BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jan 21 - 10:59 AM

There are a lot of individual obituary threads for musical people who have died of COVID-19. One non-musical but very well known, at least in the US, is talk show host Larry King.

Larry King, the longtime CNN host who became an icon through his interviews with countless newsmakers and his sartorial sensibilities, has died. He was 87.

His son, Chance, confirmed King's death Saturday morning.

King hosted "Larry King Live" on CNN for over 25 years, interviewing presidential candidates, celebrities, athletes, movie stars and everyday people. He retired in 2010 after taping more than 6,000 episodes of the show.

A statement was posted on his verified Facebook announcing his passing.

"With profound sadness, Ora Media announces the death of our co-founder, host and friend Larry King, who passed away this morning at age 87 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles," the statement said. "For 63 years and across the platforms of radio, television and digital media, Larry's many thousands of interviews, awards, and global acclaim stand as a testament to his unique and lasting talent as a broadcaster."

The statement did not give a cause of death.

He was hospitalized and in the ICU in recent days, but he had a number of health issues over the years. I suspect the conclusion will be that his death was COVID-related.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: pattyClink
Date: 20 Jan 21 - 01:48 PM

Thanks, Sandman. I'm seeing a lot of people not 'getting' that ventilation is a really big deal; busy scrubbing doorhandles and taking their temp, while foraying into poorly ventilated indoor venues where the virus is lurking. Next issue, we have no process to 'rate' buildings as to their safety.

Subject: RE: De-clutter & Fitness in a Pandemic: 2021
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Jan 21 - 04:22 AM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rcnl d
Irish Times
ventilation is key to stopping the spread of Covid-19
Clean air far more important than clean hands
Thu, Oct 8, 2020, 00:55
Orla Hegarty

Covid-19 has meant hard choices and serious consequences, with an escalation in restrictions and enforcement. But, if the rules aren’t being effective, could the rules be wrong? Last week the HSE gave a briefing about recent outbreaks. One case resulted in the infection of four restaurant staff and six people at another table; another cluster involved 14 of 27 students in a class. It was confirmed that Nphet guidelines were being followed, but when asked how this could have happened the HSE response was that “this virus is very unpredictable”.

This week there are 31 outbreaks in nursing homes and 25 in communities where people live in close proximity. A cluster from a cafe in Cork resulted in 57 infections; and of the 28,000 cases nationally up to the end of August, more than one in 20 were workers in meat plants.

All of these outbreaks follow very similar patterns to other countries and they all happen where crowds gather in very specific conditions – indoors in poor ventilation.

What is sidestepped in public health advice is that “super-spread events” are clear-cut and can be prevented. “Super-spread” is defined as an occasion where five people or more become infected, and up to 97 per cent happen indoors, according to research from Japan.
High-risk conditions

Moreover, just 10-20 per cent of those carrying Covid may be causing 80 per cent of new infections and it happens in known high-risk conditions. So, public health advice to “halve all contacts” is unlikely to halve the new cases when the majority of contacts are low-risk and where these known super-spread conditions are permitted, even at Level 5. Evidently, targeted prevention in specific locations is the only way to significantly reduce new cases.

In Ireland, a drop in cases coincided with warmer temperatures when activity moved outside and buildings were ventilated freely. Recent household infections have been attributed to people disregarding the rules, but perhaps it was the weather that changed rather than their behaviour? In the absence of public health warnings, most people are simply unaware that opening windows can reduce or eliminate the virus spread in their homes and cars.

Conversely, in meat plants ventilation is reduced in summer when air is recirculated to operate at 10 degrees. Research from Germany confirms that airborne virus in these conditions infected workers as far as 8m apart. At another super-spread event in Washington, one person at a choir practice infected 52 of 61 others, two of whom died. Increasing ventilation and shortening the event would likely have halved the infections. It is known that singing, shouting, exercising and even talking can increase the virus in the air.


