For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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#1839137
@johnm there's a 1 in 20 chance of long covid (e being poorly for 8 weeks) and of that subset only a very small sub-subset will experience the worst symptoms. @skydriller is correct, there's little risk to worry any random individual if they are numerate. You'll hopefully agree since you are always keen on people understanding numbers and science.

Trying to encourage people to get vaccinated with ideas like long covid or your passport to the pub and Ibiza is, quite simply, another face on the Project Fear gorgon. Maybe try treating people like adults instead of children will have better results.

For instance, this morning we're being treated to the announcement that you can holiday abroad this summer if you pay for a £120 PCR test per traveller. With tests at the destination that's a grand or more on an all-inclusive family holiday in Benidorm.

The trouble is that industry says the tests cost about £2. Even with additional logistics costs and the usual public-sector-inefficiency-tax, it's hard to see the announced cost as anything less than more Project Fear to discourage people from travelling abroad this summer because of the costs and worry about quarantine.

Obviously, if you happen to be relatively well off and superannuated with plenty of time to kill on return you might see it all as perfectly reasonable.

I do wonder if the real "covidiots" really are the folk sitting at home, frightened, hurling insults at regular people trying to get on with their life after being told that the vaccine they just had is the exit strategy.
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By skydriller
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1839153
eltonioni wrote:I do wonder if the real "covidiots" really are the folk sitting at home, frightened, hurling insults at regular people trying to get on with their life after being told that the vaccine they just had is the exit strategy.


Some have been saying this for a very long time.

Latest on the news today about travel is that regardless of antibodies, vaccination or where you have come from, you need a PCR test on return. Talk of "family of four" needing to pay £450-£500 for this. Of course what nobody is talking about is the testing you may or may not need a) to get on the airliner or b) on arrival at destination. A quick google will reveal that for the likes of greece/spain/italy it is around 300-450 Euros worth of testing in total per person...

Doesnt look good for the travel industry anytime soon.

Regards, SD..
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1839181
Recent experience in Chile suggest that there is merit in the point that vaccination is not a panacea and that there will be a need for some precautions alongside vaccination for a while yet.
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#1839188
JAFO wrote:
eltonioni wrote:Maybe try treating people like adults instead of children will have better results.


The government did try that and found little evidence of people acting like adults.

So what you are saying is that treating people like children has better results.

There was me thinking that it was vaccines that were having better results.
#1839191
eltonioni wrote:
JAFO wrote:
eltonioni wrote:Maybe try treating people like adults instead of children will have better results.


The government did try that and found little evidence of people acting like adults.

So what you are saying is that treating people like children has better results.


You'll need to point me to the bit where I said that because I don't recall it.
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#1839199
skydriller wrote:
This was discussed on various news channels this morning: There is a 1 in a million chance of a fit <30yr old dying of C19... if the chance of dying of any side effect is greater than 1 in a million, why would you get vaccinated? Whats in it for the <30yr old? The arguement then went on to vaccination passports and if forcing young people to be vaccinated when there is no benefit to them so they are allowed into shops is infringing their human rights.

Dont get me wrong, Im in my 40s, and will get vaccinated as soon as I can. But if I were 20 I may think differently.

Regards, SD..


Is there not some (growing) evidence that vaccination reduces overall transmission levels, in part by reducing viral load if one is still infected post vaccination?

So anyone <30yrs old may consider that vaccination for themselves may not be necessary, but that it is meritorious for the greater overall good?
#1839207
JAFO wrote:
eltonioni wrote:
JAFO wrote:
The government did try that and found little evidence of people acting like adults.

So what you are saying is that treating people like children has better results.


You'll need to point me to the bit where I said that because I don't recall it.


Fair dos. :) At the end of the day, people will just behave like people and lockdowns still aren't working, but thankfully vaccines are so we *should* very soon be past the point of caring much. Hallelujah!

Re other news, am trying to imagine how they are going to organise a royal funeral.
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1839211
@Mike Tango It is slightly more complicated than that. There is evidence that vaccination reduces both impact and transmission risk even if it does not completely prevent infection. So there is certainly merit in the young being vaccinated for that reason. but also to reduce the rate of mutation and so the risk of variants that might appear and defeat vaccines, as well as the individual risk to the young of long covid, which impacts the young more than the old and can be disabling to a significant degree.
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By skydriller
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#1839226
Mike Tango wrote:So anyone <30yrs old may consider that vaccination for themselves may not be necessary, but that it is meritorious for the greater overall good?


