COVID - Just how bad is Omicron

Daily Covid cases have gone through 100k for 1st time ever. In comparison daily deaths are 90% less than the peak of deaths in February 21.

 

We all need to catch this and variants ....albeit in a controlled way.

Keep calm and carry on

On the face of current information it would appear Omicron is in the majority no worse than a cold even to the unvaccinated.

The caveat to that is regardless of what the viruses some will always be affected worse than others. 

 

 

Daily Deaths

Daily cases 119,789 - 23 Dec 21
Daily Deaths 147 - 23 Dec 21 (5 Jan22 would match the 12 days back in Jan)
Percentage 0.12
Daily Deaths - 52 (12 days prior to cases peak) 12 Dec 21
Percentage 0.043

Peaks
Daily cases 67,794 - 8 Jan 21
Daily Deaths 1824 - 20 Jan 21 (12 days after cases peaked)
Percentage 2.69
Daily Deaths - 317 (12 days prior to cases peak)
Percentage 0.47

Daily cases 129,471 - 28 Dec 21
Daily Deaths 143 - 27 Dec 21 (One would expect this to be much higher but its not)
Percentage 0.11

COVID ~ Downing Street Party

To start its not about a party its about the morals of the party leading the country.

 

1. Mr Johnson says a party didn't happen. Oh sorry he's been assured a party didn't happen.
2. 10 Downing street is the PMs home.
3. If he was at home it should be obvious to him whether a party went on.
4. If he wasn't there it should be easy for him to ascertain whether a party went on in a matter of days if not hours.
   
5. Why does it need an investigation? - again basically to kick the can down the road so that people forget.
   
6. We now have the police saying they don't investigate old cases but there are several old cases from a similar time being investigated.
7. Sajid Javid said categorically there was no party, not that he'd been assured a party didn't happen. 100% a party didn't happen.
8. The get out clause here would be that in the video staff are joking about a party that wasn't a party 
1. "It wasn't a party it was cheese and wine"
2. "Is cheese and wine alright? It was a business meeting"
3. "This fictional party was a business meeting ...and it was not socially distanced"
4.  So Sajid Javid will say when its proven a party did happen that no he didn't lie a party didn't happen it was a cheese and wine business meeting!
9. UPDATE - And now Allegra Stratton resigns over a party that didn't happen? 
10. Boris Johnson says he "doesn't just take responsibility for things that happens in this building, I take responsibility for everything that happens in this government". Although seems he's quite happy to let others fall on their sword. Which makes one wonder exactly what responsibility he's taking?
11. Responsibility without accountability is where the problem lies.
12. But as a Conservative MP pointed out in PMQT seems like this story has been released to distract from something else.
    

LINKS

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59532066
https://www.swlondoner.co.uk/news/08122021-downing-street-party-scandal-who-is-allegra-stratton/

Covid - Moderna Booster Jab

Had Covid booster jab today so thought I'd log the side effects if any.

The vaccine was Moderna, Vaccine Lot 3004737.  

Got offered the Flue jab while I was there, never had it before but took them up on that as I was there.  Was asked if left or right-handed, Covid jab goes in the left arm and Flue jab in the right arm.

You are likely to be asked to wait for 15 minutes after your booster vaccine. This is so that in the very unlikely event of a severe allergic reaction, help will be at hand.

Waited for 5m and then went and sat in the van for 10min.

Not had Moderna before 1st 2 jabs were Pfizer and the only side effects with that were slightly achy arm on 1st one and 2nd like an insect bite.

Apparently, Moderna is more intense and gives very slightly better protection but you get slightly worse reactions to it, so we will see.

Common side effects are logged as

• Having a painful, heavy feeling and tenderness in the arm where you had your injection – this tends to be worst around 1 to 2 days after the vaccine
• Feeling tired
• Headache
• General aches, or mild flu like symptoms

 

So had Jab at around 1200 06/12/21

1316 - Very slight heavy feeling in the left arm

2221 - Ache in the arm, can feel it if I move the arm but more noticeable when I press it. Noticed my hands and fingers went very cold, I was wearing fleece and weight training gloves indoors and couldn't get warm in the afternoon. Have warmed up now.  The flu jab arm is fine.

0100 07/12/21 - Arm aching and unable to lie on it in bed - I sleep on that side.

1100 07/12/21 - Arm tender to touch but not aching, feel more tired than normal.

2226 07/12/21 - Same Arm tender to touch but not aching, feel more tired than normal.

0100 08/12/21 - Arm was aching when I lie on it otherwise wasn't, but unable to lie on it in bed.

