Wuhan virus 2020

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Virusses love Spring Brake.

Not brake, but break. I wish it was brake but hormones usually rev too high....

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

Unions have reacted angrily to the government recommending a 1% pay rise for NHS staff in England.

The British Medical Association says it is a "kick in the teeth" while the Royal College of Nursing has set up a strike fund.

But ministers have defended the proposal at a time when the economy is under "huge pressure"

Cyprus says it will open to vaccinated Britons from the start of May.

People with asthma are being wrongly refused the Covid vaccine by some GPs

Dozens of Covid contracts had not been published when the PM said they were "on the record for everyone to see"

Italy blocks AstraZeneca Covid vaccine export to Australia.

Brazilian president tells his country to "stop whining" about coronavirus, as he criticises local restrictions.

[Jimbuna]

Cyprus has become the latest country to suggest it will open its borders to people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, saying that Britons that have had two doses will be able to travel there from May without needing a negative test or to quarantine.

It's prompted more debate on whether "vaccine passports" could become a feature of foreign travel.

In the UK it has been suggested that people could use the existing NHS app to prove their vaccination status or a recent negative test and Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said Britons will be able to demonstrate whether they have had the jab if required by other countries.

Other countries and travel companies have also said they may require proof of vaccination for tourists:

Greece will admit Covid-negative Israeli tourists this summer who can prove their status with Israel's "green" digital vaccine certificate
Denmark and Sweden are developing vaccine passports in time for the summer.

Saga, which specialises in holidays for the over-50s, says passengers on its 2021 holidays or cruises must be fully vaccinated.

Australian airline Qantas says travellers will eventually need to prove they have had a vaccination to board its flights.

Denmark has followed France and Germany in approving the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine for over-65s, after a large study in Scotland found it to be very effective across all age groups.

Denmark has also teamed up with Austria and Israel to develop future coronavirus vaccines, aware of the risk posed by new virus mutations. The countries’ leaders discussed this co-operation in Israel on Thursday. The EU does not object to the initiative, though France insists that the joint EU strategy is the one to follow. The slow vaccine rollout in the EU has been much criticised.

The EU's internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, told the news website Politico that “it’s fine” for EU countries to use the Chinese and Russian vaccines if they wish to. The EU’s European Medicines Agency has not approved them yet. Commissioner Breton said those vaccine deliveries – to Hungary, for example – were small, whereas millions of doses were needed EU-wide. He is seeking new facilities in the EU to ramp up vaccine production.

The French region closest to the UK – Pas-de-Calais – is introducing a weekend lockdown because of a surge in infections there. France is generally lockdown-free, apart from Dunkirk – just east of Calais – and the Nice area in the south. But French bars, restaurants and leisure venues remain closed and there is a nightly curfew. By the summer France aims to have vaccinated two-thirds of its adult population – 30m people.

Germany remains under lockdown and there is concern that only two of the 16 German states have got the seven-day infection rate below the official target of 50 per 100,000 people.

[Onkel Neal]

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...d?srnd=premium

As good as even the most effective shots are, they can’t promise total immunity. A Bloomberg Opinion editor found that out the hard way.

I was vaccinated for Covid recently — I got my second Pfizer shot a few weeks ago. I was hoping that meant I wouldn’t get Covid, yet I tested positive this week. How is that possible?

Thank you, Mary, for sharing your story. The reality is that so-called sterilizing immunity, or protection that completely blocks a virus from infecting you, is rare. In fact, only one vaccine has been proven to provide that, and that is the smallpox shot. If you think back to the phase III trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Inc. vaccines — arguably the ones with the best efficacy so far — they were 95% effective, meaning some vaccinated people still developed symptoms even after the second dose. Also, outside the environment of a clinical trial, efficacy will be slightly lower; real-world data is showing about 90% efficacy. It’s also possible that you are infected with a new variant, such as the one that is circulating in New York, known as B.1.526. These variants are potentially better at getting past your antibody immunity.

[mapuc]

^ The same story here in Denmark and Sweden-people who have received both injection and nevertheless get infected.

I will quote what a professor said on Danish tv, some weeks ago.

(from my memory)
The vaccine does not prevent you from getting infected, what the vaccine does is preventing you from getting very ill or die from a corona infection.

Markus

[Jimbuna]

Levels of coronavirus infections in the UK have continued to fall, Office for National Statistics data shows.

The figures, for the seven days up to 27 February, reveal around 280,000 people in the community with the virus.

It suggests that the number infected has fallen by about a third in the most recent week of data.

Infection have also dropped in the over 70s age group in England, potentially as a result of the vaccine rollout, say experts.

The latest R number - 0.7 and 0.9 - suggests infection numbers are shrinking overall in the UK. It means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 7 and 9 other people.

[Skybird]

Vaccine efficacy and efficiency must be seen separately, they are not the same. Also, an efficiency rate of 90% does not mean that you have a 90% chance to avoid infection if you get exposed.

