So, coronavirus...

[Hong Kong]

[Saint]

He needs a new twitter handle. Didn't he have to resign even before we left the EU?

[Openside]

Has the AZ vaccine even been signed off yet?

I thought they reckon it’s a foregone conclusion by end of year??

I'm sure that's what Downing St and Hancock wanted us to hear

approved yesterday

[Saint]

Not really sure what the point was in leaving 22% of England in Tier 3. As sure as night follows day they're going to move to 4 next time round, but with a higher infection and death rate than now anyway

[SaintK]

I thought they reckon it’s a foregone conclusion by end of year??

I'm sure that's what Downing St and Hancock wanted us to hear

approved yesterday

[Insane_Homer]

[tc27]

Some wooly language from Hancock on vaccination numbers 'millions' by February but only 500k definitely available in Jan. Not a good sign when they start getting vague about numbers and times.

[SaintK]

Not really sure what the point was in leaving 22% of England in Tier 3. As sure as night follows day they're going to move to 4 next time round, but with a higher infection and death rate than now anyway

Unfortunately decision making that's par for the course since the start
There's a few "Tory" shires amongst that lot mind you

Here's a round-up of the local authority areas that will move into tier three at 00:01 on Thursday:
Rutland
Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin
Worcestershire (Bromsgrove, Malvern Hills, Redditch, Worcester, Wychavon, Wyre Forest)
Herefordshire
Liverpool City Region (Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, Wirral, St Helens)
York & North Yorkshire (Scarborough, Hambleton, Richmondshire, Selby, Craven, Ryedale, Harrogate, City of York)
Bath and North East Somerset
Devon, Plymouth, Torbay (East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon, North Devon, South Hams, Teignbridge, Torridge, West Devon, Plymouth, Torbay)
Cornwall
Dorset
Wiltshire

[Uncle fester]

What happened in 2010?

[Marylandolorian]

What happened in 2010?

France won the Grand Slam

[Insane_Homer]

What happened in 2010?

Tories were elected!

[JM2K6]

What happened in 2010?

A particularly nasty flu year - H1N1 was the predominant strain.

[Tichtheid]

A particularly nasty flu year - H1N1 was the predominant strain.

Ha! Homer made me give a gallows laugh, but regarding this - I had a flu jab a month or so ago, and as far as I can gather the vaccine is against whatever strain they think will come around in a particular year.

Does anyone know if it's possible, or if it will be possible in the future given recent events, that we can change tack mid flu season and vaccinate against the likes of H1N1 when it becomes apparent which strain is at large?

[frodder]

What happened in 2010?

Forest lost in the play-offs (again)

[Slick]

Brother in law, who has a 1 month old baby, has just included his 70+ parents in his support bubble and hasn’t bothered with the rules all along, has just said they have decided not to travel across the country for NYE with his wife’s parents. Finally getting through you might think.

Unfortunately not, his mate is having a party at his house in London so going to that instead

[Biffer]

A particularly nasty flu year - H1N1 was the predominant strain.

Ha! Homer made me give a gallows laugh, but regarding this - I had a flu jab a month or so ago, and as far as I can gather the vaccine is against whatever strain they think will come around in a particular year.

Does anyone know if it's possible, or if it will be possible in the future given recent events, that we can change tack mid flu season and vaccinate against the likes of H1N1 when it becomes apparent which strain is at large?

It'd be really difficult if it was just a normally bad flu season rather than a pandemic, just in terms of time and logistics.

There is some hope that the mRNA vaccines might enable a ubiquitous flu vaccine though.

[frodder]

Brother in law, who has a 1 month old baby, has just included his 70+ parents in his support bubble and hasn’t bothered with the rules all along, has just said they have decided not to travel across the country for NYE with his wife’s parents. Finally getting through you might think.

Unfortunately not, his mate is having a party at his house in London so going to that instead

Please say you're joking there. Who in their right mind will be hosting a party and who in their right mind would think it would be a good idea to go

[Saint]

A particularly nasty flu year - H1N1 was the predominant strain.

Ha! Homer made me give a gallows laugh, but regarding this - I had a flu jab a month or so ago, and as far as I can gather the vaccine is against whatever strain they think will come around in a particular year.

