BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Jan 22 - 01:26 PM

Regarding the other pandemic, clinical trials of an mrna vaccive for HIV have begun.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Jan 22 - 01:16 PM

Repeat Omicron infection could be long covid, we still don't know.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Jan 22 - 09:13 AM

Ok. My last poat was actual news. Nothing since has been. Should there be a different thread for news on the pandemic and leave this one to complain about each other?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jan 22 - 07:49 AM

I'm pretty confident that wearing a mask will have significantly reduced the likelihood of picking up a cold, though I'd imagine other covid related stuff, notably social distancing and pub closures etc will have played a major part. Maybe the medical statisticians will try to measure those kind of things.

But in any case, insofar as people identify mask-wearing as saving them from colds, that is going to encourage them to continue to wear masks. It won't be everyone, but I anticipate that a relatively long consequence of the pandemic will be that mask wearing will have been normalised. Maybe, in the same way you can date a crowd picture by how many men are wearing cloth caps, you'll be able to do the same by looking for masks.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Jan 22 - 05:36 AM

What contributes to people of our age not catching colds has everything to do with the fact that we've already had most of the strains that are going round. What helps is the fact that most of us have not been going to pubs, theatres and restaurants. Also, older people mix less with children, major transmitters of cold viruses. Unlike the covid-19 virus, many cold viruses can survive for a long time on all kinds of surfaces. Picking the germs up on your hands then touching your eyes, nose or mouth is a great way of catching a cold. The relative importance of airborne transmission versus contact hasn't been determined.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Jan 22 - 04:31 PM

”The number of colds and coughs I've had over the past couple of years has gone right down…I like not having a cold."

Quite so, Kevin. I haven’t had a cold for two years now - my last cold was early January, 2020. I’m persuaded that, along with the reduction in socialising since the start of the pandemic, wearing a mask in public has contributed to my remaining free from colds and/or other respiratory infections.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 22 - 08:49 AM

I'd be inclined to call it "sensible and socially responsible". In my opinion, obviously.

I suspect that mask wearing could continue to be quite widespread in our society - as someone in a story in today's Guardian says "i think I'll keep wearing one for the foreseeable. The number of colds and coughs I've had over the past couple of years has gone right down…I like not having a cold."

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Jan 22 - 07:16 AM

Plenty of sensible people still masking-up in the Backwoods branches of Mozzer’s and Tesco this morning. Also in the town centre. Surprised and delighted.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Jan 22 - 05:59 AM

Of course not, Kevin, but then we are in the realms of making moral judgements (or simply not giving a damn) rather than either adhering, or not, to imposed rules or laws. We can't micromanage every aspect of life via rules and must rely on "better nature." My point being that people's better natures are there to be appealed to. Maybe we should be trying harder as a society to do that. I'll shortly be venturing to Morrisons with trepidation (mask in pocket...)

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jan 22 - 04:59 AM

Some of us with good memories will remember the announcement that our small pox vaccine may have worn off several years ago. Well it has worn off and we have sort of forgotten about that minor detail. We don't see remnants of even the few small pox survivors anymore. Like Joeseph Stalin they died off years ago. (he was horribly small pox scared but his propoganda pictures were all airbrushed.)
Why vaccinate for a disease that doesn't exist?
Because it does exist and when frozen, is very patient.

Looking ahead 'anti vaxxers' would face the delemma of seeing is believing. Compared to the silence of the Covid dead and dieing, small pox is in your face.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 10:25 PM

By "absolute" whatI mean't exactly that - we have a responsibility to exercise reasonable care to avoid causing harm to others. Accidents can happen which are not our fault.

But it is meaningless to talk about having a right to abdicate that responsibility. As meaningless as to talk about having a right of property in another person.

I'd quite accept that you are acting responsibly. But as you said, there are millions who don't give a damn. When they choose to act in accordance with that I do not accept their right to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 09:12 PM

But you were talking about YOUR rights. I was talking about MY responsibility to respect your rights (in areas beyond sensible laws, such as my not sneezing over you or contaminating a supermarket trolley that you may unwittingly use). It's innate in me and millions of others to respect your rights in those ways, but millions of other people don't give a damn. It's those whose better nature we need to be appealing to.