Spread is airborne

It is now believed, from these and other cases, that most spread is airborne, that there is no safe distance in a poorly ventilated room and that conditions can move from low- to high-risk within 15 minutes.

Recent research spans environmental engineering, particle physics and virology and points back to how Ireland beat tuberculosis with space, sunlight and fresh air. In the last century disease – Spanish Flu and TB – changed the way that buildings were designed and it will again now.

Yet, while international research is providing answers, we still have “rules of thumb” for two-metre distancing and two-hour duration, now understood to be unsafe oversimplification. Without a science-base, these rules are resulting in unknowing high-risk behaviour on the one hand, and unnecessary social isolation and business closures on the other.
Higher indoors

All along, building ventilation has been hiding in plain sight in different rules for indoors and out. Covid-19 is a respiratory virus, it is caught from breathing. In the open air, the virus is diluted and dispersed in the air, but inside, aerosols, the particles small enough to remain in the air, can linger, spread and build up to dangerous levels, similar to cigarette smoke. Ventilation is key to prevention because the risk of breathing in Covid-19 is 20 times higher indoors.

Air quality in buildings can be measured, managed and monitored, so improving ventilation reduces or eliminates these risks.

Active and targeted prevention of specific high-risk conditions, such as in meat plants, direct provision, overcrowded housing and schools is key to both keeping buildings open and people out of hospital, without compromising the health services or the economy.

Last February, Japan identified ventilation as critically important to preventing conditions for super-spread. Public health advised avoiding the 3 Cs “closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings”. With a population of 126 million, the total number of deaths from Covid-19 in Japan is just 1,578 which is lower than in Ireland with a population of five million, with 1,806 mortalities.
Critical weapon

Comparisons between countries, are very difficult but the arguments in favour of ventilation as a critical weapon are compelling, and now confirmed by public health advice in other countries. What will it cost in lives and businesses for Ireland to wait for more proof, particularly when fresh air is free?

The HSE is soon to employ 500 contact-tracers to track future Covid-19 patients, asking where they went and who they met. But, how many people are employed to look at our houses and buildings to prevent tens of thousands of people becoming infected in the first place?

Escalation of this pandemic is not inevitable. Science-based rules, targeted public health advice, risk assessments and enforcement are critical now, not loose rules of thumb.

There is little cost in moving outside, spreading out into safer rooms, avoiding crowds, re-setting ventilation systems, and opening windows.

Clean air is far more important than clean hands.

Orla Hegarty is assistant professor at the School of Architecture UCD

R

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jan 21 - 05:56 PM

It belongs in the Trump era news, for one. But it's good news wherever one reads it!

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Jan 21 - 05:28 PM

Does the NRA going bankrupt belong in this or the Not About The Virus new news thread?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jan 21 - 12:44 PM

We are told to anticipate 90,000 new deaths over the next 3 weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Thompson
Date: 15 Jan 21 - 11:20 AM

Ireland, having had the second-best figures in the world for months, allowed everyone to come home and go out and socialise over Christmas, and now has the second-worst figures in the world. People are absolutely raging, those of use who are not in hospital.
Here's the graph of what our outbreak looks like (today anyway; the graph may change in time on the website as it doesn't seem to be dated).

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jan 21 - 10:45 AM

Life insurance is SNAFU due to virus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-02/covid-unknowns-leave-survivors-fearing-life-insurance-rejection

Subject: positive update on Marianne Faithfull
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Jan 21 - 05:33 PM

The interview in Mojo magazine is obviously from months back,
as is usual with periodicals like this one.
I got a look at a copy on a newsstand today,
but the interview goes back to the last calendar year.


"She Walks In Beauty" is going to be her latest record album,
a tribute to the English Romantic poets.
Marianne Faithfull is still mourning the loss of
producer Hal Willner.
Like her, he contracted COVID-19;
unlike her, he did not recover, and died last year.

