COVID-19

The number of people in ICU appears to be a good idea of how severe Omicron is and the level of people ICU has remained steady for the last 4 and a half months.

We are now weeks after we started to hit 100k cases on a daily basis so there is no reason to not expect those cases to have turned into ICU admissions by now if they were going to do so. Well over a quarter of a million people over 60 tested positive in the last 4 weeks according to the latest data by age and the good news all bar 10k of those were full vaccinated.

By all means take caution, but we are nowhere near where we were 12 months ago. We need to press forward, not backwards like in Wales.

 

It's easier to say but that doesn't mean it's wrong. I'm in my 40s, it's not like I'm 18, I've still got a risk involved even if it's not the same as being in my 80s.

If the vaccines doesn't work for someone it's an unsolvable problem in reality and worrying about it certainly doesn't solve the issue. It becomes a self fullfilling problem.

But let me put it a different way with a real life example. Over Christmas I saw some of my older family and their friends to go into Bradford, there were 18 of us altogether. On the day of the meeting several of them started posting photos of their LFTs into the groupchat we had set up to organise the event and asking other people to do the same. Now in some respects that's fine and I happily did one more to set their mind at ease rather than anything else.

When I thought about it though it seemed weird. In reality they all got public transport in, we visited different 5 pubs and went for a curry. Of the maybe 300 people that we probably came into contact with that day did it REALLY matter if we knew that the other 17 people in that group had done a LFT when we didn't know if the other ~282 had? They were presenting the LFTs as a way of controlling a situation that in reality was uncontrolable. You could say it's good manners - and it probably is - but it's nothing more than that.

So I 100% get your point about people being sick of it but the only solution I can actually see in reality is to let go of the idea that you can control whether you get infected or not. Over time you can't.

As someone who has had 3 jabs and have the mindset that I'm almost as protected as I'm ever going to be regardless of whether people within my circle are vaccinated, have a LFT or even wear a mask. The only thing that will STOP me getting it is whether my vaccine or not, everything else just affects WHEN I get it.

 

And that will ban him from entry for three years

 

He didn’t follow the rules. He won the case because the border guards didn’t follow the timing rules. If they had let him speak to his solicitor for a bit longer then he would have been removed.

 

That was part of it but not wasn't some of it also to do with the official rules allowing a previous positive PCR test to be applied as a medical exemption - that's show he got the visa in the first place and that was correct? I was reading the live thing at about 3am thing morning so might have misinterpreted that bit!

 

Sure, there's no point whatsoever doing LFTs if you're then going to wander round a load of crowded city centre pubs and have contact with several hundred people in enclosed areas. But most people I know aren't doing those sorts of things and didn't do so before the pandemic. Most of us are seeing each other in our houses or going for walks etc, but avoiding going to gigs, cinemas etc and rarely using public transport.

I think you're underplaying the difference in risk between being in your 40s and in your 60s or over. From what I understand, the difference in the efficiency of one's immune system is pretty huge. An obese, unfit 45 year old has a much better immune system than a fit, slim 65 year old.

As I said before, once this wave passes and Spring arrives I think people will get more confident. If we get through the winter and the deaths have remained very low then confidence in the vaccine protection may improve amongst older people. It's a difficult mindset to break out of though. We had 18 months, pre-vaccines, when catching Covid could be debilitating or a death sentence. Most of us know/know of people who've died at our age. Moving to the idea that getting Covid is no different from other viruses will take time. Most of us know it intellectually, but the gut response is still to do what we can to avoid getting it, just in case.

 

Isn't it more to do with the difference between the info he was given by the state authorities and the rules set by the national government? One allows previous Covid infection as an exemption and the other doesn't.

 

Your first paragraph is exactly what I'm saying. If I was going to see my Grandma in her house 1-on-1 then I would take a test but people are losing sight of what they actually achieve and are almost using it as an automatic thing to do regardless of whether it makes any realistic difference at all. There's a time and place where LFTs are a valid source of protection and other instances when people have to realise the risks are out of their hands.

From your last paragraph I think we both therefore agree that people need to adjust their mindset and - to my mind - the quicker they do that the more sensible and realistic we will end up being as a society. You're quite right that it will take time but at least acknowledging it is quite a big step.

But I'm not underplaying the difference between 40s and 60 - I acknowledged it was easier for me and the difference in risk is significant. I was just outlining that I'm not talking from a place of no risk.

