Covid - news and views
Comments
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I see there is a bit of a stand off on covid passports, but I won't say more on that as may be deemed political. However, I do think that all Care Home workers, unless medical reasons for not, should be required to have the vaccine. IMO very wrong for people coming into contact with the residents daily to be without the vaccine. Most people in Homes have no choice but to be there, so should be able to say that anyone looking after them should be vaccinated.
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Covid passports, whether people have an objection to them or not, might be the only way to travel outside of your own country in the next couple of years. I could see it causing more of an issue if they were required to go into pubs etc?
David
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DEBS I think,I'm with you there. Latest seems to be that over 65's in homes not to go out, even if all from home in same minibus. So glad I don't have to plan or action policy, the law of unintended consequences runs everywhere!
I'll say little about foreign travel, but do we want folk bringing variants back before we've all been jabbed? And why is there always a lengthy delay for entering countries into the red list?
No it's no sour grapes, we have family abroad, but I don't want them in a confined tube to come here or vice versa yet...... the plague hung around for hundreds of years, don't suppose this will be less, but we do have more knowledge and vaccine now, but it isn't a cure all. You can't take nature, wind, sea, rain, earthquakes etc and this is no different! We have to learn to live with it, but learning isn't instantaneous 🤐
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B2,
There's a very good freezer in my camper, B2, that's more than capable of keeping OAZ properly cold, but I agree it would struggle to get down to minus 80 for the Pfizer version to be kept at. Altho' I seem to recall that, once unpacked and ready for use it does not need to be that cold, at least not for the lifetime it has before disposal.
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We have family friends and their daughter works in a care home. She cannot have the vaccine so what do you suggest should happen to her?
I can clearly see there may be concerns but all the residents have been vaccinated so who is more at risk?
So far as Covid passports are concerned I can see that some think it’s a good idea but saw the following which is quite timely;
“More than two centuries ago, Benjamin Franklin, a US founding father, said: ‘Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither.’ His statement holds true today.”
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French have given us all a masterclass in how not to handle a pandemic. The deep distrust of the political class in France doesn’t help matters.
Macron described by some of his countrymen as an ‘educated Trump’ - he might think that’s a compliment!
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MK Council have been giving them out to anyone who turned up at the Central Library for a couple of weeks now. We have two packs of seven tests in each. Whilst the Lateral Flow Tests are not perfect I think it's a good thing to have them readily available because it might persuade some to have a test who otherwise wouldn't.
David
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In the Spanish news yesterday it was reported, a German doctor has been dishing out covid negative result certificates at €80 a pop to all those Germans wanting to return home after the Easter break, without even carrying out any testing, so although i am all for testing it does raise the question as to how valid the certificates that are being used are, and how long will it be before people just become complacent and not bother, until the next wave i guess.
Had the Gkids round yesterday and they said that dipping the tester in Coca Cola provides a positive result, but Fat Check says this is not so, but they did say that lots of kids were not bothering with testing now, ours have to, Dad is a docotor, mum a nurse, but there will be thousands of kids that just do not bother, or are not doing it correctly
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Hi DK, I was going to reply to AD post as whilst it looks like a positive move I wonder if it will have the effect that is being aimed for?
Having been restricted for over 12 months now I would expect that someone getting a positive result will be not be too keen on the requirement then to self isolate-with their family-and as a result may not bother to test or ignore the result.
If you throw in the level of mis-diagnosis that's reported as well-I visit a number of care related premises and their anecdotal reports are of a system,lateral flow tests, they have little faith in-and I wonder what the outcomes will be?
On the other hand will we see social distancing being ignored as "I am OK, I tested negative".
We are only human and I would expect more willingness to accept a negative, rather than a positive, result!
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We've not been able to access them locally unless we are part of the designated group that can ask for them, there is only one distribution point twenty miles away.
Whether the majority will have the time or inclination to use them on a regular basis remains to be seen but it might help track the virus or find hot spots as time goes on.
I hope the vaccine roll out for the next age group gets under way soon, we seem to be stuck at present and testing is only a part solution.
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Seems that Boris will announce today that everyone will be asked to take a lateral flow test twice a week for the foreseeable and that there will be a variety of ways of getting the kits including being posted to you.
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Boris can ask people to take a test as often as the science says is necessary but as Brue says
"Whether the majority will have the time or inclination to use them on a regular basis remains to be seen but it might help track the virus or find hot spots as time goes on."