Faithfull made the recording after being released from hospital.
COVID-19's immediate effects
were the loss of short-term memory, lung function, and her voice.

She stated in the update interview
that her lungs were very badly affected,
but that they are healing now,
adding,
"My short-term memory is affected.
But I'm told that when you have coronavirus as badly as I did, that happens.
But your memory comes back,
and mine is coming back.
And my lungs are coming back too.
I've made a beautiful record."

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 06:36 PM

One supposed lockdown too many there. Oops...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 05:53 PM

My surmise is that the new variant IS more transmissible, and I haven't said that it isn't. But someone here has put an arbitrary figure of "70% more contagious" which was a rehashed comment made by one quasi-maverick bloke in the UK and which is a claim bereft of evidence. The responsible thing is to base our opinions on credible facts. It is not responsible to jump on a titbit of a unsupported comment made by one person and use it to tell people of more measured opinion that they are pretending. That's all. And there's no need for you to disagree. I'd be quite happy to be wrong.

The infection rate here has burgeoned. It is a cold winter. Ten million people in London and around were in an ineffective tier until not long before Christmas. The government failed to call a firebreak at the October half term. Instead, we had a panic-stricken December lockdown...in which schools were allowed to stay open, fer chrissake. Secondary schools in particular are known to be virus pits. All through the autumn, people from the most infected areas were allowed to go on holiday in droves. Here in Cornwall, where rates have been low, we were swamped with tourists from the biggest and most infected urban areas right up to the beginning of November. It was actually phenomenal. Round here today, the roads are as busy as ever. In the March lockdown, in contrast, there was no traffic. Yesterday, in a supposed lockdown, in a three-mile drive from Bude to my house, I saw five motor homes and a camper van, on the first day of a supposed lockdown, and the locals round here can tell you of second homes still occupied.

Yes there is a variant that may be - probably is - more transmissible. That variant first exploded into action in London and around, a big crowded city that was still enjoying it pub and cafe culture. But when you're trying to get your head around the parlous state the country is in, to use "a more transmissible variant" as the exclusive explanation as to why we have so many infections is just what this benighted government wants you to think. Nice way of diverting the blame away from them. In all probability, it is just one factor among all the others I've just listed. Let's not be taken in, and let's go with all the caveats that you can pick out in this post, if you bother to look.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 02:36 PM

Over a 1000 covid related deaths announced today in the UK. Highest daily rate since April

Surrey and Sussex hospitals declare major incident due to large number of covid patients being treated.

Heard today that vaccine will start to be issued here in Dover and Deal from week starting 11th January.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 12:23 PM

I can't agree with you Steve.
Here in Dover along with most of Kent,rates were low before the 4 week lockdown in November. I have said before that the rate in Dover was in the low double figures.
During lockdown the rates started to rise in Medway, Swale and Thanet, the north and north east areas of Kent. Some people thought the rise in Swale was connected to the number of prisons there. Others put it down to lack of social distancing.
The rates then started to increase through Kent. We ended lockdown and went into tier 3 and then tier 4. The rates continued to increase. In all this time I did not notice any major change in people's behaviour. I would watch the local news each night and was puzzled by the continuing rise. I watched it sweep through Kent and then continue westward into Sussex. Something was amiss. I think that it is safe to say that it is more transmissible, worryingly so. I think that the authorities were slow to react. They certainly had more information than I did.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 12:20 PM

The scariest stat I saw today was loss of smell and taste in 86% of mild cases.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 11:59 AM

It may seem non sequitur to leave Jeri's post after several others were removed, but these two can serve as a reminder that the running battles from one thread to another are not acceptable.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 11:37 AM

Maggie got it right. I see it more like you have certain people you hate, designated adversaries, and so it's fair for you to make personal attacks.

It's not. While you're a member here, the personal attacks, the "stalking" will be deleted.