 

The other point about LFTs is avoiding having to isolate. I've avoided going to some City matches, not so much because I'm scared of catching Covid, but because (eg) my daughter and grandson were visiting later than week and I didn't want to risk screwing that up.

 

I don't think so. They both come from the ATAGI (Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation) guidelines in exactly the same way - just the actual delegate who met Djokovic in the airport wrongly applied them.

From one of the live chats this morning....

Judge Anthony Kelly is agreeing with Djokovic's lawyer's argument that the tennis player presented all the necessary medical evidence to officials. He says he's quite "agitated" by what he's heard so far - and repeats the fact that Djokovic's exemption was granted by two separate medical boards in Australia.
"What more could this man have done?" says the judge."

"Here, a professor and an eminently qualified physician have produced and provided to the applicant a medical exemption," Judge Kelly said. "Further to that, that medical exemption and the basis on which it was given was separately given by a further independent expert specialist panel established by the Victorian state government and that document was in the hands of the delegate."

 

I think that's another valid use for them at the moment too. But it's a further example of the inconvenience of testing positive occasionally being a bigger fear than that virus itself.

It's also worth remembering on a completely separate point that free LFTs aren't actually free. People complian about the £37 billion being spent on T&T but from what Tom Harwood said this morning (not the best source admittedly but he quoted the FT so should have some substance behind it) £9 billion of that related to the purchase and processing of rapid tests.

 

I understood that the national government were saying that, regardless of what the medical boards, the tennis authority and the Victorian state government believed, the national Covid rules do not allow exemption on the basis of previous Covid infection.

 

They were - but the judge said that they were wrong as it all linked back to ATAGI - which very clearly stated that the positive PCR was a valid medical exemption.

When it actually came down to it the government didn't ever try to argue it. They were trying to argue that the interpretation of the law by Novak's lawyers was incorrect.

Once again from the Live Chat

Judge warns that government approach may be 'too granular'

The government has just begun outlining its response to the seven legal grounds argued by Djokovic's lawyer. They are denying the grounds of procedural unfairness or unreasonableness.

They're also arguing a different interpretation of the Migration Act and Biosecurity Act. They're rejecting how Djokovic's lawyers have framed it and are arguing other legal principles on how laws can be read. But the judge warns them that this legal construction isn't necessarily correct, and may be too narrow, particularly in respect to the facts we know about Djokovic's time at the airport.

The government's argument so far is very much framed on defining the legal tests that need to be met - they're trying to question the standards Djokovic's lawyers are using to argue the case. Essentially, the government is arguing their case through interpretation of legal principles, as opposed to making an argument on the facts.

I wish I could actually find The Guardian's live reporting from this morning because they had a better explanation of it but it doesn't seem to be available.

 

I'm not sure if this is the calm before the storm, but even though tests in the last week hit 12m and the school went back, cases appear to be slowing and actually show signs as if the are about to go back down. People admitted to hospital where Omicron first took off are also dropping off, and this is without the need for the restrictions that Wales and Scotland felt they needed to put into place.

 

There are allegedly videos of him awarding groups of kids and other videos of him doing sponsorship on the days he claimed to have covid, He must recover very fast as he did not isolate with it

 

On Twitter is referred to the ceremony in question as having taken place the day before the photos were uploaded on the 17th. They also give a time that he tested positive on the 16th at 8.30pm I think it was which is somewhat suspect.

However if he was testing daily and it came back positive there might be nothing in it. If he was feeling unwell and tested but still went ahead with the ceremony then questions should be asked.

 

Boris has been placed at a garden party where an e-mail has confirmed it happened.

This is good news, because it makes it harder for Boris to drag on these restrictions when it's seen he has been breaking them.

 

He needs to resign.

The guy is toast.

As we can plainly see, this is a Cummings-esque character assassination, just like they ran against Corbyn - now it's time for Boris to leave, as he's been utterly destroyed in the public eye.

He's also a POS, but that's not news.

 

I think the guy is toast, this is the party that Cummings was screaming about on his blog the other day. It wouldn't surprise me if the e-mail is his and he handed it to the press.

Still the good news is it makes it near impossible for Boris to put any further restrictions on our lives which is a good thing. However no doubt they are cooking up a new Variant in order to deflect from the current shitshow.

 

I don't think our piddly little government can cook up a new variant just to distract people.

But I bet they wish the Novak story had broken AFTER this one, because people seem to actually be getting angry about it... for once.