We know only one vaccine in history that has fully prevented 100% of possible virus infection, all cases, and that was I think the vaccine for pox.


For a claimed efficiency of 90% this means:

Are 90 percent of all vaccinated people protected?

That can not be! In some media the statement was interpreted as follows: "That means 9 out of 10 people can be protected from infection by the vaccination."

"According to this, the vaccine would be effective for 90 percent of all people who get vaccinated," the researchers conclude. That would mean that if you vaccinate all 83 million Germans, 90 percent of them are protected; only the remaining 8 , 3 million can become infected. But that would still be far more infected than has been the case so far. So that cannot be meant. "

The scientists explain: "The 90 percent do not relate to the group of those who have been vaccinated, but to that of the infected."

BioNTech reported that around 43,000 people took part in the study, roughly half of whom were vaccinated and the other were given a placebo. Seven days after the second dose, there were a total of 94 confirmed Covid-19 cases.

The scientists are now quoting from Pfizer's study protocol, in which the effectiveness is defined: The proportion of Covid-19 cases in the vaccination group is divided by the proportion of Covid-19 cases in the control group. This value is subtracted from 1 and multiplied by 100, so that you have a percentage. "It follows from this that there must have been 8 cases in the vaccination group and around 86 cases in the placebo group, which corresponds to a reduction of around 90 percent (in the 95 percent it was 8 versus 156 cases)."

https://www.zm-online.de/news/gesell...ozent-wirksam/

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

Not brake, but break. I wish it was brake but hormones usually rev too high....

Oh, now I am embarassed. Thats one from the "waiter, when will I become my beefsteak?" category.


Slip of the pen, like my many usual typos. Be assured, I do know it better. Not the first time it happend, probably will not have been the last time.

[Skybird]

When using self-tests, please be sure to follow the instructions for use!

[Jimbuna]

Hospital leaders in England back demands for a bigger pay rise for health workers - saying ministers previously factored in a pay rise of 2.1%

NHS Providers told the BBC it seemed "absolutely wrong" to take a pay rise "due" to frontline staff who've given so much in the pandemic.

More unions have put pressure on the government to reconsider its planned 1% pay rise for NHS workers in England.

The BMA, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives and Unison are calling for a "fair pay deal" in an open letter.

The health secretary defended the pay increase as "what we think is affordable"

A mystery person in the UK infected with the Covid variant of concern first found in Brazil is traced.

Rapid Covid testing is now available to all workplaces in England
California to reopen outdoor attractions in April.

[Skybird]

Germany, zero points

A column by Alexander Neubacher

The rest of the world regards us with a mixture of malice, pity and bewilderment: Germany, of all places, fails to vaccinate. The Germans considered themselves the most cunning ones.
March 6th, 2021, 9.44 a.m.

This week the Guardian published an article comparing the situation in the United Kingdom with that in Germany. A popular ploy used by left-wing British media to make Prime Minister Boris Johnson look like a total failure. Earlier, anyway. "Why the Germans Do It Better" is the name of a British non-fiction book from last autumn: Why the Germans do it better.


But the journalistic trick no longer works. The German vaccination debacle has reversed the situation. Now the British are the heroes and wonder why the Germans are doing so badly.
While Johnson wants to give his country back its freedom in June with a proactive vaccine procurement, Chancellor Angela Merkel warns of the next lockdown, the Guardian writes: "Mummy, how could you let your fans down like this?"


In Israel, more than one in two people has been vaccinated at least once, in Germany only about one in twenty. US President Joe Biden promises that one dose will be available for all adult Americans by the end of May. Merkel is aiming to make the Germans "a vaccination offer" by mid-September. Denmark, Ireland, Portugal, Spain - half of Europe apparently gets vaccination better organized than we do.

For Germans, at least the younger ones, it is an unfamiliar experience; the rest of the world regards us with a mixture of bewilderment and pity. As usual with the Eurovision Song Contest: Germany, zero points. With a slight glee, British commentators imagine traveling to Mallorca in the summer and for the first time not having to fear that German vacationers have blocked all pool loungers with their towels.

We considered ourselves to be the very cleverest. The British: are so stupid and leave the EU. The Americans: elect a madman to be president. The southerners: nice people, but unfortunately disorganized. This is what we thought in Germany and we gladly offered to explain to others how to properly separate your garbage and get out of nuclear power.

Now nobody would claim that the German state had failed all along the line. Many countries envy us for our hospitals and the short-time work allowance from the Federal Employment Agency. Germany provides aid for its economy; It would be even nicer if the money were transferred quickly.


But apparently we lack the ability to react creatively to the crisis. Germany's authorities work with the usual bureaucratic thoroughness, pandemic or not. We'd rather bunker millions of doses instead of flexibly adapting the sequence of vaccinations. We'd rather wait until all doubts about the correctness of living room tests have been dispelled.

I think the German failure is our inability to behave differently than typically German.

Or as I think: the Germans always manouver in Napoleonic sqares.






<li class="sm:hidden">
<li class="sm:hidden">
<li class="sm:hidden">