That's the last I'll say about it. Tangential, but mostly off-topic.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Senoufou
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 11:17 AM

Thank you very much Sandra.
As I understand it, being black increases the chances of being very ill/dying from the virus.
I suppose the schools are being treated as childcare centres so that the parents can go to work.
But secondary school pupils are surely capable of looking after themselves at home? My sister and I did while our mother worked, even during the school holidays.
I also feel sorry for the teachers.
At least the supermarket Morrisons is giving all 'frontline workers' a 10% reduction on their bill at the checkout, on production of the ID badge. Husband proudly shows his badge and the lady always says, "Stay safe!"

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 11:16 AM

It's not unlikely that the new variant is becoming prevalent due to natural selection. Another point is that London, along with other parts of the south-east the main focus of the variant's explosive spread, was, until recently, under very mild restrictions (Tier 2), which are now regarded as having been ineffective. New variant that was maybe SLIGHTLY more transmissible, huge crowded city, indulgent restrictions regime, a penchant for many Londoners to pile down to Cornwall and Devon for their late holidays...As with everything, nothing is simple and nothing can be ascribed to a single factor. My hunch is that the variant IS more transmissible, but that only a fool would put a percentage on it, and we must use that to explain its spread only when we take all those other issues into account.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 10:56 AM

Apparently.. [ie, I switched TV on near the end of a news item, so missed most details]..

Covid deniers had to be ejected from a sterile ICU area of a UK hospital
after invading to photograph 'proof' that the virus is a hoax...!!!?????

When are these fukwits going to get prison time,
instead of minor reprimands,
or petty fines that will probably be paid by crowd funders..

If the worry is prison will make martyrs of them,
surely there are other ways to really punish such covidiot wankers...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 09:01 AM

We CAN pretend that new varient virus are not 70% more contagious/
We can pretend that virus won't continue to mutate.
We can pretend there is no such thing as virus'.

In our teenage years it was normal to feel almost immortal.
In our heart we all enjoy pretending.
The crazy people don't know they are pretending.
Sane people just pretend quietly and in private moments.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 08:47 AM

not a good situation for anyone. I hope it improves, but from what I've read about UK situation, it is not good.

best wishes & hugs to you both

sandra


Prime Minister's speech, 5th Jan

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Senoufou
Date: 06 Jan 21 - 08:10 AM

Boris announced on Monday evening that all schools would be 'closed tomorrow' except for the children of key workers. Since my husband is a full-time school cleaner he was left wondering if he'd be needed or not. His team of cleaners comprises about fifteen people. Not a peep from his school either on their website or by phone. So he went in as usual yesterday, the date term was supposed to start.
There were only ten pupils (secondary school and sixth-form college) so he did some 'deep-cleaning' and was sent home a few hours early.
He was told to keep going in, and next week all the cleaners will be split into pairs per day. His day will be Fridays.
I can't see how this is protecting anybody. None of the ten pupils have been tested and are not wearing masks. The teacher/s are still being exposed to possible infection. And my husband has only been given a little paper mask to wear.
I'm terrified he gets Covid, and I'm surprised his Union (Unison) hasn't spoken up about this.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jan 21 - 01:49 PM

She's not a crazy person...

Neither are all the not crazy people leaving not crazy
comments of support for her...

Just understand they are not the crazy folks.. WE are...!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 05 Jan 21 - 12:54 PM

Here's a CBC News piece about a Newfound folksong parody that's on-topic. ;)

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Jan 21 - 12:21 PM

I know what you mean but denial rivals survival.