If my Gkids are to believed, already it is failing in schools, not that we have seen an upsurge in cases, but it would appear a large majority of children are not taking it seriously especially as they are expected to do them at home now, and as we still have a significant percentage of the population who either dont think covid-19 exists or dont want to be vaccinated then there is always going to be a credability problem, but lets think positive and hope the vaccination really will come to our rescue.
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but lets think positive and hope the vaccination really will come to our rescue.
Well there have been no cases in the over 70s here in the last 3 weeks However overall the number of cases is bucking the national trend and is slowly rising.
peedee
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I think they were expecting a rise after the kids went back to school and with the antics of the Covidiots over the last week or so it will probably rise more. The only good thing is that having had the jab most will not become very ill, if at all, but I'm not keen to test that out.
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If children are not completing the tests at home surely that is a failure of the parents and surely the schools are recording results, if not it is completely pointless? Surely parents recognise that it is about teaching their children to have a sense of moral duty?
I am not sure of the circumstances I would use one of the tests? Probably reasons would be if I had know I had been in contact with someone with COVID or I was personally feeling unwell. If I was unwell and had a positive test I would likely ask for a PCR test to confirm. We are, whilst not, ignoring others we are still very cautious around other people, even those close to us.
My guess is that the Government has ordered millions of these type of tests and as the number of new cases subsides the need for them also decreases. Hence the reason for distributing them to all takers. Unfortunately those whose livelihoods depend on them working because they are not sufficiently supported by Government if they have to isolate will probably continue to ignore or not bother taking a test?
David
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"If children are not completing the tests at home surely that is a failure of the parents and surely the schools are recording results, if not it is completely pointless? Surely parents recognise that it is about teaching their children to have a sense of moral duty?"
David, sorry to say you are not living in the real world, one of my daughters teaches at a 1500 pupil Comprehensive, some parents dont even know whether their children are attending school, some pupils are refusing to do the tests and there is nothing in law that says they have to do the tests and you cannot expel them for not doing the test, as for moral duty, my daughter has to regularly organise parent teacher evenings which of late have been done using Google meet/zoom, i wont tell you how many bother to arrange a time slot/or dont as the case may be.
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Rufs,
But if DK is wrong then he, and loads of the rest of us, who may also be wrong, rely on those who do know to tell us, surely ?? It is difficult enough as it stands for us to decide which, if any, actions taken by " the powers that be " are good and which are pointless. We don't expect information to be passed if it causes difficulties for individuals, but generally speaking the over-all information can only help us common plebs to form reasonable opinions.
Brian
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Brian, I am not saying that DK is wrong only that his perception of what should be happening is perhaps not happening as he would like it to be happening.
My daughter works at the coal face in teaching and she tells is as it is, so some children are very good and test twice a week as they are supposed to, some do not test at all, and do not care whether this is irresponsible or not and in some cases neither do their parents, it is a fact of life, possibly only a small percentage out of 1500 children
Yesterday the Gkids were round for a BBQ, they are lucky and go to a very good school in Portsmouth fee paying and as parents have to provide these fees they like to get good value for their bucks so by defiinition tend to be much more proactive in ensuring their children do as they are asked or as David said
"Surely parents recognise that it is about teaching their children to have a sense of moral duty?"
but although yesterday i could see a degree of complacency in their atttitude towards testing, Mum & Dad will ensure they continue.
I am all for testing and i watched a documentary on South Korea sometime ago where testing and track and tracing was formost in their attempts to erradicate covid-19, but their culture is somewhat different to ours, my fear for a testing programme as seen in SK, is that in the UK we will become complacent when the numbers of cases/deaths etc fall, testing will fall away and we lapse into another wave.
when this new testing regime is introduced i think it is up to the individual to assess when they need to test, e.g. if you have not been out of your house for 5 days I see no point in testing on the 6th day before you go shopping.
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I am wise enough to realise that there will be vast array of parental interest, or lack of, in the developing of their children into young adults in all senses of the phrase. However I think it would be wrong to suggest that the majority don't care or are like that. There are always going to be schools in certain areas that struggle to get that support from parents, probably because the parents are themselves are struggling or don't have the wherewithal to understand what is required of them. The same will apply when it comes to providing guidance to children about COVID. If the parents don't understand it is likely the children will either. Least we all forget, it's hard work being a parent and probably even harder work being a teacher!!!
David
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Here's one Canadian restaurant's solution to their Covid restrictions- Bubble Dinin
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They had similar at the Fowey Hall Hotel last year and believe they will again this year.
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+1, it’s never good or bad but degrees of both over a wide spectrum of reasons👍🏻
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