Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

So Queen and DofE were vaccinated today - apparently the Queen decided to make an announcement against protocol that it is a "private medical mattter" to avoid speculation.

[Sheilbh]

Update on Denmark - the new variant is growing exponentially (they're randomly sequencing a 10-20% of positive tests) but still at relatively low levels and cases overall are falling.

Edit: And again - the rise and rate of growth in Ireland is absolutely extraordinary:

[Tamas]

Council of a Hungarian city launched an investigation after a leaked video showed a morgue where several dead bodies were stored in open caskets piled on each other. If you are so inclined the video is here, not really gruesome thanks to the employment of plastic bags, but still a bit disturbing: https://vimeo.com/498666206?fbclid=IwAR1k3aMPMgwa9ol7fnh4HzcF6NiLdkBqYqAiUSW2lSZN6wMMaRbZvixEB8E

The undertaker running the place blamed the number of Covid deaths for it. But I guess it's impossible to tell if that's just a convenient excuse for being a lazy bastard.

[Sheilbh]

We'll be gettin daily updates on vaccination numbers as of Monday but Hancock was doing an interview this morning and said that about 1/3 of the over 80s have been vaccinated which is about 1.2 million (plus all the working age frontline workers) and that we're up to about 200k a day and on course to meet the 2 million a week target which would be good news. The sooner the better.

Unrelated can volunteer through work to help on the vaccinations (I've no idea what this actually is) and work'll still pay you/count it towards pro bono so going to sign up. No idea what I'll be doing. I imagine just helping out with the admin in a mask.

[Tamas]

We'll be gettin daily updates on vaccination numbers as of Monday but Hancock was doing an interview this morning and said that about 1/3 of the over 80s have been vaccinated which is about 1.2 million (plus all the working age frontline workers) and that we're up to about 200k a day and on course to meet the 2 million a week target which would be good news. The sooner the better.

Unrelated can volunteer through work to help on the vaccinations (I've no idea what this actually is) and work'll still pay you/count it towards pro bono so going to sign up. No idea what I'll be doing. I imagine just helping out with the admin in a mask.

This was covered in some "government is terrible" article on the Guardian, Sir Somebody was crying about the strict restrictions on people allowed to help with vaccinations. He didn't like them because the work is "only about jabbing somebody's shoulder". The actual restrictions were something about being over 18s and a couple of other things, far below what I'd require of a person I let pierce me with vaccination jab.

[Sheilbh]

This was covered in some "government is terrible" article on the Guardian, Sir Somebody was crying about the strict restrictions on people allowed to help with vaccinations. He didn't like them because the work is "only about jabbing somebody's shoulder". The actual restrictions were something about being over 18s and a couple of other things, far below what I'd require of a person I let pierce me with vaccination jab.

I did the list of training certificates you need and it included things like fire safety, diversity, preventing radicalisation, safe lifting etc. Plus requirements to send copies of your education certificates back to your GCSEs/O-levels (which might be challenging if you're a retired medic in your 60s - I don't know where my GCSE certificates are ). But the checklist you need to become a vaccinator is:

The checklist to become an NHS vaccinator
Recognising and managing anaphylaxis
Resuscitation, level 2
Safeguarding adults, level 2
Safeguarding children, level 2
Vaccine administration
Vaccine storage
Health, Safety and Welfare, level 1
Infection Prevention and control, level 2
Introduction to Anaphylaxis
Legal aspects of vaccination
Moving and Handling, level 1
Preventing radicalisation, level 1
Conflict resolution, level 1
Core knowledge for Covid-19 vaccinators
Covid mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 (Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine)
Data security awareness, level 1
Equality, Diversity and Human rights, level 1
Fire safety, level 1

Plus DBS certificate and your education certificates. I feel like there should be some way of maybe requiring less/focusing on the core bits for  ex-nurses, doctors etc. As someone who's written data security training I can't, hand on heart, say it's essential

I understand they have started rationalising the list so not everyone who gives the jab needs to have completed their preventing radicalisation course

From the BMJ:

Covid-19: Health secretary vows to reduce bureaucracy faced by vaccination volunteers
BMJ 2021; 372 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n13 (Published 04 January 2021) Cite this as: BMJ 2021;372:n13
    Abi Rimmer

Doctors volunteering to give the covid-19 vaccine should not have to undertake unnecessary training, such as on preventing terrorism, the health secretary has said.

Retired doctors who have volunteered to help with the vaccine roll out through NHS Professionals have been asked to complete 18 training modules which include preventing radicalisation and fire safety. One retired GP said on Twitter that she had given up trying to sign up to volunteer after spending seven hours reading about things she already knew. "I just wanted to help," she said.1

Speaking on the Today programme on 4 January, Matt Hancock said that he would remove some of the requirements, including preventing radicalisation training. "At the moment the NHS has all the people that it needs to deliver the vaccine on the current schedule, but is also hiring people, including some retired clinicians, in order to have yet more when the delivery ramps up in the months ahead," he said. "Some of the training that has been put in place I don't think is necessary."