Of course I don't think that anyone has any right to cause you harm, let alone the absolute right. However, if I don't wear a mask in Morrisons tomorrow, not by any stretch of the imagination could it be said that I'm setting out to exercise my absolute right to harm anyone. I'm jabbed and tested to the hilt and I always strive to keep my distance and I always sanitise my hands, hardly the actions of a bloke out to cause harm. It's eminently possible for me to harm someone within the crazy layout which is Bude Morrisons car park by driving into them. But by using the car park it can hardly be said that I'm exercising my absolute right to harm someone. By declining my mask and using the car park I'm simply going about ordinary life, and I have to accept, as do the people I encounter, the rough and tumble that that entails, just as we've always done. Anyway, my mask is always in my pocket, so I'll see.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 08:45 PM

Essentially, I don't that anyone can ever have an absolute right to harm other people.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 05:47 PM

Your rights are routinely flouted by people with coughs, colds, flu and unwashed hands. By speeding or careless drivers or by polluters. The philosophical question could be, do you grab these people by the lapels and demand that they respect your rights, or do you, perhaps by public campaigns, appeal to their better nature and try to encourage their sense of responsibility? As soon as you start talking about rights in areas of life which can't (or shouldn't: we don't want the law to be an ass...) be governed by the law, you're in danger of causing polarisation and entrenched positions. Which is precisely what has happened with the mandate for health workers to be vaccinated.

(My view on them is that their arguments against vaccination don't hold water and that they're being idiotic, but I agree with their objections to compulsion).

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 04:27 PM

I'm inclined to see responsibilities as more fundamental in society than rights. Other people collectively carrying out their responsibilities are what my rights depend on. Other people collectively failing to carry outtgeir responsibilities, and my rights are nullified.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 03:21 PM

I'm tested up to the hilt and I'm fully vaccinated. Little or no threat to anyone, frankly. Actually, I think you're confusing rights with responsibilities. My sense of responsibility to others includes the testing, the vaccine, keeping my distance, shopping at quiet times. If I can pull all those off, that's not bad. Fortunately, I don't have to confront public transport...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 02:13 PM

You may be right. I find that rather depressing.

In the last resort I accept that people can have a right to do things that involves even serious risk to themselves. But that doesn't extend to having the right to seriously risk other people.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 01:21 PM

You should feel grateful for that misconception. It's probably why the vast majority of people acquiesce in mask-wearing. Even I would admit to at least a passing and visceral feeling of being protected when some unmasked person gets a bit too upclose and personal.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 10:28 AM

One thing that irritates me is when people talk as if the primary purpose of wearing masks was to protect the wearer, so that not wearing a mask was a question of exercising a right to accept a notional risk to oneself. Whereas that sould be completely irrelevant.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jan 22 - 10:06 AM

I can now go maskless. Unfortunately, I have no shopping to do... Bude will survive to live another day...

Negative this morning, both of us.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jan 22 - 11:56 AM

The best you can say about Johnson is that he didn't actually get in the way of some valuable things happening, without which things could have been significantly worse. That's something to feel grateful for, but I'm not at all sure that gratitude should be directed to Johnson.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jan 22 - 11:35 AM

Just to be clear, the good bits of our pandemic response have come from amazing scientists who have developed superb vaccines in record time, the pharmaceutical companies who have bulked them up and got them distributed, the armies of unpaid volunteers who have kept thousands of vaccination and testing centres running, the care workers, doctors and nurses who have selflessly run themselves into the ground in the face of terrible risks to themselves in order to keep the health service afloat, and the British people who, by and large, have followed all the rules and overwhelmingly opted to take the vaccines. The bad bits of our pandemic response have all come from Boris Johnson, who has constantly sent out mixed messages and vacillated over lockdowns again and again, who sent thousands of untested, elderly, vulnerable people back into care homes from hospital (a policy which very likely killed tens of thousands of people), who presides over our NHS and care sector that the Tories have systematically run down for twelve years, who has allowed dodgy deals to be done with his profiteering Tory mates for PPE, and who has partied while the country was suffering at its worst. I'll allow him the furlough scheme, but just watch who will pay for that in the long run. Grudgingly, I'll allow him the rollout of abundant test kits, I could say free, but ditto as to the last point. It won't be him and his rich mates doing the stumping up for sure. He blows his trumpet about the bits he can't justifiably claim for his own yet won't take responsibility for his multiple failures. That's where we are with Johnson.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jan 22 - 11:25 AM

I don't think "angst" is quite the right term for what many British people feel in respect of Boris (probably about 60% recent polls indicate can't wait to see him gone, with actual supporters only making up a minority of the remaining 40%). It's more a matter of just not trusting him to be honest in anything. Or competent in his job.

