Covid 19 / Coronavirus

[Muckle Oxters]

So da "Scottish government backs plans to introduce testing at entry points" https://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2021/02/26/scottish-government-backs-plans-to-introduce-testing-at-entry-points

As @Roachmill says, mibee da ship has sailed (pardon da pun) and da vaccine will be workin it's magic by da time aa da details are worked oot

[Colin]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-56245100

Isle of Man was just about the 1st to end restrictions and open up, now they have a 'spike'.  Shows just how fragile things are, and that it only takes 1 person to bring it in..

[Roachmill]

^It does indeed. The Times blurted out a piece yesterday about how we'd qualify for Level 0 status were the newly tightened end of April rules applied right now. I'm not linking to it as it was an obviously stupid and irresponsible thing to publish IMHO; it'll only work to encourage some to take it as an excuse to make an early start. Level 0 may well be applicable by the end of April if nationwide cases continue to drop, the number of those vaccinated continues to rise and some sort of point of entry testing is in place... but that's not now.

Edited March 3 by Roachmill

[Capeesh]

This is completely on Boris and his useless ‘Red List’ (countries who are required to quarantine when arriving in the UK).

All the hard work and sacrifices people are making wasted by an incompetent at the helm.

In direct comparison, Scotland decided to make all international arrivals quarantine, this itself might have helped a bit but when we have no control over people taking a flight to England and crossing the border it looks like it has been a waste of time and effort.

Edited May 15 by Capeesh

[Ghostrider]

^ Boris and any list he may have is no more and no less culpable for the present situation than any other national/global 'interferer' and whatever they did or didn't do.

We are where we are due to global scaremongering creating hysteria, which the 'powers that be' have reacted to.

That would have been fine if anybody knew much of anything about the 'virus' in question, they didn't. They made it up as they went along changing their minds as often as their underwear......

Even if they'd known everything there was to know about the 'virus', that was only half the story, effective measures were needed to fight it, they didn't have that either. Unless for keeping a distance from other people and minimising transferrance from handling anything anyone else had handled, the rest were questionable at best, and a few possibly counter productive.

When this began those in power globally would have needed to ask themselves two questions, do we let this shoot through as quickly as its nature allows it to, then pick up the pieces. Or do we fight it and try to kill it off. They chose, for reasons best known to themselves, the latter, which was arguably foolhardy even on a good day, as with no knowledge of their adversary nor knowing if they had anything in their arsenal that could touch it, it was fighting fog.

As it turns out we've now put ourselves in one of the worst case scenarios, where a year plus of various measures have only managed to slow its progress and create a few small temporary pockets of containment here and there from time to time. Creating ideal conditions for the 'virus' to develop all sorts of variants and mutations, any one of which has the potential to come with a far more lethal twist in its tail than anyone's worst nightmares could dream up.

When it became apparent quite early on just how little the 'powers that be' understood the 'virus' and how little they had to fight it with, had they just stood back and let it do its thing, it would have most probably been rather messy and chaotic for a period, but if that been allowed to happen come now its very probable that life would have return to normal and the 'rona was nothing more than a bad memory from this time last year. Instead we're pretty much still where we were this time last year with the sword of Damocles still hovering.

We had a four month masked, hand sanatised lockdown last year, at the end of it the 'virus' was still infecting people. With a maximum off host survival of something like 28-30 days in ideal conditions, that means at the very least the 'virus' had been picked up and infected someone, who'd in turn deposited it elsewhere for someone else to pick up and be infected by it, at the very least on four seperate occasions/locations during that masked, hand sanatised lockdown. Hardly a resounding recommendation for its effectiveness, is it.

We have a so called 'vaccine', but it isn't. It 'might' reduce a persons chances of catching it, and it 'might' reduce their chances of suffering it so severely, and it 'might' reduce the chances of them passing it on....... but there seems little info available of the expected/possible percentage reduction(s) in each of the three areas. That's a pre-emptive treatment that might knock the sharp edges off the worse of it, if you're lucky, and kinda reminds me of the vitamin ads of the 60's and 70's which implied if you took them you'd be far more resilient against all the usual winter colds, flus and general sniffels, without actually providing any verifiable data to back it up.

We've been sitting on a tinderbox for over a year, and its not going to get any better as long as we keep on in the same direction. How long are we going to put up with the 'powers that be' running their scam or pretending to be knowledgable and 'in control', so that they can sit smugly patting themselves on the back, when the evidence all points everything they've said and done to having been wholly ineffective.

Last years lockdown and everything that went with it, was presumably an attempt to kill of the 'rona by depriving it of the hosts it needs for survival.......That didn't work.

The 'vaccine' given its shortcomings is unlikely to fare any better, and may well have the opposite effect it is intended to. Some folk who've had it are likely to develop a psychological 'increased invincibility' with everything that follows on from that.....

The 'rona has been here for over a year, and will remain until it runs it course naturally, as I said, if we'd let it do that when it arrived it in all probability would now be ancient history, instead we're prolonging the agony by slowing its course right down and it infecting a few here and a few there continuously for god knows how long in to the future. Meanwhile, until it has run its course as the population has achieved whatever herd imunity it is possible to achive, we're leaving ourselves wholly unprotected against any variant or mutation that happenes to develop as that time passes.

The original Spanish flu was no different than most other flus, it was the mutated version that was the widespread fatal version. The locations where the original flu had impacted worst ended up having the lowest number of fatalities in the end, as the fatal mutated version had great difficulty in establishing itself in such locations due to the levels of resistance in the populations given to them by having had the original version.

Its difficult to argue with history when the facts speak for themselves.

