Just in tiers with it all now ....

[dancemom]

New Thread, same old situation....

That's brilliant

@Tomorrowisanewday

I got a phone call last night, offering me an appointment on Wednesday, which I can't manage, but they gave me an alternative on Saturday morning. They did say that was the last day of appointments they were scheduling at the moment so I'm very glad to have got it.

I'm over 50 with an underlying health condition but still thought it would be may, going by the calculator

Yeah, another one bites the dust!

The more people I hear getting vaccinated the happier I become. the sooner everyone is done the better.

So what do we think of Englands leaked route out of lockdown compared to Scotland?

I'm not going to quote it all - it's easy enough to find elsewhere but highlights are all of schools back on March 8th, letting families meet outdoors then, non essential retail open end of April I think it is, culminating in foreign holidays in August.

It does seem a bit enthusiastic to me, and I wonder if I'm just so used to taking things at a glacial pace that I think this. But I do think phased school return is sensible to allow general infection rates to go down, and vaccinations to go up.

I really hope it doesn't result in too much of an increase in infections as the knock-on impact to Scotland is likely to be a further tightening of the reins.

I think the English plan is glacial! Schools going back there is amazing, I'm starting to wonder if my S6 will ever be back. Retail end of April.. well everything has been closed since Christmas Eve so that's FOUR MONTHS of everything closed, people on furlough, companies going bankrupt. (Bye bye Debenhams, and Top Shop, and Jenners, and everyone else). Hospitality ditto - having to keep going through March and April and a bit of May before opening again, having been closed for pretty much a year.

Just so fed up with it all now and the light at the end of the Scottish tunnel is even further away. Holiday? Who needs one of them when you can stay at home in Scotland?

I think (hope) it will all speed up as the vaccines will mean that it won’t matter if people get infected, and in addition people won’t stay in and away from friends and family when they’re vaccinated.

I am more comfortable with our plan of phased opening of schools first - see how that goes - take the next step - see how that goes, and so on.

England's plan is pretty much the same as England's plan every time. The only difference is vaccines.

With a more transmissible strain I don't see how infections won't go flying back up. And while that might not overwhelm the NHS in the same way, as the vulnerable are vaccinated, I know I don't want Long Covid, or for there to be a mutation that the vaccine doesn't work against.

I know some people need to travel abroad because they've family living abroad (although I've not seen my family in Scotland for a year because of travel restrictions) but I really hope they'll not introduce foreign travel for leisure purposes too early. It does seem to have added to the cases last august / sept. I'd rather have some freedom here for a few months.

There's good news on the vaccine protecting against transmission and on the speeding up of its rollout.

But I'm really concerned that England is opening up too fast and will end up in another lockdown, and more deaths and cases of long covid. It's creating favourable conditions for mutations. Generally these make the impact of viruses more benign, but this isn't the case for the Kent variant. Fingers crossed that the vaccine does not become ineffective.

I agree @icanboogieboogiewoogie seems like a sop to the tourist industry rather than a sensible plan. It does seem to hinge very heavily on the first dose of the vaccine giving us enough immunity to fight off new strains.
Oh hark at me saying is, at the rate we're going in Scotland with relaxations I'll be lucky to have made it out of council boundaries by August.

Well, We have a very effective vaccine. No evidence at all of resistant or mutant strains that cannot be vaccinated against. Freedom should happen sooner rather than later.

I live very close to a primary school and it's SO nice to see P1, P2 and P3 children going in this morning. Some of them are skipping - including the parents.

I really don't care about mutations. Viruses mutate ALL THE TIME. That's why flu is an annual injection not a one-off. Covid will likely be the same. Big deal. All this "Kent variant" or "South African variant" or wherever else variant - who cares, deaths are still way down and at some point we all have to just get on with living. Long covid? A fancy name for the well-established phenomenon of post-viral complications. Nothing to get excited about, just another minor risk.

All these people who this time last year would have struggled to label a diagram of a cell who are now "educated" to at least PhD level in microbiology and epidemiology.

Happy to start living again now please, especially as the vulnerable are protected.

With a more transmissible strain I don't see how infections won't go flying back up

But infections won't matter if it's the younger, fitter and healthier people getting it - which it will be, because the oldies and underlying conditions have been protected. The aim was never to stop everyone getting Covid. Or if it was, it's a fucking stupid aim which is unachievable.