Denial is always the first response

An Alzheimer syndrome seems to accompagny covid infection beyond the mildest symptoms and even compromises blood brain barriers.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Jan 21 - 11:51 AM

It's part of a military type of triage, because in wartime, resources are limited. The "expectant" triage category, which doesn't typically exist in "normal life", is when a patient is expected to die without heroic intervention. They're dealing with reality, which sucks. Look to all those "we don't believe Covid is real", or "we're tired of wearing masks and distancing" people for the reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Jan 21 - 09:52 AM

Los Angeles County has had to tell its ambulances not to even bother transporting people "with little chance of survival" and to conserve O2. Giving people no chance of survival. Great.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 Jan 21 - 08:13 PM

Here in Australia's biggest city we have a couple of big hotspots & some lockdowns, but folk from these clusters have gone about their business not knowing they have covid so other suburbs & country towns are at risk. States have locked their boarders against travellers from other states. Country towns have been mainly covid free so far. Today's news - People in Broken Hill (1200 km from Sydney), Orange (250km) and Nyngan (550km) urged to come forward for testing after man travelled for camping trip.

Finally our state Premier has ordered (rather than strongly advising) mask to be worn on public transport & inside shopping centers, shops & other premises. Folk with medical conditions that make wearing a mask difficult or dangerous are exempt, but of course some folk know rules don't apply to them. They have god?-given rights, but as a cartoonist put it "Your right not to wear a mask ends at my nasal passages."

Where to buy reusable face masks in Australia – and how to make your own

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 04 Jan 21 - 06:26 PM

New news is just the old news again here in the UK. Back to full lockdown in England.No real surprise there.

Yet again I have to ask who is in charge of pr/communication for the Government? Who ever it is they are doing a pretty poor job.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Jan 21 - 05:05 PM

Here's that story about a costume with a fan spreading COVID-19.

A well-meaning gesture at a California hospital may have backfired this Christmas: To celebrate the holiday, an emergency room employee at Kaiser Permanente San Jose briefly wore an inflatable costume to work on December 25. Hospital officials are now looking into whether the costume's fan may have splayed infectious particles across the emergency department.

Between December 27 and January 1, 44 hospital employees at Kaiser Permanente San Jose tested positive for COVID-19.

"Any exposure, if it occurred, would have been completely innocent, and quite accidental, as the individual had no COVID symptoms and only sought to lift the spirits of those around them during what is a very stressful time," Irene Chavez, the hospital's senior vice president, said in a statement to ABC7 News.

She added: "If anything, this should serve as a very real reminder that the virus is widespread, and often without symptoms, and we must all be vigilant."

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Jan 21 - 01:31 PM

Bonz - perhaps this year they are waiting to see if they snuff it from covid,
before bothering with the hassle of tax forms...???

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Jan 21 - 01:13 PM

I wish many of our clients would do that, always last minute and only send half of the information!!

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Jos
Date: 03 Jan 21 - 12:09 PM

HMRC send me emails from about April onwards telling me that my tax return is due and urging me to hurry up and send it in - even though I don't need to do it until January. It isn't as if it comes as a surprise.
Mine is very straightforward - it takes me about a day, and then I check it again the next day before sending it in. If it was so complicated I needed an accountant I would give him or her the figures in plenty of time so there would be no need to extend the deadline.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Jan 21 - 11:58 AM

None of our clients fall into that category. It doesn't matter whether you are in the 1% or the 99%, if you are required to complete a tax return, the deadline is 31 January.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Jan 21 - 07:16 AM

Yep, first things first, eh, Bonzo? Put accountants first in line for the jab! Very timely of you to post that, as I've just read that 1% of the population owns 25% of the wealth...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Jan 21 - 05:55 AM

Whilst I agree 100% that measures must be put in place to keep teachers safe, so also must accountants - who provide an ignored essential service, be kept safe by extending the tax return deadline to 28 February or even 31 March, to allow remote working which is very much slower.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: mg
Date: 03 Jan 21 - 02:07 AM

from california...43 cases of covid in emergency department staff..or perhaps including other staff..they are saying someone wearing a christmas tree costume..with a fan to keep it inflated..perhaps spread it. if so...probably the stupidest thing i have heard. Google it..if it is true..the basic story is true..it is beyond belief.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: keberoxu
Date: 02 Jan 21 - 11:07 PM

Hardly new, but still quotable, is
a Tweet from Dan Rather, December 2020.