0100 09/12/21 - Arm OK now and able to sleep on it.

LINKS

https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-booster-how-to-choose-the-right-shot-pfizer-moderna-2021-11?r=US&IR=T

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-vaccination/safety-and-side-effects/

Insulate Britain protesters, Police are a disgrace or are they?

Lots of meltdown over this one

'Police are a disgrace!' Britons react to 'wish-washy woke' M25 protest response

“I didn't see any real effort put in to move them by force. I want my council tax refunded as it's obviously not being used for policing.”

Mr Liddell-Grainger backed 'much tougher sentences' for 'arrogant and stuck-up' climate anarchists who 'cause immense harm to people's lives and livelihoods'.

 And many more comments

Yes, Police could have arrested protestors for obstruction of a British road

Obstruction of the Highway

Section 137 of the Highways Act 1980 says that “if a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway he is guilty of an offence”. The penalty for this offence is a fine and not imprisonment.

Any occupation of a road is potentially an obstruction and a series of court cases have established a highway can include the grass verge at the side of a road, a footpath, an industrial estate, the pavement outside Parliament and, since the Occupy protests of 2012, parts of the churchyard at St Paul’s Cathedral.

In examining ‘lawful excuse’, courts need to decide if an activity causing an obstruction is itself lawful and whether it is reasonable: in the case of a protest, taking into consideration Article 10 (freedom of expression) and Article 11 (freedom of assembly) of the ECHR. For example, the peace campaigner Brian Haw’s long-term protest in Parliament Square in London was found not to constitute an obstruction of the highway as it was deemed reasonable, bearing in mind his right to protest.

However, there is also a right to peaceful protest

Freedom of speech and the right to protest peacefully are protected by both the common law and the Human Rights Act 1998.

Furthermore, the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) as implied in Article 10 (the Right to Freedom of Expression) protects a right that’s fundamental to our democracy – freedom of expression – which means that we’re free to hold opinions and ideas and to share them with others without the state interfering. Article 11 (the Right to Peaceful Assembly) of the Human Rights Act 1998, meanwhile, allows for peaceful protest to take place without disturbance from authorities – unless of course any act of hostility or violence were to take place.

and the catch 22 on this is 

"Peaceful protest can only take place on public highways"

 

It's quite easy to see why the police were considering this before acting.

It's also easy to see why members of the public trying to forcibly remove protestors then found themselves targets of the police, the members of the public were not acting peacefully. Simple one for the police to act on.

Now whilst I don't necessarily agree with blocking the M25 and being stuck on the M25 or any motorway for 3 hours isn't fun. We should be careful with the calls to remove the right to protest or fine people more heavily for protesting. It's a little picture big picture thing dating back to many 100s of years before the suffragettes in 1913. The government is already chipping away at these rights, so be careful what you wish for.

LINKS

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9992613/Eco-mob-block-M25-AGAIN.html

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/13/climate-protesters-arrested-after-blocking-m25-junctions-in-rush-hour

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1492341/Extinction-Rebellion-news-topless-protester-XR-Insulate-Britain-M25-traffic-chaos

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1492439/police-M25-protest-Insulate-Britain-traffic-blockade-climate-change-latest-tiktok-video-VN

https://news.sky.com/story/m25-traffic-drivers-warned-to-avoid-parts-of-motorway-as-climate-protesters-block-slip-roads-12406944

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/16/m25-protesters-blocking-motorway/amp/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9997159/The-Insulate-Britain-protesters-strolled-M25-police-let-walk-free.html

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16144087/travel-chaos-eco-warriors-block-m25-second-time-2/

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/93/human-rights-joint-committee/news/156037/government-plans-to-change-law-to-restrict-demonstrations-breach-human-right-to-protest-says-jchr/

https://netpol.org/resources/common-criminal-offences/

https://www.daslaw.co.uk/blog/right-to-peaceful-protest

https://nationallegalservice.co.uk/uk-protest-rights/

COVID - Dominic Cummings inquiry

Cummings inquiry 26/05/21

Dominic Cummings main comments

"Matt Hancock lied and should be sacked"

The Gov had no plans for an emergency situation, chaotic incompetence.

PM Boris Johnson  said "I'm more concerned with you (Dominic Cummings) having the powers to resolve the chaos, chaos isn't that bad it means that everyone needs to look to me to resolve the chaos" 

Lamp in march lateral flow tests could have been available in march which would have reduced the impact of the autumn spike of cases. Money should have been put into Lamp and LFT in march but the time was wasted.

