too late to change the minds of many EU nationals, who continue to refuse the vaccine.

All of them? That'll be why here we're well onto third doses and 83% of our over 12s have had both doses then. Where do you get this rubbish from?

I’m a bit confused about all this talk about vaccinating the eldest first - that’s what we did in Ireland and we’re one of the most vaccinated populations in the world (more than the UK) but it’s not enough 😬 I honestly think there’s just much more acceptance of death in the UK

Ireland is experiencing fast growth though isn’t it?

That’s the concern, despite high vaccination

@Puppalicious

Italy 20/11

2% positivity (which is rising, and that's why the govt is urging the 3rd jab rollout pick up momentum) on just over 11,000 new cases out of 574,000 tests. 512 in ICU and 49 deaths.

It's on our news every day, I presume it's the same in most countries

The headline grabbing story was about Austria though where the unvaccinated had had the finger pointed at them for the rising hospitalisations.

@KrispyKale

The headline grabbing story was about Austria though where the unvaccinated had had the finger pointed at them for the rising hospitalisations.

Exactly. Are MN that parochial that Austria= EU27? It would seem so reading some of the tripe on these threads.

*Ireland is experiencing fast growth though isn’t it?

That’s the concern, despite high vaccination*

I'm in Scotland and always keep half an eye to what's going on in Ireland, who have done quite well imo.
However Ireland now has 125 in ICU and Scotland, with slightly larger population, has 58 in ICU.
That may also be what is giving Irish gov cause for concern?

@KristaK

I have had to show vaccine status for theatre in London pretty consistently and for a dog show yesterday (!). My teens had to show uploaded lateral flows for both (they have had 1 dose of Pfizer but aren’t allowed anything else yet). Cinema no need but theatre in London IME you have to show proof and concerts etc. Maybe it happens more in London?

DH was at Twickenham yesterday, attendance over 81,000 no vaccine passports and hardly a mask to be seen on absolutely packed buses and trains to the game 🤷‍♀️

Here in Bavaria, numbers are way up. In some country districts they are three or more times the national average. Where vaccination rates are low, infection incidence is high. We’ve already had Christmas markets cancelled, now we’re looking at restaurants etc closing wherever incidence goes over 1,000. Hospitals in these areas are already stretched. Many of us are fucking raging at anti vaxxers for putting us in this position. Double vaccination rate is still under 70%. 😡

@genuinequestion21 Not sure which part of the UK your in but the hospital in my town (where I work), is nearly full to capacity. We have 2 ICU wards one for general and one for covid, both 30 beds and both wards are full. We have 6 wards closed due to covid and HDU wards are also nearly at capacity.

@StargazerAli

Mainly because the EU leaders showed little confidence in the vaccine in the first place, mainly due to petulance. By the time they realised how wrong they'd been, it was too late to change the minds of many EU nationals, who continue to refuse the vaccine.

Yes there is a degree of truth in this. They rubbished the AZ vaccine which didn't just damage trust in the AZ vaccine but in vaccines generally.

Many of us are fucking raging at anti vaxxers for putting us in this position it's not them who are putting you in that position for goodness sake!

There are a number of drivers here.

• Germans are a great deal more concerned about health (to a degree where some people would regard as hypochondria), and have much easier access to medical services in normal circumstances.
• Germany's numbers are increasing dramatically, rather than the slow fall taken here
• There is a great deal more anti-vaxx stuff happening there
• The NHS as such doesn't exist - you have 250 little mini-NHSs there which are the health insurance companies. Their response to COVID has been best described as sluggish
• Health policy is not decided at a federal level - instead, you have 16 counties (Laender) who independently decide the appropriate level of concern in each "land".