So, let me get this right.
The criticism of Dr. Jill Biden is
that she's not a "medical doctor"?
Says a bunch of people who have been
ignoring medical doctors
about a pandemic that has killed over 300,000 Americans?
Can someone invent a hypocrisy mute button?

17 December 2020

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 07:57 PM

Great start to what is supposed to be a better New Year, eh! The motor homes are still around, the lights are on in the second homes, saw a bunch of eight people having a huddled picnic on the sea front here in tier 3... It was so bloody cold that I was tempted to go up to 'em and tell 'em that they'd catch pneumonia out in this weather...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 04:35 PM

My wife is still under orders to return to front line infant school teaching
on Monday.
With no enhanced PPE provided, or priority for a vaccine...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 04:33 PM

A further 20 patients being transferred from Kent hospitals

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/kent-is-completely-overwhelmed-240101/

I cannot manage a blue click easily on this smartphone

---

Added for you. ---mudelf

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 04:31 PM

The family of 5 who live next door to us all have covid. Two are teachers, one primary and the other secondary.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 04:20 PM

Close members of my wife's family in Wales have covid..

Apparently one of their student kids brought it into the house.

Parents are in their 50s, and so far seem to be recovering ok
from a very unpleasant illness...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 03:49 PM

It used to be rare, when one heard about someone who thought they had COVID. A friend got tested back in April for something that was so rare it was almost impossible to find a test. This week I learned of a friend whose husband brought it home from work to her; they are recuperating. My next door neighbor [foolishly] went to church on xmas eve and learned a couple of days later that the pastor had COVID, so they're laying low. No symptoms, and they're an older couple so it needs to stay that way. I've seen her twice briefly on the porch to hand over something (a gift, and later baked goods). Such a brief encounter and only one time on the porch neither of us had a mask. She has several relatives who have reported it, one was on a ventilator.

This news is going to continue to be grim as we wait out the 14 days period after New Year's Eve when people still foolishly got together indoors for extended periods of time. Texas hospitals are full and patients with other problems are being sent out of state to hospitals with room for them.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 03:36 PM

Next lever tier will be 'Variant of oh fuck !!!!!!!'...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 03:18 PM

Posted this in the wrong thread earlier.

'I see that the new 'new variant' has been designated 'Variant of Concern'by Public Health England.'

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 06:51 AM

Well one bit of good news is that rates have started to fall, albeit slowly, here in Dover. Remains to be seen if they will increase again after the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 06:41 AM

Usual tory divide and rule, and distract, tactics..

In the summer it was cities versus country & coast;
now also pitting south east versus south west...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 06:36 AM

Hospital provision between Taunton and Bristol
has been severely reduced in the recent few years.

Tories were already dismantling capacity at Weston super Mare hospital
before it was stricken with emergency covid deaths
and temporarily closed earlier in the summer
when lockdown was eased.

North Somerset locals were attacked by Bristol newspapers
for justifiably protesting about that inevitable result
of summer tourists flooding back...

Do not resuscitate now applies to elderly patients hospitalized for chest pains
and other common potentially serious ailments..

The hospital is now already that desperate for available beds...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 04:50 AM

Well here in the Westcountry the ethos has been to be very compliant with the rules and the infection rates have been lower than in most other places. Yet for months we've been tearing our hair out as we've seen masses of tourists pouring in untrammelled since the summer right to the end of October, the vast majority from urban areas with far higher rates than ours. I can go out now and see camper vans, motor homes, cars with roof boxes and occupied second homes in blatant contravention of the rules. We are all being told not to travel and major hospitals are few and far between (one in Cornwall for half a million people). So the resentment at the idea that sick people from all over the place may be wheeled in because of the running down of the NHS and the gross mishandling of this pandemic is perfectly understandable. Innit.