Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Duque de Bragança]

Worst day of the pandemic in Portugal, which is back into lockdown, following a now widely seen foolhardy relaxation of measures for Christmas:

10,947 new cases and 166 deaths i.e 8,709 since it started.

https://www.dn.pt/sociedade/mais-10-947-novos-infetados-e-166-mortes-ha-4-653-pessoas-internadas-13239227.html

[Admiral Yi]

No nostrils? 

Tamas is Valdemort!

[Sheilbh]

No nostrils? 

Tamas is Valdemort!

I wasn't going to mention this because I've met Tamas and either thought I'd not noticed something quite striking or he must have had a terrible accident and didn't want to pry

[Admiral Yi]

I wasn't going to mention this because I've met Tamas and either thought I'd not noticed something quite striking or he must have had a terrible accident and didn't want to pry

I was wondering if he got leprosy and didn't tell us, or got his face stuck in a Cuisinart.

So brave! So tragic!

[DGuller]

I was wondering why Threviel was asking about people with no nostrils, of all things.  I assumed it was a joke by mongers, but no, I double checked the author, and it wasn't him.  Then it got more confusing that for a while it was a perfectly unremarkable conversation.

[Tamas]

Oh shut up you all   

[celedhring]

I was impressed that the NHS had thought of setting instructions for nostril-less patients 

[The Brain]

What are strils anyway?

[Syt]

Austrian lockdown will be extended till 8th February minimum. FFP2 masks become mandatore in shops and on public transport. Minimum distance between persons is extended from 1 to 2 meters.

Yesterday 10,000 people protested Corona measures without masks or keeping distance. Police, despite promising to fully enforce rules in future demonstrations did ... not much, really. Out of the thousands, there were about 150 people who are investigated, 7 were fines.

EDIT: Not entirely true. They did go after a few hundred counter protesters who were masked, kept their distance and tried to block the march of the Covidiots. The report speaks of "suspected attempted resistance against police", whatever that is.

EDIT2: Oh, wait, most investigations are against the counter protesters.

[Sheilbh]

While this should be announced publicly instead of through briefings to sunday papers (), it seems UK plan is for everyone to be vaccinated by June. At the moment apparently about 140-150 doses are being administered every minute which is great.

According to the data journalists so far there are reasons to think that is do-able and that, at this stage, the current February target is achievable. It may be the first time the government's on course to under-promise and over-deliver.

Apparently the only constraint is supply - and obviously we don't know much about that because it's not being made public. But we can extrapolate from the Scottish government's published (and pulled) plan. Rowland Mawthorpe of Sky News made a chart of Scotland's supply projections:


From what he's been told Scotland's proportion of vaccine is basically per capita so this would also be similar for the other nations and everyone could have their first dose by May/June and then second dose by July.

Obviously there's lots of opportunity for the government(s) to fuck it up. But there is reason to be optimistic about how this is being rolled out (touching all the wood in my flat)

Edit: Incidentally there are at least two cathedrals (Salisbury and Lichfield) being used as vaccine centres and they strike me as weirdly ideal - very well ventilated, large spaces and, in some cathedrals like Salisbury, there are cloisters for people to queue:



There's something kind of interesting/resonant about these spaces being used in this way. They're generally these medieval relics that have seen lepers and plagues and now being re-purposed in the fight against this current pestilence.

Edit: One other interesting point is the scotthis plan did assume 5% wastage - apparently so far it's about 1% which actually means we may get there quicker. Similarly lots of reports from NHS staff about there being a 6th dose in the 5 dose bottle from Pfizer and an 11th dose in the 10 dose bottle from AstraZeneca (I've seen similar reports in the US) which is really useful/important for a mass vaccination program of millions of doses.

[Legbiter]

Edit: Incidentally there are at least two cathedrals (Salisbury and Lichfield) being used as vaccine centres and they strike me as weirdly ideal - very well ventilated, large spaces and, in some cathedrals like Salisbury, there are cloisters for people to queue:



There's something kind of interesting/resonant about these spaces being used in this way. They're generally these medieval relics that have seen lepers and plagues and now being re-purposed in the fight against this current pestilence.

Yeah, seems both appropriate and poignant to use them for that purpose.

Here we've had a few days without any new domestic cases being discovered. The border is a mess though, many infected people being diagnosed on the border.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Blackburn cathedral, admittedly not as grand as Salisbury, is also being used. Apparently these plans have been in the making for some months. The vaccine rollout is still going well by all accounts; Raab was saying we will have everyone done by September, I didn't see the interview but hope they are aware that come October it will nearly be time for the next round of vaccinations to commence.

[Maladict]

Blackburn cathedral, admittedly not as grand as Salisbury, is also being used. Apparently these plans have been in the making for some months. The vaccine rollout is still going well by all accounts; Raab was saying we will have everyone done by September, I didn't see the interview but hope they are aware that come October it will nearly be time for the next round of vaccinations to commence.

At least you will get everyone vaccinated before the next wave, doesn't look like we will even get close to that. 

[Sheilbh]

Blackburn cathedral, admittedly not as grand as Salisbury, is also being used. Apparently these plans have been in the making for some months. The vaccine rollout is still going well by all accounts; Raab was saying we will have everyone done by September, I didn't see the interview but hope they are aware that come October it will nearly be time for the next round of vaccinations to commence.

Maybe. I'm not sure if there's any way to know the long-term effect of the vaccine because we've rushed the trials to prove their safe and effective (which makes sense) there's lots of things we don't know and may surprise us, hopefully on the upside. So for example there is now evidence in Israel that the vaccines significantly reduce transmission which we didn't know (and isn't necessary from a vaccine perspective).

We might need to do another round of vaccines - but by October there will be far more supply (also we should have at least the J&J and maybe the Sanofi vaccines too) in terms of manufacturing and it may just be that we need booster shots, or just need to vaccinate the vulnerable (like with flu). Or we might not need to at all - the protection may last longer than we expect. At the minute I don't think we've anyway to know, but it should be a lot easier to roll out because there'll be more manufacturing, the supply chains will be in place, we'll actually have vaccine records for everyone etc.

It'll be interesting to watch Israel because they are now at the sort of level that we'll start to see herd effects.

[celedhring]

Over here vaccination is ramping up nicely, too. The "70% by summer" target still looks too ambitious (and Pfizer is going to reduce shipments for a few weeks while they retool their facilities to cope with larger demand) but by autumn it should be feasible. Although at some point we will probably start having issues with non-coperative patients (vaccine is not mandatory here).