Let the body's pile up in their thousands was that said "There are various versions of this rumor, the BBC version is correct"

Untested people sent back into care homes - PM said "What on earth are you telling me? (polite version) Hancock told me people world be tested before being sent back to care homes"

PM said "If i shut down the borders we wont have any tourism company's left" we said if you don't there wont be any left anyway.

Essentially PM had responsibility for devolved nations tighter restrictions but was delayed due to not wanting to effect tourist industry.

"The system is creaking and at some stage people are just going to stop obeying orders from this PM as its not a legitimate government."

Surely you going to learn the lessons from march, PM said no were "going to hit and hope"

"If you took the top 1% of the country then any of them would have dealt with Covid better"

Patrick Valance was very clear, the data was very clear the PM didn't accept the advice.

You should not sack him the time to sack him is when the inquiries come along.

Do you think Michael Gove is culpable - I don't think Michael had a huge amount of responsibility regarding this.

Asians all do what their told - who said that? - "I don't want to get into who said what in specific meetings"

Do you think Boris Johnson is a fit a proper person to get us through this pandemic?  "No"

"We still don't have a proper border policy"

COVID - Oxford University/AstraZeneca partnership & The EU

Unlike me to not be knocking the UK Gov but .... credit where credit due.

The Oxford University and AstraZeneca partnership came out of the UK Govs dedicated Vaccines Taskforce,  basically the Gov fitted them together.

Oxford University’s vaccine research was given £20 million Government funding.
AstraZeneca will work with global partners on the international distribution of the vaccine, particularly working to make it available and accessible for low and medium-income countries.

Both partners have agreed to operate on a not-for-profit basis for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic.
Only the costs of production and distribution are being covered.

Uk got early access because Gov basically took a punt on it being successful as they ordered millions of doses before the trial results were out.
EU ordered 3 months later so unfortunately behind us in the queue.

The agreements between Astra and UK & EU have not been released but apparently, Astra saying that it was a best endeavours agreement. So not sure how far EU will get with that one. If it goes to court the agreements would have to be released.
EU supply will happen when previous commitments have been fulfilled.

Think there's a lot of smoke being blown around.
EU because they were late ordering, but then would you order a car if there was no guarantee the engine would work.
UK Gov took a speculative punt and this time it paid off. If the trials had failed then would have been a different story, I guess they were sweating for a while there. But it didn't and so we were front of the queue.

In the big scheme of things, there seems to be some disparity with costs of the vaccine being sold to smaller countries for double the price, but I guess whether that is true or not will come out in the wash.

LINKS

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-04-30-oxford-university-announces-landmark-partnership-astrazeneca-development-and

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55836463

https://www.politico.eu/article/charles-michel-says-eu-could-invoke-urgent-measures-response-coronavirus-vaccine-shortfall/

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-european-union-demands-plan-from-astrazeneca-to-deliver-promised-vaccines-as-row-continues-12200919

COVID - Why does the UK have highest death rate in Europe.

The question seems to be being asked as to why we have the highest death rate in Europe.

To me its a no brainer, not sure why its even a question, seems fairly obvious.

1. UK Gov, didn't take on board the reccomendations of the 2016 pandemic report, operation cygnus, this wasnt an if it was a when. It was known this would happen, they just couldnt predict exactly when.
2. Because of point 1 frontline staff ran out of PPE and the Gov had to spend millions to get stocks, some of which were not fit for purpose.
   
3. UK's High population density in relation to land mass.
4. One of the lowest levels of ICU beds and staff in Europe.
5. Didnt close borders. Easy for the UK to close borders as we are an island.
   
6. Slow to react in bring in a lock down, which wasnt really a lock down. Initially went down herd immunity route until doing a sharp U Turn.
   
7. Inconsistent and changing messages all the way through, meaning the public didnt buy into it fully.
8. Allowed major sporting events to go ahead. Cheltenham a point in case 500,000 people from all over the country.
9. Failed to instigate a working track & trace at the start and wasted millions. Other countries seemed to be able to instigate working systems. 
10. Kept schools/universities open, saying "theres no indication of it spreading in schools" and Boris "I'll keep schools open regardless of the cost", he didnt say wether that was monetry cost or deaths.  Meanwhile specialists (so the scientists knew) on the radio were saying of course it spreads in schools and silently, as kids rarely show symptoms. Later schools were struggling to stay open due to lackof staff.

There are many others, but 10 will do.