If he got back to being a public entertainer, free from any responsibility, he'd still be quite popular, I think. He can be very funny. A bit of a card.

I'd say that most people here, right across the political spectrum, are quite at ease with the idea of what gets called big government in a time of national emergency. In fact the kind of thing being referred to by that term doesn't need to be organised in a centralised way. A good part of nostalgia still felt about the last war period, including by people born many generations after it, is for a society which was in many ways very authoritarian.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 26 Jan 22 - 11:23 AM

Will Morrisons issue their worker which disinfectant aerosol sprays that they can use on unmasked customers, or is it their duty to put their own lives at risk to continue to serve those who don't give a toss about their safety?

This is something unions should pick up on, and hold a ballot for a national strike is Morrisons do not protect their staff.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Jan 22 - 09:58 AM

Research has identified 4 factors in whether Covid is likely to become long-term Covid. I quote from the newspaper story about it:
One of the four factors researchers identified is the level of coronavirus RNA in the blood early in the infection, an indicator of viral load. Another is the presence of certain autoantibodies — antibodies that mistakenly attack tissues in the body as they do in conditions like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. A third factor is the reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus, a virus that infects most people, often when they are young, and then usually becomes dormant.
The 4th is being Type II diabetic but they don't know if that is the only disease involved. The other 3 factors are how a body reacts TO the virus.
Blicky to actual study.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Rain Dog
Date: 26 Jan 22 - 09:47 AM

"I have probably underestimated the angst Brits are having over Boris in charge of the pandemic response."

You probably have not underestimated the angst 'Brits' are having over Boris....

Meanwhile, in a mostly angst free England...

From the BBC

"Retailers Sainsbury's, John Lewis and Waitrose will continue to ask customers in England to wear masks in their shops when Plan B rules end on Thursday.

Rail operators also said passengers would be expected to wear masks when the legal requirement for face coverings in public places is dropped.

However, supermarket Morrisons said its customers would not be expected to.

Those keeping the policy in place said they would encourage, not force, customers to comply.

Plan B rules, imposed in early December to battle the Omicron variant, are being lifted because inflections have peaked nationally.

But the government is still advising people to wear masks in enclosed or crowded spaces and when meeting strangers.

Trade union Usdaw, which represents 360,000 retail workers, has urged customers to continue to "observe Covid safety measures", despite the mandatory requirement for masks ending."

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Jan 22 - 07:18 AM

"Covid as a blood born virus is not suitable..."

Supream ignorant quote from Amy Coney Barrett associate justice for the Supream Court on decideing case regarding vaccine mandate for large corporations. https://www.c-span.org/video/?516920-1/supreme-court-oral-argument-covid-19-vaccine-mandate-large-employers

She decided to overule the mandate for corporation but upheld it for health care workers only.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Jan 22 - 06:51 AM

I have probably underestimated the angst Brits are having over Boris in charge of the pandemic response. He is now the focus of most of the contradicting attitudes.

The US response is complicated by an age old dislike of big government control even when it is the best way forward.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 26 Jan 22 - 06:50 AM

Apparanty the torygraph is suggesting that Jacinda Ardern has lost control of the pandemic in New Zealand, The accumulated deaths there have reach a total of 46 since the start of the pandemic, and on one day alone there were 219 reported new cases in one day in January.

She needs to bring johnson in to take over managing public health in New Zealand.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jan 22 - 04:04 AM

I heard on Wireless 4 this morning that 99% of cases in the UK are omicron, with delta demoted to 1%. In addition, well over half of those who have had omicron have been infected by covid-19 before.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Jan 22 - 11:58 PM

Elton John has it.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jan 22 - 01:50 PM

" Your accusation we are being impolite to you is bogus."

I must have missed that one. Unless maybe I failed to see anything in it to cause offence.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Jan 22 - 11:17 AM

Ah, the second of your number to employ the royal "we..." :-)

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Jan 22 - 10:17 AM

point? Your accusation we are being impolite to you is bogus.

Omicron vaccine is already in its clinical trial phase.
The safe bet is that there will be all sorts of varients. Perhaps an endless supply, perhaps not.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 07:22 PM

Your point being?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 06:39 PM

In America politeness does not include bowing and scraping.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 04:45 PM

That thought's crossed my mind too. Though I'm not quite catching your other point. At least you can disagree politely, which kind of leaves the door a bit wider open. Must be summat to do with being fellow Guardian letter-writers... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 04:04 PM

"So I'll cling on to my prejudice that widespread outdoor mask-wearing looks just a tad neurotic."