Hear, hear, @RaspberryCoulis.

Other than holidays abroad it seems fairly measured to me.
Testing in secondary schools has already been rolled out for many key worker children in England and primary schools are testing staff twice a week so it's actually more controlled than it appears.

@RaspberryCoulis

With a more transmissible strain I don't see how infections won't go flying back up

But infections won't matter if it's the younger, fitter and healthier people getting it - which it will be, because the oldies and underlying conditions have been protected. The aim was never to stop everyone getting Covid. Or if it was, it's a fucking stupid aim which is unachievable.

This. The vaccine is less effective at blocking transmission than it is at preventing severe disease, but AZ is still thought to block around 2/3 of transmission. Then you have to consider that those who get it, once vaccinated, or unlikely to get seriously ill - which is a risk factors for long covid too

But realistically even if we achieve say 90% coverage of the adult population, which is I think 82% of the UK total population and that vaccine reduces transmissions by 2/3 then you still have about 40% of transmissions within the adult population still possible. In an unrestricted population and factoring in the (reduced) spread from kids then this will allow covid to still circulate freely. But it will basically be a different conditions in that the risk of severe illness is massively reduced.

I don't really see how we avoid this - zero covid is a unicorn and the consequences of chasing it for a virus which we can vaccinate against just don't makes sense.

@RaspberryCoulis

I live very close to a primary school and it's SO nice to see P1, P2 and P3 children going in this morning. Some of them are skipping - including the parents.

I really don't care about mutations. Viruses mutate ALL THE TIME. That's why flu is an annual injection not a one-off. Covid will likely be the same. Big deal. All this "Kent variant" or "South African variant" or wherever else variant - who cares, deaths are still way down and at some point we all have to just get on with living. Long covid? A fancy name for the well-established phenomenon of post-viral complications. Nothing to get excited about, just another minor risk.

All these people who this time last year would have struggled to label a diagram of a cell who are now "educated" to at least PhD level in microbiology and epidemiology.

Happy to start living again now please, especially as the vulnerable are protected.

👏🏼 👏🏼 👏🏼

I have elderly parents abroad and would dearly love to see them. The problem is, I don't know how they would put a system in place to stop holiday travel while letting those with relatives go. I can imagine the cries of 'but it's not fair, she gets to go to France, why don't I?'

Even though I don't think it's fair I can't see my beautiful old parents one of who has cancer.

BBC notification just pinged on my phone : Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs reduce hospitalisations by up to 85% and 94% respectively in Scotland, giving first indication of impact of vaccinations in UK.

NINETY FUCKING FOUR PERCENT.

School nursery 💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪

94 % whooooooop

These scientists are the best.

It really is outstanding, the work that they have done to get to this point in less than a year. A massive, massive achievement.

@RaspberryCoulis

BBC notification just pinged on my phone : Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs reduce hospitalisations by up to 85% and 94% respectively in Scotland, giving first indication of impact of vaccinations in UK.

NINETY FUCKING FOUR PERCENT.

I really really hope that Scotland can then go super speed with roll out once the Pfizer supply blip is sorted. I don't want excuses or well actually we have done x or my favourite one of uptake is higher than we expected. Just offer those jabs and administer those jabs as quickly as possible 7 days a week at all vaccination centres and not just during the week which is my local centre!

The issue with 7 days a week is staff, they need more staff.
People can cope with the odd 7 day week but they struggle to do it week after week.

But at the same time if the end up in a stupid situation of stocks of vaccines in cupboards then they are 100% to blame for not recruiting enough people.

I know two friends who got their first jab at EICC yesterday. Both early 50s. One I think it's because of medication he's on, other is a work colleague so didn't like to pry but assume it's because of medication as well.

@Lockdownbear

The issue with 7 days a week is staff, they need more staff. People can cope with the odd 7 day week but they struggle to do it week after week.

But at the same time if the end up in a stupid situation of stocks of vaccines in cupboards then they are 100% to blame for not recruiting enough people.

Or making the people they have recruited jump through loads of training hoops with diversity training or whatever else. All hands on deck, just get on with it.