From previous post

The closest country that is similar to the UK in population and population density is Vietnam total cases 1,549 total deaths 35. (If you believe the figures)

Whilst Vietnam didn't lock down totally. Months before the rest of the world acted, it brought in travel restrictions, closed the border with China, schools were closed for 6 months, anyone entering the country quarantine for 14 days, 40% of quarantined cases had the virus but were asymptomatic carriers. Any towns with Positive cases were locked down with no one allowed in or out until two weeks had passed with no confirmed cases.

It wasnt like this snuck up on us, it could be seen coming across the world like a tidal wave. Italy was the best warning but the UK Gov seemed to chose to ignore, stand on the beach and watch the wave coming, rather than running for high ground.

A short sharp lock down at the start, including locking borders and we would have been out of it in 3-6 months, it would have never got to the levels it has. People will say ah well easy to say that in hindsight, well it wasnt hinsight. Ive been saying it from the start, its just common sense, and Vietnam our closest comparison (land area and population density), did just that, locked down well in advance of other countries and achieved possibly the lowest death rate.

Others that have closed borders etc Australia, NZ have achieved the same, although not really compareable, due to population density being much lower.

 

 ooOOoo

 

 Dr Jennifer Dixon, Chief Executive of the Health Foundation, responding to data showing the death toll from COVID-19 has exceeded 100,000 people in the UK, said:

‘This is a tragic milestone, and our deepest sympathy goes out to all those who have lost friends and family to COVID-19.

‘The scene for the current crisis was set long before the virus arrived. There has clearly been a lack of long-term planning and horizon scanning — and the investment across government and public agencies needed to do this. Underinvestment in public services has been ignored, leading to staffing shortages in the NHS, an obviously inadequate system for social care and cuts to public health grants over the last decade. This, plus a bias in decision-making towards the short term, has meant the country was not prepared and has struggled to find the capacity needed to deal with a crisis of this magnitude.

‘Decisions and action to protect people in care homes was late and inadequate. Over a quarter of deaths took place in care homes.

‘There was poor appreciation of the skills available in local authorities to help develop a strong test and trace system. Instead the government relied heavily on private contractors, many selected quickly without normal due diligence to cost or value, and the system has struggled to meet its own targets.

‘The pandemic has severely tested governments around the world. The toll of 100,000 deaths in the UK rightly raises huge questions as to how the pandemic was managed. There will need to be full inquiry to make sure lessons are learned for the future. Crucially, this will need to consider the extent to which existing health and economic inequalities in the UK, compared with other developed nations, made our experience far worse.’

https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/news/health-foundation-response-to-the-uk-covid-19-death-toll-exceeding-100000

 

LINKS

https://www.theweek.co.uk/107044/uk-coronavirus-timeline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_England_(2020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_England_(2021)

COVID ~ Sweden per capita is still better than in the UK

They should be with 1/12th of our population density. If a country could have pulled off no lockdowns Sweden should have been able to. However, they are currently doing U-Turns and now have the laws to allow a lockdown, if needed. They brought in face masks on public transport about 2 weeks ago, not that I totally agree with face masks, as they are not used correctly.

Sweden's population is 14% of ours

Population density is 8% of ours

UK 724/mi2

Swe 58/mi2

Their death rate is 11% of ours which is kind of on a par with us in comparison to the population.

However with their population density being so much lower and if not locking down was actually working that figure should be much lower.

Difficult to compare countries that are so far apart on population density.

One of the big differences is the swedes are more compliant to following rules, so whilst no lockdown was imposed, social distancing was advised and in the main followed ...try that here in the UK 😀 😀

The closest country that is similar to the UK in population and population density is Vietnam total cases 1,549 total deaths 35 (if you believe the figures)

Whilst Vietnam didn't lock down totally. Months before the rest of the world acted, it brought in travel restrictions, closed the border with China, schools were closed for 6 months, anyone entering the country quarantine for 14 days, 40% of quarantined cases had the virus but were asymptomatic carriers. Any towns with Positive cases were locked down with no one allowed in or out until two weeks had passed with no confirmed cases. 

We shall see how Sweden fairs in the next month but with their population density and the broadly compliant population they should be able to pull it off. But not comparable to the UK. 🙂

LINKS
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-by-density

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden?view=resource-use&tab=trend&resource=all_resources
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/viet-nam
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52628283
https://www.euronews.com/2020/10/19/has-sweden-s-coronavirus-strategy-helped-it-avoid-pandemic-fatigue
Sweden’s distinctive Covid strategy nears an end as lockdown proposed
Sweden does U-turn on face masks to fight virus