Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Zanza]

"Ukraine-fear is a replacement for receding Corona-fear.
DON'T BE PLAYED FOR A SUCKER !!!"

[Syt]

So, as of today most Corona measures are dropped in Austria. In shops and places "for daily necessities" (supermarkets, pharmacies etc.) masks are still required, same in public transports. Vaccine mandate looks like it might be canceled soon, too. (Vienna will still keep tighter rules, what with being densely populated and all.)

So obviously there will be more demonstrations today to demand the end of the oppressive Covid rules and that the government resigns.

[Syt]

Oh, yesterday two or three dozen women blocked the Ringstraße for about half an hour as part of an unannounced protest against discrimination against women. Almost 30 women were arrested and the police cleared the Ring within an hour.

That's more arrests than when a few hundred Covid-deniers repeatedly broke through police barriers, hit police, and threw rocks and bottles at them (less than 10 arrests during that).

[Syt]

Well, it was a small protest, maybe 150 people tops. They chose a different route this time. Normally they take one walk around Ringstraße (the main ring boulevard around Inner City), but decided to go from the Westbahnhof along the Gürtel (another 6 lane main artery of Vienna car traffic) and then through 7th District to the chancellery.

Since they were so few, they could use the bike lane along the Gürtel instead of the road. Traffic still had to stop for a few minutes ... because of the number of escorting police cars securing the march.

[The Brain]

The Swedish Covid commission gave their report on the Swedish Covid response the day after the invasion. People didn't pay much attention to this fingerpointing about ancient history (don't worry the eggheads will read it).

[Sheilbh]

The Swedish Covid commission gave their report on the Swedish Covid response the day after the invasion. People didn't pay much attention to this fingerpointing about ancient history (don't worry the eggheads will read it).

Well Eric Feigl-Ding has now pivoted to "global biosecurity" - which includes nuclear scares and scares about infections from common household pets.

It feels like things are probably winding down when even the grifters are looking for a new thing.

[Threviel]

Apparently Swedish covid response is a huge failure. We wanted to euthanize all our elders and then, in the end, we killed amongst the fewest in this mess. 🙁

[Syt]

A new report from the experts commission has reviewed the vaccination mandate and said that for non-vaccinated or recovered persons it would still be sensible to implement.

So the government says that based on the report they will suspend the vaccine mandate and review in May or so, or not, who knows.

Considering how much political capital was used to implement it (and burned by then implementing incredibly softly and with noon-existing enforcement) this is almost hilarious.

Oh yeah, health professionals will also no longer be required to be vaccinated.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah we never got to vaccine mandates here. They applied for employment in the care sector only - but that's been lifted. The intention was to also apply them to the NHS from April/May but as all other restrictions have been lifted it made no sense to impose a vaccine mandate in that context.

The government seemed open to it at various points - Gove especially was apparently very interested in Israel's Green Pass when that came out last summer.

But there's substantial backbench opposition, plus Labour and the Lib Dems opposed them and I don't think there was ever much of a push for it from government scientific advisers. In the case of bringing it in for the NHS that was also a big political push because the unions were very, very reluctant about mandates (and you can see why from an employee protection point of view). I think in the end Labour backed NHS vaccine mandates but there was a lot of time in negotiations to get there.

[Sheilbh]

Separately numbers - especially in Scotland - aren't looking great right now. Main theory is vaccines waning (booster shots started focused on the elderly in September/October).

I don't really understand why, having realised that the second dose waned after about 5 months, we didn't think that we might need another booster shot five months later?

[viper37]

I don't really understand why, having realised that the second dose waned after about 5 months, we didn't think that we might need another booster shot five months later?

Possibly because they hoped a better, more effective vs Omicron (and likely future strains "based" on Omicron) would arrive before it became a problem.

Booster shots were designed as a stop gap measure while MRNA vaccines adapted to the new variant, they were not intended as a permanent twice-a-year-solution

[Richard Hakluyt]

Johnson and his feckless optimism strike again 

I see the number of hospitalisations is creeping up again, very bad news.

[Agelastus]

Since I posted a few things about my mother in this thread a couple of years back when the Pandemic started (that she was in hospital in Sheffield*, then got cleared out of Sheffield in a hurry back to Kettering General Hospital then through several Wards at Kettering and out to a Nursing Home in six days) for anyone who may remember this I thought I'd give an update.

Without going into much detail my mother was suspected to have developed cancer last year (not formally diagnosed as they decided she was too frail for the tests.) She seemed to bounce back after this semi-diagnosis but after another hospital visit in December they said the lump was bigger (she was put out on end-of-life both times by Ketterin hospital, although the local GPs took her off it after 3 months the first time.)

She's been getting worse since just before Christmas but apart from a couple of breathing events did not look like she was due to go yet. Her Nursing Home had had at least two previous COVID outbreaks which she had not caught anything from.

Last Friday they shut the Home again because of an Outbreak; PCR tests were done on Monday and it came back positive yesterday. She was not showing any obvious COVID symptoms but was weaker than she had been over the weekend, but we were still hopeful as despite the positive tests none of the residents were apparently actually visibly ill.

She died sometime between 2:30am and 3:00am this morning, as best I can estimate. Just stopped breathing between 2 half-hourly checks by the Staff.

The semi-diagnosed cancer is certainly the main cause, but she's going to be a COVID statistic now.

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*not sure if I mentioned it was at the Princess Royal Spinal Cord Injuries Centre

[The Brain]

I'm so sorry.

[DGuller]