This is the point I was bringing up. All vaccination that I can think of has a benifit to the person being vaccinated that outweighs the risks of not being vaccinated and any side effects from the vaccination itself. If, in the case of C19 vaccination, the ethos is "get vaccinated, even though there are risks, to protect others", this is a different thing all together... and after a year of being royally shafted "to protect others", perhaps the younger amongst us might just say "enough"... And that is before you get to the whole issue of vaccination passports...

Regards, SD..
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1839234
skydriller wrote:This is the point I was bringing up. All vaccination that I can think of has a benifit to the person being vaccinated that outweighs the risks of not being vaccinated and any side effects from the vaccination itself. If, in the case of C19 vaccination, the ethos is "get vaccinated, even though there are risks, to protect others", this is a different thing all together... and after a year of being royally shafted "to protect others", perhaps the younger amongst us might just say "enough"... And that is before you get to the whole issue of vaccination passports...

Regards, SD..



The furore over the AZ blood clot risks create precisely this form of misguided mind set. Vaccination with rare serious side effects is not new. We are in the happy position where Covid has multiple vaccines with different designs and so even rare effects can be minimised.

No man is an island and pandemics and similar have to be managed on a population rather than individual basis with the primary need being to avoid healthcare services getting overwhelmed. We are well placed in the UK to manage this one successfully, if people behave responsibly, but there is no panacea and the risks have not gone away.
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#1839238
9 April BBC Europe summary:

"Russia has asked Slovakia to return 200,000 doses of its Sputnik V vaccine which have sat in storage since they were delivered on 1 March. Former Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic got hold of the doses secretly but then lost his job last week over the controversy. Now Slovakia’s drug regulator says the doses are different to those reviewed positively by the Lancet.

Germany has started talks on buying the Sputnik drug, according to Russia’s sovereign wealth fund. The EU’s medical agency EMA hasn’t yet approved the vaccine and Germany’s health minister says purchase will be conditional on its approval.

For the first time in eight days the number of Covid patients in intensive care in France has fallen, by 24 cases, to 5,705. A big surge of infections was reported on Thursday, but that includes figures from several days. Meanwhile, France has recorded its10 millionth Covid vaccination and a record 437,000 were inoculated yesterday alone. Germany’s case numbers have risen above 25,000 in the past 24 hours.

The Netherlands and Portugal have joined several other countries in limiting the Oxford-AstraZeneca drug to over-60s after the EMA advised of a possible causal link with very rare blood clots. The agency is clear that the benefits outweigh the risks. Meanwhile France’s health minister says anyone under 55 who has already had the first AZ dose will be offered another vaccine for the second.

Iceland is revising a new rule requiring anyone arriving from a high-risk country to stay in a special quarantine hotel for five days or submit a second negative test. The courts have ruled that the mandatory hotel stay is illegal. The health minister says travellers won’t have to pay for the hotel and will be allowed outdoors."

Some of the latest restrictions/relaxations:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53640249
#1839256
kanga wrote:Germany has started talks on buying the Sputnik drug, according to Russia’s sovereign wealth fund. The EU’s medical agency EMA hasn’t yet approved the vaccine and Germany’s health minister says purchase will be conditional on its approval.

Isn't this why they haven't had the AZ doeses they were hoping for? Hedging their bets. While Boris ordered everything, from everywhere right off the bat?
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#1839279
johnm wrote:No man is an island and pandemics and similar have to be managed on a population rather than individual basis with the primary need being to avoid healthcare services getting overwhelmed.


I'm sure we have discussed this before. Healthcare services are a means, not an end. The tail does not wag the dog, or at least should not. You manage pandemics to provide the best health result for the population, not to permit the levels of hospitalisations to be kept within health service capacity. In any event, each and every covid case in hospital reduces capacity for other treatments.

Of course, you don't want to overwhelm your health service as you get a step change in service that means some people won't get good treatment - some may even be left to die in the worst case scenario. But, that is not the reason why you manage the pandemic. You manage the pandemic to minimise the impact of the disease.

I'm with you completely on the no man is an island bit.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1839285
@Paultheparaglider in an ideal world I'd agree with you, but our world is a long way from ideal and a degree of cynicism is entirely appropriate I fear....
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