Does anyone know if it's possible, or if it will be possible in the future given recent events, that we can change tack mid flu season and vaccinate against the likes of H1N1 when it becomes apparent which strain is at large?

It'd be really difficult if it was just a normally bad flu season rather than a pandemic, just in terms of time and logistics.

There is some hope that the mRNA vaccines might enable a ubiquitous flu vaccine though.

It's currently effectively impossible. The current versions if the flu jab are based on some pretty old tech and take a long time to manufacture in bulk - they started production of the strains they predicted would be the widely circulating versions over 9 months ago, and are still struggling to get enough volume to meet the very limited demand for it.

An mRNA vaccine should in theory provide a "rapid response" solution but they really would need to sort the logistics out so that you don't have temperature delivery issues - a lot of the flu vaccine is delivered by nurses travelling to patients so can't be temperature controlled.

In theory the viral vector as used by AstraZeneca could also provide an answer, but they first would need to find a vector that they could use repeatedly, as there's a risk that the immune system will build immunity to a vector if it sees it repeatedly and completely ignore the fact that it's carrying a different protein which is the thing it's supposed to be developing immunity to instead

[JM2K6]

Brother in law, who has a 1 month old baby, has just included his 70+ parents in his support bubble and hasn’t bothered with the rules all along, has just said they have decided not to travel across the country for NYE with his wife’s parents. Finally getting through you might think.

Unfortunately not, his mate is having a party at his house in London so going to that instead

Please say you're joking there. Who in their right mind will be hosting a party and who in their right mind would think it would be a good idea to go

If you had 70+ parents you'd probably lose your mind too. I only have one left and I can just about deal with her.

[Slick]

Brother in law, who has a 1 month old baby, has just included his 70+ parents in his support bubble and hasn’t bothered with the rules all along, has just said they have decided not to travel across the country for NYE with his wife’s parents. Finally getting through you might think.

Unfortunately not, his mate is having a party at his house in London so going to that instead

Please say you're joking there. Who in their right mind will be hosting a party and who in their right mind would think it would be a good idea to go

Unfortunately not. My wife has just lost it with him. He had a huge go at her when we cancelled our plans to go to London at Christmas and doesn’t seem to see that arrogant, privileged pricks like him were the cause of it

[Tichtheid]

Thanks Biffer and Saint, yeah I thought it was a big ask, I was just hoping that the new manufacturing capacity might have improved the prospects for dealing with "normal" flu

[Slick]

Brother in law, who has a 1 month old baby, has just included his 70+ parents in his support bubble and hasn’t bothered with the rules all along, has just said they have decided not to travel across the country for NYE with his wife’s parents. Finally getting through you might think.

Unfortunately not, his mate is having a party at his house in London so going to that instead

Please say you're joking there. Who in their right mind will be hosting a party and who in their right mind would think it would be a good idea to go

If you had 70+ parents you'd probably lose your mind too. I only have one left and I can just about deal with her.

It’s a long story

[I like neeps]

Seems they haven't been entirely honest with the numbers...

[Sandstorm]

Nothing new there. The Daily Testing numbers in June were also wrong by a massive amount. Lies, lies and Hancock’s statistics.

[fishfoodie]

Seems they haven't been entirely honest with the numbers...

You mean Operation Moonshot isn't going to happen ?

... as long as no-one loses their job when they get caught lying like this; nothing will every change. Zero fucks given.

[GogLais]

Brother in law, who has a 1 month old baby, has just included his 70+ parents in his support bubble and hasn’t bothered with the rules all along, has just said they have decided not to travel across the country for NYE with his wife’s parents. Finally getting through you might think.

Unfortunately not, his mate is having a party at his house in London so going to that instead

Please say you're joking there. Who in their right mind will be hosting a party and who in their right mind would think it would be a good idea to go

If you had 70+ parents you'd probably lose your mind too. I only have one left and I can just about deal with her.

Most people just have two.

[Sandstorm]

[Saint]

Seems they haven't been entirely honest with the numbers...

It's a production issue that AstraZeneca initially reported 3 weeks ago (reducing their forecast 30 million to 4 million initially, an then downwards from there).