Its highly unlikely given what the 'rona is current medical science has the capability of creating a true and effective 'vaccine', they've had over a year to work on it, and what they're pushing is hardly impressive, or looking very likely to make any huge difference (unless to bank balances).

The art of minimising the total negative impact of anything, is usually to remove the active cause.  The 'rona has been here and active for well over a year, starving it of hosts via a lockdown didn't work, medical science has not been able to create anything that effectively denies it a host, so the only real choice left is herd immunity to deny it hosts.

We've been lucky so far that this has hung around so long and not mutated in to something far nastier, but that luck won't necessarily last. We can either continue as we are, with restrictions continuously being racked up and eased off, but never being removed for who knows how many years in to the future, all the while risking a mutation developing someplace that no measures is going to make any real difference to and does have a high fatality rate, or we can finally just let what is rip through, and be thankful a week, a month, a year, whatever in to the future that we did when a deadly mutant maybe does develop.

I'm not much for gambling, but if the bookie was taking bets, I'd put a tenner on the latter option being wisest.

The 'rona at the end of last year had an approx 3.5% fatality rate globally (likely less, given how 'rona deaths were classified), and there are reports doing the rounds that the average age of 'rona fatalities are 82. The UK Govt's own figures claim as many as 30% of those who contract it have no detectable symptoms......

In contrast, the bubonic plague, in its least fatal form has on average a 50% fatality rate (if untreated), and in its most fatal form, 100%.

Isn't it time for a little perspective, and a little less mass hysteria.

 

 

 

 

[Ghostrider]

Quote

In the latest vaccination figures up to Sunday, just under 90 per cent of eligible adults in Shetland have received at least a first dose, including 100 per cent of those aged 70 and over. Just under 50 per cent of adults in Shetland have had both doses.

Really!

I have good reason to conclude that those keeping tally are being rather economical with truth in making the statement I've highlighted in red.

99.99% may well have had at least one shot, I'm in no position to say either way, but 100% most certainly have not.

I hate Big Brother propaganda, wherever it rears its ugly head.

(Quote from SIBC headlines this morning).

Edited May 18 by Ghostrider

[Muckle Oxters]

 

On 16/05/2021 at 03:25, Ghostrider said:

As it turns out we've now put ourselves in one of the worst case scenarios, where a year plus of various measures have only managed to slow its progress and create a few small temporary pockets of containment here and there from time to time. Creating ideal conditions for the 'virus' to develop all sorts of variants and mutations, any one of which has the potential to come with a far more lethal twist in its tail than anyone's worst nightmares could dream up.

Slowing da course o a virus was tae prevent health services being overwhelmed (and buy time whilst vaccines and treatments wir developed, and yis, herd immunity was potentially achieved). Dat is whit kept da mortality rates doon, and on da statistical whole dat wis relatively successful. Once folk had da 'rona, da treatments dat were given oot wir relatively simple, but dir is a limit tae how many folk da health services can look after at wance. When da health services were stretched, mortality rates geed up. Simple stuff. I ken plenty o folk who work in health services, and a few folk dat wir very ill we da 'rona, and dat is da story dey tell me too. I'll tak dir testimony at face value afore I listen tae keyboard virologists.

I don't recall ever hearing fae anybody we ony understanding o the 'rona that the health services advice wis in place to 100% contain it or dat dir widna be variants or new viruses in future - it wis tae slow da spread, which it did.

 

I'd be interested tae see ony evidence tae back up dy theory dat slowing da progress increases da chances o variants developing. I'm nae virologist either but it sounds lik a lot o dirt! Surely da mair a virus spreads, da mair chance dir is o mutations.

 

On wan hand du's saying dat "keeping a distance from other people and minimising transferrance from handling anything anyone else had handled" wis sensible. I agree, and dat was da core message fae da health authorities.

But den du says dat "the evidence all points everything they've said and done to having been wholly ineffective."

Dat wid seem tae be a contradiction

 

Du's throwing oot phrases lik "the potential to come with a far more lethal twist in its tail than anyone's worst nightmares could dream up." den saying "Isn't it time for a little perspective, and a little less mass hysteria."

Again, dat wid seem tae be a contradiction

 

And as for comparing the 'rona tae da good old day o da bubonic plague and Spanish flu, when understanding o sanitation, hygiene, germs, viruses and da lik were either non-existant in dir infancy..... Mibee we're aa joost a bunch o modern pansies and we should ignore what was learned fae those global pandemics, ignore da health professionals current advice and joost knuckle doon, get on we it, and let millions die needlessly.

I'm happy tae social distance, wear a mask, and wash me hands when needs be if it'll save even wan life.

Edited May 18 by Muckle Oxters

[Davie P]

  

On 16/05/2021 at 03:25, Ghostrider said:

When this began those in power globally would have needed to ask themselves two questions, do we let this shoot through as quickly as its nature allows it to, then pick up the pieces. Or do we fight it and try to kill it off. They chose, for reasons best known to themselves, the latter, which was arguably foolhardy even on a good day, as with no knowledge of their adversary nor knowing if they had anything in their arsenal that could touch it, it was fighting fog.

I don't think either of those options were seriously considered for very long by anyone with an understanding of how the virus was spreading (I assume you know that but are writing for dramatic effect). Since very early on the aim of the game was to slow the spread i.e. the 'flatten the curve' principal whilst vaccines were developed and/or herd immunity achieved.

Surely there's enough evidence of health services around the world being overwhelmed for people to understand that aiming for herd immunity through the unchecked spread of the virus would have been catastrophic.

It feels quite odd to be even writing such an obvious comment.

Edited May 18 by Davie P