That doesn't sound too far from the kind of thing Boris Johnson was prone to say about Muslim women who choose to wear a mask .

One benefit of the pandemic has been that by normalising mask wearing to some extent it should have cut down the hostility and suspicion of such women.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 04:03 PM

I'm fully-vaccinated, I test myself three times a week, I've obeyed every mandate to the letter and I always wear my mask where required, and often even when I don't have to if it makes people feel more comfortable. Is that the American definition of libertarianism?

As I said, I'll stay civil with you whatever YOU say...

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 03:10 PM

If you were in the US you would fall firmly in the Libertarian brand of politics - an unpleasant group that are known for their thumb-in-the-eye approach to politics and social issues. Laisse-faire and the hell with everyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 03:01 PM

She made a good point and you keep going. And will bring it up again and again.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 02:33 PM

..."are heartily sick to death..."

I'm not like this with you, even though I disagree with you on certain aspects. You need to accept that either, neither or both of us may be right, part-right or wrong. Charmion has just made a good point to counter what I said and I backed down. That's how it should go, but you continually make it difficult.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 02:27 PM

You keep repeating your opinion in the face of a discussion of the facts of COVID. Your opinion hasn't changed. You're egging people on.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 01:59 PM

It is on-topic and I read into that that "we" means "you." You are being aggressive and offensive simply because you don't agree with me. I'm trying to stay civil.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 01:24 PM

Cling to your prejudice but please drop this as a topic here at Mudcat. We all understand your views and are heartily sick to death of you continually harping on them.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 01:23 PM

On the northern buses, Kevin, the p in "Spitting" was all too often scratched out and replaced with a crudely-scratched "h."

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 01:16 PM

Well a snotty nose (especially in kids) is not a sign of respiratory disease. Indeed, it could be me going for a walk on a cold and windy day, or it could be one of those disgusting footballers caught on camera blowing out their nostrils one at a time. However, as I've never been to China or Japan, and never will, I'll take your word for it. The science tells us that respiratory viruses find it much more difficult to spread outdoors. So I'll cling on to my prejudice that widespread outdoor mask-wearing looks just a tad neurotic. Here in the airy and uncrowded winter outdoors of Bude, my visceral reaction to seeing people out for a walk on the clifftops wearing masks is that they are neurotic and that they don't trust anyone (including me). Rather sad, actually.

Negative again this morning. Point taken that a negative test doesn't prove that you're negative, Kevin. I do three tests a week routinely, and extra at the merest sniffle. I can't do better than that to protect other people (I wouldn't go out of the house, nor would Mrs Steve, if either of us tested positive), bar never leaving home.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 11:38 AM

I can remember when all the buses had little notices telling you spitting o the bus was an offence for which you could be fined. I imagine it probably still is, but they don't feel they need to point that out because customs have changed.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Charmion
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 11:04 AM

Steve, I think you're mistaken about mask-wearing in Asian countries if you believe it "exudes mistrust of other people".

A medical mask is worn to protect other people from YOU. That's why the operating room crew wear masks: so they don't contaminate either their sterile instruments or the patient's open wound with whatever germs might be lurking in their respiratory tracts.

In China and Japan, people are revolted by the signs of contagious respiratory disease, such as a snotty nose. (Note to file: When in China, blow your nose privately.) People wear masks as a sign to their neighbours that they're doing their best to keep their germs to themselves.

This cultural practice may be a holdover from the epidemic of pneumonic plague that hit China in the early years of the 20th century. If so, it is a neat parallel to the disappearance of spittoons, and spitting, from public spaces in Europe and North America after the Spanish Flu pandemic, and as measures to conquer tuberculosis took hold in the 1920s and '30s.

The other important reason Asian folks wear masks is, indeed, defensive: it's to avoid inhaling industrial pollution.

Neither of these reasons implies mistrust of other people.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 22 - 10:36 AM

Who would I trust? Not our politicians, and emphatically not Boris Johnson. And those are the people who have made the decisions in question at present. The medical experts have been pushed into the background, and there have been plenty of reports of their advice being ignored or overruled.

It's worth noting that England is very much an outlier when it comes to relaxing the requirements, both in Europe and within the UK.