This has been public domain for some time

[frodder]

So how much Pfizer stock do we have?

[Slick]

So how much Pfizer stock do we have?

Keep up.

Boom Boom

[frodder]

So how much Pfizer stock do we have?

Keep up.

Boom Boom

Ok....how much Pfizer stock do we have

[Slick]

So how much Pfizer stock do we have?

Keep up.

Boom Boom

Ok....how much Pfizer stock do we have

It was meant as a Viagra joke.

I’ve no idea.

It was a terrible joke

[Saint]

So how much Pfizer stock do we have?

Should have taken delivery either today or tomorrow of a couple of million.

They're having production issues as well

[I like neeps]

Seems they haven't been entirely honest with the numbers...

It's a production issue that AstraZeneca initially reported 3 weeks ago (reducing their forecast 30 million to 4 million initially, an then downwards from there).

This has been public domain for some time

Ah fair enough.

[Ted.]

These are the stupid cunts spreading it, if he was swabbed he should have been in isolation until he got his test result NOT as a result of him testing positive.

To be fair he mentioned he took the test as part of a similar survey, so wasn't overly fussed (not a mate anyway).

That said, thinking now only certain tests are used to plug results into the mobile app. So could be sus.


Separately have just returned from SA, and had a call from border force/NHS/servo/whomever, instructing to get an NHS test in 7-8 days.

Would still prefer they request test before travel, test immediately after travel (at travellers expense) and in the case of countries of concern (or positive test on flight), a further test several days down the line whilst still requiring the traveller to quarantine at designated hotels.

But better than nothing I suppose, guess it will be the mantra re government until at least 2024.

NTS, were you at least asked to isolate until you had a clear test?

I find it extraordinary that you are not asked to have a clear test prior to travel, then isolate and test 3-4 day after then another 12-13 days following your travel.

As an aside, and not getting at you, however you can test all you like, but if you're only doing it to more or less confirm the horse has already bolted, no matter that you're the testiest country ever, you're always going to be behind the 8 ball.

[tc27]

Which is sounds a bit better but the fuzzy language and information coming out reminds me (as others said) of testing earlier this year.

Honestly I cant believe the government are not aware this really is their chance to save themselves after having an awful epidemic! If I was Boris I would be on this personally 24/7.

Sam Bowman has suggested paying the GPs massive bonuses per vaccine administered - that would get them going.

[TB63]

Brother in law, who has a 1 month old baby, has just included his 70+ parents in his support bubble and hasn’t bothered with the rules all along, has just said they have decided not to travel across the country for NYE with his wife’s parents. Finally getting through you might think.

Unfortunately not, his mate is having a party at his house in London so going to that instead

Please say you're joking there. Who in their right mind will be hosting a party and who in their right mind would think it would be a good idea to go

If you had 70+ parents you'd probably lose your mind too. I only have one left and I can just about deal with her.

Do you want mine? Both in their 90s..

[Opensides Butler]

So how much Pfizer stock do we have?

Sir has enough to keep you up for the next month.

[Saint]

Which is sounds a bit better but the fuzzy language and information coming out reminds me (as others said) of testing earlier this year.

Honestly I cant believe the government are not aware this really is their chance to save themselves after having an awful epidemic! If I was Boris I would be on this personally 24/7.

Sam Bowman has suggested paying the GPs massive bonuses per vaccine administered - that would get them going.

GPs are massively in the government's bad books right now after many effectively ignored their contracts during the early stages of this and just offloaded their caseload onto district nursing services. They have been offered flu vaccine rates +20% for Covid, with a warning that if they don't take it their next contract negotiations will reveal a LOT of unpleasant truths to the public.

[fishfoodie]

Which is sounds a bit better but the fuzzy language and information coming out reminds me (as others said) of testing earlier this year.

Honestly I cant believe the government are not aware this really is their chance to save themselves after having an awful epidemic! If I was Boris I would be on this personally 24/7.

Sam Bowman has suggested paying the GPs massive bonuses per vaccine administered - that would get them going.

I'm sure he is .... as long as you mean for 24 minutes every seven days .....