Hancock said he would go through the training requirements for vaccinators "line by line" to check that only what was necessary was included "because training for this role is very important—this is an important, sensitive job—but is not gold plated."

The news comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson was asked on The Andrew Marr Show on 3 January whether he thought it was reasonable that retired doctors hoping to help give the vaccine were being asked to fill out forms on de-radicalisation measures and fire drills.2 "I don't," Johnson said, "It's absurd and I know the health secretary has taken steps to get rid of that pointless bureaucracy."

Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said that there was an "army" of retired medics waiting to help with the vaccine roll out. "We need to allow them to do so and keep bureaucratic barriers to the bare minimum.

"Requiring people to submit more than 20 pieces of documentation, some of which have low relevance to the task they will be doing, and which some retired medics and returners to the profession won't even have, is a deterrent to them getting involved at a time when we need all hands on deck."

Elsewhere, retired doctors have complained that they have tried to volunteer with the vaccine roll out but have not had a response from NHS Professionals or other local organisations.

Melanie Jones, a retired anaesthetist in Wales, said that she contacted the Wales covid-19 hub in April 2020 and informed them of the work she was willing to do.3 She has, however, still not been contacted or asked to undertake any work for the NHS. "I could be a vaccinator. I'm not looking to oversee a team or manage a clinical service. I'm a retired person who would be quite happy to spend half a day, three days a week, helping a vaccine team," Jones said.

She added, "I'm sad that there are people who could help to ease the pressure on our colleagues and yet there seems to be a disconnect between people who want to help and people who are asking for help—somehow there is a barrier in the middle."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said, "There are no delays in covid-19 vaccination caused by accrediting volunteers or returners. We had an outstanding response from former healthcare professionals to support the NHS during the pandemic and, as the health secretary said this morning, we are working with the NHS to streamline the returner programme as much as possible."

References
    ↵Maureen Richmond. 1 January 2021. https://twitter.com/MaureenRichmon4/status/1345060826965827586.
    ↵The Andrew Marr Show. 3 January 2021. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000r09z/the-andrew-marr-show-03012021.
    ↵Melaine Jones. 30 December 2020. https://twitter.com/medicsupport/status/1344238940597923841.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally I'm slightly freaking out about the observation rooms. I said before about how it feels like vulnerably people waiting for the vaccination could be an infection risk, but I feel the same about the observation rooms people sit in for 15-30 minutes. I don't know if there's another way to observe people safely without them being in the same space or a space just used by another person which feels high risk.

[Tamas]

OMG those requirements  Bloody bureaucrats are just not able to touch base with reality and priorities are they?

[Sheilbh]

OMG those requirements  Bloody bureaucrats are just not able to touch base with reality and priorities do they?

This is why HR should never be cced (sorry Cal)

[Josquius]

I'm not getting how infection for this works.

My cousin caught corona. I think she went out for a naughty last hurrah with friends before full lockdown.
She has a very mild version, just a cough and feeling a bit down.
She lives with her brother and parents. All were tested. Her mam has it whilst her dad and brother do not.
It seems very unlikely in their house they've avoided breathing all over each other. Yet the guys just haven't tested positive.
I thought asymptomatic carriers would still test positive. Really odd.

[mongers]

The worst affected borough in London and the country is Barking and Dagenham, as many as one in 16 are currently infect with the virus.

The number of covid-19 deaths recorded at local hospital, Queens in Romford, since the pandemic began is 1034 deaths. 

[Iormlund]

I'm not getting how infection for this works.

My cousin caught corona. I think she went out for a naughty last hurrah with friends before full lockdown.
She has a very mild version, just a cough and feeling a bit down.
She lives with her brother and parents. All were tested. Her mam has it whilst her dad and brother do not.
It seems very unlikely in their house they've avoided breathing all over each other. Yet the guys just haven't tested positive.
I thought asymptomatic carriers would still test positive. Really odd.

It is quite common for couples, who sleep together, to not pass the virus to each other.

With the usual strains most people infect maybe one person. Often none. COVID seems to spread largely via superspreader events. How and why some people are so contagious is not understood yet.

[Tamas]

Is it possible they are just nasty with no regards to not spreading their buggers/spits around? Semi-serious question.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Me and my wife nursed my son when he had the swine flu a few years back, with no extreme care we avoided getting the virus off him.

[alfred russel]

Guys, I feel like covid is finally closing in on me....

I guess I'm in quarantine because my indoor climbing buddy from Tuesday night thinks he may have picked it up. Which means we can't go visit my fiance's grandparents on Saturday, who just recovered from covid. And she can't go to swim practice tomorrow night, although of the 6 people people on her team only 1 other person hasn't had covid (her coach has also had covid). Last weekend we were climbing (outside) with a couple that were making their first trip outside after recovering from covid.

So my fiance decided to go to swim practice anyway, and then went to visit her grandparents, and my climbing buddy called yesterday to say he is covid positive. We are going to get tested tomorrow. My fiance is super worried that she may have given someone covid, but it would be her own fault.

In fairness almost everyone on her swim team has already had covid, her grandparents just got over it, and she told her family about her potential exposure before she came - and they told her to come anyway - so it isn't that ridiculous.